Back around the time that I went on summer vacation I watched a forum put on by CBS Austin about public safety in Austin. It basically featured Council Member Chito Vela and Austin Justice Coalition leader/police abolitionist Chas Moore debating Council Member Mackenzie Kelly and Cleo Petricek, the leading Democrat in Save Austin Now. That forum (link at bottom), which included a lot of good discussion, came to mind with the proposed police contract facing an up or down vote by the City Council on Thursday October 24.
For instance, here’s how Chito Vela explained the thinking behind ongoing changes that a series of Councils have brought to the Austin Police Department (APD):
“This is part of a shift, a cultural evolution. We used to police a certain way, a very aggressive way. I’ve heard it described as a kind of warrior mentality. We’re trying to shift to a different model of policing, kind of a guardian mentality, where your job is not to go out there, you know with a billy club, and just smash some heads. Your job is to really kind of investigate, to find out what’s going on, to do more than just respond with aggressive police tactics.”
Maybe it’s just me, but when I heard this quote, it just didn’t seem to accurately describe the Austin Police Department at any time in recent history. And, that worries me when the person saying it is entrusted with one of the 11 votes on the critically important issue of a police contract.
“We’re trying to shift to a different model of policing, kind of a guardian mentality, where your job is not to go out there, you know with a billy club, and just smash some heads.”
Council Member Chito Vela on Efforts to Reform the Austin Police Department
So I contacted Vela and asked about his comments. (At the time, I was also writing a story about the history of the proposed police contract and asked him a question about his role in that saga as well. That story can be found here.)
Here’s what I asked Vela:
- “what time period were you referring to when you said, ‘We used to police a certain way, a very aggressive way?”’
- And, do you have any examples of what you then describe, especially that would show this was the standard way of policing.”
When I referred to “what you then describe” I meant Vela’s contention that Austin police view (and/or viewed) their job as to “go out there, you know with a billy club, and just smash some heads.”
I emailed the two questions to Vela and wrote that I would “accept written answers”, but that I thought “a conversation would work best.”
Vela did not reply in writing or in conversation. I’m beginning to think he may not want to talk to me because you may recall what happened when I asked him a polite, friendly question at a HOME press conference.
So What Did Vela Mean?
The lack of response from Vela left me to try to form a conclusion based on the evidence available. On when did the attempted “shift” begin, I think he means that the shift began under his predecessor Greg Casar, when the Council shifted to the 10-1 system and when Steve Adler was Mayor, all simultaneous. That era began in 2015 but reached its peak in 2020 amid the nationwide George Floyd protests.
To me, that is the only answer that makes sense. I don’t believe Vela would claim that the “shift” he is describing took place only after he arrived. Plus, the concept of shifting from a “warrior” approach to a “guardian” approach is consistent with the language used by leading activists on police issues during the period from the beginning of the 10-1 Councils to now.
Vela also said that the Council is “trying to shift to a different model of policing.” The use of the word “trying” means that a shift is underway, but still in progress. So, it would follow that — in the Council Member’s view — a certain number of Austin police officers (a large enough number for him to feel comfortable talking in general terms about it) still show up for work, then “go out there, you know with a billy club, and just smash some heads.” (If that’s happening to you or anyone you know please contact the City’s Office of Police Oversight).
As I’ve said I don’t believe that the members of the Austin Police Department view their jobs in this way; and it troubles me that this is how a Council Member, especially one who is considered a leader on the Council, views the department.
I don’t mean to say that there were never any problems with or excesses from the Austin Police Department; or to say that there are never any ongoing problems. For one thing I wrote in these pages about what I saw as serious mistakes APD made in its handling of the 2020 protests after George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police. In earlier years, as I have mentioned before, I was a leader on the City Council (1996-2005) in getting the first civilian oversight of police in the state of Texas. It was a difficult endeavor, with a lot of state laws that kept us from getting everything we wanted. But, ultimately we negotiated a contract with the Austin Police Association (APA, the police union for Austin officers) that featured the first civilian oversight in Texas history. It was a breakthrough and oversight efforts in Austin build on that today. I also want to note that my beloved colleague and friend Jackie Goodman was also a leader in that effort, and the whole Council supported it. That included then Mayor Kirk Watson who helped negotiate the package.
Even then I found that the Department operated much more professionally than anything approaching what Vela describes — and he is describing something that he still believes is occurring. One could even say that the APD of that era could be counted on to “really kind of investigate, to find out what’s going on, to do more than just respond with aggressive police tactics.”
Still, Vela’s comments that I’ve been discussing here are open to interpretation and a little hard to pin down. So let’s look at his views on some areas that are a little less difficult to measure.
