Austin mayor's race: Where candidates stand on the issues
The American-Statesman surveyed the candidates in Austin's mayor's race to get their positions on some of the key issues facing the city.
Here are their responses, some of which have been edited for length and clarity:
Phil Brual
Biography: University of Texas student and state legislative intern.
How can the City Council slow the increase in housing prices and make home ownership a greater possibility for more residents?
The city of Austin needs to first update the ancient development code and remove the parking space requirements. This would allow for multifamily housing developments to cost significantly less, thus allowing for more availability to hit the market sooner. The city also needs to use some of its property wealth to develop affordable housing controlled by the city. Providing low cost options to the people will help drive down market prices and provide more competition to the city.
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
Austin should stop trying to develop and build city-operated homeless programs. Instead, those tax dollars would be directed to already established non-profit or charity programs in Travis County. These organizations can complete the same task for less, as they already have the experts, research, and programs in place.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
The quality of APD's services is currently extremely subpar. However, this does not fall on the responsibility of the APD. This has come from extreme defunding and villainization of our officers by City Council. It is very hard for any individual to do their job efficiently when they know their boss openly hates them. APD needs to have their funding increased but have it properly allocated to specialized training, task divisions, recruiting, and most importantly, community service. Community service will allow these officers to build relationships with the people of this city. These relationships build trust and respect for APD, and can be used to help deescalate situations across the board. Increase funding no longer means more hand cuffs and bullets. It now means trust.
What would you consider priorities for Austin when it comes to traffic/transit (Project Connect, I-35 expansion, road safety, etc)?
The priority Austin must adopt is converting this city into a non-car commute city. Countless times cities across the U.S. have funded expansion projects for highways and roads, only for the expansion to not have fulfilled the goals intended... With proper redevelopment and proper investment, bus rides will no longer take three hours compared to 20 minute car rides. Investments into bus-only lanes and other priority roads can make huge improvements. Project Connect, though extremely flawed, can also be redeveloped to be of better service. Currently the plan costs a ridiculous amount and doesn't even cover all of Austin's districts.
What other priorities do you have? What sets you apart as a candidate?
The biggest priority I have is the preservation of Austin culture. Our city has abandoned small businesses, musicians, artists and different communities that made Austin what it was. We've traded these amazing people for big corporations and landlords that cause prices to skyrocket. The Austin that created a diverse city filled with love and openness is dwindling and dying, and we need to work on saving it.
Celia Israel
Biography: Texas state representative for House District 50 since 2014. Founded the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus and led on issues related to transportation, voting rights, and criminal justice reform. Served as chair of the Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee in 2020. Began career in public service under Gov. Ann Richards, first as a volunteer coordinator on Richards' 1990 campaign and then in Richards' administration in the appointments division. At the local level, has served the city of Austin on the Environmental Board, the Police Monitor Board, the 2011 Bond Advisory Commission, the Robert Mueller Advisory Commission and the AISD School Safety Task Force. Is a Realtor and a University of Texas graduate.
How can the City Council slow the increase in housing prices and make home ownership a greater possibility for more residents?
Our city is at a crisis point and the housing shortage is pricing the workforce we depend on the most out of the city limits. In office, I will work to achieve substantially higher availability of all types of housing for all levels of income. To create more housing for working families, City Council can relax burdensome standards for missing middle housing (four-plexes and up to 12 units that provide lower-cost housing), expand qualification for the residential review process, and create a “site plan light” so we’re not treating a six-plex the same way we treat a 300-unit apartment complex in the city of Austin review process.
We can find creative opportunities to repurpose outdated parking lots for new infill housing, and we can also maximize our city’s real estate holdings, in coordination with other public partners, to create deeply affordable workforce housing opportunities across our city.
We can also enhance our investments in rental assistance and home repair supports to keep people in their homes. Robust support is needed to keep renters housed and allow them the opportunity to build wealth so they have the opportunity to buy a home in the future if they wish.
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
We have all seen Austin’s unhoused population rise, and we must react with compassion as well as an understanding that we must tackle this problem holistically. First, we must address those who have been pushed out of housing due to rising costs. We need to tackle housing costs from the supply side, and I am the only candidate in the race with a housing plan that will expand the supply of housing that working families can afford here in Austin.
