Elections 101: Austin City Council District 3

Hi, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Austin Common Radio Hour. I'm your host, Amy Stansbury, and we've got another election podcast episode for you. This week, we're going to be talking all about the District 3 Austin City Council election. And if you're not a city council district map expert, District 3 covers parts of East and South Austin, including East Cesar Chavez and parts of South First and South Congress.

you can figure out which council district you live in by visiting austintexas.gov backslash government. Anyway, in case you missed last week's episode, here's a quick recap of things you should know about the upcoming local elections in Austin. First, Election Day is November 8th, and early voting starts on October 24th. And this year, we have five Austin City Council seats on the ballot and a pretty competitive mayor's race that we'll all be voting for as well.

Another fact, council candidates in Austin don't run with any official political party affiliation. You can, of course, pretty easily tell which party they align with, but it means that there's no primary election. And so instead of just seeing one Republican and one Democrat on your ballot, you're going to see a whole bunch of different names. District 3 is also one of three council races this year where there is no incumbent running.

So Sabino Pio Renteria, who has served as council member of District 3 for the past eight years, he's leaving at the end of 2022 after serving two terms.

So the race is pretty much wide open and there are six candidates that are running to replace him. And we're going to be hearing from those candidates in a second. But before we get to those interviews, I just wanted to share a few of my tips for things to listen for.

Again, a little recap from last episode. Because I know that with so many candidates running, it can feel a little overwhelming to sift through them all and decide which candidate you're actually going to vote for. Okay, so here are a few of my tips. Tip one, listen for the issues and priorities that candidates bring up on their own, sometimes without me even asking. This can help you figure out what's really important to them. Tip number two.

It's really easy for a candidate to say they're upset that Austin is so unaffordable, but do they actually have a plan to do something about it? Listen for the specifics and for candidates who have clearly taken the time to think about an issue. And tip number three. Think about what you value and then see if a candidate's experience and qualifications matches those values. So for example, maybe you're looking for someone who has deep roots in the community and volunteers a lot.

Or maybe you want someone with experience in government who knows how things work and can really hit the ground running on day one. Or maybe you prefer Mervyn more of an outsider candidate who can bring a fresh skill set to City Hall.

Basically, the idea with all of these tips is just to think about your values and priorities, and then find a candidate who matches them best. Okay, let's get to those interviews already. Oh, and for each of these interviews, I ask the candidates to participate in a little...

Show and tell activity. Basically, I just asked them to bring in one item of sentimental value or that showed something about themselves as real human people and then to share it with all of us. So you're going to hear that in the interviews. And if you want to see photos of what they brought.

You can check that out on our Instagram page, which is at the underscore Austin underscore common. Okay, for real this time, on to the interviews. First up, we're going to listen in on an interview I recorded with Jose Velasquez.

All right, let's listen to it. I'm here with Jose and we are talking city council. Let's just get right into it. Who are you? Why are you running? All righty. Well, thank you for having me. And again, it's a joy. I'm a fan. So my name is Jose Velasquez. I am a fourth generation Austinite. And I'm running because of the lack of urgency around affordability. I was raised by a single mother with my three siblings in East Austin in the 80s and 90s, making $25,000 a year.

adjusted for inflation that would be about 48 000 a year and she wouldn't be able to afford anything in east austin um we hear all the time about the tale of two cities and and and that's one of the reasons that i wanted to run because i

I've lived it, and I can speak with authority, intelligence, and trust in the community about the disparities facing our city. I've been doing the work in the community for years. I have a proven progressive track record as a coalition builder and community organizer. And I rolled out an affordable Austin plan, which is built off of lived experience, ideas from our district three neighbors, and practical and equitable application. And these are our first steps to making sure our city's values.

merits policy and it calls for full-day pre-k expanded broadband access um encouraging more remote work for the folks that for our city rosters that for the folks that came back immediately they could have continued to remote work and uh you know, helps them stay off the road, less congestion, less impact on our environment and people are closer to their families. And the fourth part of that is like a holistic approach to our housing crisis is really bringing folks.

that are operating out of their silos and out of their corners into the table to have a genuine conversation and an honest conversation about what we can do. Because the expectation in Austin right now is that you have to make $100,000 to live comfortably. With the median income being $65,000 and the average cost of a house being $600,000.

The math just isn't there and it's not adding up. And, you know, that's not the, you know, where does that leave our teachers? Where does that leave our workers? Where does that leave our union members, EMS, our single mothers? And that's not the Austin that I was born into. And it's definitely not the Austin that I want to leave.

uh future generations and i'm i'm in this race because i have always worked to elect good progressives to council to county to the state house to um governor um and to congress but I threw my hat in the ring because I believe it's going to take somebody that can bridge the divide, the chasm between old Austin and new Austin. Because I think that is a lot of the hurdles that we run into is the...

Well, you're not from here. You don't get to have a say in the city. And then you've been here too long. Your ideas are out of touch. And really bridging that divide and somebody that has a lived experience. and trust in the community to create space for a new Austin, but can bring old Austin to the table. Yeah, I wonder. Yeah, totally. I want to dive into a little deeper into some of those things you mentioned in the affordable Austin.

kind of policy plan that you're proposing here. So let's talk about housing first. When we talk about affordable housing. This is one, you know, it's a pet peeve of mine. I've been talking to a lot of candidates here. A lot of candidates say we need more affordable housing in Austin. And then my next question is how or.