Staffing Crisis, What Staffing Crisis?
For instance, Vela doesn’t buy that APD is in a staffing crisis and he exudes certainty about it. When the issue came up at the CBS Austin forum Vela said, “This kind of idea that 1,400 police officers or whatever is dangerously (low). That’s just not true. It has not been true in any incident. The police have responded appropriately to every major incident, even if it means having to leave lower priority calls on hold for a bit.” (26:30 into forum)
“This kind of idea that 1,400 police officers or whatever is dangerously (low). That’s just not true.
Council Member Chito Vela on Austin’s Level of Police Staffing
Really? Vela may have missed reports with headlines like these, which are just a few of many:
- “Austin Police Department suspending motorcycle unit due to staffing shortages” – May 21, 2021
- “APD reports no police units available to respond to shooting Sunday morning for 12 minutes” – May 23, 2021
- “Austin Police staff shortages lead to 30% increase in 911 response times” – May 26th 2021
Concerning the second bullet, the 12 minutes with “no police units available” was the response (or lack thereof) to the fatal shooting of a bystander at a dispute in the parking lot of an adult club. There, according to a KVUE report, a disagreement inside the club burst into violence in the parking lot, where three men in a vehicle “fired multiple gunshots from their vehicle at the fleeing intended victim.” Twelve minutes without officers to respond to that situation seems a little slow, but then what else could have gone wrong in that situation during that time? Who would disagree that the police “responded appropriately?”
The police have responded appropriately to every major incident, even if it means having to leave lower priority calls on hold for a bit.”
Chito Vela insisting that police staffing shortages have not hurt police response
But, those headlines were all from 2021, before Chito Vela won office.
Here are a few from this year:
- “APD Interim Chief: Police Department is facing ‘legitimate’ staffing crisis” – June 4th 2024
- “APD staffing shortage continues with over 330 sworn officer vacancies“ – July 1, 2024
- “Austin police officer shortage leaves portion of East Austin without patrol – An entire portion of East Austin was left without a single patrol officer for two hours”
Staffing shortages, or perhaps I should say alleged staffing shortages, stemmed directly from the unanimous vote of the 2020 City Council to defund the police. As reported here, numerous times before, the defunding vote took the form of $21 million in funds transferred out of APD and another $129 million moved into contingency funds to determine whether services funded by that money could be provided by other departments.
Tweet from then Council Member Greg Casar, sent minutes after Council voted to defund the police budget in August 2020
The Governor and state legislature soon forced a reinstatement of the funding cuts and forbid such cuts in the future. They could not reverse, however, the most damaging parts of the Council vote. That was to eliminate 150 vacant positions from the APD budget, which then had 1,959 sworn, police officer, positions. The Council also voted to eliminate cadet classes for more than a year. The eliminated vacant positions were of course positions the department was in the process of trying to fill, although it does appear to show that there were already staffing shortages before the 2020 vote. In addition to the elimination of vacant positions, the elimination of cadet classes meant the department could not recruit and train new officers.
The Council vote unsurprisingly led to widely reported morale problems, with many officers retiring early or leaving for other cities over the next few years. According to an APD report for the third quarter of Fiscal Year 2024, APD has 334 vacant officer positions out of an approved total of 1,812. Critics of defunding, like Kelly and Petricek, say the 150 positions eliminated by the Council defunding vote in 2020 should also be counted as vacancies. That is how they get a figure of almost 500 vacancies.
At the CBS Austin forum, Kelly challenged Vela’s contention that there was not an officer shortage (34:12). “We don’t have a DWI unit. We don’t have detectives who are able to focus on detective work. They are all being put back on patrol. And our officers are going call to call to call and their morale is low as a result of that and other factors we have talked about tonight.”
That prompted Vela to respond, “I agree with Mackenzie that there are officers that are running around trying to do their best in difficult situations, but honestly that describes just about every City employee in Austin. There’s a lot of departments that are under resourced, but we have to get creative and we have to get efficient and we have to be smarter about how we deploy our resources.”
Vela is right that many City departments are “under resourced.” But, no other City department has been directly targeted by the Council to eliminate large percentages of its employees and to drastically cut its budget; as happened in the unanimous vote of the 2020 Council. Vela either doesn’t realize that, or intentionally leaves it out when making public statements.
Vela Denies Safety Issues Downtown – Draws Rebuke from Chas Moore
Vela became angry, or at least agitated, later during the same forum. That happened when a member of a citizen panel, assembled by CBS Austin for the debate, said that downtown Austin is unsafe and that she would not let her teenage daughters go there.
