Ronney
Reynolds called it a zoo. Daryl Slusher described it as making sausage. And Beverly
Griffith, complete with hand gesticulation and a generous “Whoom!” depicted it
as a barreling locomotive.
All three were waxing descriptive on the haphazard and protracted road the
city went down to privatize the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB),
a proposal that finally came to pass at last Wednesday’s worksession with
audible sighs of relief from all involved — sausage-makers, monkeys, and
engineers. It was the culmination of two tortuous months of misinformation
warfare and unadulterated finger-pointing between city staff, two council
watchdogs, the newly-created ACVB board, and, of course, the city council.
The fact that the ACVB is only the second full city department to be
privatized in nine years (Brackenridge Hospital was the first) does not alone
explain the difficulty surrounding its emancipation from the public world.
Similarly large hairballs have also occurred of late with efforts to privatize
the mother of all city departments, the Electric Utility Department, and the
neighborhood health clinics, so there has been plenty of opportunity to
practice.
The common denominator: In each case councilmembers have blamed city staff for
a privatization bias that results in misleading information. And as a result,
citizen advocates have been brought to the bargaining table to counter staff’s
alleged misinformation.
In the case of the ACVB, Jackie Goodman blamed city staff for making false
promises to secure council approval for their ultimate goal: giving around $3.3
million a year for five years to a non-profit board of tourism representatives,
the ACVB board, which will attempt to attract conventions to Austin. The item
first came to the council on August 1, and it was a horrid wreck. Reynolds was
in hyper-state to get it approved. Since former ACVB director Karen Jordan was
leaving the city on August 15, Reynolds marked that day of departure as the
deadline for passage, a sort of going away present to Jordan for all her hard
work.
But by the first meeting’s end, another possible reason for Reynolds’
eagerness soon came to the fore. He has deep connections to the tourism
industry (see last week’s “Council Watch”). But it turns out that the weak
by-laws created for the proposed non-profit would have allowed rampant
shenanigans. They permitted only four public meetings a year, and actually
encouraged boardmembers to pursue contracts with the board upon which they sat.
All the councilmembers but Todd and Reynolds wrangled endlessly with staff on
getting more public accountability provisions put into the by-laws, such as
open meetings and open records. Some of those proposals were accepted, some
were not, but after that first laborious meeting, the non-profit was created.
According to the newsletter In Fact, Jordan told “privatization
boosters” in the hallway, “I want a really big going away party.”
Jordan’s party was apparently too much fun. When the proposed contract was
presented to the council on September 26, it included none of the promised
public accountability provisions. As a result, the portly twins of terror —
council watchdogs Leonard Lyons and Jim Hudson — circulated their own proposed
contract, which did include the provisions. Also floating around were copies of
earlier contracts that had been scratched. A five-member council majority, led
by Goodman, took more interest in the twins’ proposal, and Reynolds blamed the
duo for confusing the process.
But the confusion over multiple drafts was largely Jordan’s own fault. She had
hired John Boehm, an attorney with the Houston-based Fulbright & Jaworski,
to help Charles Griffith, a city attorney, draft the city’s version of the
contract. And because the ACVB board didn’t approve of everything that had been
included in that contract, Jordan hired a third lawyer, Curt Ashmos, of Locke,
Purnell, Rain & Harrell, to represent the ACVB board. Ashmos was paid with
city money, not money from the board. Nonetheless, he worked directly against
the city, negotiating with Griffith for provisions acceptable to the ACVB
board. That’s the reason so many contracts were floating around. Councilmembers
could not tell whose contract was whose, and the show was put on hold until
last Wednesday’s worksession.
There was confusion at the worksession as well. Assistant City Manager Marcia
Conner presented yet another contract that Lyons and Hudson, ACVB boardmembers,
and city staffers had sat down and created on the Sunday before. This new
version contained most of the terror twins’ safeguards for public
accountability. Differences remained, though, and at the worksession, the mayor
immediately called the twins to the podium. Lyons brought his suggestions on
colored paper. “So no one would get confused.”
