AUSTIN HAS NEVER BEEN LESS SAFE THAN IT IS TODAY

The State of the City Address That Mayor Adler SHOULD Give Tonight

 

By Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek
Co-founders, Save Austin Now PAC

 

 

Austin, the Berkeley of Texas, cannot be saved as long as the University of Texas remains there (Ed.)

 
Good Thursday afternoon --

Austin Mayor Steve Adler will give his final State of the City address today at 5pm at City Hall.

Lord only knows what delusions will be required for the victory lap he will surely attempt to take.

Nonpartisan local organization Save Austin Now, which we co-founded more than two years ago, remains solely focused on improving state of living for all Austin residents.

It is in that spirit that we offer the State of the City Address that Mayor Adler should give today.

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Fellow Council Members, Manager Cronk, city officials and employees, fellow Austinites:

It has been my honor to serve as Mayor for eight years. Today I will give my final State of the City address.

These have been tough years for our city.

The July Austin Monitor poll showed that a majority of Austinites, 53%, oppose the direction the city is going, while only 18 percent believe the city is headed in the right direction.

I take responsibility for this.

We have tried some things, made many mistakes, and today I want to issue a series of apologies as I wind down my tenure. It is time I finally tell the truth about how our city is doing.

Austinites are hurting today.

Property taxes and valuations are driving Austinites out of their homes and out of Austin altogether. While we did finally increase the homestead exemption to 20%, valuation increases make that increase almost meaningless. Every year we take the maximum property tax increase (3.5%), even though other central Texas jurisdictions (like Williamson County) have chosen to reduce their property tax rate due to the growth dividend they are realizing.

Our city has never been more expensive than it is now — with the median home price soaring above $600,000. We have artificially constrained the supply of housing for years and intentionally make it impossible to quickly and efficiency build single family and multi-family housing. It takes roughly 18 months, on average, to build a new home in Austin, while in Williamson County and Hays County, it takes roughly six months. This reality is pushing Austinites further from the city center and making our commutes worse.

We have a dysfunctional permitting process, inadequate staff, a failure of coordination and de-confliction, and we consistently raise fees on home builders and developers, which threaten the economic viability of many new developments.

To every Austinite who has tried to build a new home or find a new home recently, I apologize for making this problem worse.

As it applies to public safety, it is now time for me to level with you.

Austin has never been less safe than it is today.

For seven years and eight months of my tenure as Mayor, I have consistently denied that, but after spending several weeks visiting with crime victims, law enforcement, and reviewing basic data, I have concluded that Austin has become unsafe.

In 2020 we voted unanimously to cut the police budget by 1/3rd and canceled cadet classes. That caused a historically high police attrition rate. Our inability to adequately recruit fast enough has caused a worsening staffing crisis, which is why the 911 call center now sends most calls to 311 and we have had to shut down or dramatically reduce many specialized units focused on traffic accident prevention, anti-gang efforts, anti-organized crime, sex crimes investigations, auto theft investigations, lake patrol and several other critical areas.

When combined with District Attorney Jose Garza implementing a widespread policy of not prosecuting criminals and instead specifically targeting police officers for prosecution, it has created an environment where criminals are attracted to Austin because they know they likely won’t get caught, and if they do, they likely won’t be prosecuted.

Although I have not mentioned it publicly, I have been particularly distressed about DA Garza’s failure to prosecute sex crimes (which he promised to do better than his predecessor) and gun crimes in our city. I guess I could call him or maybe even make a public statement.

Yesterday’s presumed homicide of a homeless individual in a greenbelt in Southwest Austin was the 51st murder of the year. There is a report that the 52nd homicide may have occurred last night in Zilker. Last year we set an all-time record for murders, which we may break this year.

To every victim of violent crime, I want to apologize for making Austin less safe.

But it is not just police who we have undermined.

Our emergency medical service (EMS) personnel are dealing with an even more urgent staffing crisis, caused by poor pay and poor retention. We must help EMS solve their staffing crisis immediately. I cannot explain why I haven’t done this already.

Just this week, APD announced they will end mandatory overtime for 911 call center employees and will assign two sectors to each 911 call employee who is on duty. This will increase wait times for the most urgent 911 calls, surely leading to more severe injuries and greater loss of life.

Even though our fire department passed mandatory arbitration in May 2021 when voters approved it, we are fighting the fire union. They’ve needed a new truck for several years, but I have consistently blocked it.

 

Homeless encampment, not in San Francisco, but in Austin

 

One aspect of public safety is homelessness. Our city has adopted a ‘Housing First’ policy, to emulate the ‘obvious success’ of San Francisco. Over the past two years we have purchased four homeless hotels, none of which currently house homeless individuals. One of which we promised to secure, but didn’t, so major damage and theft occurred, costing taxpayers even more money. Each homeless hotel is supposed to house fewer than 100 people and generally costs $8-$12 million. We buy these even though local opposition to these purchases is overwhelming. Last week we gave a no bid contractor to a failing California nonprofit to manage the ARCH downtown.

While Community First Village and Camp Esperanza, run by The Other Ones Foundation, are having success, the city has failed our homeless population, which has surely swelled to at least 5,000 people since we passed the camping ordinance.

In May 2021 voters overwhelmingly chose to reinstate the camping ban through Prop B, despite my opposition and the opposition of nine council members. In spite of that, we have ignored the will of the voters and refuse to enforce Prop B. Even worse, we have not advanced any proven, effective solutions for homelessness despite spending over $70 million a year on it. With this record of success, we are now advancing a $515 million plan to house 3,000 homeless people over the years ($70,000/homeless person per year).

Remember: Last fall I said we do not have the money to hire the same number of police officers that we had two years ago, but we have $515 million to house 3,000 homeless people.

While law enforcement experts will certify that our homeless population has grown, I have tried to hide this fact by ensuring there was no point in time count for the past two years. Ignorance is bliss.

We have now discussed affordability and public safety. We must also discuss transportation.

Despite my cheap claim to support Vision Zero to reduce traffic fatalities, our policies have directly contributed to an increase in traffic fatalities. When you don’t have a motorcycle traffic enforcement unit, it turns out that people drive more recklessly and that causes more accidents. I wish someone had warned me about this. Maybe we will fix this later.

The managed lane on MoPac is empty except during rush hour, when it backs up for miles. I-35 remains one of the most congested highways in the country. The mobility bond, which I campaigned for in 2016 and which promised to complete all work in seven years, has barely started. Project Connect, one of my biggest accomplishments, raised property taxes by 22% for every city resident (IN PERPETUITY!), has nearly doubled in cost in one year to $10 billion, and will displace as many as 300,000 Austinites when we complete the use of eminent domain.

Our airport remains inadequate for our city. We have desperately need a new runway, and we need to acquire the South Terminal for the future. I have failed to ensure any of this happens. For much of the summer, TSA lines were more than an hour and in some cases three hours.

I have consistently opposed efforts to improve transparency and accountability in government, opposing Prop K (the outside audit of the city budget). We do not track the effectiveness of spending and many of our worst performing department and agencies are a black box financially.

We’ve had four boil water notices in three years. I did not call for a change in leadership at Austin Water, even though one finally occurred after the public backlash.

For all of our good work, I am pleased that we passed a 40 percent salary increase for the Mayor and the City Council, taking our annual salary from $83,000 to $116,000 and now including us in the city retirement system. For those who say we get nothing done, we were able to unveil and pass this immense pay raise in less than 72 hours (with virtually zero public input)! This change takes effect before the end of the year so that retiring members who are term limited can financially benefit. We deserve this pay raise because of our record of policy success, as I have outlined above.

The State of Our City is Great!

Thank you.