URGENT UPDATE
Last week, negotiators for the City of Austin unilaterally pulled out of negotiations on a new police labor contract, putting Austin's worsening public safety on the edge of total collapse.
The current police contract expires in March. A new Mayor and Council will take office in January with precious little time before the contract expires.
The Austin Police Department is barely holding on right now, after three years of being systematically undermined by City Hall and radical anti-police activists.
A couple months ago, City Hall passed a 40% pay increase for themselves, and now they are offering a meager 10% pay raise for police officers over four years, a proposal that does not even keep up with inflation.
Additionally, city negotiations are demanding unworkable, restrictive, punitive, unwise, and extreme oversight provisions. Thankfully, police union negotiators have held firm on what they need for their members.
Police negotiators have stayed at the bargaining table, while this week the city pulled out and refuses to continue negotiating.
This is a failure of leadership and every Austinite who wants a safe city should contact the City Manager, the Mayor and the City Council immediately and demand they return to the bargaining table. It is unconscionable that City Hall continues to play childish political games with our safety.
If the police labor contract expires in March, the Austin Police Department loses soft-pay, overtime pay, and accrued sick hours. After being defunded by one-third in 2020 and after suffering the worst police staffing crisis in APD history, now they are facing an expired labor contract and massive resignations and retirements.
TAKE ACTION NOW: In less than 2 minutes, you can email the entire City Council, including the Mayor and the City Manager, here. We drafted an email for you, but please make edits so each email is unique.
>> EMAIL CITY HALL HERE NOW <<
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4 DAYS LEFT TO VOTE IN CITY RUNOFF ELECTION
Early voting ends Friday, December 9 and runoff election day is Tuesday, Dec. 13.
All Austin residents can vote in the Mayoral runoff between Kirk Watson and Celia Israel. Residents in District 3, 5 and 9 can vote in their city council runoffs.
Candidate websites:
MAYOR
> Kirk Watson: http://www.kirkwatson.com
> Celia Israel: https://www.celiaforaustin.com
CITY COUNCIL - DISTRICT 3
> Daniela Silva: https://danielaforaustin.com
> Jose Velasquez: https://velasquezforatx.com
CITY COUNCIL - DISTRICT 5
> Ryan Alter: https://www.ryanforatx.com
> Stephanie Bazan: https://stephaniebazan.com
CITY COUNCIL - DISTRICT 9
> Linda Guerrero: https://www.lindaguerrero.net
> Zo Qadri: https://www.zoforaustin.com
Here's the remaining schedule:
Wednesday, Dec. 7 -- 8am-5pm
Thursday, Dec. 8 -- 8am-5pm
Friday, Dec. 9 -- 7am-7pm
Tuesday, Dec. 13 -- 7am-7pm
Early voting and election day locations can be found here (Early Voting) and here (Election Day).
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SAVE AUSTIN NOW'S '25 IDEAS TO MAKE AUSTIN A WORLD CLASS CITY'
As you may know, recently we revealed our '25 Ideas to Make Austin a World Class City', a project that is five months in the making and is the result of more than 75 stakeholder meetings among elected officials, former elected officials, business leaders, community leaders, and policy experts.
Our ambition for Austin is to make it a truly world class city.
To do this, we need to enact major, structural reforms to address the five most pressing challenges facing Austin: Affordability, Public Safety, Homelessness, Transportation and Transparency.
Here is the exclusive story unveiling our plan by Brad Johnson of The Texan.
Please share this story on your social media networks.
The full plan is available to MakeAustinWorldClass.com.
We will be working to begin implementing this plan over the coming year.
To support our efforts to pass this plan and continue holding City Council accountable, please securely donate here or make a check to “Save Austin Now PAC” and mail it to 807 Brazos Street Suite 202, Austin, TX 78701.
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PROP B LAWSUIT
SAVE AUSTIN NOW APPEALS PROP B ENFORCEMENT LAWSUIT TO 3RD COURT OF APPEALS
On Monday, Save Austin Now and four small business owner plaintiffs appealed a ruling by a district judge against their lawsuit demanding full enforcement of Prop B (reinstatement of the camping ban) to the 3rd Court of Appeals. After the 3rd Court rules, the losing side will likely appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.
The basis of our lawsuit is that despite an OVERWHELMING 58% victory for Prop B in May 2021, the City of Austin is refusing to enforce Prop B, against the expressed wishes over 150,000+ Austin voters.
>> HELP US HOLD CITY HALL ACCOUNTABLE HERE <<
If you have specific examples of illegal public camping inside the City of Austin, you can email us photos, video and explanations here. Please provide as full an explanation as possible, including when/where and what happened. Please also include your contact information. If you are interested in becoming a plaintiff to our lawsuit, please email Matt.
Our lawsuit will take some time and while we have excellent, committed lawyers, this battle will require resources. You can donate to our legal effort here. If you wish to send a check to ("Save Austin Now PAC" and mail to 807 Brazos Street Suite 202, Austin, TX 78701).
>> DONATE TO OUR LEGAL EFFORT HERE <<
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SUPPORT OUR WORK
You can support our efforts to hold city leaders accountable for their decisions here. If you wish to send a check to ("Save Austin Now PAC" and mail to 807 Brazos Street Suite 202, Austin, TX 78701).
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As we have said before, we have only begun to fight!
Thank you!
-Matt Mackowiak & Cleo Petricek
Co-founders, Save Austin Now PAC
> Questions? Email Matt.
> Learn more: http://www.SaveAustinNowPAC.com
Will you please support our efforts now?
You may donate to our legal effort here: https://secure.anedot.com/save-austin-now-pac/save-austin-now-pac-legal-fund-c4cfa533f8ab98c9da232.