Posts Tagged ‘Austin City Council’

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Austin City Council Wants To Pay People $1,000 A Month For Breathing, Rake Off Graft For The Radical Left

Wednesday, April 20th, 2022

The Austin City Council, always on the cutting edge of finding new ways to waste taxpayer money, has come up with a doozy: paying people $1,000 a month for breathing.

The Austin City Council will consider approval of a $1.18 million universal basic income (UBI) pilot program that will award 85 families $1,000 per month for one year.

It is part of the “Mayors for Guaranteed Income” initiative of which Austin Mayor Steve Adler is a member, along with Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg. “Even prior to the pandemic, people who were working two and three jobs still couldn’t afford basic necessities,” reads that website.

“COVID-19 has only further exposed the economic fragility of most American households, and has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown people.”

At a Monday morning roundtable about the topic, Adler said that a couple years ago when this topic was first broached with him, he was initially “questioning of such a program.”

“There’s always a question about using taxpayer dollars [this way],” Adler said, adding, “[but here the beneficiaries] might know better than we do how to spend this money.”

I’m pretty sure that the average Austin taxpayer knows that they know better how to spend their own money than letting the Austin City Council hand it out to randos. (Actully, I doubt it will be handed out to rando or “deserving” families; I fully expect it to be yet another mechanism to rake off graft to the hard left.)

The first such program began in Stockton, California in 2020 and it has extended to dozens across the country.

On the council’s Thursday agenda, the pilot program falls under the city’s Equity Office and the funding will come out of the General Revenue fund. Chief Equity Officer Brion Oaks said on Monday that the pilot will inform the city of best practices to implement a larger program down the road.

You may remember Brion Oaks from such hits as “Defund The Police And Give All The Money To Leftwing Activists.” What do you think the odds are that the families Oaks will pick for this program will have connections to radical leftwing Democratic social justice activists?

The program’s design, including which families will take part, is still up in the air and will begin to be sorted out after the council approves the item this week. He did say that “housing insecurity” will be prioritized in that selection process — something loosely defined but may include eviction history, poverty status, and applicants’ ability to pay bills on time.

Deadbeats only need apply.

UpTogether, which runs a nationwide private UBI program, is the vendor chosen to oversee the program which is estimated to begin either in late May or early June should the council approve it. Oaks said the $1,000 figure was arrived at as roughly half of the average monthly rent in the City of Austin.

UpTogether is run by FII-NATIONAL, and both of which are run by Jesus Gerena, whose own biography describes UpTogether as “an antiracist change organization.” So the radical leftwing social justice warrior Austin City Council wants to take taxpayer money and have radical social justice warrior Brion Oaks oversee radical social justice warrior-run UpTogether run the program.

Why, it’s almost like a pattern.

What do you want to bet that there will be no external oversight to the program, and that privacy rules will prevent us from ever learning which “families” will be chosen to receive such taxpayer-funded largess?

Even by the standards of welfare statism, this is an egregious misuse of taxpayer money to fund radical leftwing pilot programs.

The City Council will reportedly be voting on this idiocy on Thursday. Austin taxpayers who oppose it should show up and say so.

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Posted in Austin, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Welfare State | 3 Comments »

LinkSwarm for December 17, 2021

Friday, December 17th, 2021

Another mandate injunction, Democrats continue their popularity freefall, China seals more dirty deals, and Turkey melts down. It’s another Friday LinkSwarm!

  • Federal judge halts healthcare employee vaccine mandate in Texas.

    A federal judge in Texas has issued a preliminary injunction, stopping a new rule from the Biden administration requiring healthcare workers to receive the COVID vaccine as the case moves through the courts.

    The injunction came from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas in Amarillo. The case was filed by Attorney General Ken Paxton on behalf of the State of Texas against Xavier Becerra, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary.

    The injunction was sought against a federal rule that would have required employers that receive Medicaid and Medicare funds—namely hospitals and other healthcare providers—to require their employees to receive a COVID vaccine as a condition of employment.

    Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ordered that the federal government provide notice to all Medicaid and Medicare providers in Texas that the mandate “will not be implemented or enforced.”

    “Healthcare facilities covered by the [Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services] Mandate have a tremendous reliance interest in Medicare and Medicaid funds. Therefore, Defendants unconstitutionally use Congress’s spending powers to ‘commandeer a State’s . . . administrative apparatus for federal purposes’ by conditioning Medicare and Medicaid funds on state surveyor compliance with the mandate,” wrote Kacsmaryk. “As a result, not only would the CMS Mandate prohibit Plaintiffs from enforcing its duly enacted COVID-19 vaccination regulations, but it would likely force Plaintiffs to administer a federal mandate that has a dubious statutory basis.”

    “It is a ‘gun to the head’ and an unconstitutional use of Congress’s spending powers to compel Plaintiffs through ‘financial inducement’ to forgo exercising their police powers to enforce a federal statute.”

  • Crime, inflation, wokeness and that old Biden magic continue to work their charm on the American electorate.

    Democrat support from independent voters has fallen near the crucial 40% line, while almost half of all independent voters tell Gallup that they’re leaning Republican.

    “If you’re a Democrat and you’re not terrified,” says The Dispatch’s Avi Woolf, “you should be.”

    Well, I’m neither a Democrat nor terrified, but I am conservative and — at least for now — quite giddy.

    Gallup recently updated its long-term party affiliation poll, which asks American voters one or two simple questions:

    In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?
    (If they ID as independents) As of today, do you lean more to the Democratic Party or the Republican Party?

    Currently, 31% say they’re Republicans, up slightly from the usual mid-20s to 30%. 41% told Gallup that they’re independent voters, in line with the average swing. Only 27% self-ID as Democrats, which is down from the more typical 29-32%.

    As recently as May, Democrats were at 32% and the GOP at a dismal 25%.

    But that’s before Presidentish Joe Biden had had a chance to do much other than send out FREE! MONEY! (handouts that helped cause our present inflation) and smile for the glowing press coverage. Since then, important parts of his agenda have taken hold and the malign incompetence of his cabinet has been fully revealed.

    Apparently, Americans don’t think much of either.

    But it’s the second question that should have Washington Democrats changing their shorts.

    Indies, asked whether they lean towards the Democrats or the GOP, broke for the GOP 47% to 41%.

    At this time in Barack Obama’s first term, the breakdown was a much more Dem-friendly 25R/41I/32D. And the Indy swing was exactly reversed, 41R/47D.

    Yet the Democrats still lost a whopping 63 seats in the House and seven more in the Senate in the following midterm election.

