A message from the North Austin Coalition of Neighborhoods
Again, my apologies for sending so many emails this month but I am angry.
After the last notice we sent out, I got an email from somebody on a fixed budget. She can’t afford to give up her house, but she is being squeezed out of it by the ever escalating house taxes. $60 more a year would be a big hit in the pocketbook for her.
So instead of being polite, I am going to be blunt. This email is for her and for the other North Austinites who can’t afford to keep paying house taxes for bond packages that only benefit downtown.
The bond committee will be having a public workshop for North Austinites to weigh in on where we think the monies for the 2012 bond package should be spent.
The meeting will be at 6:30 at the Gus Garcia Rec Center on East Rundberg, across from Doby Middle School.
The Bond Committee was very careful to give us only a couple of weeks to get the word out, and has done as little advertising as possible, which says a lot about where this boondoogle is going.
It also says they hope you don’t care.
*They hope you don’t care that this bond package will add another $60 a year to your house taxes:
http://www.statesman.com/news/
*They hope you don’t care that North Austin and North Central Austin is now 20% of the City according to the 2010 Census, but we are the last to get monies for anything in Austin:
http://2010.census.gov/
(the numbers are available in a more user friendly format here: http://www.lovenorthaustin.
*They hope you don’t care that in 2009, a pedestrian study of North Lamar was done but blatantly ignored by the City:
http://nlct.files.wordpress.
*They hope you don’t care that the 2010 bond package was 90 million dollars, and yet the spending was not done by population or need, it was done by downtown bias:
http://www.austinchronicle.
*They hope you don’t care that while we continue to have pedestrian/vehicle accidents because the 2009 study was ignored, Lady Bird Lake got a 16 million dollar boardwalk, which has somehow become a $20 million dollar boardwalk:
http://www.kvue.com/home/Bids-
*They hope you don’t care that according to a KXAN news report on December 12th: “the city has identified it (North Lamar) as probably “the riskiest stretch for all pedestrians in Austin.”
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/
*They hope you don’t care that the bond committee and the City are now trying to ignore a second transportation study that was just completed showing there are over 600 accidents a year on North Lamar and Burnet:
http://www.
*They hope you don’t care that while the City preaches public transportation, they continue to pursue a policy where three of the 6 bus routes with the highest riderships are not given funding because those routes are being serviced by North Lamar and Burnet and North Austin is not a priority:
Route 1, with the highest ridership, runs along North Lamar.
Route 300 ties into North Lamar.
Route 325 ties into Burnet.
http://capmetroblog.com/2012/
*They hope you don’t care that yet another bicyclist was killed on North Lamar, while the bond committee contined to deliberate on whether this second study was important enough to be funded by the next bond package:
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/
http://weareaustin.com/news/
I think we do care and we are fed up.
Imagine what we could’ve done with the $8 million the City spent on repairing existing sidewalks downtown?
Imagine what we could’ve done with $16 million dollars spent on North Lamar and Burnet, instead of a boardwalk?
I am hoping those of you reading this will decide two hours of your life at a meeting is certainly worth protesting yet another bond package that will return nothing to our neighborhoods. I am also hoping you will help us get the word out so your friends and neighbors can come and speak up as well.
Also, a lot of people have been asking about the North Lamar/Burnet Study and what exactly it entails.
The Coalition has spoken to those doing the study and they have graciously loaned us their presentation material. This means the North Austin Candidate’s Forum will now be a two-fer.
We will have the mayor, city council members, and those running against them at the forum, which will go from 7pm-8:30pm. We will also have the Transportation Study presentation materials up, and the doors will open at 6:30pm. We have the hall until 10pm if people need more time after the forum to take another look. (If you missed it before, the Forum is April 18th, at St. Alberts on Metric)
Again – its all about democracy and giving YOU the information so you can decide who to vote for and if you want to support the study .
My previous two posts about this issue are here:
http://www.lovenorthaustin.
http://www.lovenorthaustin.
Again, I apologize for another sending another email and for the tone of this email, but why should the woman who wrote me pay $60 for nothing?
Why should any of us?
-Mary Rudig
North Austin Community Newsletter Editor
NOTE: we will also have voter registars at the March 21st meeting and the April 18th candidates forum, so please come if you need to register to vote!!
How to Contact the Bond Committee:
Social Media – Twitter (#ATXBD) & Facebook
Email – bonddevelopment@austintexas.
Hotline (Voicemail & Text) – (512) 539-0060
Centralized Website: www.AustinTexas.gov/
Leave a Comment