Preserving Texas In the News

In 2000, we wrote about the trade-offs that would be necessary for the seeds of "Smart Growth" to flower. Five years later, some of the notions advanced then remain notions.

Part of the reason for that might be the economic stall of 2000 that followed the exuberance of the high-tech boom, but the Central Texas economy appears on the rebound. One indicator is the strong demand for housing. Another is that we're fighting again over land use and transportation. We're fond of arguing over growth, and planning to make plans is what we do best. The end of the decade will be coming fast, and new Texans are arriving even faster. They're going to need places to live and work, and the means to get around, and that requires action, not just planning.

On the first day of the new year, we publish our editorial agenda — the major issues we'll be closely watching and urging action on in the year ahead.

Some of these issues will sound familiar: road improvements, upgrading aging sewer and water systems, transportation and regional cooperation. They're familiar because Austin's destiny is intertwined with the region and the state, and vice versa. As always, trade-offs and choices will dictate the quality of life in a state that is rapidly changing.

We talk about investing in people, but legislators are actively engaged in minimizing the state's investment in them. As the 2006 elections set up the 2007 legislative session, we'll be asking questions about education, taxes, social services and access to higher education.

On today's pages you'll find an outline of what we will be urging policymakers and the public to consider during the coming year.

As we head deeper into the last half of the decade, Texans — and especially those living in this region — must continue to try to live together in relative comity and make room for the newcomers who keep joining us.

THE LEGISLATURE

This year 2006 should be the one in which the Legislature finally unravels the Gordian knot of public education and state taxes.

But there's no Alexander the Great in sight to cut it, either in office or running as a candidate.

The agenda is clear, laid out in part last month by the Texas Supreme Court: The Legislature must put more state money into public education so that school districts are no longer effectively required to set their property tax at the maximum allowed rate, $1.50, in order to raise enough money to provide an adequate education.

Putting more state-raised money into public education (after years of reducing the state's share) means lawmakers must raise taxes, which inspires political terror among officeholders and candidates seeing election this year. Most state offices, from governor down, are up for election this year.

Consumers won't escape an increase in the sales tax. Nor should business interests escape sharing in the cost of educating their future work force, as so many do now. But the business tax load should be spread evenly, not heaped upon, or excusing, one sector or another.

Lawmakers ought not forget another point made by the Texas Supreme Court: Although the state is not now violating constitutional requirements for providing an adequate education to all students, it is close to doing so.

So the state needs not only to straighten out the way it pays for education, but to face the fact that the number of students continues to grow, that many of them come from impoverished backgrounds and that the state's future prosperity depends upon a well-educated work force.

The Legislature should not settle for "good enough" in public education.

But as candidates make their pitches for the March 7 primary and the Nov. 7 election, we think they should give voters their thinking on other issues, besides the most basic ones of taxes and public education:

• The successful opening last year of a college campus at Round Rock, a joint enterprise of Texas State University-San Marcos and Austin Community College, and the continued growth of Texas State University (not to mention the steady interest in the University of Texas) amply demonstrate the demand for higher education. But rising tuition and fees are making it more difficult for low- and middle-income families to afford it. What should be done?

• Prisons are near capacity and yet short of guards. What's to be done about it?

• The state park system is so starved for money that it recently laid off 39 workers. Can the state put more money into the parks? Or should the state just admit it prefers lower taxes to a decently funded parks program?

• Medicaid, the government health insurance program that covers 2.7 million Texans, most of them poor, continues to grow rapidly. It cost about $13.1 billion in 2002; its estimated cost for 2007 is $17.9 billion, about one-fourth of all state spending.

Can Texas afford this continued growth? If so, how?

DEVELOPMENT

Redeveloping downtown Austin is the Holy Grail for local and regional land use planners for good reason. Quality, dense development means less sprawl and fewer commuters adding to an already congested highway system. These are nice thoughts, but you can't just will them to happen.

To support a desirable mix of dense residential, retail and commercial development, a commitment must be made to:

• Sewers. No one wants to talk much about sewers, but how the city approaches this major public work is vital to the revitalization of downtown. The Austin City Council wants to put 20,000 more residents downtown, and that means upgrading and expanding the city's aged water and sewer lines. Some of that work has begun, but the city needs to maintain focus on this most important project.

• Urban creek protection. Anyone who has seen the trash washed into Town Lake from Shoal and Waller creeks after a heavy rain realizes how vulnerable all three waterways are to the kind of pollution that dense urban development will generate.

Additionally, Bastrop and Smithville residents are painfully aware of the dirty water Austin's downtown development is likely to send their way. Keeping urban watersheds clean is both essential and endless.

• Schools. If downtown becomes the residential choice of 20,000 or more people, schools are going to require attention. Pease Elementary, which opened in 1876, is the oldest continually operating school in Texas. It's best to start thinking about what happens to it now, not the day hundreds more students show up at the front door.

• Traffic and parking. The betting is that the new Texas 130 toll road is going to take some of the pressure off Interstate 35, and we hope that's true. But a downtown residential/retail mix is inevitably going to involve more traffic and the need for more parking. Austinites may be weary of talking about street and road expansion, but more than talk is necessary if we're serious about redeveloping downtown.

• Automobile alternatives. If downtown Austin becomes an employer magnet as contemplated in the downtown development ideas being kicked around, it will mean more people trying to get downtown in the morning.

High Occupancy Vehicle lanes and expanded, reliable mass transit are going to have to get a look. And there needs to be a discussion about the overburdened Lamar Boulevard bridge, one of the few ways into downtown from the south.

