Brigid Shea: Seeking local solutions for global problems

If you’d asked Brigid Shea 30 years ago where she’d be in 2022, the Travis County Commissioners Court likely wouldn’t have topped her list. Nevertheless, the outspoken environmentalist and former City Council member, who broke into the political scene co-founding the now-iconic Save Our Springs Alliance, has made herself a comfortable home there.

“I had previously ruled it out, not wanting to be in charge of the jail, the courts, the judges and sheriffs. That’s not my wheelhouse,” Shea says. “But I realized there was a huge opportunity and need at the county level for work around climate.”

In 2022, Shea coasted into her third term as Precinct 2 Commissioner, bypassing Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed challenger Bob Libal with 76 percent of the vote. With her constituents’ blessing, Shea says she’ll spend her next four years as she has her first two terms: pursuing local solutions to fight the existential threat posed by the climate crisis.

“That’s been my focus: What can the county do to help minimize harm from climate disaster? There’s a lot of creative potential in that narrow wiggle space.”

So far, Shea has led the charge on a number of resiliency measures, including the expansion of the Warn Central Texas Emergency Notification System, which up until recently consisted largely of outdated landlines. Since 2020, Shea and her team have raised cellphone registrations from 7 percent to 70 percent of the database, significantly extending the reach of severe weather event warnings.

In November, her work brought her all the way to Egypt, where she led a panel at the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP 27, on the continuing success of Travis County’s remote work initiative. Emerging from the unexpected benefits of pandemic stay-at-home measures, the program calls for an ambitious 75 percent of eligible county employees to work remotely on a permanent basis.

“We did something in our county that every local government in the first and second world can do because we’ve all already done it,” she said. “When the pandemic started and many of us just took our laptops and went home, we saw what a profound impact that had on one of our most difficult problems, (solving) traffic congestion overnight … now we’ve been able to document a 30 percent reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions from our second-largest source, our employee commutes.”

Last year also brought county employees a 5 percent increase in pay across the board, with the minimum wage rising from $15 to $20 an hour. Workers will also see expanded employee benefits, with commissioners voting to make Travis County the second in the state to offer eight weeks of paid family leave.

As for the future, Shea will continue pushing for electrification of the county’s vehicle fleet, a process that has been slow to get off the ground due to a “backlog of demand.” Also in the pipeline is a partnership with Austin City Council and Austin ISD to launch a network of six resilience hubs outfitted to support local communities during severe flooding, drought, freezing and wildfire.

“There has been so much work on cap and trade, and on global market mechanisms to address carbon emissions, but really hasn’t been enough focus on preparing our local communities,” Shea says. “We have to be honest about how real it’s going to get.”

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. This story has been changed since publication to correct the number of terms Shea has served as county commissioner.