08 May Austin Sierra Club Endorsements: Brigid Shea for Mayor

The Austin Sierra Club Political Committee endorses candidates for various seats.  We endorse Brigid Shea for Mayor in this election.

Shea has continually demonstrated, year after year, that she is a leader who will stand up for the needs of people and the environment. We feel that Shea will be more active and energetic than the current mayor in protecting allthat makes Austin a great place to live. She has the vision and energyneeded to lead Austin forward to a clean, affordable, livable city.

Austin continues to grow.  The basic question before us as a community is now, as it has been for so long, how to manage that growth in such a way that our people and our environment are not sacrificed to the profits of a few, or an ideology that simply accepts social and environmental destruction as the "normal way things happen." 

Although the current mayor has expressed concern for environmental issues, too often his policies seem to promote the wrong future.  Shea has a proven record of working on environmental issues, from a long history of action in Austin.  She was a founding member and early Executive Director of the organization that is now Save Our Springs Alliance, and later  a member of the first 'Green Council' of Austin.  She has been an active leader in neighborhood issues as well, helping reduce the impact of large scale development in our central Austin neighborhoods.   She has run her own business focused on reducing carbon emissions, particularly from coal plants in our local region.  Her answers on our candidate questionnaire are much more specific, detailed and action-oriented than the incumbent's.   Shea gives much more specific solutions to our issues; water quality and quantity, cleaning up coal, open space purchase, and conservation.   Shea also has specific ideas of how to make development pay for itself.  There is a clear sense among us that Shea is simply more convinced of the need to change the direction we are going, whereas the Mayor seems fairly happy about where we are.

One of the major issues in front of us today is the proposed construction of SH45 Southwest. This highway would connect 1626 to Mopac, adding up to 30,000 more cars per day on Mopac, making our central city a parking lot. Commutes and movement in our central and north central neighborhoods will therefore become much more difficult.  Like all new highways, this one will perpetuate sprawl. Worse, it would pave over more than 300 recharge features, a disaster for the aquifer. It would also impact exactly those areas we are targeting for acquisition of open space preservation and water quality protection. Shea says we can find other solutions to the traffic problems, and she will work to make them a reality.

Water is another defining issue in Central Texas.  Despite apparently heavy recent rains, Lake Travis is still below 50% capacity.  We are in the middle of a new drought of record while our population increases.  Mayor Leffingwell formed the Water Conservation Task Force in the mid-2000s, but the goals ultimately set by that group fell short of ambitious. Current City policy favors more development of expensive water infrastructure over saving money through conservation and reuse. These circumstances require much greater efforts toward conservation and more innovative methods of water reuse, and we feel that Shea would be more likely to undertake such measures with energy, enthusiasm and success.

Other issues will come up, issues like the Formula 1 racetrack.  Granting city services to F1 is a prime example of profits for the super-rich over the needs of the citizens.  Austin does not need a racetrack to attract people, and the fact that we facilitate it flies in the face of our stated commitment to air quality, reducing global warming, and environmental concerns. Shea pledges to end such welfare for the wealthy in favor of those who live here.

Karin Ascot and Scott Swearingen, Austin Sierra Club