Fix 911.
Find ways to dramatically increase density and mass transit that include low income housing and homes for the homeless.
Reform APD so they focus on responding to violence in progress, and create alternative structures for all other responses.
>Find ways to dramatically increase density and mass transit that include low income housing and homes for the homeless.
Good luck on that one. That's the one that Cronk was actually having staff work hard on but the code change was essentially defeated by NIMBYs. Watson is opposed to this added density and code change and he's very likely to find us a new City Manager who will not prioritize those things.
Staying organized is one of my biggest problems. If i had someone to help me be organized and screen out all of the crap that comes thru my inbox, i could get so much more done.
The prompt was just a list. I am just answering the question as asked.
But ok-
Fix 911. $. Pay needs to be significantly increased. But also, other cities, just do it better. So it seems like a management shake up is in order. According to [this report](https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/harris-county/2022/09/12/432680/harris-county-emergency-dispatch-response-time-for-calls-exceeds-national-average/), in Harris county 98% of 911 calls are answered in 10 seconds, and they only have 167 911 employees (that's only 23 more staff than Austin in a city with a population over three times more than Austin).
Density. Austin has been through countless cycles of boom, and we keep saying we need developers and business people or they will just go somewhere else. This is BS. Austin's growth needs to slow down and be more sustainable. Mostly the wealthy people who run the city like giving nice deals to their fellow rich people to exploit us. As city manager, I will require significant affordable housing for every apartment building built in the city. Policy will require it. Either include affordable units, or good luck getting thru the permit process. Even if I cannot require the affordable units, it will move you to the front of the approval process. I think I have that power as city manager. Actual density is harder. I would use every process in my power to increase multifamily housing and make building single-family houses harder and more expensive.
APD. I'm end running around them. This is a long-term project, and most current APD officers and leadership will hate it, and we mostly need to work around them until they quit or retire. Mainly we are going to increase spending on mental health response teams, a real homeless intervention team, domestic violence response teams, traffic enforcement teams whose focus is not an excuse to harass people or 'catch' fugitives. Along with the city attorney and DA, we will deemphasize prosecution of drug non-violent offenses.
1. Fix 911 & 311. This means signing bonuses and incentives through the rigorous training process. For 311, it means better ticket management and automation. Yeah, the noise complaints from New Years will automatically get closed and we’ll just deal with it but it’s a sacrifice to better triage other issues and prevent a backlog for example.
2. Some APD reforms like not hiring officers previously fired from other PDs, de escalation training, incentives for living in the community they police, incentives for not discharging weapons. A new Chief.
3. Improve COA employment. Reevaluate all City employee salaries and make sure they’re livable and fair market value. Improve flexibility at certain departments and improve benefits to complete with modern workplace cultures.
Austin has too few circuits, and needs to be able to subdivide the city's electrical circuits better. That is a major project that Austin Energy needs undertaken. Austin is alone in this problem among texas cities.
911 needs fixing. In general the city is suffering from a messy bureaucracy that loses people in the shuffle. The very basic mechanisms of paper pushing are failing here. Problems like this start at the top.
Put up cement barriers between cars and bike lanes, or seperate bike lanes from roads along major thorough fares. Too many murders by car in Austin.
Bike lanes do not need to go down major streets that is madness.
As a biker I would never want to ride down any street filled with smog. We need bike roads not shitty half ass additions to streets that fuck up traffic.
Slaughter lane is fucking ridiculous and has done nothing but send 100’s of people to get new tires.
They took our wiggle room and gave it to nonexistent bikers that don’t want to ride down slaughter because it a dumb thing todo.
Spoken like someone that doesn’t and has never used bikes as their main transportation. You only ride in smog when you have to go to a shop on that street.
I don’t want my damn city wasting millions of dollars on bike paths I don’t want to use. It’s dumb it’s bad governance and it completely misses the point. I rode my bike from slaughter Lane to Metric and Palmer for two years three times a week And I can move the entire city without ever getting on the main road. They are dumb places to ride for a variety of reasons. There are plenty of ways through the city that we could build permanent bike roads or complementary bike roads like along Shoalcreek. But a bike path on a road Lamar is stupid one. Like the one made on slaughter it’s just not a place bicyclist have ever wanted to go.
I hear ya but not all biking in Austin is for leisure. Some people actually get from point a to point b on bike by necessity. I think they’d prefer to arrive at their destinations in one piece.
I don’t care what you call exhaust fumes I don’t want to breathe them in and you’re a dumb ass if you’re a bicyclist riding right next to a bunch of cars breathing in their exhaust.
Also take for example the cement barriers on slaughter which are poorly made. they have messed up lots of tires and cause serval wrecks because they have taken away the little wiggle room that was on that road to begin with. Why would you take one of the most dangerous highly accident prone roads in the city and put a bike lane on it???????
It’s called greenwashing.
Why would you not commission a group to study bicycle traffic patterns and then determine where bicyclists actually want to fucking go!?!?
As somebody that bikes for fun and as somebody that has biked as a commuter I will never ever ever use slaughter lanes bike path. I will instead go through neighborhoods to get where I’m going. And if you were to do it like that and make bike paths like somebody with their head not up their ass You might have a shot at making a difference.
I agree to some extent. I bike on quiet side streets, not 360. On the other hand I might use the new path along airport blvd that is fully separated from cars. Some roads like Slaughter just suck to begin with. These 6 lane roads that aren’t grade separated highways like airport blvd of Parmer end up killing a lot of car drivers. People go 60 mph while grandma needs to pull a left turn and night. It’s bad design.
