Sometimes the line between white elephants and sacred cows is very
thin. Take Austin’s Aqua Festival. In recent years, the annual live music fling
has come up short, in both wallet and spirit. The latest cash crunch, detailed
in a quietly circulated city hall memo, has festival organizers owing the city
$124,214. Parks and Recreation director Jesus Olivares outlines in the memo a
couple of options the city could take: 1) Give the Fest folks seven days to pay
up and, failing that, file suit based on breach of duty, or 2) Renegotiate the
payment installment schedule, an old-boy tradition that dates back to 1994 when
Aqua Fest began paying out its 1993 license fee tab. The Parks and Rec board
was expected to weigh the matter Tuesday eve, as we go to press… —
A.S.
You know that contract — giving the city’s largest industrial ratepayers a
discount on their energy bills — that our electric utility staffers were
pushing the commission to sign off on all last week? Well, it looks like they
changed their minds as of Monday night’s utility commission meeting, and no
longer recommend the original deal they promoted. “I call it the Emily Litella
provision,” says consumer advocate Scott McCollough, who is representing the
interest of residential and small business customers. “Now that they see what a
raw deal it was, it’s `Never mind.'” Utility staff hurriedly drafted a new
contract after revelations that a potential legislative bill the industrial
customers are pushing behind the scenes would, under the city’s deal, excuse
them from paying their share of the utility’s debt if they were ever wooed away
by a cheaper power provider. After a request from McCollough for time to review
the utility’s latest draft of the proposal, the commission put off voting on
whether to recommend it to the city council until next Monday… — A.D.
House the Homeless, Inc. (HTH) president Richard Troxell says he is
“reluctantly” taking the city to court. He and HTH attorney Cecilia Wood are
asking the U.S. Supreme Court to come down on the city for building the new
airport on federal property without sharing its resources with the homeless
under the McKinney Act, Troxell says. At the very least, he adds, the housing
sites at the former military base could have gone to the homeless instead of
going for a profit or, worse, the way of the wrecking ball. “The idea of
passing a `no camping’ ordinance to deal with the problem of homelessness is
about as sophisticated as preparing to demolish $200 million worth of housing,”
says Troxell…
Maybe you knew this already, but Texas isn’t a good place to be a woman.
That’s the word from Heidi Hartmann of Washington, D.C.-based Institute for
Women’s Policy Research. Lone Star sisters rank behind in political and
labor-force participation. And next to New Mexico, Texas has the lowest rate of
women’s health insurance coverage, while ranking 39th in reproductive rights in
this current climate of anti-choice, and among the highest in poverty. On a
brighter note, the women folk finish in the middle third in earnings for
full-time workers… — A.S.
Real or Rhetoric?
If kick-off fundraisers are any indication, Ronney Reynolds is in for one hellof a mayoral race against Kirk Watson. Watson, former chair of the Travis
County Democratic Party, already has a strong base of Democratic supporters to
rely on. Financially, though, he’s the underdog. Incumbent Reynolds has amassed
a campaign juggernaut over the past year, and looks mighty impenetrable atop a
$77,000-plus war chest.
Watson, however, no doubt narrowed that gap at a fundraiser last Wednesday
night at Green Pastures. The entry fee was $35 per individual, or $50 a couple,
and campaign volunteers allegedly handed out almost 800 name tags. Those
figures are no doubt biased, but frankly, there were too many damn people to
count. The masses in the huge reception area brimmed over into the expansive
back lawn, and getting from point A to B made you feel like Billy in a “Family
Circus” cartoon.
Another problem for Reynolds: Watson’s promise for a new age of conciliation
could be more than just recycled speechcraft, at least if the diversity of the
crowd is any measure. Current and former Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce
presidents (Kerry Tate, Ron Kessler) mingled with leaders from the
environmental community (ex-councilmember and Save Our Springs spearhead Brigid
Shea), East Austin activists (Ron Davis, Chris Fanuel), and gay representatives
(Human Rights Campaign activist Eugene Sepulveda).
