Austin May 2021 Propositions
Apr. 17th, 2021 08:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebYikes, the next election is coming up soon. You can look up what's on your ballot. (Type in your first and last name and birthday, click on the left most blue button (Look Me Up), wait a weirdly long time, then click on the tiny graphic labeled "View My Ballot" in the bottom right corner.)
Once again, the League of Women Voters (LWV) is not providing pros and cons, merely explanations.
My ballot will have the City of Austin Propositions A - H, so I have researched them and share my findings below. I feel pretty ignorant about some of these--please share your knowledge in the comments!
This time my goal is to figure out the problem each proposition is trying to solve (to the best of my ability) and then decide whether I think the proposition is a good solution.
Proposition A - the fire fighter arbitration one
The problem - Per LWV, the required signatures were collected by the Austin Firefighters Association (AFA), a union. In the last six negotiation cycles, negotiations between the AFA and the city have come to an impasse. Currently if both sides don't agree to arbitration by a neutral third party, it doesn't happen. This proposition would allow either the AFA or the city to force arbitration.
Will it work? The AFA president says that what a stalemate does is "create personnel shortages, it creates legal costs and costs citizens tens of millions of dollars that goes toward personnel shortages because hiring slows down." He says the proposition would take the politics out of bargaining.
But the interim budget officer says "binding arbitration may not take a holistic view of the entire city budget," "non-public safety services — such as public health, parks, libraries and housing — may need to be constrained or cut to afford the increases in the fire department budget," and thus it "may result in a collective bargaining agreement that is not in the best interest of the city and there is a heightened potential for a downgrade from the credit rating agencies."
To me, it sounds like somebody in the city is not doing their job and the solution is to replace them with someone who can and will do the job. Meanwhile I guess a neutral third party could be that person.
Currently, I feel I do not know enough about what's really going on to make an informed opinion.
Sources:
* League of Women Voters
* KXAN
* The Austin Chronicle
Edited 4/18/21 to add: It looks like San Antonio has a proposal that does the opposite, repealing a statute giving police the power to collectively bargain, so that there would be nothing to force either side to negotiate. Which I found out because Julian Castro says "Police unions have long stood in the way of accountability for officer misconduct. In San Antonio, the Proposition B ballot initiative would ensure the public, not the police union, determines officer discipline and accountability."
Edited 4/19/21 to add that per The Austin Monitor, Firefighters say that causing an impasse 'is a common management tactic. “Management hopes to break the will of the firefighters by withholding pay and benefits for at least one year by driving the firefighters to impasse.”'
They also explain how it works: 'the two sides will receive a list of nine arbitrators from the American Arbitration Association. The two sides will winnow down the list by striking arbitrators until they reach agreement on one. The decision of the arbitrator or arbitrators is final.'
I plan to vote yes.
Proposition B - the homeless people one
The PAC Save Austin Now collected the required signatures. They make a lot of interesting points about what has happened since the previous no-sitting/no-camping ban was rescinded:
* crime is up, including murders
* homeless people in shelters decreased by 20%, those not in shleters increased 45%
* trash and other environmental problems have worsened
And yet although their web page on Housing the Homeless has ideas like designated campgrounds, more shelters, and having rules about where people can defecate and light fires, all they actually put in this proposition is that people shouldn't be allowed to sit, lie down, camp, or panhandle aggresively in certain hoity-toity parts of town. They don't talk about how to make shelters into places where people would prefer to live than out in the open.
The only thing I like about this proposition is the penalty against aggressive soliticitation. But aggressive confrontation is already illegal per KUT.
Making it illegal to sit or lie down outside is ridiculous. There are benches at bus stops for example. This is obviously the kind of law that would be enforced only against certain people.
I'm voting no.
Updated 4/27/21 to add this, from Jen Margulies (written 4/26/26) - '
'Something I'm hearing a lot: "But if we don't vote for Prop B, what will we do about homelessness? These camps are horrible. We have to do something!" Valid questions, and I wanted to share some responses to help folks understand that *we have better choices than Prop B*:
'1. The City of Austin just wrapped up a long-awaited Homelessness Summit that brought together homeless services organizations like ECHO and groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Austin Alliance, and they've developed a solid plan to deal with homelessness. It's the same kind of "housing-first" plan that has reduced homelessness *by 90%* in cities across the US, including Salt Lake City and New Orleans.
