Governor, Legislature should let Austinites control city agenda
In state Rep. Paul Workman’s guest column published on June 18, he defends Gov. Greg Abbott’s agenda to strip away local control.
The proposed special session agenda will tie the hands of city councils that enact ordinances to provide public safety and to set tax rates that allow for adequate revenue and flexible budgeting.
Workman and Abbott seem to have forgotten that Austin and many other cities with populations over 5,000 are “home rule” cities, which means they can manage their own affairs with minimum interference from the state.
Workman thinks developers are being hurt by high development fees. Austin is making great efforts at providing some affordable housing options for lower-income buyers. One way to do that is to have developers set aside money or pay fees that will lead to affordable units.
Lowering property taxes by either requiring voters to approve the rate above a certain amount or by providing a higher homestead exemption will provide a minimal amount of “relief ” — and even then, only to owner occupants, not to renters who are also suffering due to increasing property values.
The real burden on property-tax payers is that as property values have risen, the state has contributed less and less from its general revenues to support public education. Our current lawmakers need to step up as their predecessors did in 2006 and provide real relief to property taxpayers by increasing the state’s contribution from general revenues.
People continue to move to Austin — and it continues to be among the top 10 on many “Best Places to Live” lists. In my experience selling homes to people who are relocating, they love all the outdoor activities the city provides yearround. With our scorching heat in the summer, how do we bear to spend time outside year-round? By staying in the shade of our amazing trees — many of them heritage oaks.
We can enjoy a run by the lake or free musical at the Zilker Hillside Theater, not to mention Austin City Limits or Blues on the Greens. How do we preserve our trees? We make sure people don’t cut them down without a permit. In many cases, permits are granted to those asking to cut down trees for good reason — but this process does ensure we preserve something that is valuable to us as a community.
Workman calls Austin’s actions “overreach” and “a national embarrassment.” The real national embarrassment is not the policies our city has enacted; it is that we have a governor and a Legislature that want to follow in the footsteps of North Carolina in passing a law about bathroom use that will cause businesses to go elsewhere. The real national embarrassment is that we have a governor who wants to be able to remove duly elected officials from their offices if they don’t behave in a discriminatory manner.
If the Austin City Council is overreaching, then the residents of this city will elect new people to lead us next time around.
Mr. Workman — if you don’t like living in Austin, please stop interjecting your beliefs on this beautiful city I call home. If the Texas Legislature continues its overreach, the residents of the state are likely to elect new people to lead us in the 2019 session.