There's plenty of particulate matter coming off the road (mostly brake dust and tire residue) plus diesels are dirty, dirty, dirty.
So, maybe smog is the wrong word, but if I were biking, I'd rather not do it beside a bunch of cars. And, as a driver, I really prefer bikers not be beside me because they're unpredictable...bouncing between pedestrian and vehicle at their whim.
>bouncing between pedestrian and vehicle at their whim.
I think a significant contributor to this is that we don't treat bicycles as their own thing / a realistic, separate form of transportation. They have to act like a hybrid of pedestrian and vehicle because that's how our infrastructure treats them.
My specific issue is they use the bike lane until a red light, then just keep going because the crosswalk has a walk sign.
Or use sidewalks until a road and then just blast through the cross walk at biking speeds.
There was just a post about fetch on here today. It's basically a middleman delivery service that apartment complexes are using to rip off tenants. Instead of Amazon delivering to your door they deliver to Fetch and then fetch delivers to you. Valet trash is these little trash cans you put outside your door and they charge you 40 bucks a month to collect them. It's a huge scam.
That’s just for the valet service. You still have to pay your allotted trash bill for the actual dumpsters/compactors. So your REAL trash bill is somewhere in the neighborhood of $80.
Have tenants ever revolted? I bet if hundreds of tenants did a protest in front of the management office and get social media/news coverage they could change things
>2. A city ordinances on banning Fetch & valet trash service
I'm fine with not banning this as long as they are required to bake it into rent and not have it as an unavoidable, additional service fee. Similar to fees for flights and ticketmaster, I want all pricing to include every unavoidable, mandatory fee.
I suppose if you didn't see it itemized on your bill you wouldn't find it as irritating if you didn't use it. On the other hand I think hiding the reality of these services opens the door for more of these things to pop up in leases.
>On the other hand I think hiding the reality of these services opens the door for more of these things to pop up in leases.
The door is already open for this, they can hide any number of services or offerings in your rent.
Requiring it to be included in the total cost makes it a service differentiator. For instance, if they have a dog park and pay for maintenance on that park, you pay for it even if you don't have a dog.
When it's included in the total cost, it makes it easier for renters to differentiate when searching based on total cost of rent. If they want to be competitive in pricing, it means they either need to eliminate the service entirely or make it optional for renters, which is the important part.
I like your ideas but gotta downvote because the city manager can’t make city ordinances or zoning. You can email your city council members and vote for those who support your ideas.
1. Make the roads more visible at night. I am using that glow in the dark paint used for constellations in kids rooms.
2. Ordering that all grills and smokers be turned on at the same time during winter storms to heat the city and mandate week long bbqs. No Ted Cruz, you aren’t invited.
3. Reform the police and add drag queens to the force to enforce traffic laws, arrest the real pedophiles, bounce your school board meetings, and look good while protecting and serving your communities.
What do city managers do again?
1. Disband APD and fire all the officers. 2. Immediately increase social services budget by 100MM per year. 3. Add 3 additional departments: patrol (tasers and batons only, no firearm, HS degree+academy), Investigations ( armed, requires BS in criminology+academy), and swat (armed, requires 2 year degree + academy + specialized training). Former APD officers are welcome to apply to the new departments.... if they qualify. Mandatory steroids testing for all officers monthly.
Maybe, maybe not. From the [NIH](https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/steroids-other-appearance-performance-enhancing-drugs-apeds/how-does-anabolic-steroid-misuse-affect-behavior):
>Case reports and small studies indicate that anabolic steroids increase irritability and aggression, although findings may be confounded by personality traits that are overrepresented in steroid users (i.e., antisocial, borderline, and histrionic personality disorder) and use of other drugs.
1.Raise pay of the planning and development services departments so they can compete with the private sector.
2. Scrap compatability setbacks and provide density bonuses for affordable housing projects.
3. Get rid of the completeness check process for site development permits.
Let Elton, VP of Field Ops, give updates throughout the day on AE restorations; allow all city employees to work remotely the vast majority of the time, when able; free pre-school for children of all city employees
Wait, were we supposed to say what we could realistically change as city manager, or ignore all the wedges council direction has thrown into everything?
Lee Elton may be technically proficient, but he needs to learn a bit about professionalism in the face of a crisis. He made our city look like a bunch of uneducated country bumpkins who prefer to make jokes rather than providing real information
Whew, interim city manager..
-Me, ignorant, asks the previous city manager/ council for a download on all the issues.
We write down all the issues, and categorize them!
-Then we assign boards of local business owners or leaders in those categories, and they weigh in with their feedback and opinions. We include community feedback and opinions, carefully considering that everyone’s voice is valid, and our main prerogative is to be logical and clear without bias.
We come to consensus on the right course of action in each category!
-We create the roadmap for each category, and publish that. It includes org charts, projected budgets, phases and schedules, and clear projected pitfalls/ concerns, and how we plan to address those.
We leave it in place for the next managers (city, departmental) and continue to publish our progress and be adaptable as crises emerge!
1. Do a complete Asset and Risk Assessment of Critical Infrastructure and Services (including utilities, 911/Police, etc.) and Audit all city spendings involving a credible 3rd party assessor/consultancy
2. Compile a committee of credible Subject Matter Experts (technical, operational, finance, legal, supply chain, etc.) to verify budget, process the assessment and audit results, prioritize findings and create a viable roadmap moving forward
3. Start securing funding as necessary, re-allocate existing funding from non-critical investments or investments that can be delayed, initiate the legal procedures to recoup funds the audits revealed as inapproriate/false/fraud/etc.
