Council votes to follow traditional process before calling a climate bond election

After one of the most robust deliberations City Council has had in recent history, a resolution on a comprehensive climate bond election moved forward Thursday, but without the immediacy that some Council members would have preferred.

Nevertheless, those who favored holding a bond election this year – namely Council members Ryan Alter, Vanessa Fuentes and Alison Alter – voted for the resolution, which calls for a longer process of creating an advisory task force to recommend specific proposals to send to voters “no later than 2026.”

The vote was 9-1, with Council Member Mackenzie Kelly voting no. Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison was off the dais for the initial vote, but later indicated her support for the resolution.

Discussion on the dais touched on a possible election to be held as early as 2025. Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool will bring a resolution to create the task force at the next regular Council meeting. Pool is the only Council member who has served on a bond advisory task force prior to her time on Council.

Mayor Kirk Watson, who sponsored the climate resolution as a counter to Ryan Alter’s efforts to hold a bond election this November, explained that going through the traditional process before calling a bond election does not undermine the gravity of the matter.

“I want to be clear that I don’t think there’s anyone on the dais that doesn’t recognize the urgency with which we want to move (forward), and so one of the clear messages that I hope that staff gets as a result of us passing this resolution is that, while it says no later than 2026, that doesn’t mean it has to be 2026; it is no later than 2026 and we want to move with the sort of dispatch that this item and the comprehensive bond package deserves.”

Alison Alter, who pulled the item from the consent agenda for discussion, kicked things off by noting her disappointment in the longer timeline. Citing information from city staff, she said there is no available bond funding this calendar year to make critical land purchases before properties are developed.

Referring to the proposed Austin-Travis County food plan that Council will be asked to approve next month, she said the city will be missing a prime opportunity to acquire agricultural land – a top priority of the food plan.

“We don’t have any money (to fund) the food plan at all, let alone for land acquisition,” she said. “We have a market right now which is the most favorable we’ve seen since I’ve been on the dais … and we have no money, and for me that is a tragedy. This is why I would really have preferred it if we had had a conversation about how we were moving forward in a way that was truly collaborative.”

Ryan Alter similarly voiced his disappointment in the delay but expressed a desire to continue working toward investment strategies for funding the city’s various climate plans.

“It’s no secret that I had hoped we were going to be in a different place today,” he said. “I fully respect and appreciate what you’re saying, Mayor. … I would take only one issue with one thing you said and I think that in terms of what we were planning on putting forward (for a 2024 election) and how well thought out it was –  this was based on thousands of hours of professional staff work … and (now we are) asking staff to once again review that work that was done by professionals in the community, and then us as a group trying to figure out what would have that biggest bang for the buck … and that’s why we focused on the land acquisitions,” among other items such as solar, flood mitigation and low-carbon concrete, he said, referring to his original climate investment proposal.

Fuentes also expressed dismay over the lack of funding available for parkland purchases in the face of a recent state law that hamstrings the city’s ability to collect parkland dedication fees from developers.

“I think that we have really missed an opportunity to go to our community, to go out for a bond to be able to acquire more land,” she said.

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