As the Council Turns

While Brigid Shea is doing her best to get the city's ethical rulebook thrown at Eric Mitchell, Ronney Reynolds confirms reports that he intends a run at the mayoral seat in 1997, and Bruce Todd denies incessant rumors that he's leaving office early to seek a job in D.C.

Those affairs and more offered a stimulating intermezzo to a council meeting stripped of a good portion of its dramatic potential, due to an absence by Max Nofziger that caused councilmembers to delay the more controversial items on the agenda until Nofziger's vote returned. Winning a reprieve is Austin's homeless population, which anticipated third and final passage of Todd's "encampment" ordinance to outlaw sleeping and camping in public areas. Ditto for lobbyists, who are the target of a proposal from the Ethics Commission to require that they - whether compensated for their efforts or not - adhere to a $25 campaign contribution limit. Of course the proposal may, as Mitchell likes to say, just "look good and sound good" since the only mechanism to assure honest disclosure of compensation will be the conscience of the lobbyist.

"Good faith" being the backbone of ethical laws, the ever-skeptical Shea isn't waiting around for city staff to determine whether a city subcontract held by Mitchell's firm, Wormley, Mitchell & Associates, should be voided. "Any councilmember who's doing business with the city or gets financial benefit from the city should have their contract nullified," asserts Shea.

As mentioned ad nauseum in this column, the ordinance states simply that no councilmember shall receive financial benefit from any city contract. But Mitchell's firm is expected to receive $6,000 to provide insurance for an airport construction project. The contract was awarded in December; Mitchell voted to approve it. Mitchell would not return phone calls on this issue.

"It's outrageous that this kind of thing is going on," Shea says. "What kind of confidence does that give the public if councilmembers can vote to give themselves contracts?"

City Manager Jesus Garza, on the other hand, has explained that insurance providers are peripheral to a project and should not be considered subcontractors. Over the summer, he promised an ordinance to clarify the issue. That has not been accomplished. Meanwhile, insurance providers are still listed on applications for numerous city projects as potential subcontractors.

So last week, Shea took matters into her own hands and asked City Attorney Andrew Martin to clarify the ordinance. According to Shea, Martin, who couldn't be reached last week, promises that a clarification of the rules is underway.

If so, Shea, who acknowledges that she consumes much of her job watchdogging other councilmembers, says she will probably not rest until the contract is nullified or explicitly permitted by city law.

And though her political beliefs often clash spectacularly with Mitchell's, she insists that her motives are based on principle. "I would do the same if Gus or Jackie had a contract. I find it scandalous." But almost most importantly, she says, is her concern that the alleged conflict of interest could "put the city in jeopardy of losing federal funding" since the feds are helping to finance the new airport.

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Speaking of D.C., the City Hall rumor mill has enveloped everyone from councilmembers to top-level city staff in a thick intrigue that has the mayor quitting before the expiration of his term in 1997 to take a post in the Clinton Administration. Job security and the advancement of a political career, then, would probably not be what the mayor has in mind. Instead, attempts to explain the alleged move range from the absurd, like the mayor's disdain for the city, to the somewhat plausible, as in he just wants a higher wage.

Todd, for his part, laughingly dismisses the whisperings as so much gemcrackery. If he were to leave office early, he says, he would work for "The Sam & Bobby Show" and the only thing he would run for would be "the county line."

But the scuttlebutt, which has circulated through the corridors of City Hall for years, may increase in frequency now that Reynolds has informed his colleagues that it's his "intention [stress on intention, please] to run for mayor" in 1997. To some, making preparations for a campaign so early in the game only signifies that Reynolds and Todd have conspired a cabal worthy of the PRI, the party that has ruled Mexico for six decades. The line goes that Todd has given Reynolds the thumbs up to replace him. The result may be a special election that will catch potential opponents off guard.

An even more humorous and, perhaps, frightening explanation, since it's making the rounds of top-level city administrators, has it that Todd will take a different PRI-like gambit and knight Mayor Pro Tem Gus Garcia as the new mayor. Of course, before he could appoint a councilmember to his seat, Todd would have to successfully execute a coup d'état, then declare himself sovereign emperor of Austin.

Regardless, the certainty in all this is that Reynolds has zeroed in on the mayoral seat in spite of other previously announced occupational dreams, like State Representative Susan Combs' job. It also means that Reynolds will continue in his role as Mitchell's white shadow, sailing in the frictionless vacuum created by his colleague's momentum while loading up the support of Mitchell's increasingly large following of African-Americans. It also means that Reynolds will try to shore up his self-annointed position as the city's fiscal warrior and childrens' advocate.

Reynolds, who would not expound on his mayoral bid except to say, "People shouldn't be concerned now about what's going on for mayor," improved his status as childrens' advocate this week, when he requested that the council donate $1,600 to the "Children Giving to Children Parade." Reynolds won only the support of Jackie Goodman and his "other half," Mitchell.

The rest of the councilmembers held fast their promise not to, as Shea say, "nickel and dime" the city's excess sales tax account "to death," at least not until March of next year. Reynolds then announced that he and Mitchell would pay for the project out of their own pockets. The mayor and Goodman promised to chip in, too.

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In other action, the council unanimously voted to make Vision Village, a multi-age rehabilitation project that Mitchell is pushing, eligible for more than $1.25 million in financial assistance from the city. And, except for a Mitchell abstention, the council unanimously passed the mayor's handgun ordinance that bars guns in city facilities.

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This week in council: Max Nofziger returns; a public hearing at 5:30pm on Eric Mitchell's CURE (Central Urban REdevelopment) to revive downtown through fee waivers and other redevelopment incentives; and the third, and final, reading on the encampment ordinance.