Round Up the Usual Suspects

We are shocked that anyone, even John Kelso, would really think that Austinites had voted on (and down) light-rail transit for the last time. In this town, once-around-the-track is never enough for a major public works project. Just ask John Almond, the ace city of Austin project manager now on loan to Capital Metro to guide the authority as it finishes its study work on the rechristened "Rapid Transit Project." Almond earned his stripes as the head of the city team that gave you Austin-Bergstrom -- after two previous new airport projects died in the cradle.

People seem to like Bergstrom well enough, just as people apparently like the Austin Convention Center, another project born from the ashes of prior bad plans, false starts, and citizen rejections. So they may end up liking rail transit if it's ever built. But that could be a few decades from now, and a lot more trips through Election Station, given Austin's tradition of worrying projects to the point of exhaustion. Add that to the many years it takes to pull off any major transportation project, road or rail. In other words, an eternity in Austin time.

Whatever its other virtues and vices, Capital Metro is badly positioned to drive home any project that requires this kind of long-haul commitment. The agency is, after all, younger than Jenna Bush, and has historically been no more responsible, and its generous guaranteed allowance of sales-tax money has only helped it do more damage. There's no question that Capital Metro, right now, is much better run and more trustworthy than ever before. If we could snap our fingers and instantly have a light rail system, no problem. It's that 20-year, $2-billion-plus buildout part -- a project twice as expensive as Austin-Bergstrom -- that's hard to grasp.

A lot of factors can explain an electoral squeaker like Cap Met's 2,000-vote loss at the ballot box last November. (Heck, it rained on election day.) But many of those factors are permanent vectors crossing the political grid. The hard right, which views light rail as a sinister Commie plot, will be frothingly hostile no matter what. Many voters, used to thinking of government as a vending machine, cannot bring themselves to approve a tax-supported project they will not personally use. And neighborhoods are by definition conservative, change-averse entities that don't trust Those Kinda People who might ride the train, or who might move in so they can ride the train. Given all this, what can Capital Metro do better next time? Sell itself. And right now, Cap Met's reputation isn't worth much on the open market.

So a 162-year-old enterprise with an acceptable record of leadership and mastery, called the city of Austin, has boarded the train, lending Almond and, more importantly, its reputation to Cap Met. Don't laugh. Compared to Cap Met (or Travis County, or AISD, or ACC, or need we go on?), Jesus Garza is Joe Torre and the city is an avatar of public accountability.

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Gus or Beverly or -- Eric?

For the past couple of weeks, Council Member Daryl Slusher, one of two City Council members on the Cap Met board of directors, has been the public face of the transit authority. His colleague Beverly Griffith has had other things on her mind, like deciding whether to run for mayor, as she had all but committed to earlier in the Pre-Post-Watson-Era, before Gus Garcia entered the fray, sucked up all the oxygen, and left all comers shivering in his long shadow. (Speaking of which, did we hear right that former Council Member Eric Mitchell picked up candidate papers? We guess that would be Eric Mitchell No. 1, the sharp-dressed black Republican millionaire wannabe from Oak Hill, not Eric Mitchell No. 2, the self-styled field Negro and Nation of Islam hanger-on. We still refuse to believe that they are indeed the same person.)

As we noted last week, whether Griffith runs for mayor or not, she's well-positioned to shape the debate. If nothing else, Griffith could (hey, others would) use a promise not to run as a bargaining chip to gain commitments from Garcia to back her up on her causes. After all, he used to do that, back when her causes were also his (and Slusher's and Jackie Goodman's), back before Kirk Watson was elected and became the gingham dog to Griffith's calico cat. She's said she'll decide whether or not to run by the end of the month, which would be after the head-to-head (come-to-Jesus?) meeting she's reportedly set with Garcia.

Griffith has been putting some of her positions down on paper as "a framework for community dialogue," she tells us. "Austin is at the crossroads. Our quality of life -- for a long time to come -- depends on our choice of leadership," she writes in her second statement since Watson's bailout, a document that could pass as a platform if she were actually running, and which (with a few modifications) could also be Garcia's platform. They're familiar issues if you've been watching Griffith: fiscal responsibility with Austin Energy, closely monitoring the buildout of our transportation bonds, a question-settling scientific study of what we really need to do to protect Barton Springs, buying more parkland and conservation easements, floating affordable housing bonds on the ever-more-crowded and crucial November 2002 ballot. (Griffith has also sent out a more conventional written summary of her accomplishments, the raw material for a campaign direct-mail piece.)

Enough denizens of Austin politics have written off Beverly Griffith as a weirdo that it's bucking the trend to take her current moves at face value. The last maybe-I-will, maybe-I-won't holdout prior to Griffith, Robin Rather, struggled with the fact that, despite all the very good reasons for her not to run for mayor, and especially not to run against Garcia, she feels Austin is at a crossroads and needs to take giant steps -- yesterday if not sooner -- to protect quality of life and make Austin more sustainable. Could it be that Beverly Griffith, despite her ambitions and reputation, feels exactly the same way? If such giant steps are her price for not standing in the way of Garcia's ascension, then we can afford that.

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Get Out Your Tin Cup

This week, Cap Met bashing and mayoral handicapping will yield to kvetching and poor-mouthing, as the city and its citizens take up the city manager's proposed really-tight-but-it-could-have-been-worse fiscal 2002 budget. Stay tuned to see if any council members are willing to swim upstream to get their constituents' needs met.