1) prepare Austin for winter. Don’t have to go hardcore just get some salt or gravel for the roads and review infrastructure to make sure power stays on. Also putting out some public media on how to manage basic winter conditions, such as driving, ice scrapers for windshields, keeping headlights on
2) look at increasing public transit to make it accessible to all areas of the city and affordable.
3) free hotdogs
1. Fire everyone at APD and restructure it so that they actually serve the community.
2. Ban cars downtown
3. Put up a bunch of those “safe streets” barriers that we had during the height of the pandemic so that we have instant alternative transportation “highways”, like S 5th.
4. Crack down on STRs and tax the fuck out of all of these other operations that have been ripping us all off for so long. I’m tax all the big new businesses and wealthy people so that we can actually afford to operate this city and pay people properly.
5. If you own a home that you yourself don’t occupy, I’m going to tax the hell out of it (with exemptions).
6. All city employees are getting big raises from our new tax revenue.
7. Rezone everything so that truly walkable neighborhoods are incentivized. You should be able to walk to all of your regular necessities like the grocery store, barber, dry cleaners, coffee shop, neighborhood bar etc.
8. We’re going to have so many buses. It’s going to be the best bus system in the world. You’re going to get sick of buses.
9. Undercover APD units will be assigned to patrol:
a) parks and trails to issue fines to people with unleashed dogs outside of off leash parks.
b) bike lanes and sidewalks and issue citations to motor vehicles parked in them.
10. I will start a youtube channel where I visit one new taco truck each week and highlight their signature dishes and the workers.
Create a base level disaster plan. (Like a real one, not whatever they claim to have right now)
Work on 911/311/APD. (There isn't a magic wand to wave, but the work can begin. They need a framework of some sort for them to follow and transform)
Figure out a way to crack down on short term rentals. (I know their hands are somewhat tied on the matter, but they can get more creative. This will also have the added benefit of a general rent reduction.)
1. Start stringing higher-ups by their toes at Austin Energy, until they trim all the trees off lines.
2. Create an actual permanent homeless facility, with enough capacity and work programs that benefit people that can still get back on their feet.
3. Shift more city resources into 911/311 operations, so we have functional emergency response.
anyone who puts faith in the manager over their faith in the managed has lost sight of reality.
1. manage the needs of 14,000 employees
2. ensure equitable outcomes for employees regardless of race gender sexual orientation
3. don't give a flying frig what the haters say
Fire chacon and replace police chief with a board of commissioners made up of civilians and officers.
Give fire/ems a raise.
Total cultural overhaul of city government to revitalize morale and recruitment.
All the other suggestions here are great. So those, plus…
-immediately place property tax and rent caps on music venues and other small businesses
-gas leaf blowers are banned due to toxic exhaust and noise
-leaf blowers in complexes (business, office campuses, apartment or condo complexes) cannot blow. They have to suck the leaves into reusable bags and dump the leaves elsewhere. Moving the leaves 3 feet over there is not worth the energy spent and allergies affected
-all traffic lights go to sensor only (only turns red if it senses a car in the other direction) after 9PM, until 6 AM the next day
1. Minimum speed limits raised to 85MPH on all highways.
2: Paper plate cars will be seized and demolished and turned into art.
3. AirBNBs will be filled with the debris from the paper plate cars.
If I had more options:
4. Catalytic converter thieves will serve their sentences in the AirBNBs filled with said debris from crushed paper plate cars.
5. ABIA South Terminal will be reopened as a Greyhound bus terminal only serving Ted Cruz's escape to the border when it gets too cold. No traveling in style for this guy. Any extra room or parking will be devoted to the overflow from the crushed paper plate cars.
6. Austin Police's Academy staff is all fired and a committee of citizens similar to jury duty overseeing the hiring. Training can still be done by police with approval of classes from this committee.
1. Fund a mega rehabilitation shelter for the unhoused on the east side, with mental health/medical service, drug rehab, and patrol services to pick them up. As well an employment division to offer supervised work picking up trash, city park maintenance & landscaping.
2. Expand the transportation services with more routes connecting 83 to William Cannon, including late night service, and day long metro rail service and integrate a program that asks the community to submit their work routs/times to facilitate mapping the routs to people's actual needs, and provide ride cards for free rides for those who opt to commute via public transportation in lieu of cars with a 'usage verification' program.
3. Establish a mandated 25% affordable housing unit minimum or all future residential buildings including a cap on those units rent price.
1) Ban dogs from restaurants and bars. 2) Create a City sanctioned homeless mecca and enforce the camping ban everywhere outside of it. 3) ACL becomes free for residents who have been here 15+ years.
Fix 911, Austin Water, Austin Energy, in that order.
Austin needs to be a functioning city before it tries to be anything else. It would be nice if the people in charge would remember that the boring stuff matters.
I would replace all middle turn lanes (for example the one in South Congress) in the city with pedestrian footpaths/bikepaths with green areas with trees
educate others on how the electrical grid works, the importance of maintaining large trees on their properties, and why there are delays with power restoration.
1) cut down all the trees
2) burying lines is too expensive so ill lay down power lines and then tape them down with electrical tapes.
3) a vicious dogmatic pogram against California transplants (unless they got good weed)
1. Even if it is legal or not, or if I even have the power, stop sending money for robinhood. Guilt the shitty nowhere counties into not accepting the "handouts"
2. Provide real , existing trash services for homeless.
3. Improve the power situation
4. File lawsuits against cops for their BS, even if it would prevail or not.
Book my trips to Cabo (but for real bring in experts around police, transportation, and electricity to help me figure out what we can hack together to make any of it better)
First, we burn all the witches!
