Let’s see… there are splashy anti-depressant ads running in the
Statesman, and direct-mail campaigns being waged by the Real Estate
Council of Austin (RECA). So that puts us somewhere between the holidays and
next spring’s City Council elections. On the latter, the RECA PAC has unleashed
its second cost-of-living study to households across town. Readers may recall a
similar study RECA mailed out last spring. Yet the RECA-backed Council hopefuls
got trounced at the polls amid allegations that the PAC finagled political
funds to fatten the candidates’ purses. Now `tis election season all over again
and RECA’s back on the direct-mail trail. This time, RECA President Richard
Hill urges voters to tell their local officials they’re pretty peeved about the
cost of government rising faster than their meager pay stubs. Political
consultant Alfred Stanley, who used to make a living crunching numbers,
shrugged off the study as anything but a serious mathematical analysis: “RECA
is probably laying the groundwork for raising people’s concerns — and that
would be a misplaced concern in regard to City Council elections.”…
In the News to Us Department, here’s a recent day-in-the-life nugget of one
Austin police officer: He paid a masseuse $200, disrobed, engaged in “deviate
sexual intercourse” with the masseuse, and then had a warrant issued for her
arrest on charges of prostitution. Sound like a fun job? “Not really,” huffed a
no-nonsense Assistant Chief Michael McDonald. “There is nothing wrong with what
the officer has done.” In this line of undercover work, McDonald explained, the
county attorney’s office allows for police officers to undress, “and sometimes
contact occurs.” The Nov. 18 incident prompted a “concerned person” to write
Chief Elizabeth Watson, questioning whether it is department policy to “disrobe
and engage in sex” — all for the sake of enforcing a Class B misdemeanor. The
answer is yes, said McDonald, adding that Internal Affairs is addressing the
letter-writer’s concerns, nonetheless. According to the police affidavit, the
woman advertises as a massage therapist in the Chronicle. A call to the
woman’s place of business was met with a recorded message explaining she’ll be
on a “slight vacation” until 9am Friday… — A.S.
Although the Electric Utility Commission voted 6-1 last Monday to recommend
that City Council give Austin’s biggest corporate customers a 12% rate break in
return for the companies’ vow to stick with the city’s utility for the next six
years, the vote was not as lop-sided as it looks. Lone dissenter Shudde Fath’s
alternative motion to wait six months to see how the legislature takes to
privatization lost by just one vote. Utilities Consumer advocate Scott
McCollough believes the money should have gone to pay down debt and put the
utility in a more competitive position to keep all customers. The council will
make the final decision on the rate-break later this month. The public will get
a chance to guide their elected officials on this question at a public hearing
on Thursday, Dec. 12. No time has yet been set… — A.D.
A Community Speaks
The environmental racism that plagues Central East Austin may finally joingovernment-sanctioned segregation in the dustbin of history. That is, if a
burgeoning movement among the Eastside Hispanic community gets its way. A broad
cross-section of Hispanic organizations, including PODER (People in Defense of
the Earth and her Resources), El Concilio, and Ol� Mexico, want the
council to pass a proposed 180-day moratorium on industrial development in
Central East Austin.
Since the 1930s, the area has been a dumping ground for some of Austin’s
largest polluters, and factories and plants can be found next door to houses
and churches. So much of the area is already zoned for industrial development
— the most intense zoning category — that when new factories replace old
ones, there’s no need for approval from the Planning Commission or City
Council. Approval is administrative: There’s no requirement for neighborhood
notification, and no public-hearing process.
For that reason, residents living near the corner of East Sixth and Pedernales
didn’t find out that the old lumber yard next door would become a Balcones
Recycling plant until Balcones already had its building permit. And don’t
expect the residents to roll out the welcome wagon, particularly after another
Eastside recycling center, the BFI Recyclery, erupted in flames this summer.
“Other than federal housing, there’s no developers coming to Central East
Austin,” says Planning Commissioner Cathy Vasquez-Revilla. “The problem with
the development of East Austin is, who wants to develop next to recycling
plants?”
Revilla helped the Hispanic activists pass one obstacle: She sponsored — and
won unanimously last Tuesday — a Planning Commission recommendation to City
Council to approve the moratorium. If Council gives it the necessary blessing,
the groups expect to form a Committee on Land-Use and Redevelopment, to
recommend changes to the Code. The groups also want a zoning impact study to
address the possibility of decreasing industrial development, to allow for more
residential growth. — A.M.
Place 6, Anyone?
Councilmember Eric Mitchell may finally have some competition. NortheastAustin neighborhood activist Willie Lewis is considering a shot at Mitchell’s
Place 6 seat. Lewis, a former chair of the Airport Advisory Board and the
president of the Pecan Springs Springdale Hill Neighborhood Association,
expects to finalize his decision next week.
The 60-year-old Lewis says he supports a number of Mitchell’s programs to
redevelop the Eastside, but “people don’t trust him to do things that will help
the neighborhood, and his lack of accessibility has upset a lot of people. It’s
not that I’d be so much better than he would be, but I’d be a lot wiser working
with other people.”
In less than three years on the council, Mitchell’s vainglorious theatrics and
flagrant abuses of council procedures have steeped him in infamy. Besides
cursing out fellow councilmembers, reporters, and the general public, he may
have skirted city and state law by awarding his own insurance company a city
subcontract, has thrown funding for the arts into turmoil, and most recently,
has threatened to choke off funding for underprivileged neighborhoods.
Yet he has successfully used his strong African-American following to
brow-beat his colleagues into approving a number of development projects for
East Austin, including an entertainment center, the redevelopment of lower East
11th and 12th Streets, and a housing project called SCIP II.
Despite his contentious modus operandi, his ability to get his way
gives him a cachet that few councilmembers can claim, and no doubt is the
reason that Mitchell has drawn no opposition for the May election. As of the
July officeholder account reporting period, Mitchell had only $5,000 stashed
away, but he recently held a fundraiser, and Lewis would likely enter at a
significant financial disadvantage.
Lewis, also an African-American, is a member of the Save Our Springs alliance
and SANE (Save Austin’s Neighborhoods and Environment), who says he wants to
give voters a choice this election year. Other aspirants have until March 19 to
file their applications for candidacy with the City Clerk’s office. —
A.M.
Flood Simple
There’s bound to be a lot of love in the Council chambers on Dec. 12, when aspart of the regular Thursday meeting, the Austin City Council will open itself
up to vehement abuse, that is, “receive public input” over the Onion Creek
floodplain debacle.
What’s up is this: In 1993, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA),
lords of all natural disasters actual and prospective, signed off on redefining
the floodplain boundaries along Onion Creek in South Austin. This was
tantamount to FEMA’s admitting they screwed up the first time. As a result,
100-year flood levels along the creek went up a dozen feet, which led the city
to in turn widen the 25-year-floodplain (or “floodway”) within which
development is verboten. Unfortunately, there are a few hundred homes
within the new floodway, mostly in the Onion Creek subdivision at William
Cannon and Pleasant Valley, that are now basically worthless, whose owners have
either a) been screwed by senseless bureaucracy or b) have been allowed to live
in mortal danger for decades. Take your pick.
The city made matters worse by failing to notify any of the property owners
for almost two years, and then failing to fully understand the gravity of their
predicament; city staff and the Council are now playing catch-up and “pursuing
several areas of action.” If the last public meeting on the matter, held in the
neighborhood itself, is at all predictive of the tone of the upcoming hearing,
parental discretion is advised. — M.C.M.
This article appears in December 6 • 1996 and December 6 • 1996 (Cover).