'2. Austin's new plan aims to house 3,000 people by 2024. (Link below for a recent article with details.) As of the last Point in Time count of unhoused Austinites, there were 2,500 people living on the streets. A plan of this size isn't low-cost, of course.
'3. The question isn't do we pass Prop B or do nothing about homelessness. The question is, do we invest in a plan that we know works to help individual homeless people and prevent homelessness on the whole -- OR -- do we recriminalize homelessness & throw money at police to track down and ticket unhoused people? Either option is expensive. We can't do both, and ONLY ONE WORKS. After Austin criminalized homelessness in 1997, the number of people living without shelter in Austin rose steadily. That's because rents went up and affordable housing went down**. Police can't do anything about that.
'4. As we provide more housing and resources, the camps themselves are going to get smaller. Austin currently has capacity to house only around 33% of the unhoused people in the city. When street outreach teams go out to the encampments to offer housing, the best they can do for most people is get them on a waiting list. The new plan will change that.
'5. In the meantime, until folks can get housed, it is actually safer for people to be in the encampments than to be hiding in woods or ditches where they are vulnerable to assault (the number of homeless women and young people and sick elderly people beaten and sexually assaulted is horrifying) or at risk of natural disasters, like drowning in flash floods. (A drowning tragedy is part of what led to the 2019 repeal of the first ban.) Advocates brought about 400 people in from the winter storm this February, which was possible because they could find them in the camps. Many more people would have frozen to death had they been hiding from police. We can add more port-a-potties and trash cans to encampments and make things cleaner. We can't make hiding in the woods safer.
'6. To sum up: we now have a really solid plan for drastically reducing homelessness in Austin in the near-future. So there are two questions: 1.) Will we invest in that plan, or will we pass Prop B and invest instead in the failed strategy of policing homelessness away? 2.) If we're going to implement this solid plan for the near-future, what will we do to decrease harm in the short term? If we send unhoused people back into hiding, expose them to police harassment, and create crimes that generate tickets that broke people can't pay, we put them at risk for violence and we set up a domino effect where an unpaid ticket leads to a warrant leads to arrest leads to even more difficulty getting housing or a job (can't pass a criminal background check).
'So. If you want to DO SOMETHING about the camps and DO SOMETHING about ending homelessness, VOTE NO ON PROP B.'
Proposition C - the police oversight one
Currently the Director of the Office of Police Oversight is appointed by the city manager. This proposition would allow the City Council to change how the Director of Police Oversight is appointed or removed.
Per The Austin Chronicle, the problem is that 'The Office of Police Oversight is itself overseen by the same city manager who hires and fires the chief of police. That creates a conflict of interest when OPO and the Austin Police Department disagree on policy recommendations or decisions regarding officer discipline, as independent oversight will inevitably entail. The current structure improves upon the former Police Monitor, which had to operate under rules agreed to by the police union, but if Council could appoint the OPO director as it does the city clerk, city auditor, and municipal court officials, that would be better. Or, to go further, Council could appoint citizens to organize and govern the OPO themselves. This charter amendment gives Council the power to decide how to structure the OPO and makes those enhancements possible.'
Brain hurts. Wait, my city council member says, "If we want police accountability, then we need our police oversight office to be as independent as possible. In other cities, the Office of Police Oversight is independently appointed or is overseen by a civilian board, but right now our options as a city are limited. By making this proposed charter change in May, the community and city council have the opportunity to create more transparency and accountability of our police department in the future."
Okay, I'm currently thinking of voting yes.
Proposition D - the mayoral election timing one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform.
More people vote in presidential elections than in midterm elections and those people tend to be a more representative sample of the population than midterm voters, so moving the mayoral election to the former time period is an easy way to make mayoral elections more inclusive without voters having to change how they do things.
In neither case are we spending extra money to hold the election, so I don't care that much. I'll probably vote yes.
Proposition E - the ranked-choice voting one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform.
I love this one! (Except that it applies only to city elections.) It means you don't have to decide whether to vote for your favorite candidate or for the candidate you believe is most likely to beat your least-favorite candidate. You can do both! And it removes the burden and expense of additional (run-off) elections. So it's win-win.