Vela replied (1:25 into forum), “I’m downtown at City Hall and around City Hall every day, and I hear this kind of ‘oh, downtown is a scary place.’ It’s not. It’s a completely normal place. It’s largely safe. There’s literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people, that come and go from downtown every day. The idea that it’s some kind of hellscape is just a fantasy that people really just need to shed.”
Vela went on to say “my heart goes (out) to anyone who is a victim of crime, but the reality is that people come and go from downtown everyday.” He then reiterated, “So, this whole idea that Austin is some kind of criminal hellscape is just right wing fantasy material. And it just really needs to stop.”
Once again Council Member Mackenzie Kelly responded, “It’s definitely not fantasy material. For a limited time when I first got elected there were individuals who were experiencing homelessness surrounding City Hall. They were carrying metal pipes. They had bullet proof vests. They had machetes. And they would chase me as I walked out of City Hall. That was not safe to me. That clearly isn’t happening now. The temperature has changed outside of City Hall.
But, there was a time when I felt unsafe. And I know there are other individuals who have stories similar to mine, maybe different circumstances. I met somebody that was punched in the face after he was trying to defend two women walking across the bridge on 1st Street. There are times where it can feel unsafe to people. And while it is safe at other times I think that if we were to discredit the voices of those who do not feel safe it would be a disservice to the City of Austin.”
Some readers might be tempted to just chalk this up to an exchange of views from two Council Members who come from different ideological perspectives. And, there would be some truth to that. Also, Vela is correct that thousands of people make it in and out of downtown Austin each day without incident.
There was another panelist, however, who disagreed with Vela’s remarks. That was his fellow panelist Chas Moore, the head of the Austin Justice Coalition and a professed police abolitionist. Moore said, “I agree slightly with Mackenzie because I think, Chito, you and I need to ultimately keep in mind that we are men. So I’m not discrediting the fact that if I was a woman walking Town Lake at 8, when it’s dark, I might feel unsafe. And again I do want to point out we have this thing, let’s respect the data and stats that says collectively we’re safe, but let’s also respect these stories of the individuals who do not feel safe.”
Then at the October 8 Council work session on the contract numerous speakers spoke out about the public safety situation downtown and in other parts of the City. Many of the speakers represented either the Downtown Austin Alliance (DAA) or the Austin Apartment Association, with members of each organization recounting experiences they have had.
Leoloa Maxey of the Downtown Austin Alliance speaks to the City Council – screenshot
That included a young woman who works for DAA: “My name is Leola Maxey and I was an ambassador as well as a manager with the Downtown Austin Alliance for five years. I now serve as a block manager, block by block, where I continue to work toward keeping downtown spaces safe and welcoming for everyone.” She then described some of her experiences, “During my time as an (Downtown) Austin Alliance ambassador, I saw our team regularly face verbal and physical assaults from individuals experiencing homelessness and severe mental illness, making their roles extremely difficult. Just in the three and a half months that I have been back in Austin, I myself have been a victim of those assaults. I’ve been spat on. I’ve been kicked. One of my team leads as well has been pushed off of a bike, and this is a safety team lead, pushed off of a bike as well as stood over and spat on. And this is due to the result of not having the support or having the officers to respond in a timely fashion.”
“During my time as an (Downtown) Austin Alliance ambassador, I saw our team regularly face verbal and physical assaults from individuals experiencing homelessness and severe mental illness. . . I myself have been a victim of those assaults. I’ve been spat on. I’ve been kicked. . .”
Leola Maxey of the Downtown austin alliance
Maxey’s account of her real life experiences runs counter to two of Vela’s assertions: that there is no shortage of officers and that downtown is “a completely normal place” and “largely safe.”
Vela may have also missed the experiences of Royal Blue Grocery, a small locally owned grocer that operates stores in the downtown area and in a few neighborhoods near downtown. For example at a May 22, 2023 Council hearing, Royal Blue Grocery co-owner Craig Staley told the Council, “I can tell you that the crime level going on in our stores over the past couple (of) years has just gone through the roof. We’re having a hard time keeping our staffs safe and we’re at a point now where there’s a crime committed in one of our stores every day.”
Soon after that hearing a female Royal Blue employee was knocked to the floor by a male shoplifter as she was trying to stop him from stealing.
More recently Staley’s co-owner George Scariano was at the Royal Blue on Congress Avenue downtown when he saw a man set up a chair right outside the entrance to the store. Scariano went outside and asked the man if he was a customer. The situation deteriorated from there. Scariano told KVUE, “He tried to spit on me, challenged me physically.” Scariano said he then asked the man to leave. Next, “he turned around, assaulted me, he headbutted me, and I tackled him.” By then a small crowd formed and several people helped Scariano hold the man down until police arrived. The man was arrested. (The KVUE story didn’t say how long it took the police to arrive.)