    Obama enjoyed immensely more personal popularity than Biden does — I know, I don’t get it, either — but couldn’t stop a GOP tsunami when his agenda proved unpopular.

    Biden has both an unpopular agenda and a high unfavorable rating draped around his neck like a lead life preserver. And now voters are leaving his party in droves.

    (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

  • Democratic problems apply down-ballot as well: “If the elections for Congress were held today, 48% of likely U.S. voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 39% would vote for the Democrat.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • The woke are coming for all that sweet, sweet Medicare money.

    Buried in the Department of Health and Human Services’s fiscal planning for next year is a proposal to establish bonuses for physicians who “create and implement an anti-racism plan.”

    “The plan should include a clinic-wide review of existing tools and policies, such as value statements or clinical practice guidelines, to ensure that they include and are aligned with a commitment to anti-racism and an understanding of race as a political and social construct, not a physiological one,” the HHS writes . “The plan should also identify ways in which issues and gaps identified in the review can be addressed and should include target goals and milestones for addressing prioritized issues and gaps. This may also include an assessment and drafting of an organization’s plan to prevent and address racism and/or improve language access and accessibility to ensure services are accessible and understandable for those seeking care.”

    I’m sure this will go over great with Medicare patients. “Mam, I can’t check on your osteoporosis until you check your privilege!” (Hat tip: Mickey Kaus.)

  • Speaking of Biden screwing up health care: “Biden’s big bill cuts hospital funds for poor in red states, shifts money to Obamacare.”
  • After Democrats abandoned trying to pass Biden’s giant leftwing “Build Back Better” porkfest this year, is the bill actually dead forever? South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham thinks so.

    The South Carolina Republican said that the Congressional Budget Office score, which found the $1.75 trillion bill would add $3 trillion to the deficit, is what led to its demise.

    ‘I think Build Back Better is dead forever and let me tell you why: Because Joe Manchin has said he’s not going to vote for a bill that will add to the deficit,’ he said on Fox News’ Hannity Wednesday night.

    ‘Well, if you do away with the budget gimmicks, Build Back Better, according to the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] adds $3 trillion to the deficit.’

  • Speaking of Manchin, he finally snapped at a Democratic Media Complex flunkie trying to badger him into supporting it.

    ‘This is b******t. You’re b******t,’ the West Virginia senator yelled at Arthur Delaney, a reporter for HuffPost Politics, who asked him about reports that the child tax credit has become a major sticking point in his talks with the White House.

    ‘I’m done, I’m done,’ Manchin fumed as the questions continued.

    ‘Guys, I’m not negotiating with any of you all. You can ask all the questions you want. Guys, let me go,’ he told the press as he walked through the basement of the Capitol, muttering ‘God almighty’ as he walked away.

  • Democrats are wailing about the “end of Democracy” because they’re about to lose power:

    What is behind recent pessimistic appraisals of democracy’s future, from Hillary Clinton, Adam Schiff, Brian Williams, and other elite intellectuals, media personalities, and politicians on the left? Some are warning about its possible erosion in 2024. Others predict democracy’s downturn as early 2022, with scary scenarios of “autocracy” and former President Donald Trump “coups.”

    To answer that question, understand first what is not behind these shrill forecasts.

    They are not worried about 2 million foreign nationals crashing the border in a single year, without vaccinations during a pandemic. Yet it seems insurrectionary for a government simply to nullify its own immigration laws.

    They are not worried that some 800,000 foreign nationals, some residing illegally, will now vote in New York City elections.

    They are not worried that there are formal efforts underway to dismantle the U.S. Constitution by junking the 233-year-old Electoral College or the preeminence of the states in establishing ballot laws in national elections.

    They are not worried that we are witnessing an unprecedented left-wing effort to scrap the 180-year-old filibuster, the 150-year-old nine-person Supreme Court, and the 60-year tradition of 50 states, for naked political advantage.

    They are not worried that the Senate this year put on trial an impeached ex-president and private citizen, without the chief justice in attendance, without a special prosecutor or witnesses, and without a formal commission report of presidential high crimes and misdemeanors.

    They are not worried that the FBI, Justice Department, CIA, Hillary Clinton, and members of the Obama Administration systematically sought to use U.S. government agencies to sabotage a presidential campaign, transition, and presidency, via the use of a foreign national and ex-spy Christopher Steele and his coterie of discredited Russian sources.

    They are not worried that the Pentagon suddenly has lost the majority support of the American people. Top current and retired officers have flagrantly violated the chain-of-command, the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and without data or evidence have announced a hunt in the ranks for anyone suspected of “white rage” or “white supremacy.”

    They are not worried that in 2020, a record 64% of the electorate did not cast their ballots on Election Day.

    Nor are they worried that the usual rejection rate in most states of non-Election Day ballots plunged—even as an unprecedented 101 million ballots were cast by mail or early voting.

    And they are certainly not worried that partisan billionaires of Silicon Valley poured well over $400 million into selected precincts in swing states to “help” public agencies conduct the election.

    What then is behind this new left-wing hysteria about the supposed looming end of democracy?

    It is quite simple. The left expects to lose power over the next two years—both because of the way it gained and used it, and because of its radical, top-down agendas that never had any public support.

    After gaining control of both houses of Congress and the presidency – with an obsequious media and the support of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, higher education, popular culture, entertainment and professional sports – the left has managed in just 11 months to alienate a majority of voters.

    The nation has been wracked by unprecedented crime and nonenforcement of the borders. Leftist district attorneys either won’t indict criminals; they let them out of jails or both.

    Illegal immigration and inflation are soaring. Deliberate cuts in gas and oil production helped spike fuel prices.

    All this bad news is on top of the Afghanistan disaster, worsening racial relations, and an enfeebled president.

    Democrats are running 10 points behind the Republicans in generic polls, with the midterms less than a year away.

    President Joe Biden’s negatives run between 50% and 57%—in Trump’s own former underwater territory.

    Less than a third of the country wants Biden to run for reelection. In many head-to-head polls, Trump now defeats Biden.

    In other words, leftist elites are terrified that democracy will work too robustly.

    After the Russian collusion hoax, two impeachments, the Hunter Biden laptop stories, the staged melodramas of the Kavanaugh hearings, the Jussie Smollett con, the Covington kids smear, and the Rittenhouse trial race frenzy, the people are not just worn out by leftist hysterias, but they also weary of how the left gains power and administers it.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Hey, remember all the way back to two weeks ago when I said that Turkey’s collapsing currency was something we should keep an eye on? Well, guess what? “Turkey Halts All Stock Trading As Currency Disintegrates, Central Bank Powerless To Halt Collapse.” ZeroHedge suggests that the collapse is engineered to disguise how much graft Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his cronies have stolen from the country.
  • Registered Republicans now outnumber registered Democrats in Florida for the first time ever. Take a bow, Scott Presler, who has worked tirelessly to register Republicans to vote:

    He’s not the driver here, but he certainly helped.

