Adler adds key advisers to office as volunteers
The move plus additional paid staffff raise questions about role of business interests, increased spending on aides.
Amid public criticism and resistance from some council members, Mayor Steve Adler abandoned his controversial plan seven months ago to use a nonprofifit foundation to enlist an eight-member “community cabinet” of advisers.
As it turns out, he got all of those advisers anyway.
He hired four of them mainly by redirecting his own $82,000 salary and using the extra $300,000 that the council approved for the mayor’s offiffice in April, part of a $1 million compromise that also pro- vided funding for one more staffffffffffff er in each council member’s offiffice.
The other four advisers — including one of the top officials at Endeavor Real Estate Group and an executive with the Seton Healthcare Family — are volunteering their time, having access to a desk at City Hall and an official city email address.
Adler said he moved away from his earlier staffing model, which would have paid for some advisers through the Mayor’s Better Austin Foundation, to address concerns about the influence of private donors and the perceived lack of transparency in having outside staff do city business.
“There’s some really tal-
ented people working in my office,” Adler said. “I tried to learn from the concerns and objections that had been raised ... so as to do things in a way that would address or be responsive to those concerns.”
Still, the new model raises questions about the role of business interests at City Hall and the increased spending on aides for the mayor and council.
“So essentially he (Adler) got what he wanted, and the council got what they wanted, and the taxpayers pick up the tab,” said University of Texas Professor Emeritus Terrell Blodgett, who was critical of Adler’s initial staffing plan in part because he felt it would create an imbalance between the mayor and council offices.
If the City Council decides to continue the funding for additional staff in the mayor and council offices when voting on the budget this week — and all signs indicate they will — the personnel budget for mayor and council offices will have doubled compared with the prior council.
The total personnel budget for mayor and 10 council offices is $5.1 million in the 2015-16 proposed city budget. The previous mayor and the six council offices had $2.4 million in the 2013-14 year, the last full budget year they were in office.
Donating time
Adler took office in January with the same five positions allocated to the previous mayor. He used the extra money provided by the council and his own salary to hire four people: Brandi Clark Burton, who works on ethics and environmental issues; Kazique Prince, who is largely focused on education and public safety; Lesley Varghese, who works on zoning; and Frank Rodriguez, who is Adler’s budget guru.
But unbeknownst to many, Adler also quietly brought on four other policy advisers who were part of his original “community cabinet” as unpaid volunteers. They started working for the mayor’s office in January, the month before he unveiled his cabinet plan.
Adler requires that they comply with city conflict-of-interest rules and file financial disclosure forms. He and some of the volunteers emphasized that they are confined to working on projects that don’t pose a direct conflict of interest.
One volunteer is Endeavor managing principal Kirk Rudy. Endeavor is a powerhouse in Austin’s real estate market, building office projects, retail centers and mixed-use projects, including the Domain and Southpark Meadows. Endeavor also continues to negotiate with Capital Metro to develop a transit-oriented mixed-use project at Plaza Saltillo in East Austin, but Rudy said he doesn’t do business at City Hall on behalf of his Endeavor clients.
Rudy said Adler approached him to volunteer and that he “quickly said yes” but didn’t want to be paid for his work.
Rudy said he spends about half his time working on projects for the mayor and has cut back time spent at his company. (He stepped down as CEO at last year, a transition he said was planned before Adler hopped into the mayor’s race.)
Adler has leaned on Rudy and his connections to help with his affordable housing initiatives, such as an effort to house all local homeless veterans by Veterans Day, Rudy said. Rudy said he has reached out to property managers, property owners and Realtors to find units for veterans. Endeavor donated $5,000 to a fund that would help pay landlords if those veterans leave their leases early or damage their units, Rudy said.
Rudy said Adler “inspires” him, as he’s not using the mayor’s office as a stepping stone to bigger things but genuine- ly wants to make Austin a better city.
Then there’s volunteer Ashton Cumberbatch, an executive with the Seton Healthcare Family. Cumberbatch said he heard Adler speak during the campaign about economic segregation in Austin. “That resonated with me,” Cumberbatch said.
He said he spends a significant amount of his time working on establishing a community forum on “equitable development” in Austin’s oft-ignored eastern crescent.
Cumberbatch said he works with Adler staffer Prince on this project and has also coordinated with the offices of council members Ora Houston, Sabino “Pio” Renteria, Ellen Troxclair and Leslie Pool.
Adler said Cumberbatch has no access to “inside information” in the mayor’s office and isn’t working on issues involving Seton.
There are two other volunteers in the mayor’s office: Sherri Greenberg, a professor at the University of Texas at the LBJ School of Public Affairs who is helping Adler on
Insider advantage?
Even though Adler has taken steps to assuage concerns, it still raises questions that certain business entities — Endeavor and Seton — now have special access and reach into the mayor’s office.
Both companies occasionally need the council’s approvals for various development projects — for instance, Seton Healthcare Family is building a new teaching hospital and once asked for the City Council for construction-related fee waivers.
Frances McIntyre, the advocacy director for the League of Women Voters, was against Adler’s original proposal to hire staff using an outside foundation. When she heard about the influential volunteers at Adler’s office, she said, “Well, that doesn’t sound too good, does it?”
McIntyre said the public isn’t aware of who these people are and what they are doing for the mayor. For instance, they aren’t listed in the mayor’s website of staff. “That’s unacceptable transparency,” McIntyre said.
Other mayors have tapped unpaid volunteers: Former Mayor Gus Garcia said his friend, the late Robert Chapa Sr., helped him with “thorny issues,” while former Mayor Bruce Todd turned to a committee of volunteers to advise him on the construction of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
“Any mayor who doesn’t call up every resource he or she can is doing a disservice,” Todd said.
Similarly, former Mayor Lee Cooke said he set up “think tank” committees. Volunteers on those committees didn’t have to sign conflict-of-interest pledges, said Cooke, describing them as “citizens from all walks of life.”
Back then, Cooke said, “We had a lot more fun, and there was a lot less suspicion about who you are and what you offer.”
New power balance
Some council members said they appreciated opportunities to work with mayoral staffers and volunteers. Pool, for instance, said Greenberg helped figure out the details of a newly formed community engagement task force, which is reviewing how the city reaches out to the public.
Recent past mayors said they had anywhere from four to six staffers on the city payroll. Adler has 10 paid staffers, plus four unpaid policy advisers and two interns.
“It does seem a little high, honestly,” Council Member Delia Garza said. “More staff, that gives you the ability to push certain policies, and I don’t believe that’s what 10-1 was about. I thought it was more about bringing in more diverse voices that are all equal and not giving any person an advantage.”
Council Member Kathie Tovo said the balance of power between the mayor’s office and the council offices “is a question not just for this council but for the councils of the future.”
Asked whether she thinks the balance is right at this point in time, Tovo said, “I don’t know. I would have to really think about that.”