URGENT ACTION NEEDED - Defend Austin's Water, Democracy, and the Historic Bridge

​Three Important Items On This Week’s Austin City Council Agenda
Slipping on Water Conservation! Raising Barriers to Direct Democracy! Demolishing the Historic Zilker Park Bridge over Barton Creek!

The number of potentially harmful items on this Thursday’s City Council agenda is nothing short of staggering. Among 99 items, 77 are set for the “consent” agenda, to be pushed through with little or no discussion by the Council, voted as part of one sweeping council vote, on items that commit literally billions of dollars of city funds.

The “consent agenda” is also where our Mayor and Council would restrict public speakers to speaking no more than a total of 2 minutes no matter how many items they wish to address. SOS is back in court this afternoon seeking to stop this practice for the coming weeks while our lawsuit under the Texas Open Meetings Act and the Austin City Charter moves forward. 

This week’s consent agenda includes several items being fast-tracked, with the potential to do real harm to Austin’s health and sustainability. Many can’t tell what they mean because the posting language is vague, the supporting backup information is skeletal, or the public does not had the time to research them.

Here we summarize the 3 most important items: a major threat to our water supply; an attack on functional local democracy; and an $11.6 million dollar push to destroy the historic Zilker Park bridge over Barton Creek and replace it with a giant, ugly bridge. 

Save Our Water:  Please write or sign up to speak against Agenda Items 4, 5, 6, and 7, which all concern the Austin Water Utility’s water conservation and drought contingency plans. The proposed, state-required City water conservation and drought contingency plans go backwards on our City’s commitment to matching population growth with increases in water savings and reuse so that our total water use stays flat, as it has for decades. 
This proposal comes in the middle of a major drought and at a time when Water Utility leaders know that our Highland Lakes water supply is dwindling and is becoming less climate resilient. Our community-driven Water Forward Task Force refused to endorse this rushed-through push to abandon essential water conservation programs. Austin Water Utility staff gave the Task Force members a whopping 2 hours to read and vote on these updates to our water management plans. The proposals remove the administrative review process and increase the gallons per capita per day goal from 119 to 123 within a five-year period, when we need to be setting and pursuing aggressive goals to reduce our water use to below 100 gallons per capita per day as soon as possible.
 
Save Our Rights to Direct Democracy:  Currently, the Austin City Charter provides reasonable thresholds for petition signatures required to place voter-initiated ballot measures before Austin voters.  This is how Austin voters overwhelming approved the Save Our Springs ordinance. Our charter also sets a reasonable threshold for voter signatures to place a recall of a Council Member before the voters.  Both of these signature requirements are quite high: voter initiatives are rare and recall petitions almost never occur.  But, they are both critical checks on our City Council powers when there is abuse or gridlock because of undue influence of monied interests. 
These voter-led initiatives have been catalysts for change beyond their initial purpose, bringing in more voices to Austin's democracy. This is evident in the environmental reforms that followed the SOS ordinance in the 90s, and the renewed focus on equity and geographic fairness that followed the 10-1 Council Representation effort.
The SOS ordinance would have never happened by city council action. Now a City Charter review commission, appointed by the City Council with strong direction to raise the signature requirements for citizen initiative and council recall petition to prohibitive levels, has recommend proposed city charter amendments to do just that. City Staff has now piled on with recommendations to erect other roadblocks to direct citizen participation in city governance.   We need your help to send the message to “vote no” and to “leave the Charter alone.” 
On Thursday, the Austin City Council will decide whether to place the suggested charter amendments on the November 2024 ballot. Please urge the City Council to reject these amendments and tell them not to increase barriers to direct democracy!

Save Our Historic Zilker Park Bridge:  Item 69 calls on Council to vote whether or not to authorize an exorbitant $11 million budget towards demolishing the historic Zilker Park Barton Springs Road Bridge over Barton Creek. Council knows the historic bridge is in good shape and can be maintained in perpetuity for a tiny fraction of the cost.  The proposed replacement bridge is a giant, ugly bridge -- with a price tag likely to double along the way. Once again the City staff prepared backup completely failed to mention that the bridge is a recognized, key element of the Zilker Park National Register Historic District. SOS opposes this unnecessary demolition, and we support increasing bike and pedestrian access to Zilker Park parallel to the Zilker Park Historic Bridge, by expanding the existing bike/ped bridge or adding a new one.  This can be done for a few million dollars and a fraction of the damage to the creek and park.

We understand this is a lot of bad news to take action on, and we have created a targeted email form for you to share your concerns to Council directly.

Send an Email to City Council