  • Nothing to look at here, just a sex and drugs scandal involving FBI employees.
  • Sometimes things are exactly what they appear to be. “Documents link Huawei to China’s surveillance programs.”

    The Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies has long brushed off questions about its role in China’s state surveillance, saying it just sells general-purpose networking gear.

    A review by The Washington Post of more than 100 Huawei PowerPoint presentations, many marked “confidential,” suggests that the company has had a broader role in tracking China’s populace than it has acknowledged.

    These marketing presentations, posted to a public-facing Huawei website before the company removed them late last year, show Huawei pitching how its technologies can help government authorities identify individuals by voice, monitor political individuals of interest, manage ideological reeducation and labor schedules for prisoners, and help retailers track shoppers using facial recognition.

    Insert shocked face here.

  • Apple climbs further into bed with Communist China.

    Citing both interviews and direct access to internal Apple documents about repeated visits by Cook to China in the mid-2010s, the report describes a $275 billion deal whereby Apple committed to investing heavily in technology infrastructure and training in the country.

    The non-binding five-year deal was signed by Cook during a 2016 visit, and it was made partially to mitigate or prevent regulatory action by the Chinese government that would have had significant negative effects on Apple’s operations and business in the country.

    The Information details the nature of the Chinese government priorities included in the 1,250-word deal:

    They included a pledge to help Chinese manufacturers develop “the most advanced manufacturing technologies” and “support the training of high-quality Chinese talents.”

    In addition, Apple promised to use more components from Chinese suppliers in its devices, sign deals with Chinese software firms, collaborate on technology with Chinese universities and directly invest in Chinese tech companies… Apple promised to invest “many billions of dollars more” than what the company was already spending annually in China. Some of that money would go toward building new retail stores, research and development centers and renewable energy projects, the agreement said.

  • “Disgrace: Biden abandoned over 60,000 Afghan interpreters, support personnel — along with 14,000 Americans.”
  • “Trump’s Social Media Platform Gets $1 Billion Investment Boost, Dems Get Nervous.” It will be interesting to see how quickly TRUTH Social can get off the ground.
  • Are Texas National Guardsmen getting screwed out of their pay?
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. “Texas man sentenced to nearly 4 years in prison for attacking US Marshal during Portland Antifa riot.”
  • Play stupid games, win stupid prizes Philadelphia pizza joint edition.
  • In yesterday’s post, I forgot to link to these Log4J memes. Enjoy!
  • Why New York City lags the rest of the nation in unemployment. Thank lockdowns, shutdowns, and insane government. “The economy is not a light switch. The supply chain is not a light switch.” The money quote “New York City is just not that amazing!”
  • Popular Mexican singer Vincente Fernandez died, and the woke couldn’t wait to crap on his grave:

  • In a blow to election integrity, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals says that the Attorney General lacks authority to prosecute election fraud cases.
  • Democrats: Don’t you dare call us communists! Also Democrats: “Sen. Richard Blumenthal Helps Conn. Communist Party Celebrate 102nd Anniversary of CPUSA.”
  • Things that make you go “Hmmmm”:

  • True, dat.

  • Life imitates an episode of Justified:

  • Did you know that an Israeli airstrike hit a Syrian port last week? Did you see anything about that in the news? Seems like the sort of thing the media would cover before they decided that a bunch of lunatics shouting at J.K. Rowling is more important.
  • Texas House Speaker Dade Phalen attends fundraiser for quorum-busting Democrats in the Rio Grande Valley (including State Reps. Terry Canales, Sergio Munoz Jr., Oscar Longoria, Armando Martinez, and Bobby Guerra, and State Sen. Chuy Hinojosa) while skipping a Republican event a mile away. Remind me again why Phalen is speaker?
  • “Pasadena Mechanic Sues City Over Parking Space Regulation Prohibiting His Business from Operating.”
  • There’s nothing this Austin City Council can’t seem to ruin, including the Trail of Lights.
  • “Man these allergies are killing me,” December edition. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • I think they should use this scene in Super Troopers III: “Two Massachusetts State Police troopers have been suspended without pay for turning a hallway at the state police academy into a makeshift ‘Slip ‘N Slide’ game.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • Speaking of science experiments: What happens when you hit a gong with a baseball traveling at Mach 1.5? And you know there’s super-slow motion involved…
  • Whoa:

  • Terry Gilliam fired from directing West End production of Into The Woods for daring to recommend Dave Chapelle’s new comedy special on his own Facebook page.
  • “Sex and the City writer Candace Bushnell, 60, admits she regrets choosing a career over having children as she is now ‘truly alone.'”
  • “Biden Warns Russia That If They Invade Ukraine, America Will Evacuate Haphazardly And Leave $86 Billion In Weapons Behind.”
  • “Hillary Clinton Reportedly Considering Losing Again In 2024.”
  • “Bob Dole Switches To Democrat Party.”
  • Skillz:

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Media Watch, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 1 Comment »

    Austin Hits All-Time Homicide High

    Monday, September 13th, 2021

    Austin has been one of the safest big cities in America for decades before mayor Steve Adler and the hard-left city council voted to turn Austin into a giant camp for drug-addicted transients in 2019, and then cut police funding in 2020. Now, with more than three months left in the year, Austin homicides have hit an all-time high with 60 murders:

    Austin early Sunday recorded its 60th homicide, a grim tally that is now more slayings in a year than the city has seen in the six decades the Police Department has kept count.

    The latest two killings were reported minutes apart. At 2:20 a.m., police officers responded to a call about gunfire at the El Nocturno Night Club, located at 7601 N. Lamar Blvd., just south of U.S. 183 in central Austin. When they arrived, they found a man who had been shot several times. Witnesses told police that they had heard an argument moments earlier.

    About six minutes later, officers responded to a reported stabbing at Sixth and Nueces streets downtown. They found an injured man who later died. Police officials Sunday did not immediately release further details about the incidents, including the identities of victims and suspects.

    The 60th case marks a 25% increase in homicides so far in 2021, compared with all of 2020 when the Police Department logged 48 violent deaths. Interim Chief Joe Chacon said he fears the 2021 tally will continue to go up with three-and-a-half months left in the year.

    The previous peak was 59 homicides in 1984. The 2021 number is up 71% from 2018:

    The Austin City Council cut a larger percentage from its police budget in 2020 than nearly any city in the country. They slashed $150 million from the Austin Police Department’s budget, roughly 34 percent of the agency’s $434 million total budget, Law Officer reported.