In case I'm wrong, I looked for negatives.
Democracy Journal says it doesn't work right when people don't include enough candidates in their rankings. Well, most people don't vote in run-offs either, so I don't see how this is worse.
Ah, the League of Women Voters has a list of pros and cons after all.
I'm voting yes.
Proposition F - the strong mayor one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform. They say 'Today, the council has no ability to override the executive’s neglect of a council resolution. Our amendment provides the council with ultimately legislative authority, including the ability to override a mayoral veto. Today, the council cannot give direct instruction to executive appointees. Our amendment provides the council with more authority to oversee and hold accountable those appointees. Today, the council has no say in the appointment of the city attorney — it is exclusively the power of the city manager. Our amendment provides the council with the power to confirm or reject city attorney nominees, as well as the power to independently fire the city attorney.'
To me, that sounds like the problem is that the city manager is not doing their job.
Per the LWV, currently the city council passes legislation, approves the budget, and appoints a city manager to oversee the day-to-day operations of the city, draft the budget, and appoint department heads. The mayor represents the city and is an equal member of the city council. The mayor’s vote does not count more than other council members’ votes.
So, it sounds like the solution is for the city council to hire a better city manager.
Still, now is a good time to research whether a strong mayor strategy would beat a city manager strategy in general. Here are some interesting perspectives I've found.
The California City Management Foundation and and International City/County Management Association - The council-manager form of government was invented to fight 'widespread corruption, graft, and nepotism' and to emphasize 'professional training and accountability.'
The Austin Monitor - But also 'Austinites for Progressive Reform has linked the adoption of the council-manager form of government to the Jim Crow era. The NAACP’s Linder is quoted as saying, “The 1928 Master Plan,” which relegated people of color to East Austin, “came as a direct result of the installation of the strong manager government in 1926.”'
Governing - San Diego's bigwigs blame 'the manager-run system for the current huge budget shortfall and the fact that the city pension plan is seriously underfunded. They claim that recent city managers have lacked the political strength or mandate to deal effectively with excessive demands from public employee unions.'
In general, larger cities are switching from city managers to mayors [and so maybe it's time for us to realize that Austin is a big city?]. On the other hand, 'In 2000, when Governing graded the 35 largest cities in the country on their management practices, the two top performers, Phoenix and Austin, both happened to be long-time bastions of city manager government.'
The Austin Chronicle - They see this proposition as 'a way to increase the clout of future City Hall insiders.'
And then, from possibly related personal experience - I don't know how competent a mayor would be compared to a professional city manager, but it sure sounds like being a mayor is hard enough as it is. Also I do know how competent a faculty advisor is compared to a professional staff advisor (in general). If you need to know the best way to drop a course, which two courses you should never take together because the workload would be crazy, which courses you should take ASAP because they're only offered once every two years, etc., you will most likely do better with a professional staff advisor.
Because I feel that centralizing power does tend to lead to corruption and to dilute the voices of minorities and because I like the idea of hiring a professionally trained city manager but also having a bully pulpit mayor, I'm voting no.
Proposition G - the extra City Council district one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform. They say 'Without a new district, city council districts will be nearly 30% larger at the end of this decade than they were when the 10-1 system was implemented. Adding a new district will ensure city hall remains accessible to grassroots voices and grassroots campaign budgets. Adding a new district will also give the 2021 Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission the capacity to strengthen our Black and Latino opportunity districts and draw Austin’s first Asian-American opportunity district.'
Per The Austin Chronicle, 'Much has been made of the potential for gridlock on an even-numbered Council, which will be the result if Propositions F and G are not both approved or both rejected. We think that danger is overblown; Council decisions are rarely that closely divided, and requiring a 6-4 or 7-5 vote to pass something is just not that big a burden. Prop G backers (including APR, which still supports it) say more districts would be a general good and may be necessary to sustain Black or restore Asian representation on Council. But City Hall has not only a charter review process that could consider this question, but a charter-established redistricting process that could handle it even better if given the proper opportunity.'
It seems to me like 10 voices is enough to allow for a diversity of viewpoints and is already a lot of people to have on a team. And it's an extra salary to pay (per The Austin Bulldog, $62,795 per year plus an automobile allowance of $5,400 a year plus a cell phone allowance of $75 a month).
