Naked City
Fri., Aug. 6, 1999
Off the Desk
Seven years ago the editorial page of this paper declared that the "... SOS victory was a triumph of an intelligent, informed populace over a manipulative, self-serving power structure." My, how times have changed. Today, the writer of that editorial, now known as Council Member Daryl Slusher, is part of a power structure made up of many of the underdogs who pushed for the passage of the Save Our Springs Ordinance. On Sunday, the old gang (and newcomers, too) will gather to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the SOS election victory. It'll be from 6-9pm at Barton Springs Pool. There'll be food, drink, and tours of the Splash Exhibit. Suggested donation is $25, but everyone is welcome. If you have more cash to spare, you can be a sponsor -- $100, Springs Sponsor; $250, Barton's Booster; $500, Salamander Savior; and $1,000 will earn you the title of Water Warrior. Call SOS Action at 380-7332 for more info.-- A.S.
A little song, a little dance, a little bike parade for Lance. The big homecoming fête Monday, Aug. 9, for our own Tour de France champ kicks off at the Capitol at 7pm. Armstrong and Mayor Kirk Watson will lead a bicycle parade down Congress to Auditorium Shores. You can ride too, but you must be at the south side of the Capitol by 6:30, and helmets are required. A free concertfollows (see "Community," p.72, for details). --L.T.
Through the Roof
The scarcity of housing affordable to lower-income residents is hardly a surprise, but a report released by a task force Friday, which says Austin's housing crunch is definitely as bad as we thought, has set the stage for contentious debate over how the city should respond to the problem. The Statesman has smugly pointed out that the report confirms its contention that a sluggish city bureaucracy drives up development costs, and has advised city officials to get over their no-growth attitude and start offering incentives to developers. Housing advocates, meanwhile, are particularly excited about a proposed "housing trust fund" which could theoretically put private, state, and federal money to work building houses for Austin's neediest folks. City officials, for their part, want to talk about "under-utilized" financing mechanisms to draw greater investment in housing stock from lending institutions.
The housing facts that confront the city, however, aren't amenable to easy solutions. For one thing, there's no guarantee that developers will concentrate on lower-cost housing inside city limits even if the city waives fees and red tape. Second, more than 90,000 households in Austin qualify for housing assistance, and many of those are in dire need. The city couldn't build enough houses and apartments to accommodate everyone even if Dell Computer liquidated itself and handed the cash over to Austin. Third, the Community Reinvestment Act, largely responsible for the billions banks pour into affordable housing nationwide each year, is in danger of being declawed by Texas' own Sen. Phil Gramm, who claims that "activists" are using the law to hijack banks' lending practices.
What such realities mean is that it's unlikely the city will start throwing money around any time soon. That approach would become far too hot politically, and could prove futile against the enormity of the crisis anyway. The Texas Low Income Housing Coalition would want the money spent on the poorest residents, while housing officials would advocate spreading the pie further by helping more affluent residents on the cusp of home ownership. Where the money would come from is also a thorny issue.
One intriguing finance model the city already has at its disposal is partnering the Austin Housing Finance Corporation with developers to leverage low-interest loans from the lending behemoth that is the Federal National Mortgage Association. The city would then waive fees to cut development costs on lots the AHFC improved, allowing AHFC to sell lots cheaply to builders but still take in a small profit that gets plowed back into housing assistance. --K.F.
Silicon Bonding
Oregon Congressman David Wu hadn't originally planned to visit Austin on his latest swing through Texas, but Sunday found him admiring the view from a Northwest cliffside home, trading jokes with Mayor Kirk Watson about annexing his "Silicon Forest" district to Austin. Local Asian-American leaders, looking for ways to coax more of their own into the political field, jumped at the chance to show off this rising star, who last year became the first Chinese-American ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Recent City Council contender and local Asian American Alliance president Amy Wong Mok, whose home staged the reception for Wu, says Wu is the kind of role model she hopes will encourage other Asian-Americans to campaign for office and join civic boards.
"I ran to make a point, to provide a possibility," Mok says of her unsuccessful City Council campaign, "but [Wu] provides the reality." Judging from the diverse turnout of business folks and professionals who came to meet Wu, including Samsung-Austin president Sung Lee, local Asian Americans are paying attention. Judging by the prominent Democrats who attended, who included Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett, District Attorney Ronnie Earle, two Travis County commissioners, and pol-maker David Butts, Democrats would like to make Asian-Americans comfortable under their tent.
