Fiscal Fiasco
Council Members Daryl Slusher and Beverly Griffith squared off last week over a fairly straightforward proposal to attach fiscal notes to agenda items, detailing how much a proposed council action would cost and where the money would come from.
In making his point, Slusher argued that the proposal represents common sense and good government. “The idea here is that before we pass an item that costs the taxpayers money, that we know how much of the taxpayers’ money we are spending,” he said. Griffith countered that the extra red tape is bound to become a headache and a hindrance: “Creating any kind of barrier or screen that a council member has to run through or jump through to get an item on the agenda is a problem.”
And then it was pretty all much over but the hair pulling.
Obviously, the more salient question for pol-watchers was: Why had Slusher picked this meeting of all meetings to lay a “responsible government” card on the table? Everybody’s seen the council proceed as in the hypothetical case Slusher described where “we slap an item on the agenda and maybe call a bunch of people to come down and speak in favor of it, and the council passes it, and we don’t have the money — or we have the money but then we realize ‘Oh, we’ve got another big need here that comes up later, but we got all excited that day and spent the money.'” But perhaps Slusher’s comments were a not-so-thinly veiled reference to Griffith’s habit of tacking potentially expensive proposals on the council docket without specifying how much those items would cost the city.
As passed 5-to-2 by the council — Council Member Danny Thomas, as he is wont to do, sided with Griffith — items that council members want to put on the agenda must now go first to the city Budget Office, which will work out the costs and funding. To those who fear that Griffith is right that a nightmare of paperwork could delay a good idea from reaching the council agenda, optimistic city staff respond that they can turn items around in two to four days, given sufficient lead time. If time is short or an item is urgent, the process would allow for the fiscal note to be left off the agenda. A memo from the budget office would take its place, drafted to read, perhaps: “Re: Your fiscal note. We’re real sorry.”
Everywhere A Sign
Our City Council may not think billboards are pretty, but since dynamite isn’t a viable solution for getting them down, they’ve been forced into some mighty tedious grinding on the city code. The council revamped the code three years ago as part of an effort to phase billboards out. Under the code as rewritten, signs that come down for any reason — be it flood, fire, or other natural disaster — can be replaced by signs no more than 75% of the original size. To keep sign companies from beefing up the size of billboards, the ordinance also decrees that sign repairs can cost no more than 60% of a sign’s original value.
Of course, that ordinance has the city crossing its fingers during thunderstorms, tornadoes, and floods, hoping for a sign or two to get blown down, washed out, struck by lightning, or otherwise rendered unfit for further use. Unfortunately, billboards are pretty tough structures. We could be waiting through a lot of storms.
So there’s a problem or two with the ordinance already. Thursday, the City Council conducted a public hearing but postponed a vote on amending the city code to, for starters, clear up some glitches in interpretation. While the ordinance was intended to say that replacement signs had to be 25% smaller and repairs had to cost no more than 60% of the sign’s original value, some interpretations have said replacement signs must be both 25% smaller and cost 60% less. Apart from correcting that error, the amendment also sets time limits and licensing requirements for repairs. Minor stuff, sure, but it leads to a whole headache of bigger questions.
Most important, of course, is how to get the signs down. Shrinking them seemed like a good idea until somebody pointed out that a smaller, newer sign lasts longer than an older, bigger one. While you might be able to see 25% more blue sky, size reduction is ultimately a step in the wrong direction. Right? Well, the “somebody” who’s been kindly pointing this out is Reagan National Advertising, which has a controlling interest in about eight of every 10 billboards in the city, making you suspect that this is more about bidness than it is about the pretty Texas sky.
While anti-billboard advocates are hesitant to oppose anything that might clear the skyline up a bit, they would rather have an amendment that phases out the signs altogether. So, apparently, would the Planning Commission, who voted the staff recommendation down 5-2 and talked about crafting a much stronger amendment.
And so would Council Member Will Wynn, who moved that the vote be postponed for two weeks while he works on pulling just such an amendment — one that would also comply with state law — out of his sleeve.
This Week In Council
No council meeting this week. Next week, April 19, the council takes up two items that would respectively dedicate $40,000 to the City Auditor’s office and $100,000 to the Sickle Cell Anemia Association; neither item says where the money would come from, as those pesky fiscal notes haven’t yet kicked in. Also, Council Member Danny Thomas has proposed handing over city-owned land on East 11th Street to the Austin Revitalization Authority; it would then be shared by a charter school, the ARA, Eastside Story, and the Capitol City African-American Chamber of Commerce. Improvements to the land, including asbestos removal, would have to be paid for in part with money from the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, and that may make the item a tough sell; HUD dollars typically only pay for job training and housing, not educational projects. Also, the much-postponed Bennett Tract is finally on the council agenda.
This article appears in April 13 • 2001.