Notley/Monitor Poll: Austinites feel disconnected from Council on city priorities

As a new City Council continues to adjust to its roles and responsibilities, new data show a large portion of Austin residents feel disconnected from the priorities and concerns of their elected leaders. Those were some of the conclusions from a January/February poll of 429 voters commissioned by Notley and conducted by national pollster Change Research for the Austin Monitor.

For questions related to how well Council members reflected the issues most important to them, respondents perceived considerable distance and disconnection from the 11-member body. When asked whether they believe Council cares about the issues that impact them, Austinites answering “somewhat disagree” (24 percent) or “strongly disagree” (29 percent) made up a 53 percent majority.

By comparison, “strongly agree” (5 percent) and “somewhat agree” (32 percent) made up a considerably smaller portion of the responses, followed by 11 percent saying they were “not sure.”

Those answers run somewhat counter to how voters weighed in recent Council elections, with the two incumbent Council members seeking reelection – Natasha Harper-Madison in District 1 and Paige Ellis in District 8 – both winning easily. The four new faces on the dais – Mayor Kirk Watson, José Velásquez in District 3, Ryan Alter in District 5 and Zo Qadri in District 9 – were all elected in races where the incumbents were barred from running due to term limits.

Younger women (age 18-34) and older men (50 and over) had the strongest disconnect from City Council, with a “net disagree” rate of 19 percent and 28 percent, respectively. Among ethnic groups participating in the survey, Hispanic-identifying respondents had an overall disagreement rate of 35 percent, compared to 26 percent for all people of color.

When education was taken into consideration, non-college-educated respondents had a 30 percent disagreement rate compared to 8 percent for those with a college education.

When asked to name City Council’s primary goal, respondents cited public safety as the top response (28 percent), followed by managing growth and development (26 percent), and providing basic services (20 percent). Other options included protecting the city from state legislative overreach (11 percent), responding to resident complaints (7 percent), protecting the environment (3 percent), and managing natural disasters (1 percent), with 5 percent answering “something else.”

Those top three answers reflect issues that have had a prominent place in the public discourse recently. Public safety and the ongoing negotiations with the Austin Police Association played a large role in City Council’s disapproval of City Manager Spencer Cronk, who was fired from his position this week in part because his negotiating goals differed greatly from many on Council.

The loss of electrical service to hundreds of thousands of Austin Energy customers during the recent ice storm brought into focus the city’s need to strengthen its infrastructure around basic services, with Cronk also taking the blame for the city’s poor communication with residents and overall lack of preparation to aid those without power for a week or more. The city has also experienced three disruptions to its water treatment systems in recent years, each time requiring residents to boil their tap water for days at a time to prevent health risks from possible contamination.

The concerns over Council’s role in managing growth and development speaks to the city’s continuing need to address its affordability crisis. That is one reason housing was among the top issues for almost all Council candidates in last year’s elections, and the 2023 Council is expected to be more aggressive in making changes to city policy to encourage more creation of affordable and market-rate housing.

In a poll commissioned by Notley for the Austin Monitor, Change Research surveyed 429 voters in Austin, Texas, from Jan. 28-Feb. 1, 2023, using a sample reflective of the electorate. Post-stratification weighting was performed on age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, ZIP code, and 2020 presidential vote, with weighting parameters based on voter file data and election results based on numbers released by the Texas Secretary of State. The modeled margin of error for the survey is 5.3 percent. Complete survey results and methodology are available here.

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