RESIDENCY REQUIREMENT

We've heard a lot of talk from city leaders about the benefits of having police and firefighters who are part of the community and reflect the values of Austin citizens. We've heard a lot about paying officers and firefighters well so the city can recruit the best and brightest and keep them here. Austin responded, making its police officers the highest paid in Texas, and city firefighters not far behind. But the return on that investment has resulted in an emergency-response force that has grown detached from Austin and its citizens.

Two of three Austin police officers live outside of the city; six of 10 firefighters don't live in Austin. Officers and firefighters live as far away as San Antonio, Waco, Killeen and suburban communities outside of Dallas and Houston. We'll be looking for candidates in city and state elections who will back residency policies that require new recruits to live in Austin. The residency imbalance impedes Austin's ability to respond to emergencies during times of crisis.

They don't have an investment in Austin, and without that, it's easy to see why they think Austin taxpayers have deep pockets where their pay and benefits are concerned.

Several incidents in 2005 underscored deepening divisions between police and the community they protect. For example, in February, police officers cheered the burning of a black-owned nightclub in East Austin. Their messages sent over patrol car computers nearly triggered a riot and damaged Austin's reputation nationally. And in June, officer Julie Schroeder shot and killed 18-year-old Daniel Rocha after he tried to flee during a drug-related traffic stop. Rocha was unarmed.

On average, police officers earn about $62,500 annually and firefighters about $59,800. Obviously, pay alone is not the answer to attracting officers and firefighters or making them more accountable to their bosses: the City Council and citizens.

Austin needs residency policies that require new officers and firefighters to live in the city as a condition of employment. Ultimately, the Legislature will have to pass a bill to permit cities to vote on residency requirements. Austin and other home-rule cities once had that authority before police unions got the Legislature to bar cities from voting on residency requirements. That piece of special-interest legislation was passed in 1987 as a pre-emptive strike.

Overturning the prohibition won't be easy, but it can be done if citizens insist their elected officials do it. The city is losing financially because most police and firefighters don't pay taxes to support city services or Austin schools.

Most police officers and firefighters cannot vote in city elections, but they wield terrific influence over who is elected to the Austin City Council, which controls their pay and benefits.

There are good officers who are doing their jobs, and we appreciate that. But we must demand more of police and firefighters if we want a force that is accountable. If we are willing to pay them more, then they should live and work in Austin.

CULTURE

Not that long ago, the cultural arts in Austin consisted of a thriving live music scene, whatever was at the University of Texas in a particular week and some local theater groups.

But as Austin has grown, so has its desire for expanding the arts that help define a city and shape it into a thriving center of culture. At mid-decade, after years of halting steps toward celebrating the arts, Austin is about to break into full stride.

The Blanton Museum of Art is set for a grand opening at the south end of the UT campus in April and will instantly become the region's premier showcase for visual arts. Blanton has raised nearly $80 million in public and private money to build a structure worthy of displaying its grand collections, including works by Rembrandt, Picasso and other notable artists.

Work is proceeding as well on the Long Center for the Performing Arts, a makeover for the old Palmer Auditorium at South First Street and Riverside Drive. The center is closing in on the $77 million it needs to complete the facility and a $10 million operating endowment. When it opens in 2008, it will be a marqee event for live performances and enhance UT's Performing Arts Center and Bass Concert Hall.

Last year, the $11.5 million George Washington Carver Museum and Cultural Center opened on Angelina Street along with the renovated Carver Branch Library. The 36,000 square-foot museum focuses on the African American experience in Central Texas.

And at long last, ground has been broken for the Mexican-American Cultural Center to be located on Rainey Street, near the banks of Town Lake. This much-delayed, $10.9 million project will have 30,000 square feet of museum and cultural space dedicated to Hispanic art and life when it is completed on 6.5 acres along Town Lake.

Art always needs nurturing, so it is important that Austin support these cultural arts projects and make them the best venues they possibly can be. Austin has long needed a true art museum and another concert hall, and now both are on the horizon — though there are still funding issues the community can help along. The Blanton is raising money for a second building and the Long Center is seeking funds for the permanent endowment.

Celebrations of the African American and Mexican American experiences in Central Texas deserve the attention they receive now at the Carver Museum and will receive at the Mexican-American Cultural Center. The community should appreciate and support those projects because they represent a vital part of our life in Central Texas.

As we proceed deeper into the first decade of the 21st Century, the American-Statesman editorial pages will continue to lend support — and criticism where warranted — for the growth of the cultural arts in this region.

Libraries

Libraries aren't often associated with the culture of a city or region, but they are a critical aspect of a thriving urban community. The best ones offer programs, exhibits, readings, critical discussions and more. They house more than books and artifacts. They offer computer access, after-school and reading programs and more.

But it takes money and a serious amount of political acumen to make a library system special.

In recent years, Austin's libraries have suffered reduced hours and programs as the city budget got tighter.

The demand for branch libraries overwhelmed the needs of the John Henry Faulk central library, and it shows the neglect.

However, the Austin City Council has an opportunity later this month to remake the central library into something special.

In 2004, a consultant recommended replacing the 110,000 square foot central library with a 350,000 square foot, $200 million edifice.

A city bond committee pared that recommendation way back, and after further trims, the project now stands at $90 million. Council members will vote this month on a new bond proposal that includes the library building.

The Council should not trim the library project further. Each cut takes something special from a facility that could be a gem in the very heart of a revitalized downtown.

Libraries are special places, and Austin is a city that deserves an outstanding central library.

Downtown is booming. The library should be part of that.