Watson focuses on how to finance city’s environmental goals

City Council on Tuesday received its first briefing on what is expected to be a painstaking journey toward developing and implementing an investment strategy for funding Austin’s Climate Equity Plan.

A public hearing is set for today on the creation of an investment plan – one of the steps outlined in a resolution that Council approved in February. The resolution kicked off the staff-level work toward developing funding strategies.

A detailed memo from Chief Sustainability Officer Zach Baumer preceded his briefing to Council. The memo included departmental priorities and cost estimates for several big-ticket items, such as the acquisition of 20,000 acres of land for water-quality protection and sequestering of carbon emissions, large infrastructure improvement projects and electric vehicle charging programs.

Mayor Kirk Watson raised several questions regarding the financing methods needed to fund the projects and he sought greater clarity on what the trade-offs and benefits would be, with the ultimate aim of getting buy-in from the community. One of Watson’s notable achievements during his first mayoral tenure was orchestrating a peace accord between environmentalists and the business community, leading to their joint support of a 1998 bond election for land acquisition over the Edwards Aquifer and the expansion of the Austin Convention Center – a win-win for both sides.

Still uncertain is whether Watson and the Council majority have an appetite for holding a general obligation bond election this year. Council Member Ryan Alter, who sponsored the investment plan resolution, indicated in a City Council Message Board post last week that he and a subquorum of four other Council members (Vanessa Fuentes, José Velásquez, Paige Ellis and Alison Alter) favor a 2024 bond package to pay for land acquisition, an expanded bike network, urban trails, stormwater resilience and other projects eligible for funding through general obligation bonds. Other resilience projects can be paid for through utility rates or the General Fund, according to Ryan Alter.

At Tuesday’s work session, Watson suggested that staff use a “decision tree” approach to determine priorities and anticipated outcomes.

“I’d like to have you all recommend to us a way to think through what our guiding principles are as we look at each one of these projects,” he said.

The idea of establishing a climate fee as a means of funding environmental projects generated little discussion at the work session. Baumer told Council he will continue working with staff to figure out how such a fee could be created to ensure the city has a dedicated fund for financing climate-related projects.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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