    Now the State Capitol of Texas is reeling in murders at a historic pace after the city experienced two more homicides early Sunday morning.

    Snip.

    There were 48 homicides in Austin in 2020, 38 in 2019 and 35 in 2018, KXAN reported. This marks a 71 percent increase in the homicide rate from three years ago, and there are still more than 3.5 months left in 2021. Citizens wonder how high it will go.

    “This is indefensible,” a local resident told Law Officer. “(Mayor Steve) Adler and his band of merry men should all be thrown out of office. … I’m done. I love this city but I’m moving to the suburbs where this stupidity doesn’t occur.”

    Higher crime rates in Austin are a direct results of a homeless policy that lured more transients to Austin, of police budgets that were cut so more taxpayer money could be diverted to leftwing activists, and of a Soros-backed county DA that has installed a revolving door to put dangerous criminals back on Austin’s streets without prosecuting them.

    Proposition B and state action are slowly eliminating the sprawling transient camps, and the police refunding petition aims to restore adequate APD staffing. Whether Garza can be forced to do his job remains to be seen, but Austin will continue to experience high crime rates until all three of those problems are addressed.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats | 4 Comments »

    Lawsuit Filed Over Austin’s Refusal To Enforce Homeless Camping Ban

    Thursday, August 26th, 2021

    Since the City of Austin is still refusing to enforce the will of voters when it comes to clearing out illegal camps of drug-addicted transients, Save Austin Now and several business owners have filed lawsuits against the city:

    Two lawsuits were filed in Travis County District Court this week alleging that the City of Austin has failed to enforce the public camping ban that was reinstated back in May.

    Austin voters approved the reinstatement by a wide margin after the activist group Save Austin Now collected 26,000 signatures in 50 days to place it on the ballot. Rather than implement the camping ban immediately, the city council decided to move toward a phased re-enforcement over the course of four months.

    The fourth phase, begun earlier this month, was the first during which illegal campers that refused to move could be arrested. At the time of its start, numbers released by the city showed 572 warnings and 24 citations had been issued. No citations have been issued since July 20.

    Since Phase 4’s beginning, some larger camps have been cleared out, but tents and encampments remain scattered throughout the city.

    “That refusal leaves voters and residents of the City in the same position as they were before the ban was reinstated,” reads the first lawsuit filed by Save Austin Now co-founders Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek.

    The other lawsuit — filed by Headspace Salon and Co-op owner Laura North, Balance Dance Studio owner Stuart Dupuy, Dairy Queen franchisee Robert Mayfield, and Buckshot Bar owner Bob Woody — say the city’s actions have “resulted in severe business disruption.”

    “[The business owners] have incurred substantial expenses to protect their property, their customers, and their clients,” it adds further.

    Those businesses are requesting at most $100,000 in monetary relief along with full enforcement of the ban.

    In his legal statement, Mayfield says he’s had to hire off-duty police officers as security for the establishments — to the tune of $72,000 per store per year.

    I think Mayfield actually owns more Dairy Queens in the Austin area. But the two stores mentioned in the lawsuit filing are at 8728 North Lamar and 5900 Manor. Says Mayfield:

    The problem is bad with homeless coming in to use the rest room and nothing more, hanging around the parking lot bothering customers, asking for money, and making DQ not a desirable place to visit. We have to run them off or real customers would not come in to the store. We have had customers harassed while in line at the drive up window.

    Perhaps worst of all, it is costing us in the neighborhood of 572,000 per year, PER STORE, paid to off duty police, to keep these stores clean and inviting so that customers will visit us. Having off duty police has helped us a lot and sales are good, but at a cost that we should not have to bear. Try swallowing $140,000 per year and see what it does.

    Perhaps people upset with the Austin City Council’s refusal to enforce the camping ban can organize a buycott of his Dairy Queens.

    Youth Dance studio owner Stuart Dupuy had this to say about the huge problems caused by Austin’s refusal to enforce the law:

    On our security cameras, we started seeing more people come up to our building at night. Someone broke through the roof, stole the cash register, and smashed the glass door on their way out. Someone stole a catalytic converter from one of our vans. We’ve been broken into three times in the past 18 months. At least once a week, we now see people park in our parking lot, and we watch a constant stream of people come up to their car from the Greenbelt or from under the overpass.

    People were bathing in our exterior faucet, between our buildings. We kept putting locks on the faucets, which they would break off. Eventually we just removed the handle completely. One time a lady was bathing, while kids were there, and I asked her to leave and she started screaming at me telling me that I was going to go to Hell.

    These people, ordinary Austin taxpayers and business owners, don’t seem to figure in City Council decisions at all. Only the drug-addicted transients, and the left-wing activists of the Homeless Industrial Complex who profit off them, seem to count.

    One thing about these lawsuits: Discovery is going to be lit…

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Police Refunding Petition Makes Ballot To Fight Austin Crime Surge

    Tuesday, July 20th, 2021

    Just as they did with the homeless camping ordinance, Save Austin Now says they have enough signatures on their petition to restore police funding to make the ballot in November:

    “107 days from now, we are going to have an overwhelming victory,” Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of the activist group Save Austin Now and Travis County GOP chair said while announcing the group’s collection of over 25,600 signatures to restore Austin Police Department’s (APD) funding.

    The group was joined by representatives from the Austin Police Association, Combined Law Enforcement Association of Texas, Texas Municipal Police Association, Texas Police Association, and the Austin Police Retired Officers Association (APROA).

    Nearly a year after the Austin City Council approved a $150 million APD budget cut and redirection, it appears likely its restoration is well on the way toward this November’s ballot. The group says every petition has been validated by themselves and expects a validity rate close to their mid-90s percentage for the homeless petition effort.

    While it fell short of the goal to collect 50,000 signatures in 50 days, only 20,000 is needed to secure a spot on this November’s ballot. Additionally, Mackowiak noted in a Monday press conference that 40 percent of the petitions sent in for this effort were from citizens that did not sign a petition for the camping ban reinstatement.

    Save Austin Now announced the effort in late May, not even a month after the group’s resounding success at the ballot box to reinstate the public camping ban.

    The APD-related petition effort does a handful of things:

  • Mandate a minimum staffing level of 2.0 officers per 1,000 residents
  • Establish a minimum 35 percent community response time standard
  • Require 40 additional hours of training
  • Oblige the mayor, city council, and city staff to enroll in the Citizens Police Academy
  • Facilitate minority officer hiring through foreign language proficiency metrics

    • “Our ballot measure ensures that the Austin Police Department is not solely subject to the [city council,]” said Save Austin Now co-founder Cleo Petricek, a mother and Democrat.

