Ten Districts, Many Visions
Candidates building the road to 10-1 work to define Austin's new civic order
By Chase Hoffberger, Fri., Sept. 26, 2014
District 2: First, Representation
A couple of weeks ago, at the end of a media-sponsored District 2 Council candidate forum – held on a basketball court in the corner of far southeast Austin's Dove Springs Recreation Center – KUT-FM reporter and the evening's moderator, Joy Diaz, closed the 90-minute session by reading a question from the audience that listed many of the district residents' concerns.
"Streetlights, roads, sidewalks, bus stops," it read. "Need more lights. Need school cross guards. Need flashing lights. Traffic with AISD. Problems with police."
"It's a very long list," Diaz appended, then turned the floor over to candidate Edward "Wally" Reyes.
"Sounds like my neighborhood," the president of Dove Springs' neighborhood association responded. "We're told to go through a certain process, and certain routes. And we're introduced to a process that does not work – that's broken."
Indeed, the problems that still afflict D2 – the largely Hispanic district that encompasses the furthest-most southeast local corridor – are many and long-neglected. There are the missing sidewalks, the Onion Creek flood buyouts, education reform, and affordability. There's a need to address public transportation options (or the current lack thereof), and needs that hang on immigration questions – such as the current debate over the Travis Co. Sheriff's continuing engagement with the federal "Secure Communities" deportation program.
Beneath all this, the issue that most D2 residents currently grapple with most strongly is that of "representation" itself – and how the district neighborhoods will engage and evolve with their newly elected representative at City Hall. Each of the items on the long list of deficiencies is pressing, and what may prove most important to district residents are matters disposed by powers-that-be citywide.
For example, there's Project Connect, the rail system proposed on the November ballot, and initially avoiding most of South Austin, save for a segment along Riverside (future plans have the rail eventually running to the airport, through and in D2). When the project has been raised on the D2 stump, the price tag (initially $600 million in bonds) has ended the discussion, and Garza, Reyes, and Sheppard oppose it. (Owen hasn't yet spoken, on this or much else.) On the other hand, there's the recently proposed municipal ID – still in development, to return to Council – and if that becomes a reality, it should have a direct positive effect on a community burgeoning with new immigrants.
Three of the four candidates have made the quality of district representation a major aspect of their campaigns, with small-businessman Reyes, Realtor John C. Sheppard, and former assistant attorney general Delia Garza (she stepped down to run) all routinely mentioning their longstanding roots within the district.
In terms of official experience, Garza holds the best hand. Her time as assistant attorney general provided insight on Austin's relationship with state government, and her stint with the firefighters union – working successfully for bargaining rights – brings both organizational support and political experience in a much-contested aspect of city government. But Reyes has grassroots experience at the neighborhood level, and Sheppard's built his late-coming campaign on the fact that he's a neighborhood family man. Whoever survives November, she or he will have the task to make "District 2" mean more than just lines on a city map.
D2 Ballot Order
Edward "Wally" Reyes
John C. Sheppard
Delia Garza
Mike Owen
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