Second, we find a reputable wizard to upgrade our city traits across the board.
Third, I will continue one vital city program. I will double-down on this issue and give it even more priority, not because I think said policy/program is good....more of a curiosity/social experiment. I would absolutely continue to take away a few inches of lane width per year and keep widening the bike/walk/homeless lanes. I wonder if the people would actually revolt/leave or be willing to accept traffic getting ever shittier.
Trim trees around power lines. Oh. No support for that.
Work toward density, not sprawl. Oh, no support for that.
Work on transportation solutions. Oh. No support for that.
Reckon I’d just keep Austin Weird, keep asserting Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World, and maintain the status as a Tree City USA!
Bonus mandate: Every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday.
Lmao not 3 but anyway most of these are completely unreasonable, not to mention expensive, so just saying
Traffic on I35 is hell, create a 6 lane highway parallel to I35 from Parmer to Slaughter with no exits (except for one a mile after you enter on both sides in case someone accidentally goes in). BUT 2 of the lanes will be only for freight trucks (and will be free) and one lane will be reserved for cars and blocked off from the rest of the freeway (like the express lane on mopac) and will cost money. That way, the 18 wheelers travelling up and down I35 without stopping in Austin wont clog it up. Yeah ik its basically 130 but 130 is really long and curvy.
Walkability (and general road improvements) - all new roads in the downtown area and suburbian residential communities have to have sidewalks, and all major arterials in downtown to have designated bike and bus lanes (Lavaca, Guadalupe, Cesar Chavez, 5th, 7th, San Jacinto, Trinity, 15th, MLK, etc.)
Expansnion to Metro - ik project connect is doing this already, but to alleviate traffic and for environment and stuff lol we need rail from the suburbs to the city. I would like two rail routes - one starting in Leander and going down 183, through the domain, until it hits mopac, and then going down that just east of downtown until circle c, and the second going down 35 from rr premium outlets (actually wth why not georgetown) and down to slaughter.
Trees
Add more parks - the Robinson family has a bunch of land in the middle of NW austin, it would be really cool if we could buy a large plot of their ranch (like really large) and turn it in to a park with hiking trails and such
OH and spend a bunch of money creating a large scale, permanent homeless facility, big enough to house every single homeless person in the city with food and water and stuff and get them off our interesecitons.
ANd then cash out the check and move to Bali
Find BUSCAR
Busca Buscar Buscar means "to search for" in Spanish.
… And make them Art Czar!
Nothing at all. I hear that’s how they keep you around.
Seemed to have worked for Cronk!
OP asked for 3 things which is 3 too many tbh.
Fix 911. Find ways to dramatically increase density and mass transit that include low income housing and homes for the homeless. Reform APD so they focus on responding to violence in progress, and create alternative structures for all other responses.
>Find ways to dramatically increase density and mass transit that include low income housing and homes for the homeless. Good luck on that one. That's the one that Cronk was actually having staff work hard on but the code change was essentially defeated by NIMBYs. Watson is opposed to this added density and code change and he's very likely to find us a new City Manager who will not prioritize those things.
I nominate you!
Ditto!
Accepted, it would be a significant increase in salary. Plus I bet he has an administrative assistant. I've always wanted one of those.
Yeah, a HOT one (Highly Organized and Trained)
Staying organized is one of my biggest problems. If i had someone to help me be organized and screen out all of the crap that comes thru my inbox, i could get so much more done.
Totally. I'm a genius but boy am I a dipshit in terms of organizing.
How? I think it’s important if we’re going to say this, which is exactly what politicians say, that we give some details.
The prompt was just a list. I am just answering the question as asked. But ok- Fix 911. $. Pay needs to be significantly increased. But also, other cities, just do it better. So it seems like a management shake up is in order. According to [this report](https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/harris-county/2022/09/12/432680/harris-county-emergency-dispatch-response-time-for-calls-exceeds-national-average/), in Harris county 98% of 911 calls are answered in 10 seconds, and they only have 167 911 employees (that's only 23 more staff than Austin in a city with a population over three times more than Austin). Density. Austin has been through countless cycles of boom, and we keep saying we need developers and business people or they will just go somewhere else. This is BS. Austin's growth needs to slow down and be more sustainable. Mostly the wealthy people who run the city like giving nice deals to their fellow rich people to exploit us. As city manager, I will require significant affordable housing for every apartment building built in the city. Policy will require it. Either include affordable units, or good luck getting thru the permit process. Even if I cannot require the affordable units, it will move you to the front of the approval process. I think I have that power as city manager. Actual density is harder. I would use every process in my power to increase multifamily housing and make building single-family houses harder and more expensive. APD. I'm end running around them. This is a long-term project, and most current APD officers and leadership will hate it, and we mostly need to work around them until they quit or retire. Mainly we are going to increase spending on mental health response teams, a real homeless intervention team, domestic violence response teams, traffic enforcement teams whose focus is not an excuse to harass people or 'catch' fugitives. Along with the city attorney and DA, we will deemphasize prosecution of drug non-violent offenses.
Hire this person!