Yeah, how? And usually it's a vague answer. So tell me a little bit more. How do we actually bring about affordable housing in Austin? What do you feel like city council can be doing policy-wise to improve our housing affordability? Well, we need to make sure that it's not just three districts shouldering the responsibility of affordable housing in Austin, Texas. And that's what we have right now is my district, District 2, and District 1.

are the ones that are creating the most affordable housing in Austin. And they're all in East Austin. And they are all along the Eastern Crescent. I mean, and that is the classic divide. Again, I'll circle back to it. It's going to take somebody that has a lived experience and historical perspective of...

and understanding of what has happened and how we can move beyond that. Because that's the other thing that I don't do. I don't want to sit in a silo, sit in a corner and argue old beefs that we haven't got past. I'm a progressive thinker and I believe. We need to understand the problem and figure out how we move past it. But it really is getting if.

That is one hurdle is getting beyond just three districts shouldering the responsibility of affordable housing in Austin, Texas. We need to be able to have affordable housing in every single district in this city. And is it also. building denser is it you know some people have thrown out getting rid of single family zoning or allowing more multi-family units to be built throughout the entire city and um you know

Have you thought about some of those more concrete policy ideas as well? Oh, absolutely. We need to have more. more mixed use, more multifamily. And again, it needs to be there. I was reading somewhere where it says that from 45th Street down to the river west of Mopac, there is no mixed family housing.

And that is insane to me. And also there, there are protected areas in this city where you could not build anything. And that is definitely one of them. And we definitely need to get past that, but we do need, we do need to build, we need, we need to build denser. We're about to have the blue line come in in District 3. We need to figure out how we can build more and more and more affordable housing along that major thoroughfare.

I want to hit on broadband. That was another one you mentioned. Talk a little bit more about this. And what can city council do? What role can they play in increasing broadband access for Austinites? Okay, so currently, I am the interim ED of a nonprofit here in Austin. And there is a lot of federal money that came in after when COVID hit to be able to offer free broadband. And I've worked.

and collaborated with AT&T. And they told me that there are a number of grants and programs out there that the city has just not picked up. And again, I'm not... I'm not knocking them because everybody is trying to do everything after COVID and during COVID, right? Like nobody was prepared. It was, it was not anything that anybody was expecting. So I'm not knocking them. But what I'm saying is that we are at a place now where those monies are still there.

And they were baked into the federal budget. So they're going to be there next year also. So I think that's a starting, that is a place where we can start with this, is going after some of those dollars, but also realizing that we are one of...

the tech capitals of this country. And we need to be able to provide broadband. We need to work better with the school district to figure out which one of which of our students need it and and which families can help can essentially we can eliminate some of the hurdles to. to jobs, some of the hurdles to services, some of the hurdles to social programs by, at the minimum, being able to provide broadband access. Yeah, okay, so...

prioritizing that a little bit more than we have been. And then what about pre-K? You mentioned that as well, universal, you know, free pre-K. How is that a program city council could start to initiate? I know we've begun dabbling and giving some

some grants and funding to like Del Valley and different schools for targeted programs? How could we grow that out? So with that, I think that's going to be on the... on the shoulders of I think we need to put that on the shoulders of the voters and it's going it's going to be something that we're going to have to ask because I believe in in our democracy as a city but it's going to have to be a city lift and I think the one area

The one area where this is impacting people most is that right now, child care is upwards of $1,200 a month per child. If we were able to get our students in. or our young learners in earlier. Because as it stands right now, and this is just strictly speaking for AISD, as it stands now, we only have half a pre-K programming. So that means the people that cannot afford to...

pick up their kid at 11 o'clock or noon, aren't going to pre-K at all. So it really is just digging in, working with the chambers, working with the community to get this. lift done because it's so necessary we get our kids started earlier they have a better quality of life better better chance to be successful financially and people we're seeing more and more how we

we are running short on employees. If you're able to take $1,200 immediately or put $1,200 immediately back into somebody's budget, that has an immediate practical impact on somebody's life. Yeah, it's interesting because I feel like this is the kind of thing. that on the face someone might think, isn't this something that AISD should be in charge of? But it sounds like what you're talking about is trying as a council member to be a little bit of a catalyst for what would be.

an effort that a lot of different organizations would have to get involved with. Have any other school districts in Texas done this? Do you know? They have it in San Antonio. One of my friends, our... HUD Secretary Julian Castro did it in San Antonio. And it really was digging in because the one thing that is happening right now. So from an economic standpoint, a workforce standpoint and a and just.

an educational and social service standpoint, we can, to me, it's a no brainer, right? But of course, everything, every piece of policy is going to have its detractors. Chambers of Commerce right now, if they aren't already being inundated with requests from their members, are soon going to find themselves in very tough spots where their members are asking, help us find employees, or what are you doing to help?

attract employees. And that is one thing that I think we can start with right there, even if it wasn't very well-intentioned and the purpose wasn't to get our kids in school earlier and help alleviate some of that. the childcare costs to our parents, then it's a good idea economically for our workforce. Right. Coalition building. Okay. Absolutely.

Yeah, totally. And before we wrap up, I know we're doing a little show and tell with some of our candidates. I want to talk about a little bit more about you. What's your show and tell item for today? Okay, so mine, and this is going to pull at the heartstrings. Mine, it was the why, right? Yeah. Okay. So my why is my younger brother and my niece. That was the day she was born. There are some hospital folks back here, nurses and doctors. My little brother was murdered in 2009.

in front of my mother's house he was shot and killed and um and so i have helped and and continue to help raise my knees but the reason um that he is my why is because

Before that, I was an advocate. I got involved here and there, helped people get elected, did my civic duty. After he passed... I wanted to make sure it became very clear to me that my charge in life is to be of service to others and be of service to kids that grew up like I did in East Austin, that didn't have all the resources, that understood that.

