May 2023 Austin election ballot propositions: Voter resource
Friday, April 14, 2023 by
Emma Freer Austin voters will soon decide the fates of two warring police oversight propositions on the May 6 ballot.
The election arrives after more than a year of police labor contract negotiations with the Austin Police Association, which City Council scuttled, citing disapproval of former City Manager Spencer Cronk’s handling of the process and a desire to let the voters weigh in on police oversight before locking the city into a four-year agreement.
“We need to … under our charter when there’s a petition that makes it to the ballot, allow people to have their say and allow them to vote,” Mayor Kirk Watson said during a March 27 press conference announcing a new partnership between the Austin Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety to address long-standing staffing shortages.
Proposition A
Proposition A, spearheaded by the local political action committee Equity Austin and validated by the city clerk last September, would strengthen civilian oversight of APD, going far beyond what the city’s bargaining team was able to achieve with the tentative agreement.
The ballot language reads:
City of Austin Proposition A
Shall the voters of Austin adopt an initiated ordinance, circulated by Equity Austin, that will deter police misconduct and brutality by strengthening the City’s system of independent and transparent civilian oversight?
The Equity Action ordinance, called the Austin Police Oversight Act, would allow APD’s Office of Police Oversight to:
- Accept anonymous complaints from residents as well as from police officers;
- Conduct a preliminary review of any complaints without restriction; and
- Release nonbinding recommendations on discipline, which facilitates transparency.
It also would safeguard OPO’s investigative authority, among other provisions.
Kathy Mitchell, Equity Action treasurer and Just Liberty policy coordinator, previously told the Austin Monitor the ordinance would transform police labor contract negotiations moving forward.
“The most important thing that our proposal does in May is clearly decouple the negotiations about pay from the conversation about oversight,” she said in December. “We’re done trading the rights that civilians have to be treated fairly … for pay and benefits. That is not something that should be part of a trade.”
But some at City Hall, including District 10 Council Member Alison Alter, have raised questions about the feasibility of Equity Action’s ordinance.
“Our legal department has argued that the passage of a petition will not immediately result in strengthened oversight because many of the oversight provisions are required by state law to be ratified by APA in a contract,” she said at a Feb. 15 Council meeting.
Equity Action President Chris Harris, who has championed police reforms such as departmental budget cuts in summer 2020 and decriminalizing public camping, previously told the Monitor these concerns are a red herring.
“We fully recognize that there are provisions within the (ordinance) that cannot be implemented unless they are in a contract with the police association,” he said in February. “That’s why there is also a provision within the ordinance that says a contract cannot be brought to the City Council unless it fulfills the act.”
Proposition B
Proposition B is the product of the APA-funded PAC Voters for Oversight and Police Accountability. Although it uses the same language as Equity Action’s ordinance – which prompted allegations of fraud – it would weaken oversight when compared with the current contract. The city clerk validated the petition in early February. The ballot language reads:
City of Austin Proposition B
Shall the voters of Austin adopt an initiated ordinance, circulated by Voters for Police Oversight and Police Accountability, that will strengthen the City’s system of independent and transparent civilian police oversight?
APA President Thomas Villarreal did not respond to a request for comment.
The VOPA website states: “We believe in a future where policing is founded on relationships within the community, where trust is earned and kept, and officers protect our neighborhoods with excellence.”
Equity Austin denounced VOPA for allegedly impersonating Equity Action while gathering signatures for its identically named Austin Police Oversight Act petition that would instead weaken civilian oversight of APD, as the Monitor previously reported.
“We’re trying to protect the community from 1) being tricked by people who are committing fraud; and 2) potentially setting up a situation in which a very, very weak – even weaker than today’s system – system of oversight is being put into place,” Harris said at a Dec. 1 press conference.
Mayor Pro Tem Paige Ellis tweeted on Dec. 14 about being approached by a VOPA canvasser, echoing other Austinites who reported similar encounters:
After the election
The city of Austin is operating without a police labor contract, relying instead on an ordinance that preserves police pay and benefits alongside the OPO’s authority to investigate allegations of police misconduct.
Watson is hopeful that the city and APA’s bargaining teams will return to the negotiating table after the election to hash out a new long-term contract that honors the provisions of any successful ballot proposition.
“I would anticipate that shortly after May 6, we will reach out to APA and we will work on trying to get a contract at that point in time as well,” he said during the March 27 press conference.
A January-February survey of 429 Austin voters commissioned by Notley and conducted by national pollster Change Research for the Monitor found a strong majority – 72 percent – said their top priority for a new police labor contract is accountability and transparency in police-involved shootings and in cases of alleged misconduct.
Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.
The Austin Monitor’s work is made possible by donations from the community. Though our reporting covers donors from time to time, we are careful to keep business and editorial efforts separate while maintaining transparency. A complete list of donors is available here, and our code of ethics is explained here.
You're a community leader
And we’re honored you look to us for serious, in-depth news. You know a strong community needs local and dedicated watchdog reporting. We’re here for you and that won’t change. Now will you take the powerful next step and support our nonprofit news organization?
