Thursday’s City Council meeting was relatively abbreviated affair – scheduled primarily for zoning cases – but not before an Irish welcome (including a strange moment of cross-cultural confusion), dust-ups over CM Don Zimmerman’s commission appointments … and a few inconclusive zoning decisions.
But before they got to that, Mayor Steve Adler welcomed to Austin the new Consul General from Ireland, Adrian Farrell, marking the first new consulate in Austin since the nineteenth century, which the mayor said he hoped will be the first of many. Farrell said a few words (by Irish standards) – noting that the Irish national sport of hurling has been brought to Austin by a group called the Celtic Cowboys – and then Zimmerman recalled a long ago visit to County Clare’s Durty Nelly’s, whence he apparently had a difficult time avoiding a fall into the Ralty River. That was followed by D1 CM Ora Houston mentioning her interest in curling – “I watch it all the time on TV and I don’t have a clue what it does or how it works” – even volunteering to become a “sweeper.” (Nobody on hand had the heart to correct her.)
The News Desk bids welcome to Consul General Farrell, who has his work cut out for him. In the interest of greater international understanding, we offer the images below: (1) hurling, featuring sticks, ball, and Gaelic ferocity; (2) curling, featuring stones, ice, brooms, and Canadian gentility.
Looming over the day was the pending reconsideration of the appointment of Rebecca Forest to the Commission on Immigrant Affairs, which had come a cropper when Forest’s retrograde opinions on immigrants and Hispanic legislators and related matters became widely known. Despite Zimmerman’s defense of his nominee, District 4 CM Greg Casar had sponsored a motion to rescind the appointment, it was clear from Tuesday’s work session the rest of Council agreed (Mayor Adler, who had been elsewhere Tuesday, also chimed in), and then overnight Forest had submitted a letter of withdrawal (while insisting the city is ignoring the threat of criminal immigrant infiltration).
That made Casar’s resolution officially unnecessary, although there was some discussion of the challenge of such appointments overall. Council and mayor must make several hundred such board and commission appointments (all volunteers), and in general, they need to trust the judgment of their colleagues. As this meeting confirmed, they’re finding that difficult with D6 CM Zimmerman.
Casar noted that he and Zimmerman had “respectfully disagreed” on Forest, but that the more he learned of her opinions – on immigrants, Hispanics, Muslims, etc. – “the more shocked and honestly disgusted [he’d] been by the comments she made.” Although the mayor and several members said they are concerned by setting an unworkable precedent on appointments, Casar concluded, “I think we are setting the right precedent – that if you are to make bigoted remarks, you still have your right to free speech, but you won’t be appointed to a board or commission by the Austin City Council.”
Speech turned out not to be the only issue with Arif Panju, Zimmerman’s nominee to the Historic Landmark Commission. Panju is a property rights lawyer affiliated with the conservative Institute for Justice and the Texas Freedom Foundation, and more to the immediate point, is engaged in a dispute with his Bluebonnet Hills neighborhood over its proposal for a historic district – he said he considers it an imposition on property owners, but mainly objected to what he considers a less than transparent or representative process. After briefly getting into the weeds on the district case, which hasn’t reached Council (and thereby reined in by the mayor), D7 CM Leslie Pool and Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo wanted to know if Panju could follow the mandate of the commission – namely, to promote historic preservation. He responded that his main intent was to make sure the city follows its own rules.
Tovo and Pool weren’t persuaded, and eventually voted against the appointment, and Houston and D5 CM Ann Kitchen both abstained, as did D2 CM Delia Garza – who added that because of the Forest nomination and Forest’s “extremely offensive and intolerant comments,” she would be abstaining from all of Zimmerman’s appointments. Panju was approved by a vote of 6-2, with three abstentions.
If that weren’t enough, yet another Zimmerman nominee – cemetery advocate Sharon Blythe, to the Parks & Recreation Board – appeared during Citizens Communication to object to the (apparently permanent) postponement of her appointment, reportedly because she’s gotten crossways more than once with cemetery staff and other Parks people – reports she strongly disputes. It would appear that Zimmerman’s nominees will be an ongoing issue. For his part, he said that he does not believe his nominees are being “overscrutinized,” and will be satisfied going forward “as long as we all play by the same rules.”
Earlier, Houston suggested some rules she reviews with her nominees, which she called “core values,” among them, “civility, equity, unity, cooperation, and inclusiveness.” Sound like good working principles for City of Austin commissioners.
Council also considered several zoning cases, most unremarkable, and followed its now established 2015 pattern: approving the easy ones, and postponing or delaying the difficult ones. All due for reconsideration … in due course.
This article appears in April 17 • 2015.