I plan to vote no.
Proposition H - the public campaign finance one
The city clerk would 'provide up to two $25 vouchers to every registered voter who may contribute them to candidates for city office who meet the program requirements.' Per the LWV, 'If a voter does not use the vouchers, the money is returned to the program’s budget.'
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform. They say 'Only a fraction of Austin voters donate to candidates for local office, and of those who donate, the overwhelming majority reside in wealthier areas of the city. This pattern results in wealthier members of the community having an outsized voice in elections across the city, even in districts in which they do not live. Our Democracy Dollars amendment helps to balance that equation. The program provides all registered voters with one $25 voucher for each of their city council and mayoral elections, which those voters can then donate to the candidates of their choice — in their own district. In 2018, the Charter Review Commission endorsed Democracy Dollars as “fulfill[ing] the purpose of single-member districts,” and we are enthusiastic about this opportunity to align our campaign finance system with our district-based system of government.'
Per The Austin Chronicle, 'Public campaign financing automatically conjures images of the most eccentric, low-quality fringe candidates you've ever seen on a ballot getting your tax money to compete, which for many somehow feels more outrageous than a status quo that's filled with abuses and inequities. That was the main argument against public financing back in 2002, when Austin voters roundly rejected a "Clean Campaigns" plan; the "Democracy Dollars" concept put forth by Austinites for Progressive Reform is more modest than that one was. Based on a model now used in Seattle, residents would get two $25 vouchers to donate to candidates of their choice who meet thresholds for public support (citizen signatures, donations from others). It's not a lot of money, but it's a start.
The current Fair Campaign Ordinance, which directs lobbyist-registration fee revenue to candidates who agree to its spending limits (which most don't), is obscure in its mechanics and effects and isn't at all a reflection of public support. So this would be better, and yet better still if, as Council Member Greg Casar has proposed with APR's assent, the city extends the program to residents who aren't yet citizens or voters but who can legally donate to campaigns, and limits self-funding by DemDollar recipients.'
We like to pretend that money can't buy elections, but also know that election campaigns cost money and so attracting rich donors is tempting. I have often heard this sort of thing proposed as a way to make campaign financing more representative. So to me, the main bad part is more taxes.
I plan to vote yes.
Once again, the League of Women Voters (LWV) is not providing pros and cons, merely explanations.
My ballot will have the City of Austin Propositions A - H, so I have researched them and share my findings below. I feel pretty ignorant about some of these--please share your knowledge in the comments!
This time my goal is to figure out the problem each proposition is trying to solve (to the best of my ability) and then decide whether I think the proposition is a good solution.
Proposition A - the fire fighter arbitration one
The problem - Per LWV, the required signatures were collected by the Austin Firefighters Association (AFA), a union. In the last six negotiation cycles, negotiations between the AFA and the city have come to an impasse. Currently if both sides don't agree to arbitration by a neutral third party, it doesn't happen. This proposition would allow either the AFA or the city to force arbitration.
Will it work? The AFA president says that what a stalemate does is "create personnel shortages, it creates legal costs and costs citizens tens of millions of dollars that goes toward personnel shortages because hiring slows down." He says the proposition would take the politics out of bargaining.
But the interim budget officer says "binding arbitration may not take a holistic view of the entire city budget," "non-public safety services — such as public health, parks, libraries and housing — may need to be constrained or cut to afford the increases in the fire department budget," and thus it "may result in a collective bargaining agreement that is not in the best interest of the city and there is a heightened potential for a downgrade from the credit rating agencies."
To me, it sounds like somebody in the city is not doing their job and the solution is to replace them with someone who can and will do the job. Meanwhile I guess a neutral third party could be that person.
Currently, I feel I do not know enough about what's really going on to make an informed opinion.
Sources:
* League of Women Voters
* KXAN
* The Austin Chronicle
Edited 4/18/21 to add: It looks like San Antonio has a proposal that does the opposite, repealing a statute giving police the power to collectively bargain, so that there would be nothing to force either side to negotiate. Which I found out because Julian Castro says "Police unions have long stood in the way of accountability for officer misconduct. In San Antonio, the Proposition B ballot initiative would ensure the public, not the police union, determines officer discipline and accountability."