Back in the day, we used to call I-35 the Great Wall of Austin because we knew resources didn't come over and we rarely went over there. In fact, I was chatting with members of Sunshine Camp earlier this week and talking to them about how I used to be there on scholarship.

And, you know, come full circle. I'm back there as a candidate for public office. And it's just it. He is my why, because my family is everything to me. But my little brother held a very special place in my heart. We were very close. And I want to ensure that people and kids and parents that have come up in this community know that they have a champion and that this government...

at its base belongs to us and it should be for us and it should be a direct reflection of who we are as a district and as a city. And that was Jose Velasquez.

Next up, we're going to listen in on an interview I recorded with Daniela Silva. All right, I'm here with Daniela and we're talking about... city council, city council election. Thanks for joining today. Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. Okay, let's just get right into it. Who are you? Why are you running? Well, my name is Daniela Silva. My pronouns are she, they.

And I am the daughter of an immigrant, an incredible woman from Colombia who raised me to have all of the opportunities that she never got to have. And so I have been able. able to just have an incredible life experience and journey through exploring how I can serve the world in the best way. And that's led me to this opportunity to. try and serve my community in the way that I see I can serve best.

I'm part of the LGBTQIA2S plus community. I'm a progressive. I'm working class and also a renter. And I'm running for city council because. The status quo needs to change. It's not working for the people of Austin. A poll came out that the majority of Austinites are not happy with the direction the city is moving in. And the business as usual that has been happening on council.

is not the way to get us to where we need to be. And so I'd like to be a voice on council that brings not only professional academic experience as well as lived experience, being someone who... has all of those different intersectionalities because representation does matter so much, as well as having been involved with so many boots on the ground, grassroots organizations.

kind of an activist and organizer capacity. So I'd love to bring all of that with me onto council to ensure that all of our voices are being heard in the district. Okay, great. I saw on your website you have three main priorities in running, so I want to make sure we talk about all of them. We'll start with housing and housing affordability. Obviously, this is the big one. But what I'm really interested in is everyone's approach, the different candidates approach to this issue.

It seems like from looking through your website, you really want to go all in on making some changes to our development code in order to bring out more housing. Talk about some of those. Yes, our code needs changing so that we can increase our diversity of housing types as well as the diversity of incomes that are accessible for housing all across the city. Right now, the Eastern Crescent has taken on.

large majority of the burden when it comes to development. And that has led to mass amounts of displacement and gentrification that we see today. So I would like to be on council to help spread the growth of the city. throughout all of our zip codes so that we can meet existing demands as well as future demands since Austin is projected to be a city of 4 million people by 2040.

We had this mentality in the past of if we don't build it, they can't come. Well, obviously that is not true. They came and they just pushed other people out, which is not only a matter of inequity and injustice, but it's also an economic issue. We are seeing. businesses struggle to maintain folks working there because a lot of the people who would work our service industry jobs, our cleaning jobs, our...

our EMS and our fire, they can't afford to live here anymore. So they're having to move to other cities, to other towns, commute if they have. a car and if they have the time and the money to do so, but otherwise they're just going to get jobs somewhere else. So we, we have to be able to have affordable housing across income levels and across the city so that.

anyone can have the opportunity for a great quality of life here in Austin. Right. And I saw on your website, two of them. the main things you'd like to propose within that land development code revision is talking about reducing or eliminating park minimum parking requirements, as well as reducing or eliminating single family zoning. Can you talk a little bit about why you mentioned?

of those things? Yes, I would love to. Single family zoning has a not so nice pass to it. It was created for kind of racist intentions so that it can keep people who didn't have as much economic power in our communities. And those folks tended to be black and brown folks. Single family zoning currently prevents. denser forms of housing whether it be a duplex, a fourplex, a sixplex.

from being built in neighborhoods when folks buy a property and they want to redevelop it. And we need to have more dense housing so we can meet this housing supply again to hopefully relieve that pressure. from buying up existing affordable properties if we are able to have more units on a lot rather than a single family home throughout the city, then folks aren't going to be looking to just buy a.

old, less expensive properties and turn them into McMansions, which is what we are seeing all across Eastern Crescent because their only options with single family zoning is replacing an old house with a new big house. And that is it.

really serving anyone especially the communities that have existed there for generations and when it comes to parking minimums we are working towards Austin being a more walkable city a more transit friendly city so we want to create a culture where folks feel that they can ride the bus, that it's reliable, that it's safe, that it's clean, that we have safe bike routes, wide sidewalks. And we just want to encourage people to use different forms of micro mobility and multi.

multimodal mobility. And in doing that, ideally reduce the dependency on cars so that we don't have to have multiple parking spots per bedroom in a house. Yeah, I want to make sure we touch on the other issues. So maybe if we can answer this one quickly, but I'll say this idea around single family zoning is. one that has really split our community so much. Right. It's like you see people who are, I think, in your camp who are saying, hey, look like that.

redevelopment is happening, whether we like it or not, and it's being replaced. Other people who say, hey, if we get rid of single family zoning, that destroys our neighborhoods, that further pushes people out. Can you just kind of give a little bit of why you've kind of come down on this? uh, stance in this way. Yeah. I mean, I, I really, um, I don't see it as, as destroying a neighborhood. All I see it as bringing more community members into a neighborhood and, uh, it, it has.

been proven in studies that more denser communities, folks tend to know their neighbors more. They're interacting more often with one another and replacing one home with. a duplex, is it going to change the character much of a neighborhood? And I think we have to explore, again, these diverse forms of housing types. I currently live in a duplex. I love my duplex. I'm in a neighborhood with single family homes. with small apartment complexes, with four plexes, six plexes. And it's...

