Posted in Energy, Good Government, tagged Austin, City Council, debate, election, Energy, kathy tovo, randi shade, run-off, solar, Texas on June 17, 2011 |
Solar Austin held a debate between Austin City Council Place 3 candidates Randi Shade and Kathy Tovo. The focus was on energy issues. Here is a brief excerpt from the debates where each candidate addresses a question about how an increase of electricity rates should be handled.
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The election is this Saturday, June 18. You can view the entire debate here:
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Posted in Campaign Finance, tagged Austin, Austin American-Statesman, austin city council, Campaign Finance, city of austin, electric cars, Kathie Tovo, randi shade, Taxi, taxis, Texas on June 13, 2011 |
Although the taxi cab industry in Austin is not often considered a power player in politics, individuals, top executives and owners have spent thousands of dollars in this city council election cycle. In particular, the election for the Austin City Council Place 3 seat has seen substantial amounts of money flow into it from the taxi cab companies. The race is between incumbent Randi Shade and newcomer Kathie Tovo. With well over $210,000 raised by the candidates, the taxi companies have accounted for nearly $18,000 of that money.
The influx of money can be attributed to disagreements within the industry by management and cab drivers as described in the Austin American Statesman article by Ben Wear. In the article, General Manager of Austin Yellow Cab Edward Kargbo is quoted as saying that they donated to “council members who we have found to be open to sitting down and hearing both sides.” The main debate is over whether legacy permits should be issued by the city council. The permits would allow drivers with at least 5 years of experience to bypass the three major taxi companies in Austin. The taxi companies are worried that this would lead to a loss of control in the marketplace. In the Place 3 election, Tovo has stated she is in favor of legacy permits whereas Shade has said she is opposed to it.
The large proportion of money that the taxi industry has devoted to this campaign has some people worried like Electric Cab owner Chris Nielsen who has said that City Council members were influenced by donations by cab executives. From The Statesman:
Yellow Cab and Austin Cab were granted five-year franchises in May 2010 by the council. Both votes were unanimous, although Morrison and Riley were not present when the Austin Cab vote occurred. The taxi drivers association at the time argued that given its concerns over the taxi fees and other issues, the term of the franchises should have been much shorter than five years.
The council’s response to the drivers’ concerns was to pass a resolution ordering the city’s staff to develop recommendations on a variety of issues involving taxis. In September, city staffers gave the council a briefing that included some immediate recommendations and items for further study.
Those recommendations included putting into the city code regulations for “low-speed electric vehicles,” a suggestion that has complicated the taxi dynamic this election season.
That proposed ordinance, which was to come before the council on April 21 , would allow the sole Austin company running those golf cart-like vehicles to potentially compete directly with taxis for short trips downtown. The company, Electric Cab of Austin, currently operates only as a shuttle contractor for hotels, rather than as a taxi service.
Two days before it was to come up, however, Shade raised concerns at a council work session about authorizing a new business while study of the overall taxi industry was ongoing. The council decided to table that matter for three to six months.
Electric Cab owner Chris Nielsen , who had flirted earlier in the year with running against Shade, claimed that she and other council members were influenced by the donations they had received from the cab executives. No, Shade said.
“It’s not the city’s job to create a special niche for one guy’s business,” she said.
Nielsen, still angry about the delay, said last week that on the May 14 election day he talked to Yellow Cab employees passing out Shade campaign fliers near the O. Henry Middle School polling place.
He said they told him they were from Houston and were paid by their company to travel to Austin and do the electioneering.
Not so, Shade said, after checking with Kargbo with Yellow Cab. Kargbo said that the Yellow Cab contingent did include employees from Houston, none of them drivers, and some nonemployees.
They were campaigning exclusively for Shade, he said.
Regarding Nielsen’s claim about the workers being on the Yellow Cab payroll during their Austin stay, Kargbo said: “That is 100 percent inaccurate. No one was paid to come up and do anything for Shade.”
With the election coming to a climax later this week, it is likely we are going to see even more money flow into the two campaigns. However, almost 12% of the money raised so far came from the taxi cab industry. It appears that of all the issues facing the city of Austin, the taxi cab debate is one of the most influential yet least talked about issues in the race. Yet the least talked about issue could be the one that decides the City Council Election for the Place 3 seat.
