With
numerous proposals shelved until a later council meeting, Brigid Shea’s return from a
six-week maternity leave provided most of last Thursday’s drama. Having lost
none of her potency to motherhood, Shea provided the key fourth vote to Max
Nofziger’s homeless shelter proposal and resumed her role as the council’s
wrench in the works.
Though appearing considerably fatigued, Shea asserted herself early on when
Mayor Bruce Todd placed a gag-order on Earth First! activist Neal Tuttrup.
Interrupting the mayor as he scolded Tuttrup for frequently disrupting meetings
— Tuttrup once shouted to the councilmembers that their children will look on
them with scorn after he disagreed with the outcome of a vote — Shea called
the mayor’s order “selective enforcement.”
“It is selective, Mrs. Shea,” replied the mayor, before recognizing Pro Tem
Gus Garcia to show he had the support of other councilmembers. An extensive
lecture from Garcia about the need for civility at the council chambers
followed as Tuttrup waved his speech from the audience like an air-traffic
controller signaling a run-away plane.
“If anyone comes here with the intention of disrupting the business of the
public then you’re not doing us any favors,” said Garcia, who, along with Todd,
solicited an apology from Tuttrup. They got no apologies, but later in the
meeting they did get more annoying questions from Shea.
For discussion purposes, Jackie Goodman had pulled an item from the consent
agenda that would amend, and more than double, a $920,000 contract with
CH2M-HILL, Inc. which designs and builds water treatment systems. The amendment
would give CH2M-HILL an additional $958,000, bringing the contract to more than
$1.8 million. As part of the amendment, Water and Wastewater staff recommended
that the same company study the need for an aquifer storage and recovery system
in the city, at a cost of $120,000.
The city currently has no such system. It would allow for the underground
storage of treated potable water and its subsequent disinfection and
distribution. The storage system could head off the need to construct another
multi-million dollar water treatment compound for several years.
But Bill Bunch, head of the Save Our Springs Legal Defense Fund, protested the
logic of allowing the same company that builds such systems to determine
whether the city needs one.
“The company is going to spend $120,000 on research to see if it might work,”
said Bunch. “Then they’ll come back with pump requests and say this is Phase
II. Then they’ll come back and say you need to hire us to [construct] this.”
Seeing the reasoning in Bunch’s argument, Shea sponsored a motion to put the
study out for a bid while keeping the rest of the proposed amendment — which
primarily calls for the design of major pipelines in Northeast Austin —
intact.
Todd complained that Shea’s motion would needlessly delay the study, since
CH2M-HILL would probably submit a winning bid anyway. He teamed with Eric
Mitchell and Ronney Reynolds in voting “No.”
Nofziger joined Goodman and Shea in voting “Yes,” leaving only a bewildered
Garcia. “I don’t know about this one,” said the Pro Tem. “I don’t understand
this as much as I should. I abstain.”
Then Todd called for a vote on the entire amendment to the contract. Shea
abstained, Goodman voted “No,” and the rest of the gang, (oddly enough
including Nofziger), approved the original amendment.
Nofziger’s homeless shelter initiative finally got a fourth vote after two
weeks of postponement while he waited for Shea’s return. Since it does not have
five votes on the council, Nofziger’s proposal will require three readings to
pass. The measure would waive drainage utility fees for churches that join a
coalition to create more homeless shelters. It passed on first reading on the
consent agenda (no debate), although Mitchell, Todd, and Reynolds voted against
it.
The only explanation came from Reynolds, who said “the drainage utility has
been raided enough.” Of course, he forgot to mention that he was the pirate who
sponsored a proposal that cut $2.2 million of the utility’s $16 million budget
last September. Regardless, the proposal, which would cost the utility $290,000
if all the city’s churches joined the coalition, will get a second hearing at
the February 1 council meeting, since this week’s meeting was canceled.
Also postponed until the February 1 meeting are proposals that would allow the
Austin Housing Finance Corporation, a non-profit represented by the council, to
accept four federal housing grants totaling more than $3.5 million. Mitchell
recently made an unsuccessful attempt to freeze spending on undesignated funds
from the city’s Neighborhood, Housing, and Conservation Department (NHC), and
speculation on his latest move is that Mitchell wants time to come up with a
plan for the housing funds.
The postponement, coming without resistance from housing staff or other
councilmembers, continues Mitchell’s dominance over the NHC’s agenda. The
housing staff is also under the gun to complete a request from Mitchell to
develop a clear policy for the use of Community Development Block Grants (one
source for the city’s federal housing funds), and to provide a demographic
breakdown of all NHC expenditures in the last 15 years. NHC Director Bill Cook
wrote in a January 17 memo to Mitchell that the work will involve at least six
weeks of full-time staff effort, and will be completed “over the next three to
four months as time allows.” Mitchell thinks the results will reveal a West
Austin funding bias for NHC projects.
Also delayed until the February 1 meeting, at Reynolds’ behest, was Nofziger’s
proposal for tax abatements for residential developments in the downtown area.
Reynolds wants downtown agencies and business associations to offer a
recommendation on the proposal, which would offer a 10-year, 100% abatement on
city taxes on new multi-family housing projects. After other questions were
raised about the initiative, which included no back-up information, Todd asked
Nofziger for a postponement.
“If we must,” was Nofziger’s perturbed reply. “It’sjust two weeks.” To
which the mayor retorted, “It’s just six votes,” referring to the state
requirement for the passage of tax abatement proposals.
And finally, Goodman says her proposal to disband the housing subcommittee
will be discussed at the January 31 work session. n
This article appears in January 26 • 1996 and January 26 • 1996 (Cover).