My favorite, I mean, I'm a little biased, but it's my favorite neighborhood in Austin. And I think everyone who lives here loves living here. So I understand the concern. I think it's important that we do ask developers to take into account the character of a neighborhood, the history. of a neighborhood when doing these developments and think of what kind of multifamily fits within the character of a neighborhood. But we do have to be more comfortable with multifamily housing developments.

Right. I want to talk about another issue that you mentioned on your website, another priority, which is environmental justice, climate justice. As you know, the city of Austin, we passed this climate equity plan.

I don't know, a year ago-ish now. And I think there's a lot of feeling from the community of like, are we moving on this? Are we moving fast enough? Like we have this plan. How do we make it really happen? If you're elected, what's kind of going to be your approach to climate justice and climate work?

Well, I would like to take that plan off the shelf, dust it off because it hasn't been used enough. We're not moving fast enough on it. We had so many brilliant minds come together and put this plan. so that anyone in city could use it. It's got tons of great equity tools and community input, and it shows what folks are looking for when it comes to climate justice. So I would like to incorporate.

different parts of the plan across the work that we're doing. Environmental justice is a through line. It's the lens through which I view everything. And so I want to make sure that we are prioritizing tree canopies throughout the Eastern Crescent because we have.

Key Islands in East Austin, that we are working to protect our waterways and we're working towards water conservation since that is going to be a huge issue moving forward as climate change continues to make our summers hotter and our rains. less reliable. We have to take into consideration flooding as we continue to develop the more that we develop and we have.

concrete and we're paving over stuff that's going to make flooding worse. So how can we use density to avoid building onto greenfield? How can we use native plants with deep root systems to act as flood mitigators? All of these things have to be taken into consideration. to again, make everyone's quality of life in Austin great, regardless of the zip code that you live in.

Yeah. And then what about healthcare? That's another big one. Obviously, the district you represent, especially during COVID, there was a lot of conversations around access to vaccines, access to healthcare services were coming out the other end of COVID, but obviously there's... a lot of need for healthcare services. Where do you see council could be filling that role for that community?

Yeah. So I'm not sure if you are aware of this, but actually East Austin has a 20 year shorter life expectancy than West Austin. So there is a huge issue of health inequity and it comes from many different facets. One of them just being. physical geographic access to healthcare.

our district is what's known as a healthcare desert. We don't have a hospital on the east side and we have so many folks who could benefit from having that access to a doctor and we just need to work towards seeing if we can make that happen as well as diversifying forms of healthcare. For example, there's a new clinic that opened up off of Issa Sarchavez called Karisha, and they offer sliding scale healthcare. They have MDs, but they also offer yoga therapy.

and acupuncture and they have dieticians and the folks who are working there are of all different races. income levels. And so the types of healthcare that we're offering should also reflect the communities that they're serving. In addition, it's also an area of food apartheid, AKA a food desert. So working to make access to fresh, healthy.

affordable food is a top priority. My background is in food security. So trying to get a small walkable grocery store in some of the neighborhoods that don't yet have them can also help address some of the health inequities that we're seeing.

Okay. And before we close, let's do a little show and tell time. We've been doing this with all of our candidates, get to know them a little bit better. Tell me about the object you brought today. Yes. So this here. Um, Oh, I can't even take, Oh yes I can. Okay. So this is, um, some context behind it. I am just over three years sober. Um, I stopped, um, consuming different substances. Um, uh,

a little over three years ago. And my friend on my first year of sobriety made me my own chip. And it's my one-year chip. She painted it herself. She put a small quote here on the back that reads, the heart of a man is very much like the sea. It has its storms, it has its tides, and it has its depths.

it has its pearls too. So this is a Van Gogh quote. And I feel that this is a beautiful representation, not only of who I am, but the kind of elected official I would like to be someone that is intentional. This chip. just reminds me of community and the people who I have surrounded myself with, the people who love me and care about me that we support.

one another, that we have each other's backs when we fall on hard times, but also that we're expressing our emotions through artwork, which is so important to Austin. I mean, Austin... is is weird and it's weird because of its artists because of its musicians and those folks again they can't afford to live here anymore i mean my neighborhood has so many

are musicians that live in it. You can hear band practice going on at pretty much any night of the week, but that's going, that has slowly been lessening because folks are just having to move out to Lockhart or to Buda. And so I just love that, that this was so. intentional. It brings about artwork. It brings about the mindfulness of community and that I would take this intentionality of, of not only talking about.

the importance of healthcare, but walking the talk as well and bringing that into office. And that was Daniela Silva.

Next up, we're going to listen in on an interview I recorded with Gavino Fernandez Jr. I'm here with Gavino and we're talking City Council. um let's get right into it who are you why are you running for city council okay uh i'm a long lifetime resident of district three with 40 years experience of community civic engagement through LULAC, East Austin Lions Club, and the Southwest Peace Programs as nonprofits.

I'm the only candidate that has governing experience, having served as Travis County Commissioner Marcos de Leon Chief of Staff from 1991 to 1994. I continue to be engaged in the community to ensure and to promote a quality life for our neighborhoods. And I'm also a member of El Concilio. which is the Coalition of Mexican-American Neighborhoods in East Austin, which are six of them. And I am their spokesman and have been their spokesman for the last 15 years. I'm also been at Travis County.

election judge at Pan Am precinct 439, also been a Democratic precinct chair for precinct 439. So that is why I feel And I feel the necessity to run to empower the voices of District 3 residents at the Austin City Council Dias. Yeah. And, you know, like you mentioned, you're someone I know who has deep roots to the community. You've lived in East Austin, I guess, your whole life? Yes. Yes, your whole life.