    APD currently has over 160 patrol vacancies and is 390 officers short of an adequate staffing level — widely considered two officers per 1,000 residents. APD is currently at 1.2 officers per 1,000 residents, according to department figures.

    The petition is extremely timely considered that almost every indicator shows everything getting worse post-defunding:

    Last year, the Democrat-run Austin City Council, urged by local anti-law enforcement activist groups, defunded the Austin Police Department by a whopping one-third ($150 million). Since then, APD has been forced to disband multiple units (including DWI, family violence safety and stalking, and criminal interdiction), cancel multiple cadet classes, and watch a growing wave of officers leave the force.

    On the streets, [APD Interim Chief Joseph] Chacon said 911 response times are “dramatically” slower, and violent crime has already surged to record numbers in 2021.

    “We’ve never really seen [that level] here before,” he said, referring to the rising number of homicides.

    Chacon said the department is losing 15-20 officers a month, and their understaffing is “not sustainable.” He projected 235 vacancies by May 2022 and 340 by May 2023.

    And make no mistake about it: The budget cuts are the main reason police are leaving the force:

    “Holly Pilsner” is the pseudonym she has used on Facebook for years. She didn’t want to use her real name for this story. She wrote a public post, after she turned in her badge, calling out the $20 million cut to the APD budget and the tense politics around it.

    “I think we all feel eviscerated to be honest with you,” she said. “We do love our community.”

    Pilsner was on patrol for seven years in northwest Austin before moving to the risk-management unit.

    She says she started thinking about leaving the force last summer — claiming the protests were different than they were portrayed. “Everything was a peaceful protest, peaceful peaceful — it wasn’t peaceful,” she said.

    Meantime, the department is feeling the squeeze. Some units have been shut down. Just last week, officers at the scene of a deadly shooting told us they’re having a hard time responding to Austin’s surge in violent crime.

    And things just keep getting worse:

    Another big driver of higher crime rates is radical, George Soros-backed Travis County Jose Garza, who seems to see his job as keeping criminals on the streets of Austin:

    Garza seeks to end the prosecution of crimes: “As you know, on March 1st we implemented a bail policy that asked our prosecutors to ensure that no one is in jail simply because they cannot afford to get out. Our policy prioritizes the safety of our community and our prosecutors have been working hard to re-evaluate open cases according to that community safety framework instead of a wealth-based system.”

    Instead of handcuffing criminals, Garza is handcuffing the prosecutorial process and Lady Justice herself. Garza is inline with a national effort to cripple his department’s prosecutorial ability in advancing a radical ideology that’s focused on completely redesigning the city’s – and the nation’s – criminal justice system. This dangerous reality is also being peddled by a new brand of Bernie-endorsed Democrats across the country.

    As far as Garza is concerned, police and crime victims don’t count at all:

    On March 15, 2021, about two months into his tenure, Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza (D) issued a secret standing order regarding the handling of felony cases in the county. It went into effect immediately…

    Garza’s standing order opens with “In the interest of justice and fairness for all persons arrested for felony crimes,” never mentioning crime victims. In fact, the secret order fails to mention victims of crime even one time. It is solely focused on the DA’s power to decline to prosecute arrestees, and what it demands the Travis County Sheriff’s Office should then do when Garza’s office declines prosecution.

    Snip.

    I spoke with Charley Wilkison, executive director of the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas (CLEAT), about this Tuesday morning. The easy-going Wilkison was livid about the order and told me that law enforcement officers have already seen its effects. They are seeing suspects they take in on felony charges released so quickly, per Garza’s order, that they are back on the streets before officers even return to their precincts. This indicates the DA office’s review may not be very thorough. He noted that homicides are up more than 50%. Northwest Austin suffered yet another fatal shooting Monday night, pushing homicides up near 50 for the year.

    DA Garza’s tenure has already come under scrutiny multiple times since he took office in January 2021. Crime is skyrocketing on his watch, while he has openly prioritized prosecuting cops on cold cases that have already been investigated. He has set up a catch and release system that put an 8-time felon back on the streets, where he perpetrated a 10-day armed robbery spree and led law enforcement on a chase from just outside Houston into Austin. More recently, an assistant prosecutor quit the office, claiming Assistant District Attorney Trudy Strassburger ordered her to delete evidence from case files. The Austin Police Association has called for an investigation into this disturbing case. If the name in that case rings a bell, Strassburger is the same assistant district attorney who solicited for lawyers who want to prosecute police officers to apply for work with the Travis County DA’s office. The Travis County district attorney’s priorities are more than clear with Garza at the helm: ignore crime victims, hastily release felons and accused felons, and prosecute police officers.

    And he just hired former Hayes County Judge Millie Thompson, who was crazy she had to resign after four months, for the “Civil Rights Division” (AKA, to prosecute police).

    The Travis County DA’s office doesn’t seem to hire the best:

    Mayor Steve Adler is, as usual, nowhere to be found:

    Crime is spiking hard in Democrat-run cities across the country, many of which defunded their police and then proceeded to demoralize them. Austin is not only not an exception to this, it led the way with one of the nation’s largest defuding efforts. Adler led the city council to gut the police budget by about $150 million, a third of its budget. The cuts included key community policing and intelligence units.

    What on earth did he expect would happen when he led defunding of the city’s police? Why hasn’t anyone in the mainstream media asked him how he expected defunding to play out, versus what’s actually happened?

    Why don’t the anchors ask him about a) defunding, and b) the consequences of defunding?

    The usual idiots, of course, are shocked at the very idea of adequately funding police:

    As previously documented, the hard left wants to keep police defunded so they can get their fingers on as much money and power as they possibly can.

    Austin’s leftwing citizens finally woke up enough to vote for proposition B in May. Let’s hope they do they same to restore police funding in November.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats | 2 Comments »

    Sixth Street Shooting Shows Austin’s Continuing Slide Into Lawlessness

    Sunday, June 13th, 2021

    If you live outside Austin, you may be unaware that at least 13 people were injured in a shooting in downtown Austin early Saturday morning since none of the victims died:

    During a briefing Saturday morning, Interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon said the shooting happened at 400 E. 6th Street, which is near Trinity Street. There are many bars in the area. The initial 911 call about shots fired came in at about 1:24 a.m.

    Chacon said 11 people are now receiving treatment at one hospital, while one victim went to a separate hospital and another received treatment at an emergency room. There are no deaths to report at this time.

    Two of these patients are in critical condition, according to Chacon.

