As the Electric Utility Department prepares for deregulation, councilmembers
have continued to share a common concern — that Mayor Bruce Todd has tried to
browbeat city staff into taking a privatization stance. This concern grew with
Todd’s behavior last Thursday. Backstage, during council discussion on a staff
proposal to prepare the utility for deregulation (see “Council Watch”), Todd
reportedly became enraged that the city manager had allowed EUD staff to
seriously consider a counterproposal from Councilmembers Beverly Griffith and
Daryl Slusher. According to city hall sources, Todd ordered Jesus Garza to “put
out” his resum� for not denouncing the Griffith-Slusher counterproposal.
Todd may have had success influencing the city manager in the past, but as the
lame-duck mayor’s time on the council dwindles, so too will his influence… — A.M.
San Antonio has had so much success shipping its garbage to Austin, Alamo City
leaders have decided to give us more. The San Antonio City Council recently
upped the amount of trash hauled to Austin from 50,000 to 100,000 tons a year.
Texas Disposal Systems (TDS), which owns the Creedmoor-area landfill south of
Austin, scored the extra trash that had been coveted by waste giants
Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., and Waste Management Inc. The latter two
didn’t walk away empty-handed, however. San Antonio adopted a three-way
contract split, giving all three companies a piece of the pie, with TDS taking
the largest share…
There’s nothing like a peaceful protest to spice up the retail holiday spirit.
The Guatemala Action Network of Austin (GANA) last Saturday tried to spread a
little cheer, along with opposition leaflets, to prospective customers at
Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH) stores (makers of Geoffrey Beene, Izod) at the San
Marcos outlet mall. Store managers were not amused and summoned police in short
order. There were no arrests. GANA and sister chapters across the country
maintain that PVH violates workers’ rights, both in the U.S. and in Guatemala,
where the Guatemalan Labor Ministry has questioned the company’s labor
practices. — A.S.
Blackland Treaty
Fifteen years to the day after the University of Texas plundered east intoBlackland to replace homes with parking lots, a baseball field, and a filling
station, the council last week passed a resolution to cede 14 lots to the
Blackland Neighborhood Development Corporation (BNDC). UT acquired these lots
in the Eighties, but had no specific plans for their use. If it weren’t for the
BNDC’s affordable housing program, they would have sat vacant.
Currently, BNDC sublets the lots from the city, which in turn leases them from
UT. The University is expected to sign off on the lots soon, a move that, for
the present day, certifies Leona Street as the end of the road for UT’s
eastward megalomania. Leona is the dividing line that separates the UT property
from the rest of the Blackland neighborhood. All told, Blackland is bordered by
I-35, Chicon Street to the east, Manor Road to the north, and Martin Luther
King Boulevard on the south.
Bo McCarver, BNDC treasurer, credits UT Chancellor Bill Cunningham for
changing UT’s mindset toward continuing development beyond Leona Street. More
importantly, though, McCarver credits the organizational strength of the
Blackland corporation, which persuaded UT to enter into a written agreement six
years ago to halt encroachment. — A.M.
Viva Chicken Little
Last Thursday, the Sustainable Energy and Economic Development coalition(SEED) released the most complete report ever on power plant emissions in
Texas. According to the report, Texas is the number-one electricity producer in
the country, generating 9% of all U.S. electricity, and emitting nearly 200
million tons of air pollution annually. That makes Texas the nation’s
number-one polluter; total carbon dioxide emissions from Texas average 550
million tons a year, about 11.5% of the U.S. total.
The report — simple, short, and easy to read — is called “The Most Powerful
Polluters in Texas.” It is especially significant because the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced plans to strengthen its requirements
on allowable air pollution. The Austin area has violated the requirements twice
in the last six years, and creators of the report, including Austin activist
Paul Robbins, Sierra Club Air Quality head Neil Carmen, and Environmental
Defense Fund leader Jim Marston, say Austin will exceed the threshold under the
proposed requirements, which could be enacted as early as next Spring.
Also, the Texas Legislature is expected to begin discussing the deregulation
of the electric utility industry in 1997. To prepare for that, the city council
last week cut 15% of the funding for electricity conservation measures. That
could help contribute to Austin exceeding the EPA requirements, which would
require new or expanding businesses to undergo more conservation requirements,
and could threaten federal funding for certain programs. According to SEED, the
solution is clear: increase reliance on renewable energy sources like solar and
wind power, which currently generate only 1% of the state’s electricity.
The report also lists the “Dirty Dozen,” the top 12 polluting plants in Texas.
Four of those — and three of the top four — are owned by TU Electric, the
EUD’s lead suitor should the city decide to sell to a private company. None of
the three Austin-area plants (Sam Gideon, Decker, Holly) made the list. A
Fayette County power plant, owned by the Lower Colorado River Authority, is
seventh on the list. — A.M.
`Burbs Flex Muscle
It’s a whole new ball game at the Austin Transportation Study. Last spring,ATS watchers predicted that a shift in the balance of power would occur after
the organization added three new suburban representatives and one new Austin
city councilmember, increasing the regional transportation planning group’s
membership from 17 to 21.
