AUSTIN (KXAN) — A political action committee has formed with a goal of ousting Austin Mayor Steve Adler and five members of the Austin City Council.
The PAC “Our Town Austin” formed yesterday. Sharon Blythe created it and says the PAC’s purpose is to prompt a recall election for Adler plus council members Natasha Harper-Madison, Pio Renteria, Ann Kitchen, Paige Ellis and Kathie Tovo. Those are the members of council who are not up for reelection in 2020.
To recall a council member “Our Town Austin” will have to gather signatures from at least 10% of each of their districts. For Mayor Adler, they will need 10% of registered voters within the entire city.
If the PAC gets the necessary signatures, the council members or Mayor Adler will have five days to resign or the city will hold a recall election.
We've been suggesting recall elections for awhile, but we knew nothing about this effort until we read the news reports.
As we've been arguing since June, the best solution for this one specific issue is a special session. Obviously, that ain't happening. Furthermore, given where things stand on other issues (eg. speaker, #2A), a special session is perilous for reasons unrelated to the situation in Austin.
So recall elections work.
If nothing else, they force council to play defense for the next six months, and probably render Adler a lame duck.
Greg Casar - "I just don't think that we are in the business of reducing congestion."
Ann Kitchen - "That's not really our goal, to get rid of congestion."
Note: It's not in the video, but in the original audio Jimmy Flannigan agrees with Kitchen.
Ward - "Reducing congestion is not really their goal, you have got to be kidding me."
Ward - "We have to do something about this traffic."
Bottom Line: Vote for Frank Ward if you value dissent and intellectual diversity. Early voting runs through tonight (Friday) at 7pm. Election Day Tuesday.
"Designed to set the city up to it can be attacked...."
Calls the legislature "the reichstag...." [Note: 37 seconds in]
Cheap shot at Troxclair.
"Launch an attack on the city...."
"Funded by dark money...."
"We'll never know who paid this money...."
Phony machismo over campaign.
"Spear aimed at the city of Austin...out to undermine this city."
Something about Greg Abbott.
Calls TPPF, AFP "front groups."
Listening to Butts yammer on about the Koch brothers, and TPPF reminds us of this:
Exchange with Adler over alleged "redundancy."
Ora Houston points out that over 30,000 Austinites signed the petition: "Are we calling the people invalid."
"They petition is still valid."
Houston: "Is there something wrong with having an efficiency audit?!?"
Houston to Butts: "Those are a lot of assertions."
Here's the thing: One would expect Butts to oppose an efficiency audit. But the tone and ferocity of Butts' testimony was striking. Then there's the fact he showed up in the first place. Clearly, an efficiency audit strikes a nerve.
Which begs a follow up question: What would an efficiency audit reveal about David Butts' business relationships and personal finances?!?
We have no specific knowledge, but it's hard not to draw that conclusion following that performance.
Bottom Line: What a bizarre, unhinged, performance....
"And [Judas] consented, and sought opportunity to betray him unto them, when the people were away." Luke 22:6
We're not sure how we feel about last Thursday's drama surrounding the CodeNEXT petition. We'd want to speak with some of our lawyer friends before weighing in. And, honestly, we don't care enough about CodeNEXT at this point to ask.
But there's a separate political aspect that's fascinating: Ann Kitchen's utter, total, and complete betrayal of her NIMBY political base; the comparison to Giovanni Capriglione writes itself.....
But who really took the cake was Councilmember Ann Kitchen. Kitchen, if you remember, led the battle to counter 10-1 with another plan that eliminated the first independent citizens redistricting commission in Texas. She lost that one. In this case, Kitchen boldly claimed that the CodeNEXT petition is “illegal,” so much as accusing her four colleagues that they were voting for an illegal petition.
Keep in mind, this is the same Ann Kitchen who appointed the then-President of the Austin Neighborhoods Council to the Zoning and Platting commission.
It's hard to understand what Kitchen is thinking. We've heard speculation that she's reached some sort of deal with Adler, but that's just speculation. Furthermore, it's difficult to see what Adler can give her that's worth permanently alienating her biggest supporters. That's even truer in an election year.
Bottom Line: This was a stupid unforced error, but we'll take it....