Austin has never counted the number of Asian-Americans who reside in the capital area, but Texas now has the fourth largest Asian-American population in the nation; it doubled in size during the last decade and is the fastest-growing minority group in the state. Local Asian-American organizations estimate that somewhere around 40,000 persons of Korean, Chinese, Indian, Vietnamese, and Pacific descent -- perhaps 5% of the metropolitan population -- call Austin home. Though visible in commerce and education (comprising nearly one-fifth of the UT freshman class in 1998), they're virtually invisible on the political scene. "Traditionally, Asians have tried to keep away from politics. They just concentrated on what they could do economically to help their families," says Richard Kendrick, spokesperson for the Texas Asian Chamber of Commerce. But Wu, who forged a career as an attorney for high-tech companies before seeking elected office, said Asian-Americans, like other minority groups, now confront a glass ceiling that is cutting them off from full participation in American commerce and culture. Politics, Wu said, is the only way through.
But Asian-Americans are still far from forming a cohesive voting bloc in Texas. Currently, Asian-Americans tend to split their votes evenly between Democrats and Republicans, but Mok says her organization's goal is to eventually turn out at least 80% voting strength for one party. Which party, Mok says, doesn't matter, as long as Asian-Americans aren't ignored. "We want to contribute," Mok says, "and I'm not just talking about money." --K.F.
One Tough Grandma
Saying the public has lost confidence in the leadership of the Austin Independent School District, Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylanderannounced Thursday that her office will conduct an uninvited audit of the school district. AISD boardmembers had been dreading the announcement, but the district's official response is that AISD welcomes any assistance the comptroller's auditing team can provide. In years past, the comptroller's office has offered its Texas School Performance Review to districts who sought help streamlining their administrations, but by forcibly marching her teams into both the Austin and San Antonio school districts, Rylander has made it clear she is willing to wield the TSPR as a political weapon against school districts.
"I have eight statutory public education responsibilities, including auditing school districts for efficiency and effectiveness, and I intend to exercise those duties fully," said Rylander. "I am not going to wait for an engraved invitation when 78,000 of our kiddos are at stake." Rylander listed five major problems at AISD which prompted her audit: TAAS score cheating, suspicious dropout reporting, low passing rates on the TAAS tests, an endangered bond rating, and an escalating tax rate.
Rylander's accusations, however, were based on school district comparisons which weren't entirely fair, and AISD officials and some parents resent the way she has portrayed the district. "The comptroller has made it sound like AISD is in tatters, and I disagree with that," commented Austin City Council of PTAs president Joyce Lynch. Rylander, for example, said that AISD ranks 44th out of the 50 largest Texas school districts in TAASpassing rates and 42nd in allocation of resources to the classroom. But only a handful of urban districts in Texas struggle with the same levels of poverty and immigration that AISD does, where about half of the student population is considered poor. AISD's tax rate, meanwhile, is lower than that of surrounding school districts.
The audit could well find that AISD suffers less from systematic flaws than from the climate engendered by key administrators -- such as deputy superintendent Kay Psencik, who has resigned from AISD and is being tried by the county attorney for her alleged complicity in the TAAS test manipulation, and former superintendent Jim Fox, who was known to chafe about TEA reporting requirements. Rylander's point man for the TSPR team that will soon visit Austin, Andy Ruth, says the TSPR evaluation includes extensive interviews with teachers, students, and parents, and that if personnel are to blame for AISD's woes, that result will definitely turn up. "A [TSPR] review is not just looking at the numbers," says Ruth. "A lot of it is art as much as cold analysis." --K.F.
Ruling From the Bench
On July 28, U.S. District Judge James Nowlin ruled that the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) must release to The Austin Chronicle a 1995 environmental report done by an independent consulting company on Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold's Indonesian mining operation, a report which led the federal agency to cancel a $100 million political risk insurance policy held by Freeport. Nowlin also ruled that OPIC must release some of its internal working papers which discuss Freeport's characterizations of environmental problems at the mine.
However, Nowlin also ruled that the Chronicle will not get to see a 1990 environmental report on the mine that was prepared by an independent advisor to the Indonesian government. Nor will the paper get copies of notes generated by an OPIC attorney, or a 1993 report done by an official of the U.S. Agency for International Development. The Chronicle sued OPIC in September of 1996 under the Freedom of Information Act after the agency refused to release a spate of documents related to its cancellation of Freeport's insurance. Shortly after we sued, Freeport intervened on OPIC's side, in an effort to ensure that the documents would not be released. In recent filings with the court, Freeport argued that releasing the 1995 environmental report would cause it competitive harm and unflattering publicity. But Nowlin ruled that adverse publicity was not a good enough reason to withhold the documents. "Mere embarrassment or an unwillingness to have unflattering information made available to the public does not constitute 'substantial competitive harm,'" Nowlin wrote in his 15-page opinion. His ruling directs OPIC to release the documents to the Chronicle. However, it's unclear if Freeport will appeal the decision. --R.B.
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