    Police said they are still searching for the suspected gunman. Chacon could only share a vague description at this time. He said the suspect may be a Black man with a “skinny” build and locs-style hair. A motive for the shooting is not yet known.

    “Locs-style” evidently means “dreadlocks.” I was previously unaware of this new linguistic usage.

    “Skinny black guy with dreadlocks” would seem to be a specific enough description for police to start interviewing possible suspects, but not for the social justice-infected partisans at the Austin American-Statesman:

    Translation: “We don’t want to tell you the shooter is black.” Despite their efforts, one suspect is in custody.

    Back in 2019, I noted that Sixth Street (long known as Austin’s nightlife bar row) had gotten so dangerous that there’s a YouTube channel dedicated to Sixth Street brawls. (I’d provide a sample, but they’re non-embedable.)

    This is just yet another example of Austin’s long slide into disorder and lawlessness engendered by the policies of Mayor Steve Adler, Austin City Councilman Greg Casar⁩ ⁦and his fellow travelers, and Travis County DA Jose Garza, who inflict this chaos on law-abiding Austin citizens while stripping away the Austin Police Department capability to maintain order.

    Austinites are suffering through a crime wave because the hard left Democrats in charge of the city have inflicted policies designed to increase crime in the name of “Social Justice.”

    Update: One of the shooting victims has died. “Police identified the victim Sunday as 25-year-old Douglas John Kantor.”

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors | 4 Comments »

    Austin T Minus 2 Update

    Thursday, April 29th, 2021

    Two days from now, Austin voters will go to the polls to decide the fate of reinstating the camping ban, along with a number of other proposals. (Cheat sheet: Vote for Proposition B and against everything else.) So here’s an update on Austin news in advance of the election.

  • Austin crime has exploded, and it’s all due to the feckless actions of leftwing politicians:

    Three members of the Austin City Council (AKA local control/city government) politicians are guilty of promoting the crime-enabling policies not unique to Austin. Mayor Steve Adler, Greg Casar, and Natasha Harper-Madison are the main culprits who expedited this radical shift away from public safety. Mayor Steve Adler has shown a careless lack of leadership on the issue, most notably during the Summer 2020 city-wide riots. Greg Casar has used the issue to push his Marxist values. Natasha Harper-Madison has exploited the safety of Austin citizens in order to promote her racism and perpetual victim ideologies. History will judge the actions of these three local partisan politicians poorly. How long are Austin citizens going to continue to sit back while these three continue their radical progressive experiment to the detriment of the city?

    Austin was one of the most sought-after, safest cities, but in 2020, there was an increase in murders by 50% from the previous year. Currently in 2021, there have been a whopping 21 murders to date. Austin is well on its way to breaking last year’s record number of murders.

    Also, this is a pretty sobering chart:

  • Paul Martin on factors driving crime increases in Austin:

    First, our police department is losing officers. The latest information can be found here, but here’s a summary for the TL;DR crowd:

    Last year, the Austin Police Department lost about eleven officers per month through resignations and retirements. In the first four months of this fiscal year, the police department has already lost an average of fifteen officers per month. The department will have more than seventy-five vacancies by the end of January, in addition to positions previously cut from the budget.

    (emphasis original)

    Fewer officers in a city with a growing population means fewer officers per citizen. This means increased response times for even high priority calls. Increased response times mean less policing and thus less deterrence to crime.

    The second component to this is the new policy in the Travis County District Attorney’s office under which the D.A. “will present all use-of-force cases [of law enforcement] to grand juries that involve deaths or serious injuries.” In other words, any time a citizen is injured during an arrest, the arresting officer runs the risk of being subjected to the grand jury process. The concern here is that officers will be less likely to use force moving forward. Violent criminals know this, and they know the officer will be reluctant to use force to take them into custody.

  • Matt Mackowiak makes the case for reinstating the camping ban:

    1) The homeless community has exploded, from around 2,500 to what I estimate to be 5,000 now, although according to Austonia a report commissioned by consultants for the city recently put the estimate at 10,000.

    2) Homeless fires are on track to double last year’s all-time record (to 503), endangering homeless Austinites and their personal property and our courageous firefighters.

    3) City parks are being destroyed all over the city, despite the fact that the camping ordinance specifically exempts parks from legal camping.

    4) Every single major highway intersection is worse today, and this is especially visible on Hwy. 183 and Hwy. 71, as well as on IH-35.

    5) Public safety in Austin is at the worst I can ever remember (I arrived in Austin in 1984), with our homicide rate set to double this year (after last year’s all-time record), and regular violent attacks by homeless individuals happening almost daily at this point. A quick review of the Citizen app will cause you to lose sleep at night.

    6) Public health in our city is far worse today than it would be without the ordinance, as the city had no plan for the human and physical waste created by camping, and we regularly see human feces, drug needles and other waste at encampments across the city.

    7) Tourism has taken a direct hit. Major hotels are losing conferences, visitors are shocked to see what’s become of Austin, and the related economic effect on the hospitality and service industries has been profound.

  • Austin’s homeless policies have made the problem worse:

    What is happening in Austin is nothing short of a humanitarian crisis. It threatens the health and safety of the community, and in particular of those struggling with homelessness.

    According to pre-COVID-19 data released in late March by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the number of Austin’s unsheltered population—those who live in makeshift tents around the city—has risen a staggering 93% since 2016.

    The Austin metro area represents 7% of the overall population of Texas, but about 25% of Texas’ unsheltered population today resides on its streets today.

    Snip.

    It is important to understand the origin of Austin’s homelessness surge. In 2013, HUD rolled out a one-size-fits-all homelessness policy, called Housing First, with spotty evidence of efficacy. Their “solution” to homelessness? Provide life-long, “no strings attached” housing—no requirement of sobriety, no work requirement, no requirement to access services to change the behaviors that led to homelessness. Austin’s elected officials took the bait—hook, line, and sinker.

    HUD promised the Housing First approach would end homelessness in a decade. Instead, it resulted in an over 16% increase across the nation, including a 21% increase in the “unsheltered” population—ironically, the population for which this approach was originally designed.

    Because Austin elected officials chose to follow HUD down an uncharted rabbit hole, Austin has experienced the same disastrous results, indeed the same disastrous results California has seen since it adopted Housing First in 2016—a stunning 37% increase in homelessness.

  • Could the Austin police department animal units be defunded?

    Austin’s Reimagining Public Safety Task Force recommended in a work session Wednesday the idea of doing away with several police units in the next budget cycle. It suggests reallocating the money for other needs.

    Two of the units one workgroup focused on are those that involve animals — APD’s Mounted Patrol and K9 Units.

