Last week, Councilmember Jackie Goodman did something she’s never done
before – voted in opposition to a valid neighborhood petition. Goodman joined
the other six councilmembers in a unanimous vote to turn two residential lots
along Marathon Blvd. into commercial-zoned parking lots for the Central Texas
Regional Blood and Tissue Center. The lots are within the Rosedale Neighborhood
Association, which represents an 1,100-household area bounded on the north by
Hancock and on the south by 38th Street, and on the east and west by Lamar and
Shoal Creek, respectively. The neighborhood association submitted a petition
with 20% of the residents represented opposing the proposed zoning change for
the lots. According to the city charter, six council votes are necessary to
counter a valid neighborhood petition. Goodman provided the seventh.
Besides thwarting the Rosedale association, the unanimous decision also
countered city staff’s recommendation to keep the zoning residential to
encourage highly sought-after central city housing. The vote also went against
the planning commission’s recommendation, which had twice concluded that new
parking lots at the center would “destroy a better part of Marathon Blvd.” and
that the blood bank “can work harder in trying to address their parking needs.”
Commissioners suggested off-site parking at adjacent churches.
Considering all the opposition, the vote cast by Goodman, once the
president of a South Austin coalition of neighborhoods, appeared to the
neighborhood to be purely political.
“There seemed to be strong pressure from the other side,” says John
Burgess, president of the neighborhood association. “In the meetings we’ve had
with her, she implied that she would vote for us. She said she’s never voted
against a valid petition, but this time she did. We were really
surprised.”
After Goodman’s vote three weeks ago to approve a water-service agreement
with Freeport McMoRan for their Lantana tract, there was speculation that as
another campaign effort looms, Goodman is turning her attention away from her
grass-roots neighborhood background and towards the development
community.
Such speculation is not unwarranted, considering that the benefactors of
her latest about-faces have been handsome donors to her campaign handbag. From
the law firm and lobbyists at Strasburger and Price, Freeport’s legal
representative, Goodman has taken $2,250. And from Ray Wilkerson, the blood
bank’s developer, Goodman has received annual contributions of at least $400
for the last three years.
Wilkerson, (who also loaned Mayor Bruce Todd $10,000 during his re-election
bid), hired Jim Spence and developer Jo Baylor to get the job done at council
chambers. Spence ran an effective campaign against the neighborhood, providing
councilmembers with an inch-thick-bound document filled with letters from blood
donors. Spence also urged other donors to blanket the council with faxes and
calls. The Travis County Medical Society, which offices at the blood bank, sent
a memo on June 19 urging all members to counter “the strong political clout of
the neighborhood” with trips to the council chambers. This was necessary,
Spence wrote, “because of the strong and uncompromising position from the
neighborhood.”
Burgess, however, responds that the association’s position was all about
compromise, pointing out that they offered numerous parking alternatives to the
proposed lots. Still, the association’s message fell on deaf ears compared to
the megaphone pulled out by Wilkerson and company. “One very frustrating thing
is that the other side had access to the council,” says Burgess. “We didn’t and
we are the city – neighborhoods are the city. We never had an opportunity to
talk to [the councilmembers]. No one ever returned a call to us. It was even
difficult to get to Jackie and she’s the friendly one.”
Burgess says the neighborhood is also angered by the non-responsiveness of
Brigid Shea and Max Nofziger. Shea, who could recall only once having struck
down a valid petition, offers an increasingly common defense. “This was a
horribly vexing case, but this is the harvest of the bitter seeds sown by
developers that went to the Legislature and killed any incentive for a master
plan.”
Goodman says she could find no other practical parking alternatives for the
blood bank, which is the only blood provider in Central Texas and needs the
parking lot to supplement a proposed expansion. “This is the hardest vote I’ve
ever made,” she brooded after the vote. “Lantana and all the other votes were
much easier than this, but I made sure I protected the neighborhood.”
Those protections for Rosedale, which include a 22-foot-wide swath of
greenspace along the parking lot and a lower grade of zoning, are minimal at
best, says Burgess. “In all fairness, Jackie was the only one on the council
who tried to do anything, but the proposal that she came up with, we never
heard about until the day of the meeting. And no matter how pretty they make
it, it’s still going to be a parking lot,” grumbles Burgess.
A slightly irritated Goodman also defended her decision on grounds that the
possibility of a developer majority come next summer could mean even less
conciliation for the neighborhood. “Voting it down would have been just a quick
fix. The proposal would have been back in a year or 18 months.”
n
This week in council: An item to allow the Anderson Community
Development Corporation to purchase city-owned land in central East Austin for
use as low-income rental housing, as opposed to some area neighborhoods’
preference for low-income home ownership. n
This article appears in September 15 • 1995 and September 15 • 1995 (Cover).