But few were prepared for the dramatic suburban vs. inner-city battle line
drawn at the Dec. 9 meeting, which ended with the `burbs walking away with the
lion’s share of new transportation funding after ATS decided how to spend $44.7
million in federal dollars over the next four years.
The most surprising move came when Travis County Commissioners Karen
Sonleitner and Valarie Bristol teamed up with five suburban representatives to
kill an ATS staff recommendation to spend $4.5 million on Austin’s traffic
signal computerization program. They said the money could be better spent
building two additional lanes on a Dessau Road extension in Pflugerville. This
is on top of the $4 million the ATS had already awarded to build a two-lane
extension on Dessau Road; the new money will allow for four lanes.
Sonleitner argued that four lanes are needed because of rapid growth in
Pflugerville, partly fueled by the construction of the massive Samsung plant.
Two of the four Austin city councilmembers on the ATS — Gus Garcia and Daryl
Slusher — tried to put the best argument forward for signal computerization.
They said the system is critical for relieving traffic congestion and slowing
the degeneration of Austin’s air quality. Plus, synchronization would benefit
more people, including all those suburban commuters who contribute to the
congestion.
In the final vote tally, only State Representative Glen Maxey and Travis
County Commissioner Margaret Gomez voted with the four council representatives
for signal computerization. State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos voted for the
Dessau Road expansion, while State Rep. Sherri Greenberg abstained, saying
questions remain as to whether a computerized system effectively improves air
quality.
She’s not the lone doubter. Former Air Quality Coordinator Charles Albert,
whom the city hired to inventory sources of air pollution, wrote in his final
report last year that traffic light synchronization may provide no air quality
improvement because of emissions from the increased amount of traffic it
facilitates.
In another Pflugerville triumph, the city also won $2.7 million for
improvements to FM 1825, and $960,000 of the $2.7 million available for bicycle
and pedestrian projects. ATS also voted $4.1 million for a center left-turn
lane on Bee Caves Road, $2.5 million to improve entrance and exit ramps on
I-35, and $428,000 for a bicycle trail along Boggy Creek in East Austin.
— N.E.
Food Center’s Bounty
Most people don’t think of “what’s for dinner” as a political question. Butfor Kate Fitzgerald, executive director of the Sustainable Food Center, that
question is food for thought. Housed downtown since January 1993, the center
recently jumped on the opportunity to move to a house on a two-acre farm in
southeast Austin’s Montopolis neighborhood. Now the center can live off the fat
of the land, and teach others how to do the same.
About 100 supporters gathered last Monday at the farm to celebrate the
center’s successes in tackling issues of hunger and nutrition. South Texas’
agricultural rep in the Beltway, U.S. Rep. E. “Kika” de la Garza (D-Mission),
was the evening’s special guest, walking away with the center’s “Hot Stuff
Award” for his 32 years of work fighting hunger.
In low-income areas such as East Austin, where the center concentrates its
efforts, the challenges of ensuring adequate nutrition are two-fold. Not only
are fully stocked produce sections and large supermarkets few and far between,
but residents often are unaccustomed to cooking with a wide variety of
vegetables, making them more prone to the illnesses resulting from poor
nutrition and high-fat diets, studies show.
The Sustainable Food Center attacks the root of these problems with a hoe and
a shovel. The center-sponsored Eastside Community Farmers’ Market and the
Eastside Community Garden project both bring a wider variety of fresh food into
areas without adequate supermarket access. Teaching and advocating for
sustainable farming methods are also keys to the center’s mission, but now
these efforts are housed under one roof. Working downtown at the center’s
former site “meant that there wasn’t a place where people could come where they
could see in an instant all the different components of food security,”
Fitzgerald says.
Educational programs are also a priority. Volunteer chefs teach free bilingual
cooking classes. And at several local schools the center teaches gardening
skills to at-risk youth. According to the gardening program’s coordinator,
Sabre Fugate of Communities In Schools, gardening is “really helping [students]
with their self-esteem and pre-employment skills. They don’t really realize
that they’re learning things when they’re out there.”
The center’s goal is to sponsor at least four new farmers’ markets in
low-income areas of Austin by next spring. Fitzgerald hopes the new farm will
be financially self-sustaining in five years; for the time being, it’s
supported by pri-vate foundations such as Share Our Strength, the Public
Welfare Foundation, and Farm Aid. — K.V.
Moratorium Granted
Sparked by a fire at the BFI Recyclery over the summer, a grassrootsrevolution has emerged in Central East Austin to “roll back” the patches of
industrial zoning that allowed new factories and plants to be built next door
to homes, with no requirements for neighborhood notification. Last week,
Hispanic groups like PODER (People in Defense of the Earth and her Resources)
and El Concilio secured a 45-day moratorium from the city council on industrial
development applications. During that time, the coalition intends to develop
its own master plan, replacing poorly sited commercial and industrial zoning
with more residential lots. The proposal was sponsored by Gus Garcia, who also
ordered city staff to create new application procedures that require
neighborhood notification. — A.M.
This article appears in December 20 • 1996 and December 20 • 1996 (Cover).