How much power does the office have over these? Genuinely curious, I find our city government somewhat byzantine
1. Fix 911 & 311. This means signing bonuses and incentives through the rigorous training process. For 311, it means better ticket management and automation. Yeah, the noise complaints from New Years will automatically get closed and we’ll just deal with it but it’s a sacrifice to better triage other issues and prevent a backlog for example. 2. Some APD reforms like not hiring officers previously fired from other PDs, de escalation training, incentives for living in the community they police, incentives for not discharging weapons. A new Chief. 3. Improve COA employment. Reevaluate all City employee salaries and make sure they’re livable and fair market value. Improve flexibility at certain departments and improve benefits to complete with modern workplace cultures.
Fix 311? You need more bass solos?
311? First step: Rename the electric dept to "Austin Amber Is The Color Of Your Energy" dept.
Like I’ve never heard that one before. Next time, come original.
Hey there’s a city council meeting. Don’t stay home this time.
City Council is a beautiful disaster. CMV.
I open pandamonium back up
Move Toy Joy back to it's rightful place.
Austin has too few circuits, and needs to be able to subdivide the city's electrical circuits better. That is a major project that Austin Energy needs undertaken. Austin is alone in this problem among texas cities. 911 needs fixing. In general the city is suffering from a messy bureaucracy that loses people in the shuffle. The very basic mechanisms of paper pushing are failing here. Problems like this start at the top. Put up cement barriers between cars and bike lanes, or seperate bike lanes from roads along major thorough fares. Too many murders by car in Austin.
Bike lanes do not need to go down major streets that is madness. As a biker I would never want to ride down any street filled with smog. We need bike roads not shitty half ass additions to streets that fuck up traffic. Slaughter lane is fucking ridiculous and has done nothing but send 100’s of people to get new tires. They took our wiggle room and gave it to nonexistent bikers that don’t want to ride down slaughter because it a dumb thing todo.
Bike lanes on major streets are fine but they need to be grade separated from the road
Spoken like someone that doesn’t and has never used bikes as their main transportation. You only ride in smog when you have to go to a shop on that street. I don’t want my damn city wasting millions of dollars on bike paths I don’t want to use. It’s dumb it’s bad governance and it completely misses the point. I rode my bike from slaughter Lane to Metric and Palmer for two years three times a week And I can move the entire city without ever getting on the main road. They are dumb places to ride for a variety of reasons. There are plenty of ways through the city that we could build permanent bike roads or complementary bike roads like along Shoalcreek. But a bike path on a road Lamar is stupid one. Like the one made on slaughter it’s just not a place bicyclist have ever wanted to go.
I hear ya but not all biking in Austin is for leisure. Some people actually get from point a to point b on bike by necessity. I think they’d prefer to arrive at their destinations in one piece.
Smog? Are you a time traveler from 1970s LA?
I don’t care what you call exhaust fumes I don’t want to breathe them in and you’re a dumb ass if you’re a bicyclist riding right next to a bunch of cars breathing in their exhaust. Also take for example the cement barriers on slaughter which are poorly made. they have messed up lots of tires and cause serval wrecks because they have taken away the little wiggle room that was on that road to begin with. Why would you take one of the most dangerous highly accident prone roads in the city and put a bike lane on it??????? It’s called greenwashing. Why would you not commission a group to study bicycle traffic patterns and then determine where bicyclists actually want to fucking go!?!? As somebody that bikes for fun and as somebody that has biked as a commuter I will never ever ever use slaughter lanes bike path. I will instead go through neighborhoods to get where I’m going. And if you were to do it like that and make bike paths like somebody with their head not up their ass You might have a shot at making a difference.
I agree to some extent. I bike on quiet side streets, not 360. On the other hand I might use the new path along airport blvd that is fully separated from cars. Some roads like Slaughter just suck to begin with. These 6 lane roads that aren’t grade separated highways like airport blvd of Parmer end up killing a lot of car drivers. People go 60 mph while grandma needs to pull a left turn and night. It’s bad design.
There's plenty of particulate matter coming off the road (mostly brake dust and tire residue) plus diesels are dirty, dirty, dirty. So, maybe smog is the wrong word, but if I were biking, I'd rather not do it beside a bunch of cars. And, as a driver, I really prefer bikers not be beside me because they're unpredictable...bouncing between pedestrian and vehicle at their whim.
The comment was about cement barriers for bike lanes, so yeah that would help with your concern
>bouncing between pedestrian and vehicle at their whim. I think a significant contributor to this is that we don't treat bicycles as their own thing / a realistic, separate form of transportation. They have to act like a hybrid of pedestrian and vehicle because that's how our infrastructure treats them.
My specific issue is they use the bike lane until a red light, then just keep going because the crosswalk has a walk sign. Or use sidewalks until a road and then just blast through the cross walk at biking speeds.
Start my own Austin, with blackjack and hookers!
This guy Futuramas
I think that's called Las Vegas
1.A statue of Leslie 2. A city ordinances on banning Fetch & valet trash service 3. change the zoning rules to match Tokyo's( Google it).
Fetch & valet trash service? What is that?
There was just a post about fetch on here today. It's basically a middleman delivery service that apartment complexes are using to rip off tenants. Instead of Amazon delivering to your door they deliver to Fetch and then fetch delivers to you. Valet trash is these little trash cans you put outside your door and they charge you 40 bucks a month to collect them. It's a huge scam.
$40 a month for trash service! Holy crap.
That’s just for the valet service. You still have to pay your allotted trash bill for the actual dumpsters/compactors. So your REAL trash bill is somewhere in the neighborhood of $80.
Have tenants ever revolted? I bet if hundreds of tenants did a protest in front of the management office and get social media/news coverage they could change things
>2. A city ordinances on banning Fetch & valet trash service I'm fine with not banning this as long as they are required to bake it into rent and not have it as an unavoidable, additional service fee. Similar to fees for flights and ticketmaster, I want all pricing to include every unavoidable, mandatory fee.