Such incidents, of course, aren’t limited to downtown. For instance, at the same 2023 hearing where Craig Staley spoke, a person representing an organization of local convenience stores told the Council (including Chito Vela): “Many of our retailer locations have experienced threatening, frightening types of situations. . . Several of them are struggling to retain their employees they have because they don’t feel safe. Many have experienced people coming in and taking what they want and just walking out. Some have been quoted to say when they were asked to pay for the goods, ‘Call the police. They aren’t going to come.’”
All this could make one wonder if Chito Vela is even aware of an important statistic related to his Council District. As KXAN recently reported, Vela’s District 4 is the site of more homicides than any other district this year. This is not something I’ve ever heard Vela mention, but maybe he is on it.
So what accounts for the seeming gap between Chito Vela’s perception of public safety and police staffing and what is widely thought to be the reality on the ground? I believe the core explanation is that Vela’s statements reflect an ideology that has taken hold at City Hall in recent years. It’s an ideology in which being accurate is not as important as what you and your team believe. This can be very damaging when applied to serious public policy issues. I will have more to say about ideology and its impact on local governance in future editions.
For now the big question is how Chito Vela and the rest of the Council will vote on the police contract. Stay tuned.
(Here’s a link to the CBS Austin forum. I watched the Facebook version, which was slightly longer than what was shown on television.)
The Real Estate Deal Now Accompanying the Police Contract
A new mystery has developed related to, or at least adjacent to, the police contract issue. The question there is how did a massive real estate deal get into a package with the police contract. (I say “package” because the two items are clearly related although separate items on the Council agenda.) The idea, announced on October 11 by Mayor Kirk Watson, is for the City to purchase three large office buildings along MoPac, south of Zilker Park, for a public safety complex. As the City describes it in a press release, plans are to purchase “a 386,000-square-foot facility in Southwest Austin near Zilker Park and in close proximity to downtown“ for “Austin Police, Austin Fire, and Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services.” The complex features three buildings and accompanying parking garages.
According to agenda backup the addresses are 1501 and 1601 South Mopac Expressway. The asking price is $120,500,000.
City photo of complex proposed for purchase on October 24 agenda
This one is beyond our ability and endurance to cover in any detail before the scheduled vote.
Opponents of the deal call it a corporate developer bail out. Watson and City Management say they are getting the complex at a bargain.
There is little doubt about the need for new offices, as many parts of Austin’s public safety apparatus are housed in old and sometimes dilapidated buildings. Critics, however, point out that there was not an open competitive process on this deal.
Plus, the buildings are in the Barton Springs Recharge Zone, but not built under the regulations of the Save Our Springs Ordinance. It’s a mystery whether anyone at City Hall thought of that before plunging forward. It’s true that the buildings are already there, but history has shown that locating major employers in the Barton Springs Zone (BSZ) leads to various other kinds of development.
Also related to the buildings already being there, the City plans to do renovations. Would that make it subject to the redevelopment ordinance for the BSZ, which could require the City to buy mitigation land elsewhere in the BSZ?
This appears to be some sort of Watson strategy, including the timing so close to the election. And, he is thinking big. (I challenge readers to run it through the Kirk Watson Vision Test reported here recently.)
This is also potentially divisive in some ways. For just one example, it could force environmentalists to choose between opposing growth in the environmentally fragile Barton Springs Zone or supporting improved working conditions for public safety employees. At the same time, and just speculating here, part of Watson’s plan could be to line up environmentalists like his nemesis Bill Bunch and anti-police activists on the same side and then politically steamroll over them; all while bringing public safety departments a brand new home.
According to reporting from the Austin Monitor and the Austin Free Press, a political action committee (PAC) working to reelect Watson received a $10,000 donation from an entity associated with the owner of the buildings, Brandywine, a national real estate investor. As the Austin Free Press reported, Mayoral candidate Doug Greco spoke at a Public Safety Committee on the matter and said Watson should have disclosed the donation and recused himself from the vote. Watson replied that he wasn’t aware of the $10,000 contribution and explained that the PAC is separate from his campaign and he is not supposed to coordinate with the PAC.
The Austin Monitor also reported, “Brandywine is nowhere near the largest contributor to the pro-Watson PAC. The largest contributor so far is Kilroy Realty Los Angeles, which contributed $100,000. HPI Real Estate Inc. donated $25,000 and Brian Sheffield of Marbella Interests put in the odd amount of $23,749.70 on two occasions, once in July and once in September, for a total of $47,499.40.”
I’ll just end it there because I can’t think of a better commentary on the state of Austin, and American, politics.
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