Posted in Energy, Renewables, tagged Austin, austin city council, Austin Energy, boma, building owners and managers association, david power, gemini solar, Gemini Solar Development Company, laura morrison, Lee Leffingwell, mike martinez, Public Citizen, randi shade, sheryl cole, solar plant, solar power, spansion, Texas, Webberville on March 5, 2009 |
This afternoon the Austin City Council moved unanimously to approve Item 16 on the agenda, the purchasing power agreement with Gemini Solar Development Company to build a 30 MW solar plant at the Webberville tract. That means that by the end of 2011, Austin should be the proud home of the nation’s largest utility scale photovoltaic installation. This is a tremendous milestone for both the City and Austin Energy that will set us up as a leader in solar energy, create jobs, attract industry, and protect our citizens from volatile future energy prices while curbing our global warming emissions.
Lee Leffingwell made the motion to approve item 16 with three additional recommendations. The first direction was to include a provision that any federal stimulus funds, rebates, or incentives recovered would be passed on to Austin, rather than kept by Gemini. The second was to create a new task force to review future energy projects. The task force, he promised, would consist of diverse stakeholders and not be weighted in terms of energy usage. This is an important point, as several representatives from the city’s large scale industrial users such as Spansion and the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) specifically requested that future stakeholder meetings be based upon the size of user consumption– meaning that in future energy projects, city council dialogue would be dominated even more than ever by large industrials. As David Power, Public Citizen’s Deputy Director, testified, that sounds a little too much like, “for every dollar I spend, I get a vote.” Cheers to Lee Leffingwell for insisting on a more inclusive process.
The third and final additional direction was, as expected, to roll the power purchase agreement into Green Choice, so that citizens would be able to voluntarily opt into a program to buy solar power at a locked-in price. Councilman Mike Martinez stated that he would be more than happy to be the first person to sign up for such a program, except that Leffingwell already called “shotgun” on that distinction.
Council members Sheryl Cole, Laura Morrison, and Randi Shade all made additional comments in support of the plant, stating that this was a tough decision to make in hard economic times but that this solar plant, far from a luxury item, was an important element of Austin’s long term energy goals.
The Austin City Council has earned Public Citizen’s most heartfelt appreciation for proving itself, once again, a renewable energy leader. We especially respect the time and effort that the Council and its staff put into this contentious process, and look forward to working with them on future projects.
We also encourage Austinites to express their thanks to the Mayor and City Council for approving this historic first step towards our renewable energy future.
Posted in Global Warming, tagged Austin, austin city council, Austin Energy, matthew johnson, Nuclear, Nuclear Power, paul robbins, randi shade, Roger Duncan, south texas nuclear project, South Texas Project, Texas, worley parsons on February 12, 2009 |
Hip-hip- HOORAY! After a series of informative, provocative presentations and public comments this morning, the Austin City Council voted unanimously to DECLINE participation in the South Texas Nuclear Project’s expansion plan.
Austin has a 16% stake in the current South Texas Nuclear Project, and has been questioning for months whether it should be a financial participant in new plans to double the capacity of that plant. Months ago a consultant firm, Worley Parsons, was hired by Austin Energy to investigate whether this would be a good idea for Austin’s future.
First to present was Roger Duncan, general manager of Austin Energy. He gave a presentation on the consulting firm’s recommendations. We learned the following:
The consulting firm concluded that with only a 16% stake in the project, Austin Energy would have insufficient owner protection from the scheduling, cost, contractor and regulatory risks involved in the project. For example, if significant cost overruns did occur, Austin Energy would not have any vote or say in the matter of how to proceed. Furthermore, large capital costs would be associated with the project throughout 2016 — but none of that cost risk would be within Austin Energy’s control. The firm also warned of a potential downgrade of Austin Energy’s bonds because of the extended time period of debt issuance without cost recovery.
Because of the significant amount of unacceptable risk associated with the the expansion project, Worley Parsons recommended that Austin NOT participate. As an Austin Energy spokesman Mr. Duncan announced that the utility had reached the same conclusion with the additional reasoning that Austin has no need for the 432 MW of base-load power that the project would eventually supply. We wouldn’t even know what to with all that power. Austin Energy also expressed concerns (rightly so!) that the nuclear waste issue remains unresolved. (more…)
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