The Austin City Council might have broken Texas law Thursday when council members left the posted location of a meeting and rushed away in vans that took them to an undisclosed place to conduct interviews with city manager candidates.
Several lawyers who are experts in Texas open meetings law said the council violated the law by leaving the Hilton Austin Airport, where they had intended to conduct the interviews, in favor of a conference room at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport that was inaccessible to the public.
“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” Houston lawyer Joe Larsen said. “Obviously, what they have done is completely outside of the pale. Clearly they are trying to engage in a secret meeting.”
....
The Statesman sued the city this week for blocking requests for information about candidates made under the Texas Public Information Act. The paper was amending its complaint Thursday, alleging the council violated open meetings laws with the hasty change of venue.
Mayor Steve Adler, Council Member Kathie Tovo, Council Member Ann Kitchen and a statement from city staffers all said they violated no laws by secretly moving the location of the interviews from the meeting’s posted site. All other council members either did not answer questions or gave no comment on switching locations.
Adler said later that he didn’t feel good about how things happened Thursday, but stood by the actions. The mayor said he felt badly that the council had been unable to maintain the candidates’ confidentiality Tuesday after it had said that it would.
“The whole situation is awkward,” he said. “We want to have an absolutely open process, and we want to make sure we find the absolute finest candidates and, where those things conflict with one another, you get to a place that does not feel good.”
....
As on Tuesday, the council began its meeting for the second round of interviews at the Hilton, then adjourned to executive session. Several council members headed to the hotel conference room where they had held their closed-door meeting on Tuesday, but they then boarded two airport shuttles that took them to Austin-Bergstrom airport.
One reporter tried to follow a shuttle in his car only to be blocked by a city staffer who closed and padlocked a gate behind the shuttle. That staffer refused to give his name.
The Statesman later located the council, which was in a conference room beyond the airport’s Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint. The airport’s staff refused to allow reporters to that area of the airport.
"Through wisdom a house is built, And by understanding it is established;" Proverbs 24:3
We've been in a holding pattern for several hours as the Senate debates the privacy act; this seems like as good a time as any to post our thoughts on this hearings this morning about property taxes, ridesharing, and short-term rentals in the Texas Senate:
[Author's Note: Points about property taxes will be listed in blue; points about Ridesharing and STR's will be listed in green.]
We've never seen a day when this many issues related to local government accountability were heard in a day; this is new.
In terms of obvious storms on the macroeconomic horizion, the property tax system in Texas (alongside local government debt) is the equivalent of the national debt in term of predictable problems on the short to medium term horizon. Texans currently pay the highest property taxes of any state without an income tax. This is a high priority mess that needs to be addressed before it bites us in the backside.
On the TNC issue, Don Huffines' bill (SB 113) is the only bill up today that will pre-empt the next round of regulatory challenges related to ground transportation and new technology. That's why we testified in favor of it. Nevertheless, we can count votes and Charles Schwertner's bill represents a significant step forward from the status quo.
Additionally, the property tax system as it currently exists is the mother's milk that feeds all sorts of other corruption in the legislature.
As we have previously discussed; Senator Bettencourt confessed to several good reasons why SB 2 (the property tax relief bill) doesn't go nearly far enough. Under questioning from other Senators, he repeatedly admitted that the bill does not amount to a revenue cap, and he also admits local jurisdictions will still be able to raise taxes close to 10% without an election. Nevertheless, this is a significant step in the right direction and see our previous comment about counting votes.
Bettencourt's bill would rename the effective tax rate the "no new taxes" rate; this can only simplify things for the average taxpayer.
Bettencourt -- Taxpayers in Harris county often pay 10 taxing jurisdictions at a time.
Bettencourt too frequently talks in policy wonk language and goes over people's heads.
Actually, Bettencourt straight up talks too much.
Paul Bettencourt: We love you, and we agree with you, but shut up.
#TROXROX -- Rates should go down as appraisals go up.
Austin had an additional $50 million to spend last year even at "no new taxes" rate.
Austin budgets have consistently grown 7 to 10% even without counting 'exemptions.'
SB 2: "A critical tool that must be adopted."
First thing to cut would be new vehicles every three years.
Voted against bailing out library.
Kel Seliger tried to throw her under the bus and she threw it back.