I suppose if you didn't see it itemized on your bill you wouldn't find it as irritating if you didn't use it. On the other hand I think hiding the reality of these services opens the door for more of these things to pop up in leases.
>On the other hand I think hiding the reality of these services opens the door for more of these things to pop up in leases. The door is already open for this, they can hide any number of services or offerings in your rent. Requiring it to be included in the total cost makes it a service differentiator. For instance, if they have a dog park and pay for maintenance on that park, you pay for it even if you don't have a dog. When it's included in the total cost, it makes it easier for renters to differentiate when searching based on total cost of rent. If they want to be competitive in pricing, it means they either need to eliminate the service entirely or make it optional for renters, which is the important part.
I've seen a *lot* more nickel-and-dime service fees baked into rental fees in the last ten years. The fees often add $300 to the stated monthly rent!
Where do I send my recommendation letter?
I like your ideas but gotta downvote because the city manager can’t make city ordinances or zoning. You can email your city council members and vote for those who support your ideas.
I mean it's a fantasy shitpost so I'm not sure realism is all that important.
True but I wonder what percentage of Austin voters know who is making decisions.
Nice try City Council members. Now get off Reddit and get to work!!
1. Make the roads more visible at night. I am using that glow in the dark paint used for constellations in kids rooms. 2. Ordering that all grills and smokers be turned on at the same time during winter storms to heat the city and mandate week long bbqs. No Ted Cruz, you aren’t invited. 3. Reform the police and add drag queens to the force to enforce traffic laws, arrest the real pedophiles, bounce your school board meetings, and look good while protecting and serving your communities. What do city managers do again?
You have my support
After having to drive in the rain this evening, get every major road to have lanes that you can actually see in bad weather
1. Disband APD and fire all the officers. 2. Immediately increase social services budget by 100MM per year. 3. Add 3 additional departments: patrol (tasers and batons only, no firearm, HS degree+academy), Investigations ( armed, requires BS in criminology+academy), and swat (armed, requires 2 year degree + academy + specialized training). Former APD officers are welcome to apply to the new departments.... if they qualify. Mandatory steroids testing for all officers monthly.
And *any* DV arrests or more disqualifies someone from serving.
Well shit I guess they can't apply after all....
Fuck yes.
You win the title for the most delusional that this would be a functioning and staffed enough force
They don't do shit now so what would we have to lose besides fewer executed minorities?
Probably even more minorities due to a further increasing murder rate that outpaces austin brutality
They don’t drug test cops already??
Not monthly
Steroids have nothing to do with anything though
Maybe, maybe not. From the [NIH](https://nida.nih.gov/publications/research-reports/steroids-other-appearance-performance-enhancing-drugs-apeds/how-does-anabolic-steroid-misuse-affect-behavior): >Case reports and small studies indicate that anabolic steroids increase irritability and aggression, although findings may be confounded by personality traits that are overrepresented in steroid users (i.e., antisocial, borderline, and histrionic personality disorder) and use of other drugs.
1. Fuck bitches 2. Snort coke 3. Eat cake
Rob Ford just called from the grave, he approves this message!
Wow that’s a blast from the political past. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. I had completely forgotten about that shitshow 🤣
Damnnnnn
Hire this man!
I want this mayor so bad!
Can I be your deputy mayor?
Sold
1.Raise pay of the planning and development services departments so they can compete with the private sector. 2. Scrap compatability setbacks and provide density bonuses for affordable housing projects. 3. Get rid of the completeness check process for site development permits.
Let Elton, VP of Field Ops, give updates throughout the day on AE restorations; allow all city employees to work remotely the vast majority of the time, when able; free pre-school for children of all city employees
Wait, were we supposed to say what we could realistically change as city manager, or ignore all the wedges council direction has thrown into everything?
Lee Elton may be technically proficient, but he needs to learn a bit about professionalism in the face of a crisis. He made our city look like a bunch of uneducated country bumpkins who prefer to make jokes rather than providing real information
Ice town!
Ice clown?
Nice try, interim city manager
You caught me.
Infrastructure modernization (power / water), increase pay for teachers / EMS, demilitarize police force and use the proceeds to hire more officers
Whew, interim city manager.. -Me, ignorant, asks the previous city manager/ council for a download on all the issues. We write down all the issues, and categorize them! -Then we assign boards of local business owners or leaders in those categories, and they weigh in with their feedback and opinions. We include community feedback and opinions, carefully considering that everyone’s voice is valid, and our main prerogative is to be logical and clear without bias. We come to consensus on the right course of action in each category! -We create the roadmap for each category, and publish that. It includes org charts, projected budgets, phases and schedules, and clear projected pitfalls/ concerns, and how we plan to address those. We leave it in place for the next managers (city, departmental) and continue to publish our progress and be adaptable as crises emerge!
1. Do a complete Asset and Risk Assessment of Critical Infrastructure and Services (including utilities, 911/Police, etc.) and Audit all city spendings involving a credible 3rd party assessor/consultancy 2. Compile a committee of credible Subject Matter Experts (technical, operational, finance, legal, supply chain, etc.) to verify budget, process the assessment and audit results, prioritize findings and create a viable roadmap moving forward 3. Start securing funding as necessary, re-allocate existing funding from non-critical investments or investments that can be delayed, initiate the legal procedures to recoup funds the audits revealed as inapproriate/false/fraud/etc.