Edited 4/19/21 to add that per The Austin Monitor, Firefighters say that causing an impasse 'is a common management tactic. “Management hopes to break the will of the firefighters by withholding pay and benefits for at least one year by driving the firefighters to impasse.”'
They also explain how it works: 'the two sides will receive a list of nine arbitrators from the American Arbitration Association. The two sides will winnow down the list by striking arbitrators until they reach agreement on one. The decision of the arbitrator or arbitrators is final.'
I plan to vote yes.
Proposition B - the homeless people one
The PAC Save Austin Now collected the required signatures. They make a lot of interesting points about what has happened since the previous no-sitting/no-camping ban was rescinded:
* crime is up, including murders
* homeless people in shelters decreased by 20%, those not in shleters increased 45%
* trash and other environmental problems have worsened
And yet although their web page on Housing the Homeless has ideas like designated campgrounds, more shelters, and having rules about where people can defecate and light fires, all they actually put in this proposition is that people shouldn't be allowed to sit, lie down, camp, or panhandle aggresively in certain hoity-toity parts of town. They don't talk about how to make shelters into places where people would prefer to live than out in the open.
The only thing I like about this proposition is the penalty against aggressive soliticitation. But aggressive confrontation is already illegal per KUT.
Making it illegal to sit or lie down outside is ridiculous. There are benches at bus stops for example. This is obviously the kind of law that would be enforced only against certain people.
I'm voting no.
Updated 4/27/21 to add this, from Jen Margulies (written 4/26/26) - '
'Something I'm hearing a lot: "But if we don't vote for Prop B, what will we do about homelessness? These camps are horrible. We have to do something!" Valid questions, and I wanted to share some responses to help folks understand that *we have better choices than Prop B*:
'1. The City of Austin just wrapped up a long-awaited Homelessness Summit that brought together homeless services organizations like ECHO and groups like the Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Austin Alliance, and they've developed a solid plan to deal with homelessness. It's the same kind of "housing-first" plan that has reduced homelessness *by 90%* in cities across the US, including Salt Lake City and New Orleans.
'2. Austin's new plan aims to house 3,000 people by 2024. (Link below for a recent article with details.) As of the last Point in Time count of unhoused Austinites, there were 2,500 people living on the streets. A plan of this size isn't low-cost, of course.
'3. The question isn't do we pass Prop B or do nothing about homelessness. The question is, do we invest in a plan that we know works to help individual homeless people and prevent homelessness on the whole -- OR -- do we recriminalize homelessness & throw money at police to track down and ticket unhoused people? Either option is expensive. We can't do both, and ONLY ONE WORKS. After Austin criminalized homelessness in 1997, the number of people living without shelter in Austin rose steadily. That's because rents went up and affordable housing went down**. Police can't do anything about that.
'4. As we provide more housing and resources, the camps themselves are going to get smaller. Austin currently has capacity to house only around 33% of the unhoused people in the city. When street outreach teams go out to the encampments to offer housing, the best they can do for most people is get them on a waiting list. The new plan will change that.
'5. In the meantime, until folks can get housed, it is actually safer for people to be in the encampments than to be hiding in woods or ditches where they are vulnerable to assault (the number of homeless women and young people and sick elderly people beaten and sexually assaulted is horrifying) or at risk of natural disasters, like drowning in flash floods. (A drowning tragedy is part of what led to the 2019 repeal of the first ban.) Advocates brought about 400 people in from the winter storm this February, which was possible because they could find them in the camps. Many more people would have frozen to death had they been hiding from police. We can add more port-a-potties and trash cans to encampments and make things cleaner. We can't make hiding in the woods safer.
'6. To sum up: we now have a really solid plan for drastically reducing homelessness in Austin in the near-future. So there are two questions: 1.) Will we invest in that plan, or will we pass Prop B and invest instead in the failed strategy of policing homelessness away? 2.) If we're going to implement this solid plan for the near-future, what will we do to decrease harm in the short term? If we send unhoused people back into hiding, expose them to police harassment, and create crimes that generate tickets that broke people can't pay, we put them at risk for violence and we set up a domino effect where an unpaid ticket leads to a warrant leads to arrest leads to even more difficulty getting housing or a job (can't pass a criminal background check).