    “There are many tools police have. These happen to be very costly,” said Kathy Mitchell, chair of the workgroup that made the recommendations.

    The Reimagining Public Safety Task Force estimates that APD’s Mounted Patrol and K9 units collectively cost the city nearly $5.5 million a year.

    The real reason, of course is that the hard-left “Reimagining Public Safety Task Force” hates the police and wants to free up that money for left-wing crony graft. Plus they hate those units because they’re effective and provide good publicity for APD. Plus the mounted police are particularly good at breaking up riots before they start, which the #antifa/#BlackLivesMatter loving Austin left all but encourages.

  • Austin criminals are getting bolder:

  • Austin city government may finally be letting APD graduate a cadet class, but they’re changing training to “increase community engagement and involve citizen groups in the cadet training process,” which I’m pretty sure are codewords for cramming leftwing indoctrination into the curriculum.
  • More evidence of what Adler and the city council have brought to Austin:

  • It looks like conventions are returning post Mao Tse Lung, but a lot fewer groups want to have their conventions in Austin now that it’s turned into bumsville:

  • Speaking of conventions: Austin voters properly kicked leftwing City Councilman Jimmy Flannigan to the curb in 2020. Surprise! Right after his defeat, Flannigan landed a cushy $140,000 job with “Austin Convention Enterprises, or ACE, [a] public facilities corporation that was created by the city to own, finance and operate the downtown Hilton.” Evidently once you’re a corrupt leftwing insider, you get cushy sinicures carved out for you to keep you on the government teat no matter what voters think… (Hat tip: Adam Loewy.)
  • Steve Adler, liar:

  • Lots of Austin restaurants are bailing on downtown:

    “In downtown, we depend on foot traffic and vehicle traffic driven primarily by visitors, hotel guests, conventioneers and locals who want to bar hop,” [B.D. Riley’s Irish Pub] co-owner Steve Basile said. “There was no path that we could draw that was anywhere more optimistic than 10 or 12 months of financial loss before downtown began to see the things that made downtown what it was pre-pandemic.”

    Convention-less. Festival-less. Tourism-less. In downtown Austin, the pandemic has taken the regular menu of revenue drivers off the table, and the public health risks now attached to large, in-person gatherings and out-of-town travel have placed a particular burden on small businesses in the city’s central business district bound by Lamar Boulevard, I-35, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Lady Bird Lake.

    The drain has made the math especially difficult for restaurants and bars, where bottom lines also depend on a now-dissipated office workforce, and smaller real estate footprints exacerbate the impact of social distancing rules. According to Community Impact Newspaper’s tracking of business closures, at least 10 locally owned restaurants and bars have permanently pulled out of downtown since August but, like B.D. Riley’s, have maintained business operations in other parts of the city. Their reasons signal a pessimism about the pace of recovery in the city’s center.

  • Proposition E wants to move to ranked voting (which is illegal under Texas law anyway). Here’s why it’s a bad idea.
  • Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell speaks out against the Wilco homeless hotel”

  • A montage of Adler’s Austin:

  • First-hand evidence of sex trafficking among the Adlervilles, and how no government entity would help:

  • Truth:

  • Some numbers:

  • Your city government in action: “Nobody knew how to restore power at Ullrich Water Treatment Plant during the freeze.”

    On a normal day, Ullrich Water Treatment Plant produces roughly half of Austin’s drinkable water and is crucial to keeping the city’s water system functioning.

    State regulations require the plant to either have access to a backup power source or a substantial amount of water reserves in case the plant sees an unexpected shutdown. Ullrich has both.

    So when a tree limb fell on an electric line leading to a substation that powered Austin’s largest water treatment plant on Feb. 17, backups should have snapped into place to keep power running and water production churning.

    But there was a problem: Nobody on site knew how to operate a 52-year-old gear switch that would have restored power to the plant.

    And so Ullrich Water Treatment Plant went dark for three hours in the middle of the worst winter storm to strike Central Texas in decades. It cut off roughly half of the city’s potable water production and deepened the winter weather crisis that at that moment had thousands shivering without electricity in their homes.

  • Hey, remember Mellow Johnny’s, the Austin bike shop that announced they would no longer sell bikes to APD? Well, guess which bike shop was recently burglarized?

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Waste and Fraud | 12 Comments »

    Austin City Council Continues Assault On APD

    Sunday, April 25th, 2021

    It’s obvious that the current Austin City Council hates the Austin Police Department, and will do anything they think the can get away with to strip it of money and power. The most recent example: They’re stripping 911 funding from the police to hand it over to a newly created department:

    In continuing to restructure the Austin Police Department, the City Council on Thursday voted to move 911 communications and several other services out of police control and into other city departments.

    The total funding to be transferred out of the Police Department’s budget will be about $33.3 million — much of it due to 284.5 full-time positions moving to other city departments.

    The decision builds on the council’s work during last year’s budget process when it cut or reallocated $150 million from the Police Department’s budget — one-third of the entire budget. The money removed Thursday came from funds that were set aside to explore shifting roles assigned to police to other city departments.

    Why strip money from a functioning 911 dispatch system? Obviously, because the current employees support the police department, and lack of control over it means it can’t be staffed with leftwing cronies, making it much harder to rake off the graft and embezzlement. The “efficiencies” the Austin City Council claims the move to an “Emergency Communications Department” will bring is efficiently siphoning taxpayer money from the causes for which it is earmarked and into the hands of the hard left. But don’t think the crazy stops there:

    Thursday’s vote followed a presentation earlier in the week from a community task force assembled by City Manager Spencer Cronk’s office to consider ways to improve public safety.

    The recommendations included removing various line items in the Police Department’s budget and investing them in low-income communities through things such as health care access, food, housing and sex worker outreach services.

    Some of the more extreme recommendations came from a four-person working group over patrol and surveillance. They included removing all deadly firearms from police officers and putting an end to new cadet classes. By eliminating neighborhood-based policing, the working group said the city would save $210 million that could be reinvested in communities of color.

    “Any City Council member who supports that should be fired,” [Austin Police Association President Ken] Casady said. “It’s crazy town. Just by reading this one recommendation this committee has lost all credibility.”

    Removing firearms from police and giving money to whores: Your Austin City Council at work.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Waste and Fraud | 7 Comments »

    The Building Austin Policing Crisis

    Monday, April 12th, 2021

    Many of the cities that defunded police last year in a fit of social justice warrior-endorsed madness have reversed course once crime rates started spiraling. But Austin’s hard-left City Council seems stuck on stupid.

