AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- The Austin City Council will focus on a number of items for the May 1 ballot this week - including a number of charter amendments.
The first meeting is set for Tuesday, beginning at 9 a.m. Under state law, items to be placed on the May 1 ballot must be officially ordered by the council no later than Friday, Feb. 12.
In addition to the charter amendments and petition-driven ordinance proposals detailed below, the council is also expected to receive its regular COVID-19 update from Austin Public Health officials on Tuesday.
You can view the full agenda on the City website here. The meeting will be held virtually, available on ATXN online and on area cable providers.
Details on registering to speak before Council on any of the items on the agenda can be found on the city's website.
Item 1: Change to Mayor-Council form of government, add 11th single-member Council district, move Mayoral elections to presidential election years, implement ranked choice voting, and implement Democracy Dollars program
These charter amendments are from a citizen-initiated petition from a group called Austinites for Progressive Reform, who say they're driven by a "broad coalition of Austinites" aiming to "make local government more representative, diverse, responsive, and accountable to the people it serves."
The biggest move APR is calling for is shifting the city from its current Council-Manager form of government to a Mayor-Council form, where the mayor becomes the chief executive of the city - essentially absorbing the role of and eliminating the City Manager's position.
The elected mayor would directly oversee the City’s more than $4 billion budget and more than 14,000 employees, and be directly accountable to voters every four years. A two-term limit would continue to apply to the mayor's office, limiting the mayor to a maximum of eight years in office.
The mayor would gain a veto on the council's legislative actions, while losing the ability to vote on them; council would be able to override the mayor's veto with a supermajority vote (in votes where a supermajority was already required, a 3/4ths vote would be required to override a veto.)
With the mayor no longer a voting member of the City Council, the shift would also necessitate creating an 11th council district in order to keep an 11-member body, and would realign the existing single-member council districts accordingly.
The petition also calls for shifting the mayoral election to coincide with presidential elections every four years; in order to transition to the new schedule, the mayor elected in 2022 would serve a two-year term before another election cycle began in 2024. Under the city's term limits, the two-year term would be considered a "full" term, meaning a mayor elected in 2022 would be limited to six years in office if APR's initiatives are implemented.
The group's petition also calls for the adoption of ranked choice voting in order to eliminate low-turnout runoff elections. This would essentially allow voters to rank up to 5 choices for each city office. When ballots are tabulated, all of the first choice votes are counted; if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the lowest number of first choice votes is eliminated and those voters' second choice then gets the votes. The cycle continues until there is a winner.
According to the Texas Secretary of State's office, implementing ranked choice voting would require changes to Texas state law in addition to amending the city charter - but the petition calls for the charter to provide for the switch at the city level, in the event that state law accommodates it at some point in the future.
Finally, the APR petition calls for the implementation of "Democracy Dollars", replacing the city's current campaign finance rules. According to a presentation given to City Council members during a work session on Feb. 2, each registered voter would get a $25 voucher to "spend" in both the mayoral race and the city council race, and voters can then contribute their vouchers to a candidate of their choice. Candidates can only receive Democracy Dollars if they meet certain support thresholds, agree to contribution limits, agree to participate in debates, and agree to non-solicitation rules. The voucher payouts would be limited to $300,000 for mayoral candidates, and $75,000 for council candidates.
Item 2: Allow for and require binding arbitration between the Austin Firefighters Association and the City of Austin, if labor negotiations reach an impasse.
This charter amendment, driven by a petition from the Austin Firefighters Association, aims to create a process for binding arbitration for labor negotiations between firefighters and city management. Under the proposed amendment, if contract negotiations are not completed within 60 days, the city or the Association are allowed to demand binding arbitration before a 3-member panel.
According to the Austin Firefighters Association, since 2008, the City has forced negotiations to an impasse three out of six times, essentially walking away from negotiations. The firefighters' next negotiation cycle is set to begin in Spring 2022.
Items 3 & 4: Restore the City Code provisions on camping, solicitation, and sitting or lying on public sidewalks or sleeping outdoors to those that were in effect prior to council's June 2019 modifications, and extending the sit-lie ordinance to the University of Texas campus.
This proposed ordinance, driven by a petition from Save Austin Now, aims to reinstate the city's previous ban on camping in public areas that have not been designated as a camping area by the Parks & Recreation Department. It would also prohibit panhandling or aggressive solicitation between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. daily, and would prohibit sitting or lying in a right-of-way or sleeping outdoors in the downtown area and expand that to include the University of Texas campus.
Council can choose to either adopt the ordinance as spelled out in the petition (item #4) or put it before voters on the May 1 ballot (item #3).
Item 5: A charter amendment allowing City Council to provide for a Director of Police Oversight who shall be appointed and removed as provided by future ordinance.
Under the Texas Constitution, cities can only amend their charters every two years. With that limitation in mind, District 4 council member Greg Casar has submitted a proposed charter amendment that "would give City Council and the community the opportunity to make the office even stronger and more independent moving forward," giving council the ability to craft ordinances regarding the office in the future without having to go through the charter amendment process - or wait out the two-year clock, if any of the citizen-initiated charter amendments are approved by voters in May.
Under the current setup, the Director of the Office of Police Oversight, Farah Muscadin, is appointed by and reports to the City Manager's office, like many other City departments. According to Casar, in other cities, the oversight office is either independently appointed or has civilian reporting structures. "By making the proposed charter change," Casar wrote on the City Council's online message board, "the community and City Council can weigh options and pass ordinances in the future that create the structures that are best for Austin. In the end, this is all about continuing to strengthen the police oversight function that we've worked on for years."