Yeah. And that's an area that obviously has seen huge, huge changes in our city. If you were elected, what do you feel like you could do as a council member? especially to help out the folks in those neighborhoods who feel like they're being displaced, like they're being pushed out of these neighborhoods where they have spent, you know, generations of their families have lived.

Yes. One of the things that I'm hearing as I, you know, traveling throughout the district from district residents is a relief of higher taxes. The taxes are the ones that are driving and displacing a lot of people in our district, as can be seen where I live in the Holly neighborhood area, where gentrification has just taken over. And especially seniors are telling me, Gavino, when you win, please, please provide tax relief for us because it is just unbearable.

So those are the issues that I'll be addressing and reducing property taxes for our people to continue to be able to continue and live in this district. and assisting them with resources to better mitigate. Yeah. What is property tax relief? look like? Because I think there's been some debate of, well, if we significantly lower property taxes, we might have to cut some of the services that are also designed to serve.

some of the people who live in those neighborhoods. That's been the debate. How do you feel like that could work in the real world? Well, having the budgetary experience at the county, I can visit. You see, the city just adopted a $5 billion budget that includes enterprise departments. And you need to have qualified... budget analysts to go in and visit these budgets that departments present to us. Because many times you find duplication, you find fundings for

things that are obsolete or no longer effective. And that's where the experience that I have in budget analysis will chime in to red flag and identify. those costs that we can reduce to make government more efficient and more lenient. And unless you dive into that and, you know, identify red flags. of big expenses. It'll continue the same. I have an approach of zero-based budgeting from departments coming to us or to the council.

so that they can justify the spending that they're spending. And for the shortcomings of, well, if you do this, you're going to cut that. No, Austin is wealthy. We need to bring in the tech companies. to contribute to some of our issues that are affecting our poor communities. For example, Oracle is in District 3. Yeah. Oracle, what are you doing to give back to the community?

If you go to their website, they invest millions of dollars abroad by building schools. So my plea, my ask or request to them is come to the table. How can you. support and fund these programs that are programs that are just around your facility. And I think that that will help mitigate some of those issues or programs that you're talking about that.

People put out there and say, well, if you reduce here, you're going to have to cut here. But yeah, there's plenty of opportunity diving into that $5 billion budget. to find savings or replace, redirect. Because a lot of times you find two departments doing the same thing.

I want to talk some about public safety. That's been an area, obviously, where we've had a lot of conversations here in Austin. I've seen Lou Lack get involved in some of these issues as well. If you were elected, what would be your approach to public safety here in Austin? What do you want to see out of our police department? You know, we've gone back and forth with what their budget should be or accountability measures. What do you feel like city council can be doing when it comes to?

police department okay when it comes to the police department i'm a strong advocate of community policing one two i think we're short 250 officers of where we need to be so i will As a question, why can't we have more than one cadet class to be able to bring in those vacancies or that number of officers to be able to? provide a safety, our community to be a safer community and a quicker response time within the community.

We had a walk beat, a community walk beat by police by the soup kitchen on Cesar Chavez when we were receiving funds from the Holly mitigation funds. And we saw it work. We saw... where police were getting off, walking the beat, meeting the neighbors, meeting the businesses. Another strong program that I support is because I'm a chartered member of the Police Activities League. This is a program where officers come to recreation centers.

not volunteer, but are assigned to coach youth programs, basketball, seasonal programs. Right now, the Police Activities League is very well and alive. by offering or promoting the boxing program at the Oswaldo Pan Am Cantú Center. So I want to bring back the commander's meetings to the neighborhood. This is the only way that we're going to...

Regain trust from APD is to have more community engagement, promoting that trust to regain that trust. So that would be my agenda from my perspective in regards to. to the police i personally have a nephew that's a policeman but with travis county so i also understand the challenges that they go through every day because when they walk out that door

You don't know whether they're going to be returning back. So those are some of the challenges that they face. But I think it has to be a community effort, a joint community effort by APD and the community.

So we need to have more conversations. So we talked about housing and policing, public safety. If you were elected, what would another one of your top, top priorities be, focus areas you really want to dive into? policies you like to push? Yeah, one for sure is climate change. We need to begin educating our children even at the elementary levels. like they do in Mexico, in Monterrey, in Mexico City, where the curriculum involves climate change. We have to, that's one big horizon that will be.

in place in the District 3 office if elected. We need to prepare our communities for the next future in regards to electric cars. You know, it's just down the road. I'm a strong proponent of like today, if I go buy a home, nine out of 10, they're going to have something in there, a refrigerator and a stove. What I want to implement is that when you get a permit to build a home, you also have within the design and the architecture of the home, rainwater recapture infrastructure and solar.

energy to have the home operate out of solar. I'd also like to reach out to federal governments, federal funding and state funding to provide solar panels in homes of communities of color. because they're the ones that face the biggest challenge of the bills. So if we can get those homes lined up on the solar grid, that would be a big, big cost savings.

if you will, to many people, especially in the poor communities. Yeah. Before we close, I want to get to know you a little bit better. You have a show and tell item for us today, right? Do you want to explain a little bit about what that is?

Yes, recently, well, annually we do, for Veterans Day, we celebrate, we do a flag raising ceremony at the East Austin Vietnam Memorial. That's on the corner of ICE 35 and Brushy. And this past year, Congressman Lloyd Doggett attended as our guest speaker. And after the ceremony, he sent a picture. uh to me of us both being there and he sent me a letter that i want to read that that he sent to me and it says dear gavino

It was a pleasure to visit with you at the East Austin Lions Club Memorial Day flag raising. Your leadership has made our East Austin community stronger. So those are just examples of people that know. my experience of working in the community. And like I tell many people, regardless of what happened with the elections, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to still continue my community engagement.