    After the Austin police budget cut on top of the repeal of the public camping ban, Austin crime and disorder has gotten measurably worse. Austin police are also leaving in droves:

    After the Austin city council voted unanimously to defund its police department by about one-third of its budget, in August 2020, many predicted that once the cuts kicked in a flood of officers would leave the force as soon as they could. The new district attorney’s policy of re-investigating police officers for closed cases is also expected to cause officers to resign or retire.

    The city council’s cuts officially kicked in and have been in place for a few months.

    PJ Media reports exclusively that APD is now suffering a huge surge of officer departures putting it on pace to shatter 2020’s record.

    In January 2021, sources tell PJ Media 20 officers retired from APD and eight resigned, for a total of 28 departures.

    In February 2021, five officers resigned and six retired, according to multiple sources, for a total of 11 departures.

    In March 2021, 24 more officers left APD, with 20 officers retiring. Additionally, three officers resigned and one was terminated.

    To put this into perspective, 2019 was the last non-pandemic year and the year before the city council cut APD’s budget. APD averages about 50 retirements or separations in a calendar year, and replaces them with cadets who have graduated from the police academy or officers who join APD from another force.

    APD saw 46 officers retire with another 22 resigning in 2019, according to local TV news station KVUE.

    2020’s numbers were exacerbated by the George Floyd riots; 78 officers departed or retired from APD from the beginning of those riots to the end of 2020, for a total of 89 separations, according to KVUE.

    Official 2021 numbers provided to PJ Media by the Austin Police Retirement System (APRS) break down as follows:

    • Prior to 2020, retirements averaged 50-52 per year over the last 5-6 years
    • Record number of retirements in FY 2020: 97
    • First-quarter 2021 retirements: 45

    Add to those 45 retirements the 18 resignations or terminations, for a total of 63 separations in just the first quarter of 2021. If the current pace continues, APD could lose approximately 252 officers — about five times the average number of separations for a year. This will impact public safety across the board, and according to the APRS, can impact retirees’ benefits as well. APRS raised the alarm about the impact the city council’s cuts could have in September of 2020.

    March 2021’s retirements hit all over the department, including tactical intelligence, gang crimes, narcotics enforcement, investigations, and the bomb squad, according to a full list provided to PJ Media. Traffic enforcement — both warnings and citations — has declined by more than 60% in the first two months of 2021, a source tells PJ Media.

    At the same time, the city council’s cuts have forced the cancellation of police cadet classes. The department is losing experienced officers in droves and is unable to replace them with new officers.

    Fewer officers means fewer officers to cover 911 calls, to the point that some 911 calls now result in “NUA”s: No Officer Available:

    The situation is made worse by the fact that hard-left Travis County DA Jose Garza has announced he’s not prosecuting drug crimes, but is keen on indicting Austin police officers on even minor infractions:

    Indicting police officers who have committed crimes is proper. Referring every allegation against a police officer to a grand jury—a promise Garza repeatedly made as a candidate–is not. It is not proper because it is not how allegations against all others are handled. Singling out persons based on their status is discriminatory and, ironically, itself an abuse of power. Such overt antagonism against law enforcement undoubtedly will erode cooperation between APD and the DA’s office and impact adversely criminal justice in Austin generally.

    Garza clearly wants to promote a perception that police misconduct will not be tolerated and successfully indicting APD officers might serve that purpose. Failure to prosecute after indictment, however, ultimately will undermine public trust and confidence in Garza and his office. Garza’s hostility toward police can also engender public animosity toward APD as an organization. Effective policing requires community support. To the extent Garza persists in attacking APD as racist and corrupt, social and racial divisions will worsen and impede cooperation.

    Snip.

    Garza’s anti-law enforcement campaign closely resembled those of other Soros-backed socialist candidates for district attorney around the country. He promised to abolish the requirement of bail, to ignore laws he does not like and violations of those laws. He promised immunity to persons for conduct he considered status crimes. He promised to discriminate against police and to treat immigrants more favorably than citizens. Based on the actual policies of those DA’s elected in other large cities, it was entirely predictable that Garza would follow suit. My campaign sought to warn voters of the threat to public safety and security as evidenced by deteriorating conditions in cities like San Francisco, Portland and Chicago. Because Garza is an ideologue, he will not be deterred by the harm his policies will surely cause our community. He is more committed to his ideology than the rule of law.

    Is there any light at the end of the tunnel? Some. Face with rising murder rates, the Austin City Council finally relented and is allowing a new APD cadet class to be trained, though it looks like they’re going to try to cram “more community involvement” (a codeword for more far-left social justice warrior meddling) into the curriculum. And various bills are winding their way through the Texas legislature to address Austin’s idiocy.

    A huge improvement, of course, will happen if Proposition B passes on May 1st. But expect Austin policing to continue to get short shrift as long as Garza, Austin mayor Steve Adler and the current City Council remain in office.

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    Posted in Austin, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 3 Comments »

    Austin Burning

    Saturday, April 3rd, 2021

    Another wondrous side benefit of all the drug-addled transients Mayor Steve Adler and the Austin City Council have lured to the city is the fires they’ve started in their trash-strewn camps. This week saw three separate homeless camp fires, one of which engulfed a historic building:

    Three fires broke out at Austin homeless camps over the span of 24 hours. One of those fires spread and burned the historic Buford Tower in Downtown Austin.

    The Austin Fire Department said they believe the blaze was arson and are looking for a suspect. AFD said the Thursday night fire started at a nearby homeless camp and drifted to the historic tower.

    Friday, city crews were washing away the ashes left behind. No injuries were reported. AFD said the damage was mostly on the outside of the building and windows.

    “I lost everything, my entire life,” said Richard Bryant, who lives at the homeless camp. “My sleeping bag, my clothes, my blanket, everything.”

    Bryant lives in a now-melted tent at the homeless camp where AFD said the blaze started.

    Hours after the April 1 fire broke out at the Buford Tower – a bell tower and landmark that used to serve as a drill tower for the Austin Fire Department – firefighters responded to a separate fire at the State homeless camp on the Bastrop Highway. Damage was reported at four units at the homeless camp, but there were no reported injuries.

    Since the insane decision to repeal the camping ban, Austin hasn’t suffered a really dry summer. Drought conditions and sprawling camps of drug addicts cooking smack among dried-out underbrush is a recipe for disaster.

    Mayor Steve Adler regurgitated the same bromides he offers up any time his pet transients trash another part of Austin: Taxpayers need to give the Austin City Council more money to fix the problems they created.

    Consider this yet another reason to reinstate the homeless camping ban on May 1st.

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    Posted in Austin, Crime | 1 Comment »

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