Edited by Louisa C. Brinsmade, with contributions this week by Andrea
Barnett,
Nelson England, and Chris Walters.
MUD, LIES AND IBUPROFEN: A sore southpaw wasn’t the only thing
giving
Mayor Bruce Todd twinges last week. At last Thursday’s council meeting,
a
motion by Councilmember Brigid Shea to delay voting on money for a new
customs
gate at Mueller Airport triggered a vintage Todd outburst.
Shea had cited expert advice to the effect that spending $418,000 for
a
Federal Inspection Service (FIS) customs gate for foreign travellers at
Mueller
might be wasted money since there seemed to be little in the way of
tangible
demand for such a facility. Todd asked her where she’d been getting her
information, and she said it came from local aviation economist Dan
Akins, her
appointee to the the Aviation Advisory Board. Todd responded with a
tirade. “I
am angry that the airlines are driving this discussion,” he seethed,
citing
“the fact that [Akins] works for the airlines on a regular basis” as
evidence
of “the conflict of interest that he has.” Todd claimed that Akins’
opposition
to moving the airport to Bergstrom – Akins was quoted prior to the 1993
stay-or-move vote in an Austin Chronicle report that
blasted the
city’s passenger capacity numbers – somehow proved that Akins “would as
soon
not build this airport.” Todd also implied that the FIS had been
approved by
the advisory board at its April meeting.
As a taken-aback Shea explained, Akins and his firm, Air Trans, spend
about
nine-tenths of their time performing marketing analyses for airports
trying to
attract new passenger traffic. He does not consult for domestic air
carriers;
the last two carriers that employed him were Lufthansa and Air Jamaica.
Akins
even spent a good deal of time recently laboring for the Association of
Flight
Attendants in their strike against American Airlines. So if he’s a
shill for
the big domestic carriers, he’s working under extremely deep cover.
“I don’t think the mayor understands that my interest is promoting
air service
to Austin, making Bergstrom the best airport it can be and not wasting
money at
Mueller,” Akins said after watching a video of Todd’s attack. “He
completely
misrepresented my background. If we’re going to spend this kind of
revenue, it
should be based on a sophisticated market analysis, not a reaction to a
few
phone calls from an Aero Mexico subsidiary. And this expense in no way
affects
anything at the new airport, schedulewise or budgetwise.” Akins argues
that
because the FIS will only handle 30 passengers at a time, it could not
accommodate major charters from Mexico even if there were any.
Councilmember Ronney Reynolds’ aviation board appointee Brad Ellis
agrees, and
says the FIS was not discussed at the board’s April meeting. Rather,
Ellis
remembers, it was recommended at a 1994 meeting after Aviation Director
Charles
Gates conveyed the impression that it wasn’t costing anything (Akins
missed
that meeting due to a business trip).
Probably the real source of the mayor’s wrath lies in the reluctance
of the
major domestic air carriers to sign on to the Bergstrom project. This
is
doubtless annoying, but it’s standard airline procedure when faced with
the
expenses of moving their operations. (Continental didn’t come to terms
with the
City of Denver until after the new facility there opened for
business.)
The council approved the FIS money 4-3, with Councilmembers
Jackie
Goodman, Max Nofziger, and Shea voting against. – C.W.
ONION CREEK HIKE AND BIKE TRAIL: At the last two Austin
Transportation
Study (ATS) meetings, property owners along Onion Creek southeast of
Austin
vehemently protested the proposed 4.1-mile Moya Hike and Bike Trail
that would
follow the creek from McKinney Falls State Park to Richard Moya County
Park
south of Bergstrom. They said that they were not contacted about plans
for the
project even though their land was involved.
“We call hikers `trespassers’ in this area,” said Marilyn
Dierschke, citing fears that trail users would disturb cattle and
commit acts
of vandalism. “How dare you walk on our property,” Sharon Ross told the
ATS.