Why get qualified subject matter experts when you can get mediocre ones to line your pockets and tell you that you are doing an amazing job already?!
I never stole from my past employers, I don’t steal from my current employer either, why would I steal from the City/Taxpayers?
1) prepare Austin for winter. Don’t have to go hardcore just get some salt or gravel for the roads and review infrastructure to make sure power stays on. Also putting out some public media on how to manage basic winter conditions, such as driving, ice scrapers for windshields, keeping headlights on 2) look at increasing public transit to make it accessible to all areas of the city and affordable. 3) free hotdogs
You would win based on the hot dog policy alone.
3. Vegan ones too??
Absolutely
1. Autofellatio 2. Recreate I <3 Video, staff it with TABC certified Dermatologists 3. Create a permanent boil water notice for Westlake
Google “What does a city manager do?” And go from there?
1. Fire everyone at APD and restructure it so that they actually serve the community. 2. Ban cars downtown 3. Put up a bunch of those “safe streets” barriers that we had during the height of the pandemic so that we have instant alternative transportation “highways”, like S 5th. 4. Crack down on STRs and tax the fuck out of all of these other operations that have been ripping us all off for so long. I’m tax all the big new businesses and wealthy people so that we can actually afford to operate this city and pay people properly. 5. If you own a home that you yourself don’t occupy, I’m going to tax the hell out of it (with exemptions). 6. All city employees are getting big raises from our new tax revenue. 7. Rezone everything so that truly walkable neighborhoods are incentivized. You should be able to walk to all of your regular necessities like the grocery store, barber, dry cleaners, coffee shop, neighborhood bar etc. 8. We’re going to have so many buses. It’s going to be the best bus system in the world. You’re going to get sick of buses. 9. Undercover APD units will be assigned to patrol: a) parks and trails to issue fines to people with unleashed dogs outside of off leash parks. b) bike lanes and sidewalks and issue citations to motor vehicles parked in them. 10. I will start a youtube channel where I visit one new taco truck each week and highlight their signature dishes and the workers.
11. Learn to count to 3. Fr though would vote for you.
Oh shit. Lol. I got a little carried away.
what are STRs? Is that Short Term Rentals like AirBnB or something different?
Yes, short term rentals like AirBNB
**1,000%**
Create a base level disaster plan. (Like a real one, not whatever they claim to have right now) Work on 911/311/APD. (There isn't a magic wand to wave, but the work can begin. They need a framework of some sort for them to follow and transform) Figure out a way to crack down on short term rentals. (I know their hands are somewhat tied on the matter, but they can get more creative. This will also have the added benefit of a general rent reduction.)
Oust the state government. Declare Austin independence. Secede from Texas.
1. Start stringing higher-ups by their toes at Austin Energy, until they trim all the trees off lines. 2. Create an actual permanent homeless facility, with enough capacity and work programs that benefit people that can still get back on their feet. 3. Shift more city resources into 911/311 operations, so we have functional emergency response.
anyone who puts faith in the manager over their faith in the managed has lost sight of reality. 1. manage the needs of 14,000 employees 2. ensure equitable outcomes for employees regardless of race gender sexual orientation 3. don't give a flying frig what the haters say
Take a paycheck, chit chat at the office, tell people how great I am. Done
Cash that city manager pay check, sell my property, and move far away.
1) Find someone who knows what they're doing, 2) appoint them city manager, 3) step down immediately
* Mandatory office hammocks * Timed keg stand as part of hiring process * You get to shoot a gun into the air *one time* on your birthday, for free
Fire chacon and replace police chief with a board of commissioners made up of civilians and officers. Give fire/ems a raise. Total cultural overhaul of city government to revitalize morale and recruitment.
Go to Cabo!
Same thing we do every night try and take over the world
All the other suggestions here are great. So those, plus… -immediately place property tax and rent caps on music venues and other small businesses -gas leaf blowers are banned due to toxic exhaust and noise -leaf blowers in complexes (business, office campuses, apartment or condo complexes) cannot blow. They have to suck the leaves into reusable bags and dump the leaves elsewhere. Moving the leaves 3 feet over there is not worth the energy spent and allergies affected -all traffic lights go to sensor only (only turns red if it senses a car in the other direction) after 9PM, until 6 AM the next day
1. Minimum speed limits raised to 85MPH on all highways. 2: Paper plate cars will be seized and demolished and turned into art. 3. AirBNBs will be filled with the debris from the paper plate cars. If I had more options: 4. Catalytic converter thieves will serve their sentences in the AirBNBs filled with said debris from crushed paper plate cars. 5. ABIA South Terminal will be reopened as a Greyhound bus terminal only serving Ted Cruz's escape to the border when it gets too cold. No traveling in style for this guy. Any extra room or parking will be devoted to the overflow from the crushed paper plate cars. 6. Austin Police's Academy staff is all fired and a committee of citizens similar to jury duty overseeing the hiring. Training can still be done by police with approval of classes from this committee.
delete all single family zoning within city limits.
This alone would make a huge difference.
Step 1) everyone gets laid
1. Fund a mega rehabilitation shelter for the unhoused on the east side, with mental health/medical service, drug rehab, and patrol services to pick them up. As well an employment division to offer supervised work picking up trash, city park maintenance & landscaping. 2. Expand the transportation services with more routes connecting 83 to William Cannon, including late night service, and day long metro rail service and integrate a program that asks the community to submit their work routs/times to facilitate mapping the routs to people's actual needs, and provide ride cards for free rides for those who opt to commute via public transportation in lieu of cars with a 'usage verification' program. 3. Establish a mandated 25% affordable housing unit minimum or all future residential buildings including a cap on those units rent price.