“I appreciate that, Leonard,” responded the mayor, “but I don’t think I was
confused.”
“You sure seem confused, mayor,” replied Lyons, and Reynolds immediately
jumped in to break it up and call for civility.
Lyons and Hudson did not get all of their requests in. Most importantly, they
failed to convince the council to limit the amount of incentives that the board
can use to attract conventions. Hudson, along with Music Commission chair
Carlyne Majer, did get the council to ensure that at least during the first
year, the ACVB board would spend $150,000 on music and film. Hudson was wary
that the board would cut the city’s three music and film employees, as they are
paid with ACVB money.
Off to the side, and not at the negotiating table, sat Carl McKee, interim
chair of the ACVB board. McKee did not want the money to be guaranteed for
music and film — or for anything, for that matter. He, like Reynolds, was
upset that the terror twins were throwing their weight around — the pair’s
bargaining power was equal to his own board. He had reason to be annoyed — the
board had been created to negotiate a contract with the council. But staff had
angered the council, and especially Goodman, to the point that they were
willing to listen to any alternatives. In fact, Conner admits that the language
in the original contracts was flawed. She says it was simply copied from
“boiler-plate” contracts. Staff didn’t do their homework. The terror twins
did.
In the end, only Griffith and Slusher voted against the contract. Citing the
convoluted process, Slusher noted, “The idea is that sausage is supposed to
taste good, you just don’t want to see it made. But I don’t think this tastes
good.”
A similar bad taste had formed in some councilmembers’ mouths when former
Health and Human Services Director Sue Milam considered privatizing the health
care clinics this past summer, citing the clinics’ inability to compete with
the private sector. Those who work at the clinics and support health care
services for indigents rose up at a public hearing in late August to protest
Milam’s performance, accusing her of allowing the clinics to deteriorate, in
order to further privatization goals. They claimed that she had refused to
follow the advice of a city-paid audit that offered recommendations on how to
improve the clinics. “If you’ve already decided that your goal is to farm the
clinics out, then you want to paint the bleakest picture you can,” explains
Griffith.
Griffith credits the clinic employees and advocates who showed up at a
council meeting for pointing out how city staff was allowing the clinics to
languish. They provided a much-needed dose of reality to Milam’s runaway train.
The lesson Griffin has learned, she says, is that council must “get all the
stakeholders involved. Let the ideas and people in, and the truth will come
out.” At the protesters’ behest, the council subsequently balked at approving a
board pre-selected by Milam that was set to consider whether to privatize the
clinics. With Griffith in the lead, councilmembers complained that Milam’s
board was stacked with privatization promoters, and demanded that health care
advocates, clinic representatives and employees be added for balance. After the
coup, Milam quit for a job in the private sector.
And, of course, there was the Electric Utility Department (EUD) situation last
spring. Former Councilmember Brigid Shea complained that staff duly supported
Todd’s desire to privatize it. A performance review of the EUD presented a
frightening picture of a deregulated future, and a compelling argument to
privatize it, since many customers would probably leave the EUD for electric
providers. It did not mention, however, that the EUD would likely have a
competitive advantage that would require the departing customers to pay a fee
for their portion of the EUD’s $1.7 billion debt. Citizen advocate Tom “Smitty”
Smith, of Public Citizen, pointed out the excluded information to the council,
and it was one of the major bombshells that turned the council against the
EUD.
In each case, the misinformation by city staff, who are supposed to be the
experts, has pushed the council against privatization. And as a result,
citizen advocates have gained more credence with the council. And while the
ACVB privatization process may seem like a zoo to Reynolds, it’s much more than
that. It’s democracy. It’s monkeys making sausage on a runaway train. And when
the public isn’t being served, they have every right to step up and do
something about it.
“The most important thing… I’ve learned is it is possible to affect change,”
says Lyons. “Staff will fight you tooth-and-nail until the last minute, but if
citizens can stay aware, it will work. It has to, because as we go down the
road to privatization, we will go through this torture again.”
This article appears in October 11 • 1996 and October 11 • 1996 (Cover).