Mayoral Candidates: Similarities, Differences, Big Ideas

 

The race for mayor is a race for Austin, for the entire city. That means that the issues that are raised in this election matter. They are the problems and concerns that everyone is talking about – transportation, water, energy, and land use. But where the mayor’s race truly sets itself apart is in the candidates, whose range of experience levels and personal backgrounds has made their records an issue in the campaign in and of itself. 

The two incumbents in the race -Mike Martinez and Sheryl Cole – both currently serve on city council and proudly showed off their council positions and voting records in each of their questionnaire responses. Martinez even named his role as Chair of the Capital Metro Board of Directors as his number one environmental accomplishment, saying that under his leadership Cap Metro provided more than 32,000,000 passenger trips in 2013 alone, thereby taking thousands of cars off the road and improving air quality. “I would have to say this has been my single most important policy matter that has helped our environmental goals in Austin,” Martinez wrote about his work with Cap Metro. “This direct example of proven leadership is exactly what I will take to the Mayor’s Office if elected.” 

Other candidates attacked Martinez’s prominent role within Cap Metro and city council, using his own record against him. Adler, in particular, criticized the way Austin’s proposed urban rail line was rolled out to the public. “Even the Chairman of Capital Metro, my opponent Mike Martinez, proposed changes to this plan just days before the final vote,” Adler wrote in his questionnaire response. “We can do government better than that.” He continued on to say that the proposition should have been crafted in a more deliberative manner. “Instead,” he wrote, “we have proponents of rail opposing this plan, and that’s not acceptable to me.” 

Despite this, Adler said that he still supports Prop 1, writing that he, “couldn’t imagine an Austin in 25 or 30 years that doesn’t have an integrated rail, transit, and transportation system.” Adler did not seem to be alone on this front. Martinez and Cole have also expressed their support for Prop 1. “I fully support urban rail,” Martinez wrote, “but more importantly, I support the full visioning plan for all of Project Connect that will guide the future of Austin for decades to come.” 

 

Imagine Austin

Another area where an incumbent’s record has come into play is Imagine Austin, the city’s comprehensive plan. As chair of city council’s Comprehensive Planning and Transportation committee, Cole has worked extensively on Imagine Austin and even named it as one of her top environmental priorities in her questionnaire responses.  The decisions that the city makes today in regards to land use and planning for a more compact and connected city, “will be inherited by our children and influence a lot of the efforts we are trying to make as a city regarding water conservation, air quality and the protection of natural green spaces,” Cole wrote. 

Meanwhile, her opponent David Orshalick, had nothing but negative things to say about Imagine Austin, writing that it is flawed and should be rewritten. “It represents a massive social engineering experiment that hasn’t worked anywhere except for the wealthy,” Orshalick said. He continued on to write that Imagine Austin’s call for increased density would only degrade the quality of life in the city’s neighborhoods, and “raise the misery index.” 

Other candidates in the race, Adler and Martinez in particular, have sided with Cole in support of Imagine Austin, but neither named it as one of their top issues, as Cole did. However in his questionnaire responses, Adler did address some of Orshalick’s fears of neighborhood destruction, writing that, “we can create more density while ensuring the preservation of our existing neighborhoods and the protection of environmentally sensitive areas.” He said that density is not a “zero sum game.” 

 

Conservation

The value of conservation, both of water and energy, has also emerged as a major city-wide issue in the mayor’s race. All five candidates who answered the environmental questionnaires – Cole, Martinez, Adler, Orshalick, and Stephens – talked about the importance of conservation in some form or another. Stephens suggested that the city require a 30 second maximum time for hot water to reach the tap on newly constructed homes, as well as permit the use of graywater for landscaping purposes in order to conserve drinking water. Orshalick also put forth his own list of recommendations, writing that the city needs to modify its codes to encourage residential and industrial water reuse and revive native plant xeriscaping initiatives. 

Adler too spoke about the importance of conservation, even naming it as his top environmental priority, writing that Austin should do all that it can, “to avoid spending hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase additional water supplies in Bastrop and Lee Counties…” He said that this can be done by expanding the purple pipe network, with a priority toward serving high volume customers, like the University of Texas, first.

Cole added to this sentiment, writing that she is a “huge proponent” of purple pipe. Martinez also chimed in, saying that, “conservation and reuse must be the #1 water priority.” Martinez then dug a little deeper into the issue, running through a list of his recommendations to fix Austin’s water woes. If elected, he said that he would prioritize capital improvement projects that fix leaking infrastructure, ensure that all new construction includes graywater systems, and create a regional advisory group to make certain that everyone in the area is employing similar conservation methods. 

Despite all of their focus on conservation, neither Adler, Cole or Martinez were ready to make any promises about recent proposals to bring water from the Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer to Austin, although they all said that it should only be used as a last resort. “We need to do all we can to conserve our water resources before looking towards the Carrizo Wilcox,” Martinez wrote. Although he quickly added that, “…we may have to consider the Carrizo Wilcox at some point for the eastern portion of our community.” 

Cole seemed to think of the Carrizo Wilcox a little more fondly, writing that at this point she still has an open mind about using it as a water source for Austin. “I certainly would not prefer this as an option over our current Lower Colorado River water, but based on the information I have received to date, nor can I rule it out,” Cole said. 