No reason you can't hold cities and counties accountable alongside school districts.
#TROXROX: Several activists from outside the local area who'd never seen Ellen Troxclair in action before spoke positively about the degree to which she refuses to take crap (especially re: the exchange with Seliger).
They laid out but have yet to take testimony on the short term rental bill, but the short version is as follows: the degree to which the Austin anti-STR ordinance creates new police powers out of thin air is creepy.
Bottom Line: We'll include links to testimony and deeper thoughts at a later time, but the short version is that after decades of atrophy the Texas Senate is beginning to rehab their constitutional muscles as it relates to local government accountability.
"Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, But he who gathers by labor will increase." Proverbs 13:11
[Author's Note: The Statesman has a cynical, though plausible, analysis of the politics here.]
In what can only be described as a crying shame, on Thursday a 6 to 5 majority on the Austin City Council voted to "indefinitely postpone" council member Ellen Troxclair's proposed affordability action plan. The vote doesn't kill the action outright (why would they have the guts to do that?!?), but it does take the planning process back to square one. That being said, absent a public backlash, it's hard to see how this returns in anything resembling its current form.
The plan, in which Troxclair was joined by council members Flannigan, Houston, Kitchen, and Mayor Adler, had at least twenty components. We'll include a PDF of the full proposal below this write up, but suffice to say that it reflected individual priorities voiced over the years by each of the five co-sponsors. From our perspective, tangible metrics for aggressive housing construction, simplification of permitting, biennial performance reviews for all city departments (how are they not doing this already?!?), creation of a "no tax increase" option for council during budget season, creation of a similar "no rate or fee increase" option for city utilities, ensuring projects from the 2016 transportation bond are completed on time and on budget, and a fair regulatory environment for mobility service providers (ie. starting with, but not limited to, Uber and Lyft) packed the biggest punch. As a team effort from five individual council members it wasn't perfect, and there were a few things in there that we're not crazy about, but it was nevertheless a significant step forward.
The initiative was supported by a diverse array of community partners, including the Independent Business Alliance, the NAACP, the Austin Tech Council, the Hispanic Contractors association, the Real Estate council, and Goodwill industries (yes, THAT Goodwill). Not that we're always crazy about their priorities, but even the Austin Chamber of Commerce supported this approach. When are the Independent Business Alliance and the NAACP ever on the same side of anything?!?
We didn't keep a tally during public testimony, but our informal guess is that it ran 2 to 1 in favor. Space limitations make it impossible to catalog everything, but a few moments stood out. The CEO of Kerby Lane cafe discussed how it's becoming prohibitively difficult to open restaurants in Austin because the majority of employees can only afford to live in (*shudder*) Williamson county. The representative from Goodwill pointed out that, even if we don't agree on all the specifics, getting this diverse of a coalition to support a measure was significant in and of itself. Personally, we were struck by a slide from a representative of the real estate industry that showed house prices have nearly tripled in the past decade. From the opponents, we were struck by a gentleman named Gus Pena who protested that the plan didn't do enough for the homeless while overlooking that it would produce significantly more housing.
During dais discussion, Council member Garza passed the buck to Austin ISD and the state over robin hood; she's not exactly wrong, but her point is irrelevant as long as the city refuses to take care of business in its' own area of jurisdiction. Pio Renteria offered hyperbole about laying off police officers while similarly refusing to accept the city's share of responsibility. Greg Casar at least had the courage of his convictions to advocate for a housing bond and "workforce development programs" for "low and moderate wage workers." On the one hand, we appreciate Council member Casar advocating an alternative policy; on the other hand, we've taken this approach for decades, and
the results seem meager. If the last billion dollars didn't accomplish your goal, and if the billion before that didn't accomplish your goal (to say nothing of all of the untold previous billions going back to the 1930's)...why is the next billion is going to be different?!? Furthermore, the city has had record revenues at its disposal every year of the 10-1 council and the idea that widespread budget cuts are coming anytime soon seems...far fetched. In a city where the median income is less than $33,000 and the median city employee makes around $60,000 lightening the burden on the people paying the bills doesn't seem unreasonable.
[Note: You can read a press release from the council members who opposed the plan here.]
