Watson expects City Hall ‘shakeup’ to continue in 2024, with police contract a priority

Mayor Kirk Watson says he didn’t see the widespread shutdown of city services during the February ice storm as an opening to drastically restructure how the city government is organized. But he did take it as confirmation that it was time for the city to change – in a hurry.

Within weeks of the storm, the city had former City Manager Jesús Garza serving in an interim role after the dismissal of Spencer Cronk. That move led to an ongoing wave of department reorganizations and staffing that some have seen as too disruptive to the city’s flow of operations.

Watson, however, is not among those critics. He sees Garza as crucial to moving the city forward until a new city manager can be found later in 2024.

“I ran saying that we were going to shake up City Hall, that I thought City Hall was not organized for success. I ran saying that I thought we needed to have a more stable government and we needed to stabilize city government,” he said.

“The (ice storm) response was poor. That was a good example of needing to stabilize, or a good example of proving that we needed a stabilized government. We’re at least six years behind on the airport, and that needed stabilization as well. We’ve talked about development services and what a disaster that had been. And there’s the need for stabilization in the homeless strategy that had broken the city.”

Another area Watson saw as needing a drastic shakeup was public safety, which led to an agreement with the state to have Texas Department of Public Safety officers patrol city streets as a supplement to the Austin Police Department.

That agreement quickly drew criticism that state troopers were disproportionately arresting Black and Latino residents, causing a pause the summer before an August restart that was also nixed over similar concerns.

Watson said the assistance from the state was needed because of APD’s staffing issues. He said he won’t pursue another restart of the partnership.

“Looking back on that, I don’t have any regret and I would do it again. If I were going to tweak it, in 20/20 hindsight, I think there may have been a little bit more time between the idea and talking to people and then putting the idea into play,” he said. “We really have a need in this town for more police. And the idea that there’s an opportunity to have more resources at no cost of the city put into play is meaningful.”

Watson sees reaching a contract agreement with the Austin Police Association union this year as a top priority. To assist in that process, he intends to introduce in January a renewal of a temporary pay package for officers that City Council passed in 2023.

Watson said his early talks with new APA President Michael Bullock have been productive.

“The new president of the APA and I have had multiple conversations. I have found him to be very clear when he says that that ordinance is important to his officers so that they feel a sense of certainty that it’s going to be renewed,” he said.

“The best way for us to assure that our police officers have a good place that they can work and they have some certainty is to get us to a contract. And my hope is that with the new president, that we’ll get back to the table and we’ll have those discussions. I’m more hopeful right now than I have been really anytime this year.”

Another Watson-led initiative in 2023 was the ongoing analysis by consultants McKinsey & Co. of the city’s Development Services Department, with a slate of recommended changes for permitting and other processes coming soon. Watson wants that work to progress gradually while Council continues to pursue larger polices – such as the recently passed HOME initiative – aimed at addressing housing supply and affordability.

“I want McKinsey to be able to do its work without us sitting on the dais and saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got a new idea.’ That’s why we have them,” he said. “With regard to other housing policy or things that need to be done, I think when it comes to just pure policy type stuff, perhaps code type stuff, those things will continue.

“This town had been at a stalemate for almost a decade when it came to being able to move things forward on housing and hadn’t gotten to where we needed to be because it was turned into all-or-nothing discussions and debates. … We’ve done more in the past year than, frankly, you can see in the past decade.”

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