These opinions differ from a large number of the district candidates, many of whom have rejected withdrawing water from the aquifer outright. 

 

A Changing Utility 

Closely related to conservation, are the utilities that are tasked with supplying Austin with water are electricity – Austin Water Utility and Austin Energy. Many of the mayoral candidates talked about the need to change the business models of these utilities so that conservation can be encouraged without bankrupting these valuable municipal assets. “There is a conflict of interest between AWU’s revenue generation requirements and promoting conservation efforts,” Martinez wrote. “I believe this can be addressed by accurately valuing potable water and providing greater flexibility for use of auxiliary water.”

Adler identified this as a problem for Austin Energy as well, writing that, “the most important challenge for Austin Energy is moving forward with a sustainable business plan that doesn’t rely on selling more and more energy.” He said that Austin needs to push its utility to be a provider of distribution, connectivity, grid services, and the sale of lease of distributed power equipment, as opposed to simply selling power. “…Austin Energy needs to be at the forefront of this changing power generation ethos,” Adler said. 

These calls for a change in the utilities’ business models have been echoed in every district race and across a wide swath of candidates. The fact that all of the mayoral front-runners have also taken this up as an important issue is telling of what it to come when the new city council takes office. 

 

Energy and Climate 

Debates over Austin Energy came up again when the mayoral candidates discussed renewable energy in their questionnaire responses. Again, personal records came into play as Martinez and Cole wrote about their climate successes while serving on city council. Cole talked about the recently passed resolution that directs Austin to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions community-wide to zero by 2050, a resolution that she co-sponsored with fellow council members Chris Riley (District 9 candidate) and Bill Spellman. 

Martinez also presented a strong record of his support for renewable energy, writing that he co-sponsored a resolution (just passed this summer) that pushed Austin Energy’s renewable goal up to 65 percent by 2025. 

These voting records appeared to have translated into a strong overall support for renewables, with both Cole and Martinez advocating for the retirement of the city’s Fayette coal-fired power plant and Decker natural-gas fired plant. “Renewable energy is an unlimited source of fuel,” Cole said. “Natural gas will come up as a short term solution, but I have serious concerns about how we go about getting it out of the ground and we still have the issue of the incredible amounts of water in the extraction process of natural gas.” 

Martinez took an even stronger stance, writing that, “we must go beyond coal.” He continued on to say that Austin Energy’s recent solar purchases at record low prices are “game changing” and will create real opportunities to go carbon neutral at Austin Energy. He said that if elected, he would work “tirelessly” on this issue. 

Adler also spoke about the need to retire Fayette and Decker, although he said that he needed more information about the economic feasibility of doing so before he could speak more strongly about replacing Decker with 600 MW of west Texas solar, as has been proposed. “I support replacing the Decker plant and I support increased reliance on solar power,” Adler said. “But is it possible that the relative cost for a contract with West Texas sources would not be as cost effective as incentivizing much more distributed solar power here in Austin?” 

As part of this discussion on natural gas, Martinez was the only candidate to directly address Austin Energy’s recent proposals to build a new natural gas plant. He said that he would continue to oppose any new natural gas plants, until it is made clear that there are no other alternatives. “The low cost of solar has shifted the old utility paradigm,” Martinez wrote, “and I welcome the opportunity it provides to serve Austin with clean, affordable energy.” 

 

Austin needs to be a leader 

As the only individuals running for an at-large seat in this election, the mayoral candidates also talked a lot about Austin as a whole, and the need for it to be a national leader on environmental issues. Cole wrote that she wants to see Austin become a leader in responding to water scarcity through public private partnerships that encourage innovation. Adler said that Austin and its power utility, Austin Energy, need to be at the forefront of a changing power generation ethos, one that utilizes new generation technologies and grid management tools. And in discussing Austin’s Climate Protection Plan, Martinez wrote that, “we should be proud that the rest of the country has validated what we have started, and now it is our duty to set the national standard for addressing climate change at the local level.” 

Big Ideas: A collection of the candidates' most unique plans for Austin

From Martinez: The city should create a regional advisory group comprised of people from every entity that is drawing water from the same source. The group would then ensure that everyone is employing the same water conservation methods, we well as enforcing them.

From Martinez: AWU’s conflict of interest between its revenue generation requirements and its conservation efforts should be eliminated through the accurate valuation of potable water and an increase in flexibility for the use of auxiliary water. 

From  Martinez: Potable water should be priced accurately to present its actual value. 

From Adler: To better ensure growth pays for itself, we must explore utilization of the transportation impact fee, which is authorized by state law and which the city currently does not assess, and find private market contribution through public improvement districts (PIDs). 

From Stephens: Austin’s mayor should lobby TxDOT and invite all Texas mayors to a conference on funding mechanisms for funding and implementing traffic flow improvements in cities. Fuel excise tax, bonds, or regional RMA sales tax should be considered in lieu of fuel tax adjustment. 

From Stephens: Austin should have an elevated commuter/urban rail hybrid system that will give commuters the option to get out of their cars and head into the urban core of Austin. 

 
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