But (no surprise here) the cake was taken by Kathie Tovo. Tovo spoke about all of the allegedly wonderful work council has done on affordability since she campaigned on the issue in her first (2011) campaign. Unfortunately, by whatever metric you choose (housing costs, property taxes, utility rates) affordability has gotten worse over the past six years. Perhaps the time has come to try a new approach?!? To be honest, Tovo sounded a lot like UT Football fans making excuses for Charlie Strong in that she just "needed more time." Well, similarly to Charlie Strong, there comes a time when you have to stop grading on intentions and start grading on outcomes. What did Einstein say about trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?!?
Bottom Line: Any serious attempt to translate "affordability" from a vague buzzword into tangible relief requires addressing housing costs, city spending/taxes, and utility rates/fees. Thursday's proposal, while far from perfect, would have represented a significant step forward on all three. Unfortunately, the council majority chose to protect privileged bureaucrats at the expense of struggling renters, local businesses, and homeowners. Total missed opportunity. It's a damn shame....
This Thursday, I am bringing the Affordability Action Plan resolution to Council. This plan provides a roadmap to tackle rising taxes and fees, reform city budgeting practices, address our housing supply, and provide opportunities for our locally-owned, small businesses to thrive, among many other initiatives. I am grateful to have a diverse group of Council Members and community organizations already on board, but this may be a close vote.
....
It's no secret that we are at a critical point in our city when it comes to affordability. You gave Council a clear mandate to address the rapidly rising cost of living in Austin. In light of this, it's critical to make a pact with you and others in the community about how dedicated this Council is, and will continue to be, to addressing affordability.
....
If you can not make it Thursday, please email Council your support for the Affordability Action Plan by clicking here. Special thanks to Mayor Adler, Council Member Flannigan, Council Member Houston, and Council Member Kitchen for their co-sponsorship and invaluable help in this effort!
I will try to have this item addressed as close to 2 PM as possible, but items don't always come up in the planned order. If you need a time update, please call my office Thursday at 512-978-2108.
This is fantastic; any serious effort to address affordability needs to begin by understanding that surging housing costs and property taxes both drive the problem (and that there's no conflict between fixing both).
We will also confess a bit of amusement that among the five co-sponsors are four of the council members up in 2018....
...which begs the follow up question: Where are you, Pio Renteria and Kathie Tovo?!? [Author's Note: That's a rhetorical question re: Tovo]
A proposal from Austin City Council Member Ora Houston could dramatically affect the redevelopment of East Austin by imposing new height restrictions on future projects to protect certain views of the state Capitol.
Houston’s proposal for five new Capitol view corridors comes as developers increasingly eye East Austin for high-rise development, fueling fears about further change in this once-working class part of town.
“This whole conversation, this whole wanting to have some visual history of the relationship between black East Austin and the Capitol started back in 2015,” said Houston, who was inspired by the fight over the once-proposed One Two East development, which would have built a pair of apartment towers on the east side of Interstate I-35 at 12th Street. Those towers, she said, would have been a “vertical barrier, just like some people see I-35 as a horizontal barrier.”
“People in different parts of East Austin need the same kind of views of our Capitol as other people have,” she added.
[Author's Note: Emphasis added.]
No council member, "people in different parts of East Austin" (like everyone citywide) need 150,000 units of new housing to reverse the trend of ever increasing housing costs we've seen over the past decade; it's economics 101, as supply goes up, price goes down.
'Views of the Capitol' are irrelevant to this discussion.
Still, it's interesting to see who's supportive:
Her bid is co-sponsored by Mayor Steve Adler and Council Members Leslie Pool, Kathie Tovo and Alison Alter.
It's not difficult to understand why Tovo, Pool, and Alter [sidenote: Where's Ann Kitchen?!?] support this: This is a typical Austin Neighborhood Council initiative to use any excuse in the book to maintain high housing prices for existing homeowners. Likewise, Adler's motivation is easy to discern: complicated regulations on the front end grease the skids for shady subsidies on the back end. Still, Houston's support for this bullsh...nonsense...is disappointing.
Here's the thing: The reason the East Side is gentrifying at such a rapid pace is because the affluent NIMBY's at the Austin Neighborhoods Council have made it impossible to build anything in Central Austin. That impossibility pushes housing demand out to the East Side, which prices existing residents out of their homes. Once again, Economics 101: if demand goes up, and supply is artificially held constant, price goes up.
