The good news is that – because of YOUR efforts — the Council spent many hours at last Tuesday’s work session

evaluating the performance of City Manager Marc Ott. Their discussions will continue in this Tuesday’s work session.

Unfortunately, their entire discussion was behind closed doors in executive session. So far, Councilman Zimmerman (District 6) is the only member who has promised to make his review public.

Why is the review of the city’s top executive being held behind closed doors? Our best guess is the “growth at any cost” culture at City Hall remains unbroken. Witness, The Grove – in Rosedale (Council Districts 7 and 10):

1.  This is how Marc Ott lost $18 million and a beautiful park — he sat on this City of Austin Offer Letter.

2.  The Grove appears to be another Pilot Knob in the making. The terms are even worse for Austin’s current residents. Watch for a 100% waiver of all development fees if only
5% of the housing is “reasonably priced”, according to city affordable housing guidelines for a land trust.

3. Rosedale resident and architect, Chris Allen, wrote about The Grove’s abuse of the public process:

“By perverting the public process, cutting back-room deals and withholding public documents, Milestone/Topfer and its allies, along with person(s) at the top of our City Government have declared an all-out WAR on our neighborhoods, folks.” Read Allen’s full statement here.

1. Reach your Council member and the Mayor before Tuesday and tell them to replace Marc Ott and to put their review into writing or to just release it.
2. If you haven’t yet, please review our last email with videos, then fill out your own performance review at Manage Austin Better here.