Chamber of Avarice

Environmentalists and other citizen groups have just gone too far. Sure, they have some worthy goals, but they're wrecking the city treasury and simply must be reined back in before they destroy the city. This is becoming the dominant orthodoxy. The message is repeated like a mantra by suburban developers, the Chamber of Commerce, and other boosters. It is reported faithfully by Austin's only daily newspaper and on what passes for news on local TV stations.

Reality, as seen from this viewpoint, is as follows: Suburban developers and the Chamber of Commerce - what the Austin American-Statesman calls the "business community," but what we'll refer to here as boosters - are motivated by deep concern for the financial condition of the city. The same elements care deeply about the less fortunate and ask only to make a few bucks for themselves while creating the economic engine that will lead to prosperity for all local citizens. Environmental protection, on the other hand, while a worthy goal, is absurdly expensive to taxpayers. Also, protecting the environment somehow hurts the poor - and in particular the residents of East Austin - but city subsidies to wealthy enclaves outside the city limits, like Circle C and the proposed Barton Creek PUD, benefit the poor.

There is another view of reality, however. It holds that Austin would be much better off both economically and environmentally if city leaders had heeded the advice of environmentalists over the last 30 years. Let's take a look at a few fiscal statistics and see what turns up.

We'll begin with the Chamber of Commerce, the official booster organization. For many years, chamber forces have sanctimoniously proclaimed themselves to be the hub of sound business practices, while the citizen forces who oppose their policies are portrayed as wacky and radical. Yet, it's the chamber that, time after time, has advocated city involvement in financially disastrous policies and environmentally disastrous ventures. On the other hand, environmentalists and related citizens groups repeatedly warned of the environmental and fiscal dangers of booster policies. They've been right many more times than not.

This pattern dates back at least to Austin's entry into the South Texas Nuclear Project (STNP) in 1973. STNP backers, led by the chamber, claimed its electricity would be too cheap to meter. The STNP finished more than six times over budget and now accounts for 40% of every Austin electric bill. The city has spent more than $30 million on STNP lawsuits without winning a dime. (On the other hand, the chamber and their council allies argue that appealing the ruling against the city in the recent FM Properties federal trial is a financial extravagance, even though it will cost no more in city legal fees, and even though the city's attorneys strongly recommend an appeal.)

Since getting Austin into the STNP, the chamber has backed virtually every proposal for increased bond debt as Austin racked up one of the highest per capita bond debts in the nation, if not the world. Additionally, the chamber and booster forces have supported virtually every other subsidy to development in environmentally sensitive areas, including the Barton Creek PUD. They also supported disastrous fiscal and environmental policies - which thankfully failed to become reality - such as the Manor Airport and the construction of a three-million-square-foot convention center/retail/condo megaplex on Auditorium Shores and at Palmer Auditorium. There is a long list of other booster-supported boondoggles that did come to pass, some officially supported by the chamber board and some not, but all featuring many of the same players lined up at the public trough, and all opposed by citizen groups that were portrayed as wacky and radical. For example, there was the purchase of the Sumiken and Avante buildings for millions over the city's own appraisals, land in Webberville bought for a coal plant that was never built, convention center land purchased for more than the city's appraisals, and the Southwest Parkway (an expressway over the Barton Creek Watershed), which started falling apart almost as soon as it opened. And let us not forget that Austin developers and boosters defaulted on so many loans in the 1980s boom and bust that the federal Resolution Trust Corporation ended up owning 8% of Austin. Federal taxpayers, of course, paid hundreds of millions for this looting spree.

The pattern continues in today's boom, with boosters engaging in an amazing City Hall feeding frenzy. For example, current projects at the top of the chamber priority list include a taxpayer-financed baseball stadium, which was approved by the council at the same time that calls to 911 were going unanswered. And there's the ongoing proposal for a city-subsidized, downtown mall. That mall is the Chamber's official top priority for this year. In pursuit of the mall, and other "downtown revitalization" projects, the chamber has backed the hiring of San Francisco consultants to recommend approaches to downtown revitalization. They don't seem to have noticed that downtown is becoming increasingly vibrant and is in the process of being revitalized through private investment.

By the way, a top lobbyist for both the downtown mall and the baseball stadium projects is attorney and former chamber chair Ron Kessler. This points to another fiscal problem, the grip of lobbyists on chamber policy. Don't be too shocked if the consultants recommend a city-subsidized mall along the lines of the one being promoted by Kessler.

