If you thought it was still too early for Silly Season (i.e., municipal campaign time), last week’s City Council session may have changed your mind. The opening tarantara was sounded by Jennifer Kim, echoed with a deep trombone fill by Brewster McCracken. To what classic tune? “Oh, What’ll We Do, What’ll We Do, What’ll We Do … About Panhandlers?”
Here we go again …
J&B had co-sponsored a proposal to hold a public hearing on a new, more restrictive anti-soliciting ordinance (already banned in the Downtown corridor), provoked in part by recent complaints about frequent panhandlers at I-35 and Oltorf, near Travis High School. (Judging from neighborhood reports, it’s not clear if the transients are annoying the wannabe Rebels or the other way around.) BTP happens to be thoroughly familiar with that intersection, and we can report that, as always, the imminent dangers to life and limb remain speeders and DWIs. But we already have laws against those, don’t we?
At any rate, the premeeting backlash from civil libertarians, homeless advocates, and folks who just think we’ve got better things to do was strong enough that Kim and McCracken backed down – until Sept. 27, when staff was asked to return with “recommendations” for a new ordinance, focused on “defining the perimeter” around school yards. In the meantime, McCracken declared, Lovejoylessly, “I personally don’t believe there is a free-speech right for strangers to approach your children’s school!” But if we take that away, how else will Sandy Kress, Neil Bush, and the rest of the Celebrity Test Floggers make a living?
Look for the fun (and the horror stories) to return on Sept. 27 … and on and on until May.
In the meantime, the more immediate business is the fiscal year 2008 budget. The final budget hearings and adoptions take place this week, on three days beginning Monday at 10am (although last year, BTP recalls, approval didn’t take that long). After some summer fuss over the city manager’s first draft in July – which showed a theoretical $27 million “deficit” (if council spent it all) that made for many hand-wringing headlines and much talk-show hot air – the actual budget ($592.2 million in general funds) has been winnowed into balance, even with an 11% increase ($57.6 million) in spending. That’s largely the result of rising property values – so while your tax bill will increase, the tax rate (per $100 valuation) drops very slightly (from 41.26 to 41.20 cents, for a $721 bill on a $175,000 home).
Most of the increased revenue will be devoured by structural costs – e.g., annual pay raises, insurance hikes, previously negotiated public-safety contracts – but the city manager and the budgeteers preserved a comparatively paltry $5.4 million for additional “core service investments”: $1.6 million for paramedics, firefighters, and forensics; $2.3 million for parks, social services, and libraries; $700,000 for inspections, zoning, and urban-design resources. On this $600 million scale, $5.4 million doesn’t amount to much – if it weren’t for our ongoing bond investments, we couldn’t afford ourselves. (For a visual breakdown of Austin’s FY 2008 income and outgo, see pie graphs below.)
Other highlights from last week’s meeting: We’ve got a new Families and Children Task Force (will they panhandle or hold a bake sale?); in a break from all-municipal protocol, Kim and Lee Leffingwell called on Gov. Perry to commute the then-still-pending death sentence of Kenneth Foster (it worked!); and architect/planner Al Godfrey reported that after months of public comment, the Barton Springs Pool Master Plan project priorities have flipped – from building restoration to water-quality improvement and protection (gee whiz, Bill, sometimes they listen!).
Wells Dunbar returns to this space next week. Send all BTP complaints, tips, and billets-doux to wdunbar@austinchronicle.com.
This article appears in September 7 • 2007.