Just as we must tackle the economic issues, we must also work to address the gap in necessary social services that have led to many becoming unhoused. Austin is in serious need of more wraparound services, substance abuse treatment, and mental health support. We need to improve our coordination with the county, as well as ensure that our very qualified and dedicated nonprofit partners have a greater voice in both short-term response and long-term planning. I would further support the work of experienced nonprofits like the Other Ones Foundation and Sunrise Navigation Center, and speed up permitting and assistance needed from the city in order for them to be successful.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
We have made necessary headway in updates to the training academy – in partnership between community stakeholders and police – in an effort to improve retention, officer safety and community trust. We must ensure that these training reforms are providing the positive outcomes intended, preparing officers for service with training as a “guardian” rather than a “warrior,” and resulting in fewer injuries and higher completion rates of new officers. If these reforms are providing these desired outcomes, we can increase recruitment efforts to fill these vacancies which will reduce workforce strain and decrease average response times. Supportive training and transparent oversight are essential to having a successful police department with community trust.
Additionally, I’m concerned about the growing vacancies in 911 operator and dispatcher positions and the impact this has on the city’s quality of public safety services. When you call 911, you expect a swift and supportive response, not to be placed on hold. Not only must we provide the competitive salary and benefits necessary to fill these vacancies, but we must also combat our many affordability challenges of which our first responders are not immune. We must ensure those who work in Austin can afford to live in Austin.
What would you consider priorities for Austin when it comes to traffic/transit (Project Connect, I-35 expansion, road safety, etc)?
At this critical time for the future of our transit system, our focus must be on how we can create the greatest connectivity for all people in all of Austin without adjusting the dollar figure that the voters approved in 2020 with the passage of Project Connect.
I-35 has been a big, open wound for our city and a dividing line between east and west Austin for generations. We must change the existing I-35 but I cannot support the new I-35 project as it stands now, which would construct 20 lanes through the heart of Austin and displace nearly 100 homes and businesses. We must work with TxDOT to achieve greater east/west connectivity, community assets, and multimodal supports without an expanded footprint.
We should fully embrace Vision Zero transportation safety initiatives, building on our local successes in reducing traffic fatalities along our most dangerous routes and creating connected streets that are accessible and safe whether you are biking, walking, driving or taking public transportation. We should also work with our medium and major employers to encourage opportunities for telecommuting and flex work schedules to help ease congestion.
What other priorities do you have? What sets you apart as a candidate?
Child care is the second-largest household expense after housing in Austin. Many parents are left with the agonizing choice between struggling to afford high child care costs or leaving the workforce. We need to identify opportunities to contribute city-owned property toward affordable, high-quality child care centers, streamline city processes, such as permitting, for providers, and work with schools and businesses on new partnership opportunities. We also need to address the child care workforce crisis. Currently, quality programs are unable to serve enough infants, toddlers, and young children because they cannot recruit and retain quality educators. We can provide wage supplements and other investments to ensure programs can hire enough educators to support Austin families.
I’m the child of working-class parents. I know firsthand how Austin’s affordability challenges affect our families, workers, and students. There are real people who are hurting in this affordability crisis and they are front and center of my mind. These are difficult and involved topics that call for all voices to be heard, and I have a reputation for keeping an open door and open mind that will be an asset as we face these decisions. I will be a mayor for all of Austin.
Gary Spellman
Biography: Co-founded with his wife Ultimate Face Cosmetics, which he describes as a "vegan, gluten-free and cruelty-free global beauty brand." He also works for the John Paul Mitchell company, traveling to hair schools and instructing students on the company's philanthropy mission.
How can the City Council slow the increase in housing prices and make home ownership a greater possibility for more residents?
The council can only make recommendations to the city manager. We should probably ask City Manger Spencer Cronk. The council should start by looking at what drives prices (economic change, supply and demand, interest rates and location).
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
More accountability for everyone involved. Look to our successful programs and implement them more. Use of the private sector brain power.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
We need to make sure our officers feel valued and appreciated. Better community interaction between Austinites and policing. We need a cop on the beat again, someone the whole neighborhood knows.
What would you consider priorities for Austin when it comes to traffic/transit (Project Connect, I-35 expansion, road safety, etc)?
We need to pump the brakes on Project Connect. Let's bring in other ideas before we commit to a $5 billion project. I support a real study into alternatives to expansion including Rethink35, Reconnect Austin and other community proposals. Use our toll roads for non-local traffic.
What other priorities do you have? What sets you apart as a candidate?
