UPDATE FROM SAVE AUSTIN NOW PAC:
We wanted to take this opportunity to look back at what we have achieved together, and what take stock of the work that remains.
Deep down, we all know our city remains headed in the wrong direction.
Public safety has never been worse, the homeless camping disaster has not been directly and sufficiently addressed, and affordability and transportation continue to be unaddressed by city leaders.
WHAT WE'VE DONE
In the past two years, our scrappy band of volunteers has created the largest and most significant grassroots organization in Austin history.
> 56,000+ email addresses
> 6,000+ individual donors
> 1,600+ volunteers
On May 1st, after two petition drives, we prevailed 58%-42% in passing reinstatement of the public camping ban over the loud opposition of 9/10 council members, the Mayor, and many left-wing groups.
Just 25 days after we won Prop B, on May 26, we launched our second petition drive, #MakeAustinSafe, to ensure adequate police staffing, double police training, and enact police reforms.
Just 55 days later, we submitted 27,700+ signed petitions, an extraordinary accomplishment in such a short time.
On August 2, the City Clerk certified our petitions, releasing an analysis that 93% of our signed petitions were valid (25,700+). This is the second highest validity rate in Austin history -- second only to our second camping ban petition (97% validity).
WHAT WE ARE DOING
We are operating on parallel tracks right now.
Camping Ban
On the camping ban, we continue to explore every single option available to us as we maintain pressure on the city to respect the will of the voters and fully enforce Prop B, which passed overwhelmingly.
According to APD, tents are down 20% since Prop B passed. We are also confident that the exponential growth of the homeless population in our city (estimated to have tripled over the past two years) has plateaued and likely started to decrease.
The council-passed HEAL Initiative, which passed after Save Austin Now spent more than a year pushing the council the provide ACTUAL HOMELESS SOLUTIONS, has now cleaned up three bad encampments and housed around 100 homeless individuals. It's a start, but it's a relatively marginal effort related to the size of the overall homeless population.
We are not satisfied.
On Monday, we released objective criteria for safe regulated encampments in our city. We want to ban regulated encampments from being placed near schools, parks, child care centers and senior centers. We announced our opposition to the proposed locations on Convict Hill Road and Manor Road, for violating our objective criteria and threatening surrounding neighborhoods. We began soliciting safe locations from the public. You can submit safe locations at the hyperlink above.
Meanwhile, Phase 4 of city enforcement begins August 8 and the statewide camping ban takes effect on Sept. 1. We continue to explore legal options at this time. We are not done fighting.
Police Staffing Crisis
Meanwhile, we have JUST 89 DAYS (!) until our #MakeAustinSafe ordinance is on the Nov. 2, 2021 ballot. Already, the hard left in our city is lying about our effort and blaming the police for the violent crime wave. Our #Make Austin Safe ordinance does several things:
1. ENSURES ADEQUATE POLICE STAFFING: Requires a minimum of 2.0 police officers per 1,000 population, a nationally recognized standard for safe cities, combined with a minimum of 35% community response time (or uncommitted time)
2 DOUBLES POLICE TRAINING: Requires an additional 40 hours of post-cadet class training hours per year, making Austin the national model for police training
3. ENACTS POLICE REFORMS: Includes provisions to boost minority hiring (through foreign language proficiency), ensure racially diverse community policing, and provides retention bonuses for officers without police complaints (‘Good Conduct Medal eligible officers)
Here are the stats on how bad things are currently:
1) We are currently at 52 (!) homicides this year, easily breaking last year's ALL-TIME RECORD of 48 with five months left in the year.
2) Every violent crime rate is up at least 20% -- aggravated assault, robbery / battery, stabbings and rapes. These stats are rising at the fastest rate in five years.
3) 911 response times to priority one calls are up 20% -- from an average of 7 minutes, 30 seconds when the year began to an average of 9 minutes now (much worse on weekends).
4) Police staffing is an urgent crisis -- we are ~360 officers below where we should be (between city council required staffing cuts and attrition, combined with limited cadet classes). Currently we are at 2008 police staffing levels (when we were 45% as large as today). By year's end, we will be at 1998 staffing levels (when we were 25% as large).
5) 96% of scheduled police shifts are not fully staffed.
6) We are losing 15-20 police officers every single month to retirement or alternative employment.
WHAT WE WILL DO
We will fight our failed city leaders HARDER THAN EVER BEFORE to ensure that our community is safe for everyone.
We need to raise $3 million to win this campaign by educating voters about the City Council defunding the police, the current police staffing crisis and the resulting violent crime wave in our city. To donate now, click here -- https://secure.anedot.com/save-austin-now-pac/donate. To host a fundraiser in September, please email Lauren to inquire.
We will need to launch the largest volunteer effort in the history of Austin. To volunteer, click here -- https://www.saveaustinnowpac.com/volunteer
This campaign will require a massive effort and we need your help.
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As I have said before, we have only begun to fight!
Thank you!
-Matt Mackowiak
Co-founder, Save Austin Now PAC
> Questions? Email Matt.
> Learn more: http://www.SaveAustinNowPAC.com
Will you please support our efforts now? You may donate here: https://secure.anedot.com/save-austin-now-pac/donate.