City of Austin Mayor

City of Austin Mayor

By Tiffany Young Friday, 26 June 2009

Lee Leffingwell, City of Austin mayor

City Hall, 301 W. Second St., second floor, www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/leffingwell.htm, 974-2260

Education: graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in mechanical engineering

During your campaign, McCracken criticized you for wanting to focus on the city’s core services instead of being innovative during an economic downturn. Is it possible to balance the two?

I think you have to do both. I think it’s going to be more of a struggle to maintain core services during tough economic times — we’re seeing that right now, in this budget cycle — but at the same time, it means you have to be constantly alert to opportunities for economic growth. The two are not mutually exclusive, in my opinion.

Do you have any specific budget plans?

I said during the campaign, and still maintain that position, strangely enough — that we need to prioritize basic services because we are not going to be able to do everything. We have to decide which are the things that we absolutely have to do and which are the things we can do without for a little while. And, as an example of that, I’m a proponent of making sure we don’t cut back on safety services at the street level. In other words, that we don’t cut back on the number of officers, the number of fire trucks, the number of Emergency Medical Services response units, etcetera. If that means we have to close some wading pools in the City of Austin, which is part of the city manager’s menu, then I think that the priority has to be with public safety.

How will you make sure people outside of the central core of the city are represented?

I’m very conscious of that myself, and as we go through this exercise of appointing board and commission members (and all the members of council are going to be doing that during the month of July, because virtually, not all, but virtually all of the positions come open on Aug. 1), I am going to make particular effort to make sure that we have geographic diversity on our boards and commissions as well as ethnic diversity.

How do you make appointment decisions?

Frankly, everybody has to fill out an application, and that’s No. 1. I’ve appointed people that I’ve never met before. They filled out an application form and they called in and made an appointment to come in and talk about it and wound up getting themselves appointed. But I will say, in all honesty, that the natural process is that most of the people appointed to boards and commissions are people that have been active in their community and some members either know them or they know who they are. So, I think you have to be a little proactive in getting outside of that box and looking for people. And I’m doing that — I’m going to be looking for people in far southwest Austin and far northwest Austin and all over the city to try to get that geographical diversity in the boards and commissions system.

What do you see as the potential benefits of single-member districts?

I think as our city grows not only in population, but in land area, square miles, we’re almost 800,000 people now and we’re a little over 250 sq. mi. land area. That’s a big chunk of territory. Just to put that in perspective, the City of San Francisco has about the same population as Austin — a little bit less actually. And they’re 49 sq. mi., so area-wise we’re five times as big as they are. And so there is all kinds of diversity when you talk about that kind of geographical distribution: economic, ethnic, a whole range of variables, when you talk about a geographical area that big. There comes a point in the growth of any city where you simply outgrow the luxury and the simplicity of an at-large system. It just doesn’t work anymore because people can’t effectively run entire campaigns in the city. What we’re talking about right now, at-large positions for council members, their district is bigger than a congressman’s district.

Some say districts would pit communities against each other. How would you avoid "ward politics?"

I agree that is something to be concerned about, and I think the way to address that is to make sure that we do have some at-large membership. Obviously, the mayor is going to continue to be elected at-large and I would also like to see at least two more at-large members to keep that community-wide perspective in balance of ward politics.

How many members would you have elected at-large compared to single-member reps?

If you want a number from me, I’ll give you a number: nine. I think nine is a good number. You could have six districts. Those would be good-sized districts, but still manageable, where someone could run a campaign in those districts walking door to door and meeting people face to face. So, if you had six district representatives and three at-large members, including the mayor and two deputy mayors, say, who would also serve functionally as council members, that would be a manageable number to people. I think once you start getting above that, you begin to create questions of the entire system of government. I really believe the council manager form of government tends to break down if it’s much bigger than that. If it does, I think most cities with these large council groups — 18, 20, 25, some even more, then you naturally gravitate toward the different system — say a strong mayor form of government.

You have the support of environmental groups around the city, plus a record of being environmentally conscious. How will you approach difficult decisions when developers come to you and want to develop environmentally sensitive areas?

The same way I’ve done the last nine years — my total council service, plus my service on the environmental board — taking the position that environmental quality, water quality, air quality, are values that we don’t want to compromise. But there are ways to develop property that don’t compromise those values. Let’s look at ways of doing things [differently]. For example, in Barton Springs we have regulation of a nondegradation standard for rainwater runoff. Those are the kinds of things we’re looking at. Do they necessarily have to require all the rules? No, not in all cases. But as long as a developer is willing to address those issues of stormwater runoff, of green building, [reduction of] greenhouse gas emissions, all of those things, in many cases we can wind up better than the status quo.