1. I would do the same, but put it in West Austin just because I know how mad West Austin would be about it.
I’d put it on the west side because people always want to put stuff like that on the east side and realistically we need to mix it up a bit.
Yes and
1. I would do the same, but put it in West Austin just because I know how mad West Austin would be about it.
1) Ban dogs from restaurants and bars. 2) Create a City sanctioned homeless mecca and enforce the camping ban everywhere outside of it. 3) ACL becomes free for residents who have been here 15+ years.
Be tall. Look hot in a suit. Have a name that sounds like “Crunk”.
1. All the power is fixed 2. All the homeless are homed 3. Everyone gets fridays off from work. /s
Fix 911, Austin Water, Austin Energy, in that order. Austin needs to be a functioning city before it tries to be anything else. It would be nice if the people in charge would remember that the boring stuff matters.
Google what a city manager does
I would replace all middle turn lanes (for example the one in South Congress) in the city with pedestrian footpaths/bikepaths with green areas with trees
Hire yourself permanently in the job. Allow bong hits during breaks Authorize public floggings
educate others on how the electrical grid works, the importance of maintaining large trees on their properties, and why there are delays with power restoration.
So fix nothing, but get more effective at victim blaming. Sounds about right!!
kill everyone, free money, land the perfect jumpshot
Forcibly remove everyone that's moved here since 2008
Can we make it 2016? 😅
No
Reinstate third party police oversight commission Set a (low) ceiling on paid parking Commission more aTm bluebonnets on campus
1. all left turns protected 2. max rent for a 1BR apartment is $650 3. vegan cheese doesn’t taste like snot
I’m here for the vegan cheese, who you putting in charge of product development?
The guys from Conan’s
1. Create a litter czar 2. build a time machine 3. use time machine to make it 1996 again
1) cut down all the trees 2) burying lines is too expensive so ill lay down power lines and then tape them down with electrical tapes. 3) a vicious dogmatic pogram against California transplants (unless they got good weed)
1. Even if it is legal or not, or if I even have the power, stop sending money for robinhood. Guilt the shitty nowhere counties into not accepting the "handouts" 2. Provide real , existing trash services for homeless. 3. Improve the power situation 4. File lawsuits against cops for their BS, even if it would prevail or not.
Can I give myself raises?
This reminds me of an old episode of The Simpsons
*;'…Monorail 🎵 monorail 🎶 MoNoRaIl!!*
Book my trips to Cabo (but for real bring in experts around police, transportation, and electricity to help me figure out what we can hack together to make any of it better)
1. Lysol everything
two chicks at the same time
1. Do something about the homelessness 2. Clean up all the god damned trash all over. 3. Hire more police officers.
What would you like to do for them?
Read the job description. Talk to the former City Manager. Make a list. (Or, have a drink)
I would not take cues from the soon-to-be former city manager!
pizza for lunch everyday for city employees!
Like as a law, or you’re providing it for free?
unknown
First, we burn all the witches! Second, we find a reputable wizard to upgrade our city traits across the board. Third, I will continue one vital city program. I will double-down on this issue and give it even more priority, not because I think said policy/program is good....more of a curiosity/social experiment. I would absolutely continue to take away a few inches of lane width per year and keep widening the bike/walk/homeless lanes. I wonder if the people would actually revolt/leave or be willing to accept traffic getting ever shittier.
Trim trees around power lines. Oh. No support for that. Work toward density, not sprawl. Oh, no support for that. Work on transportation solutions. Oh. No support for that. Reckon I’d just keep Austin Weird, keep asserting Austin is the Live Music Capital of the World, and maintain the status as a Tree City USA! Bonus mandate: Every Tuesday is Taco Tuesday.
Lmao not 3 but anyway most of these are completely unreasonable, not to mention expensive, so just saying Traffic on I35 is hell, create a 6 lane highway parallel to I35 from Parmer to Slaughter with no exits (except for one a mile after you enter on both sides in case someone accidentally goes in). BUT 2 of the lanes will be only for freight trucks (and will be free) and one lane will be reserved for cars and blocked off from the rest of the freeway (like the express lane on mopac) and will cost money. That way, the 18 wheelers travelling up and down I35 without stopping in Austin wont clog it up. Yeah ik its basically 130 but 130 is really long and curvy. Walkability (and general road improvements) - all new roads in the downtown area and suburbian residential communities have to have sidewalks, and all major arterials in downtown to have designated bike and bus lanes (Lavaca, Guadalupe, Cesar Chavez, 5th, 7th, San Jacinto, Trinity, 15th, MLK, etc.) Expansnion to Metro - ik project connect is doing this already, but to alleviate traffic and for environment and stuff lol we need rail from the suburbs to the city. I would like two rail routes - one starting in Leander and going down 183, through the domain, until it hits mopac, and then going down that just east of downtown until circle c, and the second going down 35 from rr premium outlets (actually wth why not georgetown) and down to slaughter. Trees Add more parks - the Robinson family has a bunch of land in the middle of NW austin, it would be really cool if we could buy a large plot of their ranch (like really large) and turn it in to a park with hiking trails and such OH and spend a bunch of money creating a large scale, permanent homeless facility, big enough to house every single homeless person in the city with food and water and stuff and get them off our interesecitons. ANd then cash out the check and move to Bali
1. Declare war against ERCOT and Austin Energy 2. Declare Chiles on 45th and Lamar the DMZ 3. More trains