Austin’s city manager is fired over widespread power outage
Austin’s city manager was fired Wednesday in the wake of outrage in the Texas capital over a slow and fumbled response to a winter storm power outage that left thousands of people without electricity for a week or longer.
The vote by the Austin City Council to remove Spencer Cronk, the city’s top executive, came in the face of growing calls for accountability after an ice storm this month knocked out power to more than 170,000 customers. Frustration in the nation’s 11th-largest city boiled as Austin officials publicly offered little information and gave residents no estimates on how long repairs would take.
Cronk, who had been in the job since 2018, was the city’s first executive to lose his job over the prolonged outages.
The ice storm toppled trees and power lines across the city of more than 1 million residents, causing outages and damage on a scale that Austin officials compared to a hurricane or tornado. Slow restoration efforts left thousands of people dealing with school closures, malfunctioning traffic lights and the financial pinch of spoiled groceries and hotel bills. Power was not fully restored in Austin until nearly two weeks after the outages began.
Cronk had apologized for “any shortcomings in our response” and vowed that the city would implement changes to better respond to future disasters.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson, a Democrat who took office in January, put in motion meetings that plunged Cronk’s job into jeopardy. In Austin, the city manager is appointed by the mayor and city council, and operates like the chief executive officer of a business.