“This land is not urban and we don’t want it urban. I don’t need the
gang
problem out there. I’m a City of Austin cop. I know a hell of a lot
more about
what goes on out there than you; I don’t want it in my backyard.” Bill
Baswell
told the ATS that the trail would be flooded four or five times a year,
and
that the estimated $26,000 right of way costs wouldn’t even be
sufficient for
the claims of a single property owner. Forrest Ward said that on
several parts
of the proposed trail, he mines crushed aggregate to sell for road
beds, and he
expects his business to boom when the Bergstrom Airport brings road
expansion
to the area. Dynamite blasting in the quarries would endanger hikers,
he
said.
In spite of landowner protests, the ATS unanimously approved
inclusion of the
trail project in its three-year funding plan on March 13.
Representative Glen
Maxey added an amendment to explore all options regarding the specific
location
of the trail, recognizing the needs of landowners to have creek access
for
their cattle. The
$1 million project would be paid for mostly with
federal
transportation funds. The project includes rehabilitation of the old
Congress
Avenue Bridge, originally built in 1884 over Town Lake. A new bridge
was
finished on Town Lake in 1915, and three of the iron trusses from the
old
bridge were used to construct a one-lane bridge over Onion Creek in
Richard
Moya Park. Eventual plans call for connecting the Moya Trail to the
Town Lake
trail, the Colorado River Trail, Dove Springs Park, and Onion Creek
Park.
– N.E.
CATO, NOT KATO: Leaders from the Cato Institute, whose members
appear
regularly on national television espousing a Libertarian take on
federal
politics, were in town recently for a brief seminar under the theme
“Toward an
American Renaissance.” Featured speakers, including Institute President
Ed
Crane and Regulatory Studies Director Ed Hudgins, attacked the federal
regulatory system with such topics as “Civil Society vs. Political
Society” and
“Really Ending Welfare as We Know It.”
The Institute has captured a few headlines recently for its proposals
to cut
“corporate welfare” – tax breaks and perks like below-cost timber sales
and
grazing fees on public lands – to big businesses, estimated to cost
taxpayers
$250-300 billion a year. But the seminar’s keynote speaker, U.S.
Rep. Tom
DeLay (R-Dallas), had a very different message.
“Really, what we have to do is stop taxing corporations and
companies,” he
told the well-heeled, enthusiastic crowd gathered at Austin’s downtown
Omni
Hotel. “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s just begun. Newt Gingrich said that
what
we’ve gone through so far is kindergarten compared to what’s coming.
You can’t
even dream what this country will look like when we remove these
onerous
burdens.”
The crowd applauded for this and nearly everything else DeLay had
to say. The
third-ranking member of Congress, DeLay carries considerable weight as
Majority
Whip and a member of the House Appropriations Committee. A long-time
foe of
environmental regulations which, he says, hamstrung his pesticide
business,
DeLay railed against welfare and health regulations. He promised a
monthly
“Corrections Day” where legislators will bring bills they don’t like to
the
floor to be repealed. “We’re going to repeal the last 40 years in a
systematic
way,” he said. “We’ll start with less controversial things at the
beginning, so
people aren’t scared to death and throw us out… but we can do
anything we
want. All they can do is bring out the fear mongering.”
If at first DeLay’s proposal to eliminate corporate taxes seems at
odds with
the Cato Institute’s plans for doing away with corporate welfare,
consider
this: What Institute leaders would really like to see, according to
their
358-page Congressional handbook released early this year, is a national
sales
tax set somewhere between 16-18%, to take the place of income taxes.
The
handbook also recommends eliminating the capital gains tax, selling off
about
$100 billion worth of federal lands, and a freeze in 1996 spending
levels
through the fiscal year 2000.
DeLay, whose pet project this session seems to be the gutting of the
Clean Air
Act (he’s got at least seven bills pending in the House), said that the
key to
success for the Contract With America, as well as the Cato Institute’s
proposals, is all in the approach. “In the past, Republicans have
talked in
terms of business and free market. That’s been our orientation,” he
said. “Now,
we need to relate everything in terms of the American family and
individuals,
and how everything we do affects them.” – A.B.
This article appears in May 5 • 1995 and May 5 • 1995 (Cover).