This isn't rocket surgery.
Bottom Line: Council member Houston's proposal can only make gentrification on the east side worse...and it's straight up depressing that someone who should know better fails to grasp this obvious point.
"A prudent man foresees evil and hides himself, But the simple pass on and are punished." Proverbs 22:3
[Author's Note: Our testimony on the budget can be found at the 22:50 mark of part 4 of item 44 here.]
Last night, council made Austin's housing more expensive and telegraphed that nothing is going to change with regard to city spending.
By a 9-1 margin (Zimmerman voting nay, Troxclair off the dias), council adopted an ordinance (item 29) to impose vaguely defined 'worker protection' standards on some sort of 'expedited permitting process' that they want the city bureaucracy to develop in the coming months. If this sounds needlessly complicated, that's because it is. In other words, rather than simplifying the permitting process for everyone, they wasted time on obscure contingency planning for something that might happen at some point in the future.
Obviously, Austin's permitting process is a nightmare. Ann Kitchen correctly called it "dysfunctional" while Mayor Adler correctly noted that the current process adds to everyone's housing bill. Nevertheless, they both voted to make said process even more complicated.
We don't know where to begin on the budget. Suffice to say, with the notable exception of Don Zimmerman, council was oblivious to the consequences of their ongoing attempts to nickel and dime citizens. In other words, the status quo prevailed.
In our testimony, we pointed out that every single member on that dais campaigned on the issue of affordability. Yet they're moving forward with all sorts of tax and fee hikes. We suppose it isn't surprising, but it's still very disappointing.
We don't disagree with Mayor Adler when he says that housing costs are a bigger driver of Austin's affordability challenges than direct levies from the government. But taxes and fees remain a big part of the problem. And last night, they made both worse.
Bottom Line: The culture at city hall needs to change.
The lawsuit, Zaatari et. al vs City of Austin et. al, challenges the constitutionality of the city's regulation. Specifically, by giving the Austin code department (yeah, THAT Austin code department) unlimited jurisdiction to perform warrantless searches on private residences to enforce the ordinance, the city violated the fourth amendment's provision against unreasonable searches. In addition, by drawing an arbitrary distinction between residential leases under 30 days ("short-term") and leases over 30 days ("long-term"), the city violated the fourteenth amendment's equal protection clause.
The anti-AirBnb ordinance was part of council's bizarre campaign against innovation and the sharing economy. Not that it's relevant to the underlying privacy and property rights issues, but fewer than 10% of all complaints ever filed against STR's have been related to noise or other 'bad neighbor' issues and there have been literally zero citations against STR's for those issues. Readers are welcome to speculate about council's underlying motivation, but doing so is beyond the scope of this report.
In addition to a media conference call this morning, TPPF also helped arrange a media availability at an STR property owned by one of the plaintiffs this afternoon. The property, located in Ann Kitchen's (yeah, we know) district, is owned by Ahmed Zaatari. Zaatari, who immigrated from Lebanon in the late 1990's, converted the property to an STR about a year ago after he was laid off from an energy industry related job following the downturn in oil prices. Zaatari typically rents the property in increments of two to four days. In addition, Zaatari pays both property taxes and the City of Austin's 15% hotel occupancy tax. To illustrate to absurdity of the ordinance, consider this: at the peak, between three media camera crews, this author, Zaatari, and four TPPF staffers, at one point there were 13 people on-site, which actually violated the ordinance (*). Look at the picture above: Does it look like the property was overcrowded in any way, shape or form?!?
Most chillingly, Zaatari pointed out how the ordinance is "reminiscent of the system in Lebanon" where economic opportunity is doled out by political connections instead of merit. In Lebanon, "what matters is who you know" and "you had to put yourself in servitude to some political boss." Speaking of political bosses, Zaatari described a meeting he had with Ann Kitchen where she promised that council wouldn't attack "the good actors" (ie. the ones who actually follow the law and pay the city's taxes); we can see where that led.
We realized one final absurdity while we were at the property. The city of Austin has more restrictions on STR properties than it has on frat houses. Considering that the whole justification for this ordinance was cracking down on "party houses," that seems odd.
