Mackenzie Kelly seeks common ground while pursuing public safety, housing goals in 2024

The photo above the light switch in City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly’s office captures her slim 4 percent win in the 2020 election for the District 6 seat. It serves as a reminder that she works for the 48 percent of the voters who didn’t select her, as well as the 52 percent who did.

Kelly said that reminder helps guide her while she interacts with the other members of Council, whose political views frequently differ from her conservative positions on many issues.

“I’ve always had this philosophy of killing people with kindness. I thought that if I’m kind and if I consider opinions and if I talk to people that I might not personally if I’m not in an elected position, then I might not get outside of my comfort zone. That interaction would make me grow as a person and represent the community better,” she said.

“There’s 11 of us, and we all have different perspectives and ideas and life experiences. It is up to me as an elected official to find what those intersections are so that we can move forward and make a difference in the community.”

One example of that philosophy is related to the need to add housing stock throughout the city. While Kelly voted against the recently passed HOME initiative policy package to encourage density on the grounds that it represented a “blanket rezoning” of residential properties throughout the city, she said she would have supported a pilot program to test the addition of units to existing lots.

This year, Kelly said her office will work to encourage adaptive reuse of commercial buildings for residential units, with a special audit requested to examine what kind of an impact that approach would have on meeting the demand for housing.

“The city should take an all-hands-on-deck approach to helping ease the burden of individuals who are renting and trying to buy homes here in Austin because it is extremely expensive for someone to live here,” she said. “I understand that (the HOME initiative) is not all going to happen overnight. There’s no way that could happen. But I would like to see it slowed down to the point where people had their expectations managed.”

One of Kelly’s main priorities in 2024 is continuing her focus on public safety, with plans to vie for the chair position of Council’s Public Safety Committee. She said continuing the pay increase ordinance Council passed earlier this year will be key as the city works to secure a new long-term labor contract with the Austin Police Association.

“We have struggled as a city to come back to a place where our police department feels fully supported and the morale is at a place where we can recruit, retain and I guess hire untrained officers. I’m disappointed by the fact that our officers don’t feel like they’re supported,” she said.

“I’m grateful for the colleagues that I have now on Council who understand and recognize the importance of the police department. I’ve heard a lot more from my colleagues in conversations about ways that we can support them.”

Kelly’s deep background in emergency response and preparedness makes the steps to recover and prepare against winter storms of special interest. She’s been encouraged by interim City Manager Jesús Garza’s work to bolster city departments for future severe weather events. She praised the results since Ken Snipes began serving as director of the Homeland Security and Emergency Management office.

Within her district, Kelly plans to continue offering regular emergency preparedness classes for residents that include staff from the Jollyville Fire Department, Austin Fire and Austin EMS, with topics ranging from severe weather preparation to how to properly administer Narcan to someone experiencing a fentanyl overdose.

Looking back on 2023, Kelly said her resolution that creates a density bonus for providing public safety facilities in new development projects is a way for the city to save money while ensuring police and fire teams have the locations they need to effectively serve all areas of the city.

In something of a marriage of her interests in public safety and housing, Kelly said in the coming year she’ll pursue a way to provide housing – possibly in a dormitory setting – for enrollees of the police cadet classes.

“Our cadets can’t afford to live in the city. How can we as a City Council expect to recruit outside of Austin if we have nowhere for these people to live?” she said, noting that relocated cadet candidates face a high cost of living for their families if they don’t succeed in joining the police force.

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Posted In: City Hall, District 6