Council Members Approve Bond Proposal After Careful Consideration

As recently as mid-July, City Council Member Krista Laine was a hard no on the renewed push by some of her Council colleagues to put a bond proposal on the fall ballot. Laine’s principal argument wasn’t so much that city leaders needed to wait two more years before asking voters to approve more debt, as Mayor Kirk Watson was emphasizing. It was that, by her calculation, only $7 million of the $390 million in investments included in the bond would actually be spent on her constituents in District 6, despite the fact that the Northwest Austin district is about as populous as any other in the city. 

Laine told her fellow Council members at a July 20 meeting that the bond under discussion was another example of Austin’s “historical underinvestment” in D6. “My own district is very likely to vote against this bond, especially the way that it is currently composed, by overwhelming margins,” Laine said. “We … have largely lost hope that the city sees the very real needs on the ground – the many low-income families that have moved from Central Austin into my district – despite my loud and persistent voice on this matter.”  

Laine’s message clearly broke through to her colleagues. On July 28, CM Mike Siegel wrote on the Council message board that he and Mayor Pro Tem Chito Vela had asked city staff to split the bond proposal into two separate packages and make sure the projects to be funded were distributed more equitably across the city’s 10 districts. On Aug. 4, staff came back with a pair of slimmed-down propositions totaling $295 million that spread around the funding. 

Proposition A would pledge $260 million to Austin Parks and Recreation to create and improve pools, trails, playgrounds, and other public park spaces. The money would be prioritized for the Gus Garcia Recreation Center, the Doris Miller Auditorium, Mayfield Park, the Williamson Creek Trail, Evergreen Cemetery, the Onion Creek all-abilities playground, the Brentwood

Neighborhood Park, the St. Edward’s Greenbelt, Zilker Metro Park, Circle C Metro Park, and Mt. Bonnell Park, among others. Proposition B would include $35 million for a pair of libraries on the outskirts of town. The Hampton Branch Library at Oak Hill in Southwest Austin would receive $20 million. Another $15 million would be allocated to create a library for the Colony Park neighborhood in far East Austin. 

Council voted 8-3 at the Aug. 4 meeting to advance the bond propositions and they will now appear on the November ballot. According to the city, if voters approve the bonds, they will increase property taxes on the owner of a median-value home by about $40 a year. Mayor Watson and CMs Marc Duchen and José Velásquez voted against the proposals, citing concerns that they will further erode Austin’s affordability and decrease residents’ trust in city government.   

After the Council vote, Laine’s office sent out a press release announcing that the new Proposition A had flipped her vote. Laine estimates that the reworked proposition triples the amount of money allocated for her district, bringing it up to $20 million. If approved, Proposition A could fund improvements to D6’s St. Edward’s Park, Springwoods Park, Old Lampasas Pocket Park, and the Riata Neighborhood Park. It could also provide money to acquire land for a new recreation center. Laine pointed out that D6 currently has only one small rec center open to the public, despite the fact that the district covers an area larger than San Francisco. 

“The possibility of adding a multi-purpose community center is so exciting,” Laine told us. “It’s something that I hear about from constituents frequently. At every single public meeting that we have, people always say, ‘We really need a rec center. We really need a senior center.’”

CM Paige Ellis told us that the Hampton Branch Library is a much-used community asset and one of the only publicly accessible city buildings in the suburban area of her District 8. “It’s one of the few shared community spaces where constituents get to see their dollars at work,” Ellis said. “That’s why getting Hampton Branch into this bond matters to me, and why I share my colleagues’ goal of making sure overlooked and underserved parts of town get the resources they need, regardless of district. No matter where people live in Austin, they need to see the city working for them.” 

One of the ways that city staff reduced the bond investments from $390 million to $295 million was by yanking a plethora of transportation projects that had been in the original proposal. But it’s possible some of those priorities may still get addressed. On Aug. 6, Vela and CM Ryan Alter each suggested using certificates of obligation, a funding method that lets the city borrow money without holding a tax rate election, to create more sidewalks, bike lanes, speed bumps, and other safety-related projects. 

Vela told Council that using certificates of obligation, instead of bond money, would keep active transportation programs going. “Some of them, sidewalks in particular, are running out of money,” he said. “We’ve got these crews out there working and I think we need to keep them out in the field working on the sidewalks and bike lanes and trails.”

The post Council Members Approve Bond Proposal After Careful Consideration appeared first on The Austin Chronicle.