Lee LeffingwellAt the August 2 City Council meeting, what was expected to be a pro-forma exercise in putting on the November 6 ballot a proposition qualified by citizen petition drive was sidetracked by some heated words aimed at Mayor Lee Leffingwell.

But where there is heat there is sometimes also light.

The light was shed on the question of whether the five City Council members who favor the 8-2-1 plan (Mike Martinez and Bill Spelman opposed) are acting out of self-interest to increase their chances of staying in office.

The reality is that a separate proposed charter amendment—which the council already approved to go on the November ballot—if approved by voters would disqualify all but one incumbent from running for reelection (more about that later).

Marc OttAustin City Manager Marc Ott didn’t get his annual performance review today as scheduled.

Shortly after noon, Mayor Lee Leffingwell read the agenda items to be discussed in a closed-door executive session. The council meeting agenda was posted for the executive session to include Ott’s performance. But Leffingwell announced that Ott’s review was being postponed at the request of Council Member Bill Spelman.

Spelman had arrived in council chambers and took his seat on the dais shortly after 10:30am, about 20 minutes after the meeting started. And Spelman was present preceding the mayor’s announcement of the postponement.

Marc Ott

Austin City Manager Marc Ott is scheduled to walk into a closed-door meeting on Thursday, August 2, with a City Council that can praise him, raise his pay, or invite him to find another job.

If he’s shown the door, Ott will walk away with a little more than $430,000, based on the compensation and benefits package council members approved last August.

However Ott fares in his annual job evaluation, there will never be a discoverable written record of it. The Austin Bulldog submitted an open records request for copies of Ott’s performance reviews conducted in previous years. The city of Austin responded that all evaluations are conducted verbally in closed session, and no written job evaluations exist.

Written job evaluations of public employees are often included in the employee’s personnel file, which is considered public record under the Texas Public Information Act.

Council Member Bill Spelman—as well as former Mayor Gus Garcia and former Council Member Brewster McCracken, who between the three of them served for more than two decades on the council—confirmed that city council members do not conduct written evaluations of any employees who report to the council.

So in order to educate the public on Marc Ott’s professional background and his more than four years as Austin’s top manager, The Austin Bulldog gathered available public records on Ott—including his written evaluations from previous jobs—and interviewed community leaders about their thoughts on his performance.

8-2-1 Plan Near-Certain to Go on Ballot

City Council Votes on Second Reading
to Put Competing Election Plan on Ballot

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2012
Posted July 31, 2012 2:35pm

The Austin City Council in today’s work session voted 5-2 (Council Members Mike Martinez and Bill Spelman opposed) to put the 8-2-1 plan for electing council members on the November ballot.

Sheryl ColeA five-vote majority is sufficient to pass any measure on the council’s agenda on all three readings for final approval, and dispense with further consideration. Today, at Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole’s request, the vote was limited to second reading only.

It now appears to be a foregone conclusion that at least four votes in favor of the 8-2-1 plan will be cast on third reading, which Mayor Lee Leffingwell said he anticipated would be scheduled for an August 7 work session.

That will set up head-to-head competition on the November ballot between the 8-2-1 plan and the 10-1 plan, which already garnered sufficient signatures to go on the ballot.

Shirley GentryCity Clerk Shirley Gentry e-mailed a statement late this afternoon to announce that the plan petitioned for by Austinites for Geographic Representation is qualified to put the proposition before voters in November. The plan calls for election of council members from 10 districts, a mayor elected at-large, and an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw district boundaries the council would have no choice but to approve.

The City Council voted 5-2 on June 28 to put the same plan on the ballot but the petitioners chose to complete the work and get the measure on the ballot to make it the “people’s plan” and not something the council was offering.

When the petition approval was announced at tonight’s meeting of Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR), the crowd of some 30 members broke out into a loud and sustained applause and cheers. As well they might after completing the petitioning that began last October and planning that started in February 2011.

But AGR is wasting no time and is gearing up for two immediate chores:

City Clerk Shirley Gentry (right) accepts petitions from Linda CurtisDuring the June 28 meeting in which the City Council voted to put more City Charter propositions on the ballot for voters to consider in November, Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR) stacked up seven white boxes next to the podium when AGR volunteer political consultant Peck Young addressed the council.

After holding a press conference at City Hall today, AGR petition coordinator Linda Curtis presented two purple plastic boxes of signed petitions to City Clerk Shirley Gentry. At 3:32pm Gentry date-time-stamped a copy of the cover page of a petition and gave it to Curtis as a receipt.