The city of Austin does not have authority to restrict private property rights in this manner. Doing so violates, at least, the fourth and fourteenth amendments. They weren't expecting anyone to fight back; they were wrong.
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* - It wasn't planned that way, and there were 13 people on-site for less than ten minutes, but the fact that accidentally violated the ordinance during the media availability illustrates the silliness of the whole thing.
"And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart." Galatians 6:9
[Author's Note: The Austin Monitor has more here.]
Yesterday's council mobility committee hearing about a potential November transportation bond...was substantially less terrible than it could have been. We suppose one benefit of low expectations is that they're not impossible to exceed. We came into the hearing expecting to have guns blazing and to be a solid "Hell NO"; we are pleased to report that, at least for now, that attitude is premature.
[Note: Our testimony can be found at the 68:15 mark.]
We encouraged council to "think small" and to use this process "to build trust." It doesn't take a genus to realize that, between the 2014 rail bond and the recent Prop. 1 debacle, relations between council and the citizenry are (to put it mildly) frayed. We believe a small proposal can allow tangible progress to be made in some areas while simultaneously lowering the temperature in the room as we discuss longer term solutions. We also support breaking any potential bond package into its component parts, giving voters a diverse mosaic of a la carte options and allowing them to direct council. We were pleasantly surprised that several other speakers, who might not share our philosophical outlook, also encouraged Council to break any potential bond package into it's component parts. We fear a big, clunky, bond package with lots of moving parts will be as divisive and noxious as the two previous referenda mentioned above. If there were ever a time for cautious incrementalism over "boldness," a November 2016 transportation bond is it.
As to substance, we remain intrigued (though far from sold) by Mayor Adler's proposal to streamline major city corridors. Between the bus 'queue jumps', the left turn 'bays', and the traffic signal timing improvements there could be a lot of low hanging fruit that could substantially improve mobility on major city streets without busting the budget. Done properly, streamlining major city corridors could encapsulate the Pareto principle. That being said, we have little faith in the ability of the city's transportation department to implement the corridor proposal in anything resembling a competent or timely manner. Depending on the details, we are also open to discussing a modestly sized package that could begin to address Austin's woefully inadequate sidewalks. We are open to a modest amount of highway expansion, though we doubt there's time to do anything effective in time for November. In many ways, highways are similar to rail in that right now probably isn't the time to do something that divisive.
The crowd that testified ran the gamut. Many supported the corridor plan. Some supported rail. Some supported bike paths. Sidewalks seemed to be almost universally popular. Listening to the diverse array of preferences solidified our conviction that any transportation package should be broken into its component parts and presented to voters a la carte. One personal note: We were astonished by the number of people who used their opportunity to testify to espouse vague gobbledygook yet were unable to ask council "we would like you to do x, y, or z" regardless of whatever x, y, or z might have been.
Council member Garza probably captured the sentiment in the room best when she voiced her concerns about "bond fatigue" and wondered whether "it's too soon" for another major transportation initiative. The committee voted to move forward a placeholder proposal to enable discussion at the full council. In the event a bond proposition does move forward, we will know the details by August; we (really, really, really) hope it doesn't come to this but, if necessary, that's more than enough time to mount an opposition campaign.
Bottom Line: Yesterday's hearing epitomized the best of what 10-1 is supposed to be. The process was open, inclusive, and fair and we commend Council member Kitchen (*) for diligently allowing everyone to express their views without it turning into a logistical cluster[you-know-what]. Time will tell....
Council Member Ann Kitchen brought forth a resolution authorizing the city to get involved in the "Compassionate Communities Campaign." It's something other major cities have done. Kitchen says it's just meant to encourage everyone in town to practice compassion -- not that we don't already.
Council Member Don Zimmerman took issue with this earlier in the week at the work session, saying the resolution had religious overtones...so if council is bringing religion to the table why not extend that "compassion" to unborn children?
Fast forward to Thursday's City Council discussion on the resolution.
Zimmerman had drafted 3 amendments. One of them focused on Jesus and another instructing Council to set a time for "Serve the Lord Week"' It was a "no-go" on those two but to Zimmerman's surprise, Kitchen accepted his first amendment.