Watson also has hired two of the city’s most successful political consultants
— Alfred Stanley, who organized the fundraiser, and David Butts — and he’s
also close to finalizing a deal with political strategist Dean Rindy. Reynolds,
on the other hand, says he hasn’t hired a fundraiser or consultant.
Conspicuously absent from the fundraiser were heavyweights from the Real
Estate Council of Austin (RECA), like attorney Pete Winstead or Reynolds’ old
pal, Freeport-McMoRan attorney David Armbrust. Political overseers are keeping
an eye on the powerful development group, which has swooned and fawned over
Reynolds in years past. If a large number of RECA members defect to Watson’s
camp, many think, the race is as good as done. Already, last year’s RECA
president, Jay Hailey, has thrown his support behind Watson.
But ex-jock Reynolds has his own consensus-building strategy: He’s attempting
to camouflage himself in environmental green. Three weeks ago, he cast a
surprise vote against the proposed Bloch Cancer Survivors’ Plaza on Town Lake.
The star supporter of the development community said it would spoil the purity
of the greenbelt. And on Nov. 4, he showed up at the Save Barton Creek
Association’s annual board meeting and celebration at the Zilker Park
Clubhouse. Perhaps he hopes everyone will forget his undying efforts to kill
the Save Our Springs ordinance.
Wow. Chamber big-wigs mingling with tree-huggers, and Freeport caddie Reynolds
hanging out with the SBCA… Is this is a new Austin, or just another election
season?
Speaking of the SBCA and conciliation, the group presented Bill Bunch and the
Save Our Springs Alliance with a certificate of appreciation for halting the
proposed Austin Community College campus over the aquifer. With the SOS lawsuit
against ACC prospering in the courts, ACC trustees recently retreated from
their decision to build the campus at the proposed Shadowridge site in
southwest Austin.
Key members of the SBCA and SOS, two of the city’s leading environmental
groups, have had their differences in the past, but the wounds were salved.
Individual certificates of appreciation went to activist Karen Hadden for
research, and to SOS attorney Bunch. Similarly honored were attorney Phil
Durst, who argued the case, and activist Larry Akers, who originated the idea
of a lawsuit since ACC’s decision to purchase Shadowridge did not comply with
the Open Records Act. — A.M.
The Bubba Vote
They came by the dozens, South Austinites all, to remind the council thatAustin extends south of the river, too. Anxiously, they filled the cafeteria at
Bedicheck Middle School — not far, they hope, from the police substation
they’ve been awaiting for four years. Ignored at the expense of the new North
and East substations, also approved in a bond package in 1992, South Austinites
are fearful that crime will rise violently before the substation is built.
But as Eric Mitchell stated so eloquently, he, Jackie Goodman, and Daryl
Slusher are all “bubbas” residing in Austin’s lower latitudes. They’ve got a
personal stake in the substation, what with gang activity in Dove Springs
threatening neighborhood security in Southeast Austin, and with police
tardiness in Oak Hill and South Central Austin unnecessarily high, due to the
extra 15-30 minutes spent driving from the East Substation to those areas.
And if that’s not enough, remember that the other councilmember in attendance
at the Nov. 19 specially-called council meeting, Ronney Reynolds, has always
been a stalwart police supporter. (Gus Garcia was in Corpus Christi warning
Texas A & M students about the effects of global warming. Bruce Todd would
not divulge his whereabouts and, in fact, says, “It’s none of your business.”
Todd can say things like that because he’s quitting.) Mayoral wanna-be Reynolds
is not. He could use a gem like a new substation in the impending mayoral
battle. It was, after all, he who brought the issue to the council’s agenda,
and he who is leading the charge for a new station.
The drawback is that the $2 million bond approval will now purchase only an
8,000-square-foot substation, instead of the original 18,000 square feet it
would have bought four years ago. Reynolds has proposed that bubbadom wait a
little longer, and he’ll try to put a bond issue to pay for the original size
on the May ballot. The 60 or so South Austinites who showed up concurred. —
A.M.
