Still smarting from
last year’s whipping by the Texas Legislature, the City of Austin may be
setting itself up for another beating. Only this time it could be worse. On
February 8, city lawyers go to court to challenge the constitutional wisdom of
state lawmakers’ intervention in a land dispute between Austin and one of its
suburbs, Cedar Park. Austin’s quarrel really rests not with Cedar Park but with
the Legislature, for having passed a law (one of nine “Austin-bashing” bills
that cleared last session) that sought to punish the city for stymieing
development interests with strict regulations and water quality ordinances like
Save Our Springs (SOS). This particular law effectively jerked several thousand
acres of land away from Austin’s Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction (ETJ), and
handed regulatory control of the tract over to Cedar Park in Williamson County,
a young buck of a city to the north that’s raring to woo new business and
industry to its pro-growth community. Austin held annexation rights over those
acres, the future development of which could have provided the city with an
expanded tax base.
Austin will be fighting its legal battle in a courtroom in “unfriendly”
territory — Williamson County — home base to Mike Krusee, the Republican
representative who, along with Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio), sponsored
the legislation. In this upcoming court case, Austin could lose the war, even
if they win the battle. “Even if they win, they don’t win,” boasts Krusee. “If
the court finds the law unconstitutional, I’ll just rewrite the bill.”
As attorneys for the two cities prepare to square off in court, though, the
atmosphere around the respective city halls has been, well, downright
Texas-friendly. Officials from the cities of Austin, Cedar Park, and Round Rock
rang in the New Year with a well-publicized pact to work toward regional
cooperation. It wasn’t exactly the signing of the Yalta agreements, but all
three mayors did shake hands with great enthusiasm before flashing cameras, as
if they’d just brought peace to our land.
What really happened was not peace, exactly, but an agreement to disagree. The
Austin/Cedar Park/Round Rock pact includes Austin’s three-stage transfer of
some 6,600 acres of ETJ land — which includes the tract at issue in the
disputed legislation — to Cedar Park’s control. The land is on both sides of
FM 1431, north of Brushy Creek Road in southwestern Williamson County. The
agreement also calls for the three cities to explore the possibility of jointly
funding a wastewater treatment facility to serve Southern Williamson County.
This cooperative deal additionally contains a note of irony in Austin and Cedar
Park’s stated “agreement” to continue their litigation concerning Wentworth’s
Senate Bill 421.
“We’re having a trial because Austin wants a trial,” said Cedar Park attorney
Leonard Smith. “All the lawyers that I’ve talked to, with the exception of
Austin’s lawyers, are really scratching their heads over this one.” Similarly,
Terry Bray, a high-rolling land attorney representing two landowner
partnerships on a portion of the tract, is wondering why Austin wants to pursue
a $150,000 lawsuit when it’s already backed away from fighting over the land.
“There probably isn’t any need to litigate this now,” Bray said. After all, the
attorney and his clients — Aline Ltd. and Carolville Ltd. — are getting what
they wanted all along: To build several subdivisions of roughly 3,000 or 4,000
homes to accommodate Cedar Park’s fast-growing population that now stands at
15,000. Development of the land had been frustrated by Austin’s delay in
providing the necessary utilities. In the most recent tri-city agreement, Cedar
Park will reimburse Austin for the utility improvements to the area.
The agreement carried other important messages as well. It was Austin Mayor
Bruce Todd’s way of telling the Legislature to shove off; that Austin indeed is
capable of getting along with its neighbors. Krusee snorted at Austin’s show of
magnanimity: “Austin is saying, `Aren’t we wonderful? We’re giving this land
away.’ But if not for the legislation, Austin would still be holding on to that
land.” Added Dorthey Duckett, the mayor of Cedar Park: “Of all the
[Austin-bashing] bills, I don’t know why they picked this one to fight. If
Austin had gone ahead and done their part to develop the land, there never
would have been this legislation. This is why the bill passed in the first
place — to bring Austin to the table.”
But even though the land issue is a moot point, Renea Hicks, a litigation
attorney representing Austin, is pressing ahead with the constitutional
argument. “The overall reason we’re pursuing this is because this statute is
just one of many that were targeting Austin, and there is a revision that
prohibits the Legislature from doing certain things, like targeting cities in
legislation. Hicks added that Austin’s perceived inability to get along with
its neighbors is “somewhat of a myth,” and pointed to Round Rock Mayor Charles
Culpepper’s opposition to the legislation as proof that Austin is capable of
forming alliances with neighboring cities.
Still, before Austin and Round Rock agreed last year to stop trying to lure
businesses from one city to another, the two entities had engaged in a rather
vicious head-butting contest in 1993 to land the Dell Computer expansion
project. Austin shied away from offering the computer giant any tax abatements,
and Round Rock sealed the deal with a handsome incentives package. Now, Round
Rock is sitting fat and happy with Dell as its largest employer. Austin,
meanwhile, has spent the last few years wringing its hands while watching its
tax base slouch toward the suburbs. “Maybe the City of Austin hasn’t been the
greatest neighbor in the past,” conceded Mayor Todd’s aide, Trey Salinas,
speaking on Todd’s behalf while the mayor was in Washington, D.C. last week.
“But now we want to work for regional partnerships and work with our partners
the best that we can.”
Smith, the city attorney for Cedar Park, wonders how this partnership will
hold up when the two cities face off in court. After all, Cedar Park appears to
have the upper hand on two counts. Having moved swiftly to beat Austin to the
punch with a lawsuit, they landed the case in Williamson County. “We had Austin
telling us for two weeks through the newspaper that they intended to sue us, so
we went ahead and struck first,” Smith said. Austin followed up with a counter
claim. Secondly, Austin has set aside $150,000 to argue the case — a matter of
concern among taxpayers tired of footing the city’s mounting legal bills.
“There may be rationale in making a point to the State Legislature,” Smith
said. “But $150,000 is a phenomenally expensive point to make. Fortunately for
Cedar Park taxpayers, our legal cost is a fraction of that amount.”
This article appears in February 2 • 1996 and February 2 • 1996 (Cover).