The first paragraph of the amendment was language from the "Compassion Charter." The second paragraph, according to Zimmerman, was made up of language similar to that of the compassion charter:
"WHEREAS, One should strive to act with compassion and empathy towards all creatures in accordance with reason; One's body is inviolable, subject to one's own will alone; the spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word."
But then, Zimmerman let the cat out of the bag about where that language actually came from.
"Those 3 sentences that I added came from the satanic temple website. Most of my constituents in District 6 all believe in Jesus, that he's the resurrected Messiah and he's their Savior. But I probably do have a handful of satanists in an area of 80,000 people," Zimmerman said.
....
Zimmerman tells Fox 7 he was making a point that Council rejected the Christian amendments but seemed ok with the satanic language before they knew what it really was.
Sen. Kirk Watson (l) and Councilmember Ann Kitchen (r)
"But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will increase to more ungodliness." 2 Timothy 2:16
Last night's Austin Monitor transportation forum was heavy on platitudes and light on substance; considering who was involved, that's probably a good thing.
Senator Kirk Watson and Councilmember Ann Kitchen (a last minute substitute for Mayor Adler) spoke in generalities about Austin's transportation challenges. They mostly made bland, non-controversial, statements with which no one would disagree. At least they weren't promoting something bad.
The biggest takeaway was that the odds of a major transportation bond in 2016 are diminishing by the week. Watson spoke of balancing the desire to place a bond before a presidential year electorate with the need to have significant public buy-in BEFORE coming to voters. Watson stated bonds "need to address specific needs" and acknowledged the perils of pushing bonds without public input. While Watson will defer to council's decision, with the November election already less than 8 months away his warning was impossible to miss. Kitchen explicitly stated "there's been no decision" on a transportation bond.
On the plus side, Watson spoke favorably about widening 183. This was originally Michael Cargill's idea during the 2014 election. We've believed for some time that widening and removing traffic lights on 183 (and 360) is the low hanging fruit of Austin's transportation challenges.
Kitchen spoke mainly in cliches. We were amused by her call for a "comprehensive, strategic mobility plan," considering that 'comprehensive' and 'strategic' are go-to platitudes for government bureaucrats who don't have anything interesting to say. More alarmingly, Kitchen referred multiple times to "looking at land use" and "nitty, gritty land use" issues as areas where she intends to focus. It's not difficult to envision such a focus turning into an assault on private property rights. But that's not a new threat and Kitchen didn't reveal any immediate plans.
Both officials spoke favorably of rail in the abstract, but neither seemed to think anything major was going to happen anytime soon. Watson admitted that Lone Star Rail was probably dead "in its current form" and Kitchen (who is on both of the relevant boards) didn't contradict him. Ending Lone Star rail would be a win for taxpayers.
As Senator Watson stated, Austin needs an open and transparent planning process. That need would seem to argue against trying to force through a poorly conceived plan in 2016. We will close with a warning that, if necessary, a bond opposition campaign only needs about six weeks to be successful.
"It is an abomination for kings to commit wickedness, For a throne is established by righteousness." Proverbs 16:12
While the Ann Kitchen recall campaign already has enough signatures, it never hurts to collect enough so that you're outside the margin of shenanigans:
Why do we want Ann Kitchen recalled?
Texans for Accountable Government supports the recall of CM Ann Kitchen because she’s representing lobbyists rather than her constituents in District 5. Look on Page 41 of Ann Kitchen’s October 2014 Campaign Finance Report, you can see a bundled donation from Lone Star Cab of $4,000. It’s a clear cut case of the taxi lobby greasing the palms of lawmakers to insulate themselves from market competition.
Rideshare companies operate in over 100 cities in the US, and in over 300 cities worldwide without fingerprinting, and according to sexual assault complaints here in Austin, a person is 6 times more likely to be assaulted by a cab driver: 913 cab drivers and 3 complaints; 15,000 drivers and 7 complaints with zero criminal charges. Kitchen’s 12-page ordinance has nothing to do with safety, and everything to do with power.
Taxis lost over 1 million rides in the first year after TNCs starting operating in Austin. Instead of innovating and adapting to the desires of the market, they have come to the government to put in place regulations that will drive out TNCs, removing competition.