With the above list in mind, it becomes rather difficult to argue that the Chamber of Commerce or our local booster forces have been kind to the city treasury. In fact, it appears that the city would be in much better financial shape today if the advice of the allegedly zany citizen groups had been heeded. This is particularly true on environmental issues: boosters like to screech about the high cost of environmental protection, but in reality, a much larger cost is incurred by subsidizing environmentally damaging suburban development.

The clearest example of this relationship (though far from the only one) lies over the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone at our newly sovereign southwestern neighbor, Bradleyville (aka the Circle C Ranch) outside the city limits. This notorious development constitutes one of the biggest threats to Barton Springs and the aquifer. Circle C developer Gary Bradley has also been an incredible glutton at the public trough, gorging on the city, the school district, and the state and federal pie.

Federal taxpayers ate $90 million of Bradley's bad loans - around 35 cents for every person in the U.S. - and he got to keep Circle C anyway. Then there's the multi-million dollar southern extension of the MoPac Expressway from US 290 to the gates of Circle C. The state also put half a million dollars toward the ridiculous bicycle veloway at Circle C, while city taxpayers chipped in more than $300,000 in bond money which voters had approved for bicycle improvements within the city limits. Additionally, the city maintains Slaughter Creek Metropolitan Park, a city park at Circle C which cost city taxpayers $12,500 in maintenance this year. The biggest drain on city taxpayers, however, is the $35 million of municipal utility district (MUD) bond debt for water and wastewater infrastructure for which the city is responsible. City ratepayers will cough up more than $3 million in debt service this year alone toward that debt.

Then there's the school district. Bradley convinced the Austin Independent School District (AISD) to abandon plans for a South Austin high school within the city limits, as approved by voters, and persuaded them to instead build the $27 million Bowie High School at Circle C. Since then, AISD has also built Kiker Elementary in the heart of Circle C at a cost of $4.7 million, and the nearby Bailey Middle School at a cost of $12 million. And AISD is considering building at least three more schools in the area as part of their upcoming bond proposal.

These hundreds of millions in public funds went - and are still going - to subsidize the success of a development in the most environmentally sensitive area of Travis County. And as we know, even with all this, Bradley and many Circle C residents were not satisfied and thus persuaded the Legislature to void parts of agreements with the city they didn't like, while the subsidies were kept flowing.

So, suburban growth has been a little expensive. But has it, as promoted, helped the economy in general and the poor in particular? Certainly the two booms Austin has experienced in the last 15 years brought jobs, but they also brought new residents to fill many of them, which increased the need for more city services and revenues. And more importantly, all the booster/chamber scams and boondoggles have been a key force in driving taxes to the painful levels we pay today. They have helped make Austin a place where it is becoming increasingly difficult for people of average means to afford to live, and also robbed social programs which the chamber/booster/Statesman axis claims to support, and which they claim are being robbed by environmental programs.

During the 1980s boom, when booster policies were going full tilt, the number of Travis County residents living in poverty increased by 55%, while population grew by 37.5% (the poverty level for a family of four in 1989 was $12,674; this year it's $15,150). The actual poverty rate in 1989 was 16% - up from 14% at the beginning of the decade - and the rate in the East Austin zip codes 78702 and 78721 was 60%. Currently, in the midst of another boom, the unemployment rate for African-Americans is almost double that of whites, and unemployment among African-American teens is 10 times as high as white teens. Clearly, both booster booms have left many people behind.

Another failed area of booster policy is housing. During both booms, housing construction has concentrated on dwellings for the rich and the upper middle class, although rhetoric has often concentrated on the aid the booms provide to the working class and poor. Certainly none of the poor will find lodging at Circle C, where the cheapest houses are well over $100,000 - or at the PUD, where the "villas" average $390,000 apiece, and even empty lots are out of the price range of most working people.

Wherever local residents look for housing, the price will be higher. During the last five years, rental rates in the Austin area have increased by 53%. The cost of buying a house has increased by 32%. Almost one-third of all Travis County households pay over 30% of their income for housing. For elderly renters, that figure goes up to almost 50%, and roughly the same percentage of elderly live in overcrowded conditions, and/or lack complete plumbing or kitchens. (Most of the above statistics come from the Community Action Network's (CAN) recently released "Snapshot of Our Community." CAN is a coalition group of local governments, social service agencies, social workers, and volunteer organizations which the city and county have established as the official body to develop a master plan "for the provision of health and human services in Travis County.")

So call me crazy, but it doesn't look to me like chamber/booster/Statesman policies have been good for the financial or environmental well-being of Austin. In fact, it seems to me that what hope Austin has left lies in acknowledging that protecting the environment, the public treasury, and meeting social needs all go together. To get there we will have to - among other things - cut through the shrill din of booster bull.