We need to seriously address our public education and our future water supply. What sets me apart is I am neither Democrat or Republican. I am the Purple Party. I believe the us vs. them mentality is hurting not just Austin but our whole country. Our all or nothing mentality is wrong. When everyone wins people are happy. When Austinites feel like they are being heard they are happy. When your citizens are happy Austin thrives.
Jennifer Virden
Biography: Independent real estate broker and a design/build remodeling general contractor who owns her own business. Ran for the Austin City Council in District 10 in 2020 and made the runoff. A University of Texas graduate.
How can the City Council slow the increase in housing prices and make home ownership a greater possibility for more residents?
The three primary ways the city impacts housing costs are property taxes, permitting fees and restrictions on the development of housing. The city must lower its portion of our property tax bills and make it easier and less expensive to build new housing supply. We need to reduce permitting time frames, permanently reduce development fees by more than 50%, and actually simplify our land development code, always respecting existing deed restrictions and maintaining the beauty of Austin’s neighborhoods.
I am the only mayoral candidate in this race who has a practicable written plan on how we can reduce Austinites’ property taxes, which will help renters, seniors, and businesses, and which will help more Austinites become homebuyers. We will increase the senior exemption and benchmark it to the cost of housing. We will freeze – and then reduce by 3.5% per year – the city portion of our property taxes. When I’m mayor, council and I will direct the city of Austin’s intergovernmental relations officer and her staff to prioritize assisting Austin Independent School District in brokering with the state legislature a more equitable Recapture (aka “Robin Hood”).
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
I would start with fully enforcing the camping ban. We need ECHO to complete a current (point in time) count. Audit all existing resources and examine all current homeless spending. Effectively leverage all existing state, local and federal resources (such as our local mental health authority and hospital district resources). Prioritize mental health and substance abuse treatment, which is necessary for the overwhelming majority of Austin’s homeless population, while working with APD and the court system. Stop allowing open drug use on Austin’s streets and underpasses. End expensive homeless hotel enterprises. Move the ARCH out of our downtown business & tourism district. Shift from “housing first” to “housing plus treatment.” Redefine success away from just simply staying in housing for six months. Lobby for strengthened involuntary commitment laws for those who are incompetent or a danger to themselves or others. Implement proven models such as Mobile Loaves & Fishes Community! First Village, and Bexar County’s Haven for Hope, which has a sensible barrier to entry of proving nine months of residency prior to being eligible to receive services.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
The quality of policing services is rather subjective. Rising crime rates and longer response times are objective failures of the current council’s defunding police policies. Increasing police staffing will be a top priority for me as mayor.
What would you consider priorities for Austin when it comes to traffic/transit (Project Connect, I-35 expansion, road safety, etc)?
Now that Project Connect is estimated to cost over $10 billion, the scoping of the project has been delayed a year and is being reevaluated. It’s possible that increased BRT routes may be what we will be able to afford under Project Connect at much lesser cost. Tunneling and rail are fixed and high cost. Regarding expanding I-35 through Austin, which is very important, the overriding determinants for its expansion should be safety and engineering. Regarding traffic, here are some common-sense principles to abide by: actually prioritize easing traffic congestion whenever considering transportation projects, work with TxDOT to maximize state investment in Austin state-owned roads, expand existing high-volume roads where possible, don’t counter-productively remove traffic lanes from right-of-way, work with CapMetro to ensure the bus system and car traffic are better coordinated to avoid unnecessary traffic congestion, use technology such as predictive light synchronization to improve existing flows of traffic, and fill potholes.
What other priorities do you have? What sets you apart as a candidate?
One big priority of mine is to restore trust between City Hall and the public. Years of not listening to the people and attempts to spin the obvious results of their policies have eroded trust in the mayor’s office. I want to restore that trust. Also, what sets me apart are that I’m a lifelong Austinite and a successful self-employed businessperson, and I am not a career politician.
Kirk Watson
Biography: A lawyer and former Austin mayor, from 1997 to 2001, and a former Texas state senator. Ran for Texas attorney general in 2002 and secured the Democratic Party nomination. Served as the founding dean at the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston. Served as chair of a state environmental agency, chair of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, chair of the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, chair of the Texas Advisory Board of Environmental Defense, and chair of the Travis County Democratic Party.
How can the City Council slow the increase in housing prices and make home ownership a greater possibility for more residents?