And that was Gavino Fernandez Jr. Next up, we're going to listen in on an interview I recorded with Jose Noe Elias. Yeah, let's just get right into it, I guess. Who are you? Why are you running? I am Jose Noe Elias. I go by Noe. I'm a second grade dual language teacher here in Austin ISD.

I'm originally from Mexico, but I arrived here in Austin when I was eight years old, and I live in Montopolis. That's where I grew up, and this is where I'm raising my family. And that's basically the reason why I'm running. I see our communities. our community networks breaking up due to gentrification, affordability, and our families, which include my neighbors, my students' families.

are really struggling to live in the city of Austin. And I think that we have options and I think we need to take advantage of those options to make sure that our workers and their families. When we talk about that, obviously housing affordability and the way our city looks and feels is a big part of the conversation there. What would be your...

approach to housing affordability and preventing the displacement of some of these families that you're talking about in your neighborhood? Yes, so I believe that we need to start by preserving the affordable housing that we have here in Austin. There are a lot of communities, especially in District 3, you know, East Austin, Southeast Austin, South Austin, that there are families that are still living here. They've been living here for, you know, some for generations.

And they're still affordable housing. They're affordable apartment complexes. And I think we need to work on acquiring those and preserving those and helping people stay in their homes. You know, homeowners, renters, either way, you know, we need to help them stay. here, then we can also need to take an approach of what is the best way to provide deeply affordable housing for workers, for the people that make our city run.

uh which uh you know it's expensive uh mostly because of the land values but i think that what we can do is we can start building on public land publicly owned land would give us the opportunity to build truly deeply affordable housing for our workers.

Okay, so that would be things like taking out, like doing bond elections and building on the land to buy more land or to invest in building on land we already have to have that really deeply affordable housing. Is that kind of what you're talking about? So, yeah, so I definitely support the housing bonds and, you know, and having that money. I think we need to use it in a way that provides the housing that we really, really need, which.

Data shows that we need housing for families that make below 50% MFI. which includes teachers, firefighters, EMS workers, but also restaurant workers, cafeteria workers, custodians. And in order to do that, yes, we're going to have to build on... land that we already own, publicly owned land, and then, you know, and again, preserve the housing that we already have. Yeah, you know, it makes me think, when I was looking through your website,

I saw that this is an area that you've had some personal experience with, actually, as a resident of Montopolis. And there's been, obviously, a whole bunch of different discussions about building there. And I think this might be a place where you differ from some of the candidates in the race, right? Where I think some of your other district three candidates take the approach to, hey, we really have to maybe eliminate single family zoning. We have to be building a lot more, especially if we can.

It seems to me like you have a little bit more of a conservative approach to that. But can you talk a little bit about maybe how you might differ from some of the other candidates and how you feel like we can preserve? Really, what are some of the last remaining neighborhoods in Austin that you do have that affordable housing and that generations of families living in? Definitely. I mean, I don't see it as conservative because I do think that we need to be spending that money.

We need to be investing in that. But I do see it as really tackling the problem because if we're just talking about, you know. up zoning or re zoning things to build market rate housing, you know, no matter how much market rate housing we build, it's not going to help the affordability, especially the very deep affordability that we need. So whether we build thousands of units at market rate, that's not going to help. So my approach is that we really need to make sure that we...

that we are looking at that deeply affordable housing for our workers, our families. And I mean, I heard over the weekend somebody was telling me a story that somebody mentioned to them, oh, there are no more poor people in Austin. And that's kind of crazy to me because, you know, first of all, that's kind of becoming reality, I guess. A lot of workers are leaving Austin, but also just the fact that it's said, you know, in a way that, you know, kind of like.

We don't need the workers. We don't need the people here. And that's, you know, again, that's the reality that's happening. A lot of our workers are leaving. Now they're driving, you know, an hour into town to work at our restaurants, at our schools, you know. And so I. Again, my approach is to build deeply affordable housing. It's not any more complicated than that. Yeah.

One more question on the affordability and housing front. I also saw on your website, you know, talking a little bit about affordability unlocked, which is a program we have here at the city that. allows for a little bit more development if affordable housing is tied to it. It's been pretty popular amongst city council, but it seems like you have some mixed opinions of it as a neighbor of an area where that was going to be.

um installed do you want to talk a little bit about what what are your thoughts now on affordability unlock do you feel like that's a a good program for the city or something we need to pivot away from oh definitely we we need to look at We need to look at how it's used. I mean, I don't have a problem with the program itself, but again, if we're using it in an area like Montopolis, like East Austin.

the Ledesma neighborhood where the MFI is like 40% or below. We are, and we're using it to build housing that's at 80% MFI, 70%.

you know, MFI and calling it affordable, you know, I definitely don't agree with that because that's still going to displace people in those neighborhoods and they're not going to be able to take advantage of that housing there. So. if it's used let's say in another neighborhood that where the i guess the zip code mfi or that areas mfi is a lot higher then of course it's going to work if you're if that

affordability unlocked allows you to build you know units at 60 mfi 80 mfi and you know west austin where you know people at that income level wouldn't afford it otherwise you know that's great But again, in a neighborhood where families of four are making $30,000 a year, even with that program, we're not getting what we need. Right.

I want to shift gears slightly, although it's still related, and talk about Project Connect, because I know this is an area that you actually have a lot of experience in. You serve on the Project Connect Community Advisory Committee, right? Yes, that's correct.