'So. If you want to DO SOMETHING about the camps and DO SOMETHING about ending homelessness, VOTE NO ON PROP B.'
Proposition C - the police oversight one
Currently the Director of the Office of Police Oversight is appointed by the city manager. This proposition would allow the City Council to change how the Director of Police Oversight is appointed or removed.
Per The Austin Chronicle, the problem is that 'The Office of Police Oversight is itself overseen by the same city manager who hires and fires the chief of police. That creates a conflict of interest when OPO and the Austin Police Department disagree on policy recommendations or decisions regarding officer discipline, as independent oversight will inevitably entail. The current structure improves upon the former Police Monitor, which had to operate under rules agreed to by the police union, but if Council could appoint the OPO director as it does the city clerk, city auditor, and municipal court officials, that would be better. Or, to go further, Council could appoint citizens to organize and govern the OPO themselves. This charter amendment gives Council the power to decide how to structure the OPO and makes those enhancements possible.'
Brain hurts. Wait, my city council member says, "If we want police accountability, then we need our police oversight office to be as independent as possible. In other cities, the Office of Police Oversight is independently appointed or is overseen by a civilian board, but right now our options as a city are limited. By making this proposed charter change in May, the community and city council have the opportunity to create more transparency and accountability of our police department in the future."
Okay, I'm currently thinking of voting yes.
Proposition D - the mayoral election timing one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform.
More people vote in presidential elections than in midterm elections and those people tend to be a more representative sample of the population than midterm voters, so moving the mayoral election to the former time period is an easy way to make mayoral elections more inclusive without voters having to change how they do things.
In neither case are we spending extra money to hold the election, so I don't care that much. I'll probably vote yes.
Proposition E - the ranked-choice voting one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform.
I love this one! (Except that it applies only to city elections.) It means you don't have to decide whether to vote for your favorite candidate or for the candidate you believe is most likely to beat your least-favorite candidate. You can do both! And it removes the burden and expense of additional (run-off) elections. So it's win-win.
In case I'm wrong, I looked for negatives.
Democracy Journal says it doesn't work right when people don't include enough candidates in their rankings. Well, most people don't vote in run-offs either, so I don't see how this is worse.
Ah, the League of Women Voters has a list of pros and cons after all.
I'm voting yes.
Proposition F - the strong mayor one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform. They say 'Today, the council has no ability to override the executive’s neglect of a council resolution. Our amendment provides the council with ultimately legislative authority, including the ability to override a mayoral veto. Today, the council cannot give direct instruction to executive appointees. Our amendment provides the council with more authority to oversee and hold accountable those appointees. Today, the council has no say in the appointment of the city attorney — it is exclusively the power of the city manager. Our amendment provides the council with the power to confirm or reject city attorney nominees, as well as the power to independently fire the city attorney.'
To me, that sounds like the problem is that the city manager is not doing their job.
Per the LWV, currently the city council passes legislation, approves the budget, and appoints a city manager to oversee the day-to-day operations of the city, draft the budget, and appoint department heads. The mayor represents the city and is an equal member of the city council. The mayor’s vote does not count more than other council members’ votes.
So, it sounds like the solution is for the city council to hire a better city manager.
Still, now is a good time to research whether a strong mayor strategy would beat a city manager strategy in general. Here are some interesting perspectives I've found.
The California City Management Foundation and and International City/County Management Association - The council-manager form of government was invented to fight 'widespread corruption, graft, and nepotism' and to emphasize 'professional training and accountability.'
The Austin Monitor - But also 'Austinites for Progressive Reform has linked the adoption of the council-manager form of government to the Jim Crow era. The NAACP’s Linder is quoted as saying, “The 1928 Master Plan,” which relegated people of color to East Austin, “came as a direct result of the installation of the strong manager government in 1926.”'
Governing - San Diego's bigwigs blame 'the manager-run system for the current huge budget shortfall and the fact that the city pension plan is seriously underfunded. They claim that recent city managers have lacked the political strength or mandate to deal effectively with excessive demands from public employee unions.'
In general, larger cities are switching from city managers to mayors [and so maybe it's time for us to realize that Austin is a big city?]. On the other hand, 'In 2000, when Governing graded the 35 largest cities in the country on their management practices, the two top performers, Phoenix and Austin, both happened to be long-time bastions of city manager government.'
