AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- A group aiming to let voters decide whether the City of Austin should have a minimum staffing level of police officers says it has filed a lawsuit to challenge what it calls "deceitful" ballot language approved by the Austin City Council last week.
Save Austin Now PAC concurrently filed the Mandamus Action with both the 3rd Court of Appeals and the Texas Supreme Court.
“For many years the Austin City Council has conspired to use their ballot language power to both ignore the City Charter requiring that captioned language be adopted and instead pass their own biased language to affect voters," said Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek in a statement. "For far too long, past petition efforts have not taken this gross abuse of power seriously enough. Those days are over. In April, we sued on the Prop B ballot language and won at the Texas Supreme Court. We humbly expect a similar result here. We will always fight for the rights of voters to utilize the petition process without inappropriate interference from the City Council.”
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The ballot language approved by the City Council on August 11 reads as follows: "Shall an ordinance be approved that, at an estimated cost of $271.5 million – $598.8 million over five years – requires the City to employ at least two police officers per 1,000 residents at all times; requires at least 35 percent of patrol officer time be uncommitted time, otherwise known as community engagement time; requires additional financial incentives for certain officers; requires specific kinds of training for officers and certain public officials and their staffs; and requires there be at least three full-term cadet classes for the department until staffing levels reach a specific level?"
Save Austin Now previously sued the City of Austin in an effort earlier this year to reinstate a ban on public camping. The Texas Supreme Court ruled 6-3, forcing the city to remove the word "anyone" from the ballot language, with the court's ruling calling the ballot language "misleading." The May 1 proposition was approved by 58% of voters.
"This is an important lawsuit that stands up for all Austin voters and their right to petition for new ordinances," said former Travis County Judge and election law expert Bill Aleshire, who serves as lead counsel for Save Austin Now PAC. "This lawsuit challenges the deceitful ballot language the Council adopted for the November 2nd election and their refusal to obey the City Charter. After carefully reviewing the SAN-PAC Petitioned Ordinance and preparing this lawsuit, I am really disappointed with tactics by the Mayor and City Council members - Mackenzie Kelly excepted - to mislead voters about the Petitioned Ordinance. No, it will not mandate $600 million in expenditures for the Austin Police Department, nor destroy the rest of City programs."
An analysis presented to City Council members by Chief Financial Officer Ed Van Eenoo says the proposition, if approved, could cost Austin taxpayers anywhere from $271.5 million to $598.8 million over the next five years in operational, maintenance, and capital costs. Save Austin Now disputes the city's cost estimate, pointing out that the City of Austin was on track just two years ago to achieve the 2.0 officers per 1,000 residents threshold that the petition seeks to reinstate.
In addition to declaring a minimum staffing level, the SAN petition calls for the city to staff a minimum of three full cadet classes each year until the department reaches the staffing level, in addition to doubling annual in-service training from 40 to 80 hours, and providing new incentives for officers who are multilingual, engaged in a mentoring program, or eligible for honorable conduct citations. It also requires the mayor, council members, and other key staff members who oversee APD to attend both the Citizen's Police Academy and the department's Ride-Along program.
“They didn’t mention these parts of the Ordinance and some in the press has not let the public know about that either," said Aleshire. "I suspect that the hyperbole and hyperventilating by the Mayor and Council at their meeting over the Petitioned Ordinance was to try to deflect attention from the fact that their actions have made Austin less safe and depleted the police force from 1,959 officers budgeted in 2020 to only 1,809 this year and next, with vacancies causing the force to now be at only 1,637 officers in a city of over 1 million residents and, at any point in time, tens of thousands more visitors. I respect the fact that good people in Austin will disagree about this election, but it should be a fair election and voters should not be misled by anyone. We are asking the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court to make sure of that.”