Okay, so maybe do you want to tell people briefly what that is and then what you would like to see come from Project Connect, especially when we're talking about building out Project Connect in a way that's equitable and avoids displacement. Yes, so I serve on the Project Connect Community Advisory Committee. I was actually appointed through the Austin Community Development Commission. So I'm a commissioner on Austin CDC.

uh voted by my neighborhood to serve on there on and so we get one representative in the project connect cac and what we do as the community advisory committee we I mean, that's what it is. We bring the community's voice to the rollout of Project Connect, making sure it's equitable. And so, yeah, so we have meetings. We just had one on Saturday here where the community spoke up and told us about their concerns and what they're...

what they know about Project Connect, what they don't know, what they, you know, what they hear. And, you know, we have to clarify things all the time, you know, just things like that. And just, and again, to make sure that it's an equitable process. And yeah, the big question, you know, again, back to housing and affordability goes with the displacement. We came to terms, actually, before I got on there, you know, they came to, you know, understand that.

transit, you know, displaces people because of all the development that comes along the corridors. And so, I mean, I'm really happy that Austin took that approach and, you know. putting some money to fight the displacement that would come from that. But now what we're doing is we're bringing the community's voice to make sure that that money is used to really, really help the people that need it the most. Not just people, but businesses, you know, other.

community assets that are along the corridor. And so that's what I do. And again, we bring that community's voice to that process. Yeah. I want to make sure we touch on also another big issue.

obviously facing Austin, which is public safety. And this has been one that we've gone back and forth with as a community, something we've really been grappling with of how we want to approach that. If you were elected to council, what would your approach be to public safety? in Austin? What kind of things are you looking to see our city maybe do differently? I mean, my approach, my, you know, again, growing up here in probably the poorest neighborhood.

is anti-poverty measures, you know, investing in community. I really believe that when, you know, when we have those resources, when we have, you know, community center, when we have parks, when we have... libraries, all of that are things that create a vibrant, thriving community and a safe community. And so that's my approach to public safety.

Right. Maybe preventing crime in the first place by investing in these communities initially. Definitely. Got it. Okay. So before we close, we're doing a little show and tell actually trying to know our candidates a little bit better. What did you bring for us today? So I brought a feather and I actually have a, I just grabbed one random one, but I have a collection of feathers. I actually live in just a block away from where I grew up. So I grew up.

running around in what is Roy G. Guerrero Park now, next to the Colorado River. So yeah, so and one thing that I always loved is the fact that it's on a cliff. So we get, you know, all kinds of birds and now we get a lot of bird watchers out here and especially the hawks. The hawks are beautiful. They perch up here and we're able to see them very close.

That's my show and tell. And that was Jose Noe Elias. Next up, we're going to listen in on an interview I recorded with Esala Werschner. A quick note on Esala. During this interview, he shares quite a bit of... factual inaccuracies, which I try and call out as best I can. And also on his website, he mentioned some conspiracy theories about George Soros, the New World Order, and even something about the city of Austin laundering money through public universities. So just

keep that in mind as you're listening to this interview. All right, I am here with Essel and we are talking about city council. Let's just get right into it here. Who are you? Why are you running? Well, my name is Essela once again, and the reason I'm running is because I moved to Austin.

loved the area when I originally moved in. But after COVID, I noticed a lot of homeless camps end up building right behind my old apartment complex. A lot of my stuff ended up getting stolen on a consistent basis. I just didn't really like what the city was doing, especially the crime rate keep going up higher and higher. And I didn't think there were

people that are well suited that are running for this position. So I decided to just throw my hat in, give it all I got and see if I can really make a difference. So that is the main reason I'm running. I just want the city to go back to the way it was, back to the small businesses where it is safe to be here. It is nice to go to the Ladybrook Lake where you don't have to worry about the green algae.

And just want to have someone with a actually logical mindset that's running instead of just, you know, lying to people to get their votes. And all right, so let's talk about some of those issues. Homelessness is a big one you mentioned there. So if you were elected. What specific policies would you like to enact at City Hall in order to do things differently than what City Council's already been doing when it comes to homelessness?

One of the things I'm definitely opposed to is how they want to provide the Narcan to the homeless people. And someone, I actually have a solution that actually can get a lot of these people off the drugs to back to the job market. one of the first things i would do is that currently uh eco they are trying to get the city to fund money into this system so they can end up using people's people's apartment complexes

Airbnb to house all these homeless persons, not just for Austin, for the entire United States. They want to use housing vouchers, right? Right, right. They want to use the city money to do that. for all for the entire united states I don't want that. What I want is I want to allocate a camping ground somewhere where the homeless people, especially on the ones that are on drugs, they can live. And I want it to be maintained by a solar.

Electric for that is to be maintained by solar. Now, the people that really end up cleaning the area, I want that to be done by, well, a couple of things. First, the kids that are in school, they typically get in trouble. You know, instead of them being suspended for school for two weeks or they're in a room alone for one week, I want a retired teacher, retired teacher, retired police officers, retired veteran to take these kids in to this program and bring these.

kids to these camping grounds to clean it up. And that way these counselors can teach these kids, hey, if you don't fix yourself, this is going to be your future. And if they end up participating, they can go back to the school earlier. also people on parole bring those people into and help them maintain the area now there are these plants uh practically psychedelics that are actually proven to work for people that are addicted to heroin

and a crack. So I want to create a therapy session. So if you want to live in these homeless camps, you can, but you have to participate in these therapy sessions. Once you participate in it, it's pretty much proven to work to get you off these drugs.