The Austin Chronicle - They see this proposition as 'a way to increase the clout of future City Hall insiders.'
And then, from possibly related personal experience - I don't know how competent a mayor would be compared to a professional city manager, but it sure sounds like being a mayor is hard enough as it is. Also I do know how competent a faculty advisor is compared to a professional staff advisor (in general). If you need to know the best way to drop a course, which two courses you should never take together because the workload would be crazy, which courses you should take ASAP because they're only offered once every two years, etc., you will most likely do better with a professional staff advisor.
Because I feel that centralizing power does tend to lead to corruption and to dilute the voices of minorities and because I like the idea of hiring a professionally trained city manager but also having a bully pulpit mayor, I'm voting no.
Proposition G - the extra City Council district one
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform. They say 'Without a new district, city council districts will be nearly 30% larger at the end of this decade than they were when the 10-1 system was implemented. Adding a new district will ensure city hall remains accessible to grassroots voices and grassroots campaign budgets. Adding a new district will also give the 2021 Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission the capacity to strengthen our Black and Latino opportunity districts and draw Austin’s first Asian-American opportunity district.'
Per The Austin Chronicle, 'Much has been made of the potential for gridlock on an even-numbered Council, which will be the result if Propositions F and G are not both approved or both rejected. We think that danger is overblown; Council decisions are rarely that closely divided, and requiring a 6-4 or 7-5 vote to pass something is just not that big a burden. Prop G backers (including APR, which still supports it) say more districts would be a general good and may be necessary to sustain Black or restore Asian representation on Council. But City Hall has not only a charter review process that could consider this question, but a charter-established redistricting process that could handle it even better if given the proper opportunity.'
It seems to me like 10 voices is enough to allow for a diversity of viewpoints and is already a lot of people to have on a team. And it's an extra salary to pay (per The Austin Bulldog, $62,795 per year plus an automobile allowance of $5,400 a year plus a cell phone allowance of $75 a month).
I plan to vote no.
Proposition H - the public campaign finance one
The city clerk would 'provide up to two $25 vouchers to every registered voter who may contribute them to candidates for city office who meet the program requirements.' Per the LWV, 'If a voter does not use the vouchers, the money is returned to the program’s budget.'
The required signatures were collected by the PAC Austinites for Progressive Reform. They say 'Only a fraction of Austin voters donate to candidates for local office, and of those who donate, the overwhelming majority reside in wealthier areas of the city. This pattern results in wealthier members of the community having an outsized voice in elections across the city, even in districts in which they do not live. Our Democracy Dollars amendment helps to balance that equation. The program provides all registered voters with one $25 voucher for each of their city council and mayoral elections, which those voters can then donate to the candidates of their choice — in their own district. In 2018, the Charter Review Commission endorsed Democracy Dollars as “fulfill[ing] the purpose of single-member districts,” and we are enthusiastic about this opportunity to align our campaign finance system with our district-based system of government.'
Per The Austin Chronicle, 'Public campaign financing automatically conjures images of the most eccentric, low-quality fringe candidates you've ever seen on a ballot getting your tax money to compete, which for many somehow feels more outrageous than a status quo that's filled with abuses and inequities. That was the main argument against public financing back in 2002, when Austin voters roundly rejected a "Clean Campaigns" plan; the "Democracy Dollars" concept put forth by Austinites for Progressive Reform is more modest than that one was. Based on a model now used in Seattle, residents would get two $25 vouchers to donate to candidates of their choice who meet thresholds for public support (citizen signatures, donations from others). It's not a lot of money, but it's a start.
The current Fair Campaign Ordinance, which directs lobbyist-registration fee revenue to candidates who agree to its spending limits (which most don't), is obscure in its mechanics and effects and isn't at all a reflection of public support. So this would be better, and yet better still if, as Council Member Greg Casar has proposed with APR's assent, the city extends the program to residents who aren't yet citizens or voters but who can legally donate to campaigns, and limits self-funding by DemDollar recipients.'
We like to pretend that money can't buy elections, but also know that election campaigns cost money and so attracting rich donors is tempting. I have often heard this sort of thing proposed as a way to make campaign financing more representative. So to me, the main bad part is more taxes.
I plan to vote yes.