What do you think is the most important thing residents and small businesses should know about the Big Push?

You mean nonattainment status? It’s not like you are all of a sudden designated nonattainment status and some door slams shut. It’s a gradual process that takes place over time. But you’ve got to keep in mind, once you’re designated nonattainment, it takes a long time to get rid of that designation and a lot of things are going to begin to happen. You are going to begin to lose federal funds, for a lot of purposes, including new highway construction. You’re going to begin to require new rules and regulations. For example, automobile emissions testing is going to be a requirement. There are going to be all kinds of new rules imposed by the federal government that have the purpose of, at some point, directing you back toward attainment status. I don’t know of any major city in Texas that has been designated nonattainment that has gotten out of it yet. You may know of one, but I don’t.

In recent years, some of Austin's longtime favorites or landmarks have closed and in their place new developments have opened. How do you balance maintaining old Austin's local charm with new and bigger development?

I think you start with the absolute, that there are certain values — historic values, structural values and so forth — in the city we’re not going to compromise with. So, you start in designing what that is and how you’re going to do it and you build around it. Instead of finding ways to change those rules, or find ways to get around them, we just respect them and build around them, and there’s plenty of room to do that.

How will the city avoid a tech bubble-like scenario going forward?

I think the key to avoiding the tech bubble scenario is diversity. We’ve got to have technical diversity. In other words, different fields are involved and we also have to have different mentalities. We have to have manufacturing and service industries. We don’t want all of one or all of the other. And we’ve got to have distribution industries, commercial managers. We’ve got to respect entrepreneurship.

What will Austin's next tech industry be?

I think as far as the next emerging technology, this city is going to be concentrated in two general areas. I’m going to say those are renewable energy and medical technology. I think that’s where we need to go to give us some degree of diversity. The rest of the diversity, I think, comes about naturally by putting a big emphasis on nurturing small local businesses and diversity will naturally occur as a result. About 70 percent of the people who work in Austin work for a company that employs fewer than 100 people (nobody knows exactly how to define a small business, so that’s one good measure). So, if we put our effort where 70 percent of the people are, then I think we have a better chance of success than if we are concentrating on the remaining 30 percent, although we have to pay attention to both.

What are your thoughts on the best way to alleviate traffic on IH 35?

Well, that’s a tough one because the section of IH 35 that goes through Austin is the worst in the country — the most hazardous, the most congested, you name it. There are lots of plans out there for improving IH 35, but that is really within the purview of the [Texas Department of Transportation] to make those plans. Of course, they take public input and we all know that, but to actually provide funding for that — lands and construction and all that — is really under the purview of TxDOT. About all that Austin can do are things that we’re doing: try to keep accidents on IH 35 clear on a timely basis. I’m sure every day there’s a vehicle accident that causes a traffic jam. The quicker we can get rid of those, the better off we’ll be.

What are your goals in handling the growth Austin is predicted to continue seeing?

First of all, I’d say that I do believe that the growth is going to come and I believe it’s kind of futile to try to even talk about ways to eliminate growth because it’s going to happen. So, the choice that you have is to try to manage it well and manage it in ways to protect the values that we talk about: that’s protection of the natural environment and protection of our historic neighborhoods, the things that make Austin a unique city. Not let growth deprive us of the city that we have now but make growth fit into the character of Austin.

How will the city keep the cost of living from skyrocketing out of control once the economy begins to turn around?

[That] is mainly a function of what the national economy does, the cost of living. I certainly would not be one, even if I could, at the city level to pose some kind of price controls. I think the city has to continue to provide services. The best thing we can do is provide basic city services and infrastructure at an affordable price to the people of the city.

How will the city continue to compete in the film/music industry with neighboring states (who are becoming more competitive with film) and how important is it to fight for that?

We’re going to have to have the involvement of the State of Texas. And I think the State of Texas is becoming more involved. But for the City of Austin alone, without the help of the state, to try to compete with New Mexico — that’s like taking a knife to a gunfight. You’re not going to win that one. So, we are very much interested in promoting the film industry, the entertainment media industry, in Austin. We are going to do our best to work with state officials and to work with local companies, like we are currently involved [in] negotiations with a TV show called “Friday Night Lights” that wants to come back to Austin for another season. We haven’t had a good history with “Friday Night Lights” because we did have a development agreement with them, and there were problems that came out of that with noncompliance, but we want to put that behind us and sit down and talk with them about making this their permanent home so that they can be the first of many to come to Austin.