Asked later to explain how the seven boxes shown to the City Council shrunk to two today, Young told The Austin Bulldog, “I’m a professional politician.” Were those seven boxes brimming full when shown to the City Council on June 28? “I didn’t say that,” Young replied.

Political showmanship aside, at today’s press conference AGR members held up placards indicating the group had collected 33,000 signatures.

After submitting the petitions to the City Clerk, Curtis told The Austin Bulldog that the petitions submitted to Gentry contain 22,800 some-odd signatures considered to be valid.

Austinites for Geographic Representation rallied at City Hall June 28

More than two dozen members of Austinites for Geographic Representation (AGR) attended a meeting Monday night and voted unanimously to continue the petition drive to get its plan on the ballot in November.

The plan calls for 10 council members to be elected from geographic districts, only the mayor to be elected at-large, and a nonpartisan Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw a council districting plan that the council would have no choice but to accept.

Because Texas is one of the states subject to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, any districting plan would have to gain approval from the U.S. Department of Justice before implementation.

Linda CurtisAGR has until July 16 to submit petitions with at least 20,000 valid signatures of registered City of Austin voters. At Monday night’s meeting, petition coordinator Linda Curtis said the group had about 20,600 valid signatures. Nearly every member volunteered to petition during the numerous 4th of July events scheduled around town, from neighborhood parades scheduled during the day to the big fireworks show in the evening.

At 12:10am this morning, after taking nearly three hours of public testimony, the Austin City Council voted 5-2 (Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Council Member Bill Spelman opposed) to put on the ballot the exact plan long advocated by Austinites for Geographic Representation. The five votes in favor meant the motion made by Council Member Mike Martinez and seconded by Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole passed on all three readings.

The proposal calls for 10 council members to be elected from geographic districts, only the mayor to be elected at large, and an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw a council districtricting plan that the council would have no choice but to adopt.

At 12:17am the council voted 4-3 (Cole, Martinez and Spelman opposed) to also put on the ballot the 8-2-1 plan. But because the motion did not get five votes, it only passed on first reading and will have to come back to the council—which doesn't meet again until August 2—for further consideration.

The 8-2-1 plan, sponsored by the mayor and Council Member Chris Riley, would have the mayor and two council members to be elected at-large and eight council members to be elected from geographic districts. This proposal does not include an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Instead, according to the draft ordinance for this agenda item, “The boundaries of geographical single-member council districts shall be drawn by ordinance from time to time.”  Meaning the council districts could be drawn in such a way that the City Council would decide the boundaries.

Strong financial solvency is a trait shared by the mayor and other members of the Austin City Council. But properly reporting their income and assets proved to be a problem for some of the council members.

Austin Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole failed to report her husband’s sources of income, clients, and board positions as required by City Code in her sworn financial statement filed March 12. 

She also did not include in the document four out of the eight properties she owns.

The Austin Bulldog discovered these, and several other, flaws in its review of the mayor and council members’ financial statements covering the 2011 calendar year.

The reports help citizens monitor possible conflicts of interest in government decisions by outlining elected officials’ sources of occupational income, gifts from non-relatives, board positions, business and real estate interests, and other personal financial information.

The Austin Bulldog opted to publish Austin City Council members’ state and City Code financial statements in this article to provide greater transparency and allow increased scrutiny of these elected officials.

Citizens Group To Make Final Petition Push

Austinites for Geographic Representation Claims to
Have 17,000 Signatures, and Shoots for 13,000 More

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2012
Posted Monday, June 4, 2012 11:01pm

It's been 15 months since Austinites for Geographic Representation held its first meeting in February 2011 at Huston-Tillotson University and the group has been steadily building a coalition of supporters and rounding up endorsements ever since.

The group's proposal to have 10 council members elected from geographic districts and only the mayor elected at large, and to have geographic districts drawn by an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, has gotten a lot of traction—including endorsements from a range of groups including the League of Women Voters of the Austin Area, Austin Neighborhoods Council, the and the Travis County Republican Party. (To see the full list of organizations and individuals endorsing the plan, click here.)

Even the council-appointed 2012 Charter Revision Committee backed the 10-1 plan with an Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, though by a narrow 8-7 vote that triggered work by some on the losing end to continue lobbying for a hybrid plan that includes a couple of at-large council seats in addition to the mayor.

What the 10-1 plan has not gotten so far is broad public support from members of the Austin City Council. To date, only Council Member Mike Martinez has voiced unequivocal support for the plan.

Hence the grassroots effort by Austinites for Geographic Representation continues to gather the signatures of 20,000 registered city voters.