City Hall Hustle: Fan Mail From the Flounders

Let's not compare WikiLeaks and the Austin American-Statesman – they'd both be insulted.

But it's not every day we get a huge, undifferentiated e-mail dump from our city leaders – which the Statesman blessed the city with Friday, posting the whole cache of City Council e-mails that the daily, along with the online Austin Bulldog (and presumably County Attorney David Escamilla), had requested in conjunction with Escamilla's investigation into whether nonquorum meetings between City Council members constitute a potential violation of the Open Meetings Act – an investigation sparked by local activist Brian Rodgers, then given considerable oxygen by both media outlets.

But returning to that comparison we're loathe to make – if WikiLeaks' revelations helped fan the flames of revolution across the Arab world, well ... the States­man data dump has inspired much hand-wringing over the intricacies of e-mail etiquette. A chapter that began with Watergate-inveighing Statesman editorials on open government and unexpurgated, novella-length Bulldog interviews with individual council members has devolved into – as In Fact Daily eloquently terms the revelations – the collective trolling of a "collection of snippy remarks, treacherous backstabs, wanton character assassination, and low-grade court intrigue."

If only it were that interesting. Despite the latest hectoring Statesman editorial ("Revealing e-mails impede transparency" – the text is just as clear as the headline) and soporific, blogospheric bloviation calling the e-mails "City Hall's Lowest Moment" (apparently surpassing the Sanders settlement explosion, the retail incentives fracas, and half-decade of budget-tightening, for instance), the most high-profile exchanges, smack-talking e-mails included, simply confirm what anyone who's ever watched City Hall – or ever held a job, for that matter – takes for granted:

• Relationships among colleagues can get rocky: For all the attention paid to the exchange in which Mayor Lee Lef­fing­well calls Fire Department Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr a "company man," and Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez counters that City Manager Marc Ott and Assistant City Manager Mike McDon­ald were "jokes" vis-à-vis the issue in question – a proposed $780,000 consultant's contract for expanded minority firefighter recruitment – it shouldn't come as a surprise. The council meeting at which the messages were traded (as we reported at the time) was characterized by terse, confrontational questions from the mayor to the chief. Martinez apparently felt city managers were responsible for arm-twisting the Austin African-American Firefighters Association to support the contract. According to the transcript, Martinez notes his surprise at the union reps' endorsement, saying that the day prior he thought "they were not supportive of necessarily this being the right thing." While Martinez's e-mail blast might lack nuance – when were politics not a contact sport?

• People disagree, sometimes vehemently: The other major embarrassment has been Council Member Randi Shade calling enviro activist Robin Rather "crazy, two-faced and not someone who I listen to about any subject matter anymore" in an e-mail to Ott. Shade was responding to Ott's solicitation for input on a letter Rather sent to a council aide that maligned council action on Austin Energy's Generation Plan as insufficiently aggressive. In that note, Rather had claimed that council "got caught in a trap and did not have the finesse or the guts to get out of it quickly"; she also accused Leffingwell of lacking a backbone. Shade has since said she was trying, however artlessly, to defend council against Rather's dismissive characterization. "Marc Ott couldn't understand how Robin could have shown up to testify in favor of the AE Generation Plan during Thursday's Council Meeting and then a few hours later write a public and angry email about the action the Mayor and Council had taken to amend the Plan to include an affordability metric," Shade commented.

• Shit happens: The regular messages between Leffingwell, Martinez, and Shade demonstrate their evolution into a voting bloc – something anyone who's ever seen a vote on Water Treatment Plant No. 4 could tell you. The same seemingly goes for Laura Morrison and Chris Riley. But the bulk of the messages are, to borrow a phrase from the e-mails, the "genetically wonky" work of elected officials – scheduling and preparing for meetings, fielding constituent letters, and the like.

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All this said, although the e-mails haven't imparted any real shockers, they've provided a more holistic picture of the current council dynamic. And there are some interesting asides: revelations of Leffingwell and Martinez being wooed by PayPal for a potential local expansion, and Sheryl Cole – guiding force behind the Waller Creek tunnel project – being unaware until recently of development issues on Rainey Street, adding that "most of the money for Waller" (via tax increment financing) "is supposed to come from the Rainey area."

And who knows – with Martinez announcing Tuesday that his thus-far sparse 10-page e-mail release will soon be amended with the release of many more documents, perhaps some bigger news is still in the offing. Since Martinez is known to be the council's most blunt member, the Hustle's girding himself for more civility lessons – to be imparted, naturally, from the city's most civility-impaired.

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See "City Council Preview: Don't Bogart That Space" for a snapshot of this week's council agenda, and don't forget to hustle on over to www.facebook.com/cityhallhustle next time you're in the neighborhood.