Austins Mayor Talks of Civics Partnerships Roads & Inroads
By Mike Asmus
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN Texas On Friday February 25 Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell presented his take on the state of the city. He gave a
professional in-depth overview of what the city is facing various works in progress and several proposals. The near-hour long review appeared to play well with those in the near-full council chamber.
Once a mayor myself I empathize with the budgetary challenge before him and his council; and I admired his thoughtful professionalism and candor in delivering the good the bad and the ugly. Always a political conservative I found some parts of his address to agree with some to arch my eyebrows at and others best suited for a long rest in an overlooked binder or file cabinet.
To start his fulfilled campaign promise to launch AustinCorps led to nearly 30 high school seniors now involved in the civic internship program being on hand to hear the mayor whose laudable mission for current and future corps members is to educate them about local government and to activate them as citizens.
(Full text of the address lives online here.)
The mayor had the good fortune to paint a fairly bright picture of the citys jobs condition especially when the picture is put up alongside that of nearly any other region of the nation. Mr. Leffingwell said the Austin area added about 15000 new jobs over 2010 and that the metro unemployment rate stands at 6.8 percent which is well below the national average of 9.1 percent and the states average of 8 percent.
The mayor presented two factors driving the capital citys legendary traffic snarls which are all but unprecedented for cities this size. The first being the citys simple but powerful magnetismthe mayor cites 500 people now coming to Austin each and every week. The second factor he boldly asserts is
Our dramatic ongoing failure to invest in the systems and infrastructure we need to stay ahead of it.
This is a refreshingly candid assertion if our means city leaders rather than taxpayers. (...it took us many years and many failures to screw up our traffic this badly he also said so I feel hes rightly pointing within city hall.) To reverse the lack of engagement the mayor noted the citys recent creation of a transportation department and a strategic transportation plan.
Why a city of this size hadnt had either for so long is a great trivia question but the answer wouldnt help advance things and the mayors enactment of both plan and department will.
Mayor Leffingwell characterized traffic as the third rail" of Austin politics which served as an on-ramp for his ongoing insistence that the citys ever-increasing traffic volume can be held in check through the weighty expansion of light rail.
We are going to continue on a course to put urban rail before Austin voters next November said the mayor and ultimately they will be the ones to decide how we proceed.
Indeed they will. As most to date are electing not to ride the existing system I would be surprised and disappointed to see voters approve a light rail tax boost. The Austin areas foray into light rail is the textbook bridge to nowhere. Its often tough to stop drop and roll when so much has already been built on a high visibility project whose cost/benefit math is upside down.
Its worse to keep going. Howard Hughes would be first to tell you theres a reason the Spruce Goose was not first of a fleet of like aircraft.
Noting the citys deservedly great reputation for the music created and played here Mayor Leffingwell mentioned the citizen-driven Austin Music Commission which suggests to council ways to support and grow local music efforts. Turns out these commission volunteers have paid city help as per the mayor Austin has several full-time city staff whose job it is to help music venues succeed and to help promote our music industry.
Like music venues coffee houses are also a big shaper of Austins DNA. Many have struggled and more than a few have disappeared.
Will there next be an Austin Bean Commission? How about the majority of businesses in less trendy but notably more essential categories?
When will the city have several full-time staff whose job it will be to help auto repair shop venues succeed?
Business success and failure is the purview of the free market drawing on private sector economic activity (or non-activity). A public government aiding certain private ventures creates by default disadvantages for the unlucky unpicked. And the fact that this aiding is
taxpayer fueled puts the whole notion of government picking winners and losers as an antonym to capitalism.
Great if a member-funded chamber of commerce would like to launch an initiative to help
music venues survive and thrive. Even greater if the music venues band together (forgive me...) on their own.
Beyond having full time city staff working in the music industry (rather than on say providing municipal services) the mayor proudly announced the city is partnering with a foundation to create a place
Where local musicians and other creative artists will be able to access the hardware software and the expertise to take full advantage of new digital technologies and take their creativity to the next level.
Partnering is municipal-ese for investing public city resources in this case in a recording studio. Looking forward to the citys partnership in building an auto repair garage. Thats taking creativity to the next level ...
The mayor noted that the city in fact offers tutoring mentoring and other support services for owners of businesses of any type. The framers of the Constitution envisioned citizens looking to government for business advice no more than they envisioned an apology from George III.
The thought of government collecting tax money to run a business mentoring enterprise would have conjured up tea parties of even livelier magnitude than the one Boston hosted. Yet here we are with the scope of government creeping further outward each day like ink from a leaky pen radiating across the pocket of a nice new dress shirt.
Theres no argument here that a communitys success is strongly tied to the knowledge base of its citizens. Schools are important. Like many districts across the nation the Austin Independent School District is in the red. Such the case the mayor noted the city councils recent adoption of his measure instructing the city manager to identify ways in which the city can help AISD. The mayors resolution calls for exploring partnership opportunities which in one sense can mean teaming up on purchases of mutually used items to capitalize on volume discounts. In other senses its hard to imagine a limit to where this could lead. Who was it that said Follow the money?
Mayor Leffingwell next voiced his concern with what he describes as a growing disconnect between citizens and their government and cited a number of ways (beyond the aforementioned AustinCorps) he and the city are working to shrink the gap. For one city council meetings are now held outside city hall and within various areas of the community from time to time. Also a more user-friendly version of the citys website will soon be launched. Too he indicates an open willingness to work for the enactment of single-member council districts as opposed to the at-large system now sadly in place.
And in an effort to boost voter turnout a laudable objective in any democracy the mayor proposes moving elections from May to November when voters traditionally think of marching to the polls.
He also is working to reduce the cost of holding elections. As things are now the city must hold two elections in every three years. By extending council terms from three to four years and by eliminating staggering (where half the board is up for election in one year and the other half in another cycle) the city will have just one election every four years. These are all tenets of good governance and fiscal stewardship.
The mayor is also lobbying for an increase in campaign contribution limits. I like the direction hes taking here but would like to see the day when no government imposes any arbitrary limitation on the number of dollars a private citizen can give a person seeking to gain or retain public office.
Lee Leffingwell clearly cares about the city in which he was raised. Like us all he has some great ideas on-the-bubble ones and not-so-hot ones. And who could quibble with his operating philosophy:
First focus on the fundamentals; second play to our strengths; and third tackle big problems head on.
While that mantra has near universal application the number of varying definitions for fundamental could match the stars of the universe. Commuter traffic clipping along MoPac at speeds greater than 15 mph seems like a fundamental. A city-funded recording studio seems contra-constitutional.
In a phrase: Less light railing; more belt tightening.
A former mayor & State Senate Communications Director Mike Asmus managed the 2010 congressional campaign of Donna Campbell who remains in the hunt for 2012.
