Despite their longtime lack of direct representation at City Hall, the southeast Austin neighborhoods that will soon vote to elect a City Council member from District 2 regularly find themselves central to many of the issues currently facing city officials.
The area’s recent troubles with flooding, for example, have proven paramount to discussions about the way the city handles natural disaster relief. Its high volume of Hispanics and Latinos (69% in 2010, according to city data), including many undocumented residents, have been central to recent discussions about municipal ID cards. And its exclusion from the initial rail transit route proposed in local Proposition 1, the November transportation bond, suggests a lack of effective current representation within the city.
In that political context, an enthusiastic crowd of roughly 50 shuffled into the Dove Springs Recreation Center Wednesday night to hear three of the district’s four candidates – Edward Reyes, John C. Sheppard, and Delia Garza (fourth candidate Mike Owen was absent) – discuss the ways in which they’d represent their approximately 80,000 constituents on each aforementioned issue as well a few others, including farming, and immigration issues such as the beleaguered Travis County Sheriff’s Secure Communities program.
The three candidates were able to agree on one thing: A rail system that entirely ignores District 2 has no place in Austin at present (although it’s worth noting that Project Connect calls for an eventual extension of the rail line to ABIA, through and in District 2). Reyes called the immigration issue “a struggle” but didn’t formally address the concept of municipal ID cards, a topic on which Garza (for) and Sheppard (“a feel-good policy that does nothing”) disagreed.
The latter two also disagreed on the subject of buyouts for those affected by last Halloween’s flooding in Onion Creek – recently endorsed by the current Council – with Sheppard suggesting the topic of buyouts be put to a bond vote and Garza maintaining the community has had plenty of input. (Reyes said that he’d support a buyout.)
Elsewhere, Sheppard pushed for more farming within the district, while Garza suggested too much growth can lead to floodplains. Reyes, currently president of the Dove Springs Neighborhood Association, said he’d push for a new high school within the district, while Sheppard stated his advocacy for more green jobs.
The prevailing theme, however, seemed to be Garza’s insistence on the importance of her experience as assistant state attorney general (a position she recently left to focus on her Council campaign) versus Reyes’ and Sheppard’s repeated mentioning of their district heritage. “I’m the only candidate who’s committed their career to public service,” Garza responded when asked why she’d be the best candidate. Reyes and Sheppard, in contrast, highlighted their deep ties within the neighborhoods. How that difference is perceived throughout District 2 could mark the difference, come November.
This article appears in September 5 • 2014.