With hope and optimism ChangeAustin.org welcomes the newly sworn in Austin City Council. The past City Council, led by outgoing Mayor Will Wynn, appeared to suffer from a Patty Hearst syndrome (better known as Stockholm Syndrome). As captives of the real estate industry, their sympathy and identity with their captors began last year to catch the attention of voters from across Austin’s political spectrum when 129,209 of them voted for Prop 2 (to halt the Domain mall subsidy and others like it). Will the new Council, as it searches for $30 million in cuts to the City budget to fill the budget gap, snap out of it? We, at ChangeAustin.org, the eternal (albeit critical) optimists, sincerely hope so.

Did you attend any of the recent City budget “charettes”? If not, the City added an additional charette this coming Tuesday, 6:30 to 8:30 pm at the eastside’s Givens Recreation Center, at 3811 E. 12th St. We hope to see you there. Charette is just a fancy name for meetings in which the citizens attending are given a list of potential budget cuts selected by the City from which to discuss our support or opposition. The problem isn’t so much the process, but the pre-selected and sanitized list the participants are given. Decisions involving the real allocation of resources are well outside the margins of debate.

The list of budget cuts up for consideration includes things like libraries, youth programs, Emancipet’s great animal neutering program (which actually saves the City money), neighborhood parks, the Community Action Network which deals with a myriad of concerns making up Austin’s “safety net” programs and nearly a thousand more items in the budget for the “little people”. But it was the items not on the list that told the real story. The one that seems to be a favorite “missing in action” is the now notorious Domain shopping mall subsidy (part of Will Wynn’s “legacy), a nice chunk of change amounting to about $2 million this year!*

Citizens must get ready for a whole litany of smaller cuts unless this new Council breaks the Patty Hearst-like spell and serves Austinites like true populists. Just last week the outgoing Council passed, by 6 to 1 (with Morrison all by her lonesome) a low income housing deal that was a rich deal for the developer because it gave him a 100% property tax break and $3 million in cash. Even low income housing advocates were holding their nose on this one.

For years, Austin citizens and activists have been asking for more accountability at City Hall. When we didn’t get it, we petitioned for a vote. We won some and lost many, but we keep fighting on, sometimes wondering if we need our heads examined.

Is it possible that the fighting will soon come to a halt? While we caution you not to start singing Kum Ba Yah yet, we’re beginning to wonder. A piece we wrote two weeks ago entitled, “Charette or Charade” about the city’s citizen’s budget meetings, prompted the following response:

“Wait till the $2.3 billion Biomass plant deal hits – you ain’t seen nuttin’ yet!” Well neither have you seen “nuttin’ yet” from ordinary citizens who are clamoring for fairness. For example, there are 95,000 property tax challenges going on in Travis County right now!

Will a perfect storm arrive in Austin where citizens, not just activists, are ready to put their foot down? Maybe we won’t need to deprogram the City Council in memory of Patty Hearst, though it was probably jail time that snapped her out of it. Seriously, we’re here to help.

Contrary to what the recently departed Mayor Will Wynn said in those TV ads paid for by Simon Malls last year, the Domain deal was and still is a completely voluntary gift by the City to the developer.