Notes from February 27 Austin Neighborhoods Council Meeting

The Austin Neighborhoods Council held its monthly meeting yesterday. In addition to its regular business, the meeting included a panel of speakers from Austin Independent School District (AISD) addressing the audience and answering questions about the interim school bond election scheduled for May 10, 2008.

AISD Interim School Bond Discussion
Vincent Torres (AISD Board of Trustees, District 4, Vice President) explained the basics of the bond process:

1. When board decides that a bond might be needed, they form a citizens bond advisory committee (CBAC)
2. Advisory committee explores if and when a bond is needed and for what it is needed. This can include public hearings to collect public comment
3. Board considers recommendations and calls a bond election if necessary

Robert Schneider (AISD Board of Trustrees, District 7) delved into the history of this specific bond:

- It started out as an interim strategic bond
- It was originally scoped at 200 million dollars
- As a result of recent legislative action, school districts are required to get voter approval to raise taxes by any more than 1.17, which promted AISD to consider whether it might want to include more in the necessary election
- Several public forums were organized by the CBAC
- After receiving feedback from the CBAC, the board decided to pursue a larger bond election

Nan Clayton (CBAC) addressed some specifics of what is included on the bond:

- The so-called 4 x 4 state mandate requires new facilities
- Several facilities are operating at over 125 % of capacity, which is officially considered overcrowded
- The State legislature is requiring a transition to use of more software-based textbooks but without having funded the required technology

Mark Yzanga (CBAC) addressed some of the issues and lessons learned from the process:

- Citizen comment started as tepid, perhaps because no concrete proposals were provided at the beginning of the public comment period
- Lack of integration/overall city planning process made it difficult to come up with accurate estimates

Q&A followed:

- One person expressed concern about locating the proposed South Austin High over the acquifer - Rob responded that building a school would be good for the environment because it would result in less impervious cover than other permitted uses
- Propositions 1 and 2 on the bond issue are pretty much directly taken from the CBAC recommendations
- Prop 3 addresses the need for performing arts center in light of the fact that the long center may not be suitable due to lack of parking. Some concerns were raised about the structuring of Prop 3 and whether or not it might be politically motivated.
- According to nan clayton, none of the bond packages include library improvements.
- There is a facility use and boundary committee that is responsible for making recommendations about changing boundaries to improve facilities use
- South High School land acquisition is expensive because of size requirements of highs chools and potential impervious cover requirements

Candidate Forum

At the upcoming Austin Neighborhoods Council meeting in March, they will be holding a candidates forum for the three Austin City Council seats up for election in May. After the forum, the Austin Neighborhoods Council will vote on deciding whom to endorse.

Other Austin Neighborhoods Council Business

- It turns out that single member districts cannot be on may ballot because it is too early for a charter election (has been less than 2 years since the last one)
- Some of the city council members are proposing a resolution to further investigate single member districts, which would probably take long enough to keep it off the november ballot
- The Austin Neighborhoods Council would like to see a real public process for drafting the single member districts ballot