Populists Rise Up
In his opening address at the first convention of The Alliance on Nov. 21,Texas Observer founder Ronnie Dugger quickly laid out the problem
facing America: “We are ruled by big business, and big government as its paid
hireling, and we know it. Corporate money is wrecking popular government in the
United States. The big corporations and the centimillionaires and billionaires
have taken control of our work, our pay, our housing, our health, our pension
funds, our bank and savings deposits, our public lands, our airwaves, our
elections and our very government. It’s as if American democracy has been
bombed.”
The four-day gathering centered on gaining control over corporate special
interests — an effort that drew 250 participants from 28 states. For those
familiar with Texas history, the theme was a familiar one. The populist
movement in America, whose legacy now includes rural cooperatives and credit
unions, began 119 years ago when farmers in Lampasas County rebelled against
merchants, cotton ginners and railroads which prevented them from making a
decent living. Dugger has sought to revive the Populist spirit with the
formation of The Alliance, an organization that grew out of his call-to-arms
article in The Nation in August, 1995.
Radio commentator and former Texas Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower
warned the attendees that controlling the corporations won’t be easy. Nor will
it be easy to rally the constituents for a third party. “Getting progressives
together is kind of like trying to load frogs in a wheelbarrow,” Hightower told
the appreciative crowd. And for hours, attendees from places like Chicago,
Birmingham, and Sonoma County grappled with some notoriously uncooperative
frogs, including slippery issues like workers rights, international trade,
environmental justice, economic equity, taxation, immigration, and health care.
Between breakout sessions, a host of liberal luminaries addressed the crowd —
Duke University history prof and author Lawrence Goodwyn (The Populist
Moment); columnist Molly Ivins; author Howard Zinn, (A People’s History
of the United States), and David Korten, who wrote the recently published
When Corporations Rule the World.
Whether or not The Alliance’s confab will turn into anything lasting is hard
to say. But many attendees were upbeat, saying that the events of the last two
elections (increased corporate sponsorship coupled with declining voter
turnout) show that America is ready for a third party that is not dependent on
PACs and corporate donations. Ivins exhorted the crowd to forge an alliance
with the Reform Party, arguably the biggest of the nascent political movements
in the country. Others pointed to the Green Party and New Alliance Party as
examples of the existing discontent with politics as usual. — R.B.
What Commuters Want
Don’t be shy about speaking up on how federal dollars could go towardimproving the business of getting around town. Friday, November 29, is the
deadline to submit written comments to the Austin Transportation Study, which
is expected to consider and vote on the proposals Dec. 9.
ATS already got an earful of requests at a Nov. 18 public hearing in which
suburbanites demanding more roads, and inner-city residents pleading for
sidewalks and bicycle lanes, lined up by the dozens in a grueling
four-and-a-half-hour session. The ATS is slated to receive $19.2 million in
federal transportation funds in 1999 and 2000.
One item that has become a recurring theme is the proposal to synchronize the
city’s traffic light system. Peter Rieck, director of Austin’s Department of
Public Works and Transportation, has asked ATS for $4.5 million to go toward
the project. He noted that city voters approved $11.5 million for computerized
lights in 1992, and Public Works plans to ask for another $16 million in the
next bond election as well. However, cyclist Mike Lippard complained that
spending large sums on traffic light synchronization does little to reduce
“lots of fast-moving metal” that turns arterials into barriers for
non-motorists.
Bee Caves Road, always an automotive challenge, is under consideration for a
center left-turn lane between Loop 360 and MoPac. West Lake Hills and
Rollingwood officials asked for $4.1 million to help foot the bill for the
$14.2 million project. But former Sierra Club Chair Dick Kallerman countered
that adding another lane would only increase traffic. “You don’t solve obesity
by loosening your belt, and you don’t cure traffic congestion with more road
capacity,” Kallerman said.
Also, about 35 citizens signed up to speak out on hike-and-bike trails. A
proposed trail along Slaughter Creek in South Austin, which had initially
stirred up controversy, (The Austin Chronicle, Nov. 15) was
withdrawn from requested funding. Several trails advocates asked the ATS to
consider funding a trail on Walnut Creek in North Austin instead. Written
suggestions to ATS may be e-mailed to ats@austinmpo.org, or faxed to 499-6385
by Friday, Nov. 29. — N.E.
This article appears in November 29 • 1996 and November 29 • 1996 (Cover).