by Alex de Marban
There’s
a hairline
fracture in the liberal camp. The issue is Councilmember Jackie Goodman’s
performance as chair of the city Housing Subcommittee, a board that recommends
housing and neighborhood projects to the entire city council. Goodman’s fellow
liberals on the subcommittee, Gus Garcia and Brigid Shea, both bemoan her
performance — Garcia complains that her lack of authority permits the fourth
subcommittee member, Eric Mitchell, to be the ringleader of a circus-like
atmosphere at the monthly meetings. (The brouhahas were a factor in Garcia’s
decision last week to leave the subcommittee for more peaceful pastures.) The
outspoken Shea cites selective unresponsiveness, and says that Goodman, along
with housing staff, favors proposals from Mitchell.
Goodman retorts that Garcia is just upset because housing and neighborhood
projects initiated by Goodman and Mitchell beat out Garcia’s projects for $4.5
million in excess housing money. Goodman also complains that meetings
frequently take place without a quorum, due to the tardiness or absence of
fellow members. As a result, Goodman is sponsoring a resolution to disband the
subcommittee and cede its duties to the full council at Wednesday work
sessions.
Though councilmembers have been quick to address the need for low-income
housing and other neighborhood projects, subcommittee meetings have been a
scantly attended affair. In fact the mayor, who was the fifth member of the
subcommittee, didn’t attend any meetings last year and took only one action —
his resignation last fall.
Moreover, the subcommittee has become the place to watch the better
intentions of democracy decompose into a verbal bloodbath. Goodman’s policy in
supervising meetings is one of laissez faire. She places no limits on
public speech, but is often hesitant to strike the gavel even as World War III
erupts. The bedlam reached its apex last summer, when Mitchell and residents of
the Swede Hill neighborhood exchanged reproachable remarks, with the capper
being Mitchell’s now-historic comeback to a resident’s complaint, “I’ll say
`Screw you!‘ to you!”
Once again, at last week’s January 9 subcommittee meeting, pandemonium seemed
inevitable. The ever-combustible SCIP II (Scattered Co-operative Infill Housing
Project) was in the woodpile. Mitchell madly supports the project, a proposed
low-income housing development in East Austin represented by Mitchell’s close
associate, Gene Watkins. Garcia and Shea, however, have misgivings about SCIP
II’s 100% rental status, which they feel could attract transitory and careless
residents.
Shea says she has twice asked Goodman to put an item onto the agenda that
would allow a discussion on home-ownership options for SCIP II, but to no
avail. The first time she asked, Shea says, she was told it was an oversight.
The second time, she didn’t know why it was ignored, but complains that,
“Things that are favorable to [Mitchell] get on the agenda and things that
aren’t, don’t.”
But Mitchell also complains that he’s not getting his way. He wanted the
subcommittee to vote on the SCIP II item at last week’s meeting. On the day
before the meeting, however, Garcia says he and Shea asked Goodman to postpone
action on SCIP II. Goodman consented, allowing the item onto the agenda only as
a discussion item.
Mitchell was incensed, and sent a memo to Goodman’s office on the morning of
the meeting. “Why was the item put on `Discussion’ rather than `Action’ item
agenda?” Mitchell wrote, adding later, “Is the intent to slow down and hurt the
process in order to prevent things getting done?”
With dispute certain, Garcia’s secretary delivered the resignation letter to
Goodman’s office just 45 minutes before the meeting. “It was a real
blind-side,” says Goodman. “I would think that he would have told me
personally.” As reported here last week, the letter explains the resignation as
a desire to focus on other subcommittees, although in an interview Garcia also
cited the savagery at some of the meetings and said that as the chair, Goodman
should have controlled them better.
Goodman says she thinks Garcia’s resignation is partly out of envy. She says
that Garcia thought she used her leadership of the subcommittee to facilitate
approval of her projects, a charge she denies. Goodman and Mitchell have
carried items for projects that have received approval for $1.7 million of the
aforementioned $4.5 million in excess funds, which is a cumulation of
undesignated funds from the Neighborhood, Housing, and Conservation Office
(NHC). Garcia also wants in on the booty, but three projects he has sponsored
haven’t had a public hearing, which is the first step in getting approval for
funding.
Mitchell, who is credited with discovering the windfall, is also upset with
Garcia for going after the remaining $2.8 million in excess housing money. “I
know people want to spend it,” he has said. “I’d like to see them try and do
it.”
Resolutions from Garcia last Thursday called for a public hearing on his three
projects at this week’s council meeting. The projects amount to at least $2.8
million. Only one, the $1.2 million expansion of El Buen Pastor Early Childhood
Development Center in East Austin, has adhered to the process for getting
housing projects approved. The other two projects never made it to the housing
subcommittee for a recommendation.
To rein in what he calls a “feeding frenzy” for the excess funds, Mitchell
sponsored a resolution on last Thursday’s council agenda to put a moratorium on
spending the remaining windfall until a comprehensive plan is developed.
Mitchell’s white shadow, Ronney Reynolds, seconded the resolution, and the
stage was set.
From the dais, Mitchell said that he and Garcia attempted to map out a
comprehensive use for the $2.8 million last year, but Garcia was subverting
that intent with his current proposals. To devise a comprehensive plan,
Mitchell noted, he and Garcia had brought together a handful of blacks and
Hispanics to form a task force called East Austin 2000. The group was created
without a vote, and met without posting meetings, although its intent was to
determine a use for public money.
“I’ll make no bones about it,” Mitchell said. “It wasn’t supposed to be
anything public or all-inclusive.”
East Austin 2000 was going well, Mitchell said, until the Hispanic
representatives stopped attending the meetings after finding their own use for
the money. “I feel used and abused about this process,” said Mitchell. “What I
thought was a shared vision about helping the community has gone out the
window.”
Garcia responded that while he initially thought East Austin 2000 was a good
idea, he couldn’t allow it to continue because “it sent the wrong message that
we were doing things behind closed doors.” So he pulled out in November, and
put his projects onto last Thursday’s agenda. Garcia added that he wasn’t
trying to confound any of Mitchell’s plans for the money. “I just wanted a
public hearing so others can hear about it. I didn’t put these items on to
derail other projects.”
Then the white shadow jumped into the fray. With a finders-keepers logic,
Reynolds said, “The only thing about all this is these projects wouldn’t have
come forward if the money hadn’t been identified. I can understand how Eric can
feel abused [since he found the money]. It’s kind of like, `Oh my gosh, look at
the funds we got. Let’s go and spend them.'”
The city manager agreed to return with a plan in 45 days. With that, Reynolds
withdrew his second of Mitchell’s proposed moratorium, and it died. The
council, with Mitchell abstaining, also unanimously agreed to set a public
hearing for Garcia’s projects at this week’s meeting.
n
This week in council: Max Nofziger’s proposal to create additional
homeless beds was delayed last week and will reappear on today’s agenda. n
This article appears in January 19 • 1996 and January 19 • 1996 (Cover).