Once they do that, I want to transition them to an area like Haven for Hope that I used to volunteer in San Antonio. Once something like Haven for Hope, they will help them go back to the job market. That is one of my solutions to fix the homeless problem. Can I ask why no Narcan? Because someone like me who have experimented with drugs in the past, ecstasy, molly, it doesn't really matter what you do when there's a scapegoat.

you would want to do it more especially if you're going to a music festival let's say the first day you take ecstasy you know the next day you're going to be very very depressed so you take all these other substance just to keep you over until you go to the next stage so if you end up giving narcan to people they'll

know that hey if i if i overdose i can take the narcan and then you know two days again they'll keep repeating that cycle they'll just well they'll be dead right if you don't give them narcan they will still take it, but then they'll just keep playing with their life. It will never end. So I just want to make sure they will never want to do drugs again, that they're dependent on life.

Now, I have met people that used to be in prison and every one of them told me that drugs are powerful than love. So that's my biggest issue with Narcan because it doesn't actually help them to better themselves. It's just give them. an avenue in order to do more and more drugs. So you think it's an incentive problem? Because Narcan literally saves people's lives. Like if you don't give it to them, they'd be dead. But you're hoping that maybe they, if it's not an option, they wouldn't.

used in the first place. Yes, if it's not an option, I want to create a real option that actually would work them to get off of drugs. And it's also this Narcan concept of it works. They use it in Portland, they use it in San Francisco, and it doesn't really work. And if...

And I also want to incentivize certain nonprofit organization. I want to help them with the taxpayer money if they can actually produce the results to actually fix the homeless crisis. Now, in San Antonio, they do have a policy where they only fund organizations. that actually proved to reduce homelessness. So I only want to support organizations that are like that, that actually prove to support, prove to work against homelessness to get people back to their normal life.

These policies from San Francisco and Portland, those policies don't work. So I don't know. I don't understand why we keep going with those same mindset. OK, so we touched on homelessness. What's another one?

other top priorities that you'd like to address if you were elected? I'm sorry, can you repeat the one? What's another, you know, we just talked about homelessness. What's another one of your top priorities that you would like to address if you were elected? One of my other priorities is that the green algae in the lake. I believe the city...

is causing the green algae to the wastewater treatment plants. A lot of these pipes are very very old and there's a lot of leakage to it. Now I used to work at a wastewater treatment plant in Belterra and one of the things we monitor is the phosphorus and the nitrate level. So right now the city, and I have entire PowerPoint on my website showing this, every area that the city has allocated in red dot shows where the green algae is highly blooming.

Now, if you can correlate with all the wastewater treatment facilities, every one of those red dots correlate with a wastewater treatment facility. So I want to audit. the entire all these department to really show that where this money is going if this actually is the reason that this is causing it now based on my experience

I'm very, very positive that the reason for the green algae boom that's destroying this lake is caused by the city to the wastewater treatment facility. So that's one of the other things I want to target. But there's not... evidence of that right now they won't check the evidence that's one of the biggest thing they have all this money but they won't check the evidence you know with this distrust of this city

If you were elected, what do you think you could do differently? I mean, do you feel like the city is wasting money on purpose? Do you think it's just not being managed well? You know, how could you actually turn that around, especially as someone that.

you know, doesn't have a lot of connections to the city? The first thing I want to do is that I want to create a database. I don't care who you support it, whether you're right, whether you left, it does not matter. Ultimately, most of us are in the middle. I want to create a database so people can see who voted for what.

where their money go and if they actually kept their promises and i don't want it takes 10 minutes for someone to find out where it goes you know one or two clicks you can easily say where your money goes that's the first thing i want to do i want to what do you mean where Where tax dollars go?

Yes, our tax dollar goes when we're sending money to the city departments. I want everyone to be able to see, hey, you want to fix the power grid? Okay, well, where did this money go and what have you spent? your money on in order to fix these certain issues let's say there's a flooding issue right and if the city ends up spending uh let's say five hundred thousand dollars to fix a certain pipes or a flooding area well

who got the money and what is the actual fix that they did with that money that they got. And so I want people to be able to see all of that. So that's one. You don't feel like the city budget document is. thorough enough yes i don't think i think city's wasting money and mismanaging money

OK, before we close, I want to get to know you a little bit more as a candidate and why you're running. We're doing a little bit of a show and tell activity with our candidates. Did you bring an item that kind of exemplifies you or exemplifies your why in this race? At the moment, I don't have an item on me. You can describe it. Okay, yeah, I can describe an item. Okay, go for it. So, you know, I'm just going to say I would be more like a tree. So, you know, a lot of the times.

you have an idea of what the tree looks like just in in front of you and everybody have the assumption that you know the trees goes uh the roots goes all the way and the tree is very strong so you know i'm someone that is just there not many people know much about me but i can uh i have a very uh very strong roots that really grounds grounds me to the earth that You know, the wind doesn't stop me. The rain doesn't stop me.

It doesn't matter what the weather condition or how tough it gets. I'm going to stand firm, stand to my belief while taking all the toxicity away from the nature and trying to produce. better environment, clean energy, and help nurture the rest of the earth. And I feel like that's how I describe myself. It doesn't matter how I came. A bird might have pooped the original seed. but I use whatever I have around me in order to grow myself while helping my surroundings.

And that's the last of our interviews for today. There is one other candidate in the race. Her name is Yvonne Weldon, but she didn't answer a request to be interviewed. If you want to hear more about all the candidates running, be sure to follow our Instagram page because we'll be publishing an election guide just for District 3. And also, if you click on the show notes for this episode, you can find links to all of the candidates' websites and learn even more.

And that's pretty much our show for today. But stay tuned because we'll be publishing episodes on all of the city council elections in the coming weeks. And don't forget to vote.