The cost of housing in our community has spiraled out of control, threatening to fundamentally change the character of the city we love. I worry that if we fail to act with urgency to drive down housing costs, we risk watching Austin transform from a diverse and inclusive place of opportunity into a homogenous playground for only the very wealthy. We cannot allow housing costs to put home ownership — typically the basis of long-term financial stability — out of reach. To help, I believe the city must act quickly to expand the availability of a full range of housing options without damaging the essential character of our existing neighborhoods. I have proposed a number of steps I believe we should consider, including reforming the city’s development review process and cutting fees; rewriting our land development code and zoning rules to encourage more kinds of housing in more places; and building affordable housing on publicly-owned land, potentially including a master-planned community at Lake Walter E. Long (a city-owned site nearly four times larger than the Mueller redevelopment).
I also believe we should address other costs that impact the ability to live in Austin, such as childcare, and I have offered a plan.
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
I support the creation of more permanent supportive housing units with support services and the city’s ongoing efforts to get more unhoused people into those units, which must be accelerated. We should also expand the city’s partnerships with community organizations like Caritas and Mobile Loaves & Fishes to deliver even more housing options. I additionally believe the city should further explore options, including city-sanctioned encampments, to protect unhoused people that cannot or may choose not to move into permanent supportive housing but who cannot camp in public spaces following voters’ reinstatement and legislative reinstatement of the public camping ban last May. The bottom line is that we need to meet people experiencing homelessness exactly where they are and provide the support and services they need without regard to how or where they live. We need a continuum of service and not the limited options we have been offered. We also need to build on the mental health work that is currently ongoing in the region with a focus on our population that lives homeless.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
I believe Austin police officers are working to provide the best possible service to our community, but our police department is seriously understaffed. I am an advocate for scaling our recruitment and training programs and bringing more officers onto the force as soon as possible. This can be done reflecting Austin’s values of justice. Recruiting and training is key to that. I also believe strongly in police accountability. During my time as mayor, I successfully negotiated agreements between community leaders and police officers that increased police oversight, strengthened public safety, and led to the creation of Austin’s Office of the Police Monitor. If elected to serve again, as we focus on rebuilding the department, I will remain committed to finding new ways to build trust. This could include investing in community violence intervention programs, restorative justice, and other approaches that prioritize dialogue and relationship building. Having a properly staffed department that lives up to Austin values is not a binary choice.
What would you consider priorities for Austin when it comes to traffic/transit (Project Connect, I-35 expansion, road safety, etc)?
I have consistently advocated for addressing Austin’s perennial problem of traffic. While there are remaining questions as we address I-35 and Project Connect, I have been supportive of both. Approximately $25 billion worth of regional mobility infrastructure projects are in the pipeline or underway. Our central challenge as a city and region is ensure that these massive, potentially transformational transportation projects are executed with maximum efficiency, speed, accountability, and equity, and that we take every possible step to minimize the disruption. It will be especially critical to ensure that every state, regional and local jurisdiction that owns any piece of the process is pulling in the same direction. I would work to create a regional Transportation Construction Command Center — a new, daily working partnership between the city of Austin, the Texas Department of Transportation, the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority, the Austin Transit Partnership, Capital Metro, county governments, public safety, and emergency response agencies, and potentially a range of other stakeholders, to create an integrated ongoing approach to managing our major mobility projects. Command Center partners should aggressively collaborate to streamline and optimize the planning, design, contracting, permitting, and construction of projects, including developing and executing strategies to mitigate impact.
What other priorities do you have? What sets you apart as a candidate?
We should make Austin the best city in America to raise a child by focusing on child care and early childhood development. I also believe it is time to adjust our economic development model so that it is not so focused on just job creation and, instead, focuses intensely on placing Austinites in the jobs we have. While my overall priority will be to meet basic needs and make Austin more affordable, we also need a mayor who will advance Austin’s values... Protecting who we are is work that we must also do to truly safeguard our community’s future. That includes defending human rights — including reproductive rights — and demanding respect and equality of opportunity for all people. In terms of what sets me apart from other candidates, I have significantly more public service experience, and believe that I have built more and stronger positive working relationships across our city and region. I am also proud to have received the most group endorsements and have the most public supporters, and am honored to have received campaign contributions from more people than any city candidate in Austin’s history.
Anthony Bradshaw
Biography: Owner of Bradshaw Security and Prestige Commercial Enterprises. Former pastor of Newday Church/Eternal Power Ministries.
Bradshaw did not answer the American-Statesman's questions.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin mayor's race: Where candidates stand on the issues
