Big crowd turns out on a hot day to hear what the little known candidate would do
Part 3 in a series Updated May 5, 2014 9:50pm (to add a transcript of Adler’s recorded speech)
Steve Adler and supporters onstage at his campaign kickoff May 4.
The shaded concrete bleachers at the City Hall plaza were filled with supporters of 58-year-old attorney Stephen Ira “Steve” Adler, who’s not well known outside the numerous nonprofit organizations that he’s assisted and led. The open-air plaza was likewise populated by fans standing in the 92-degree hot sun and enjoying treats from Amy’s Ice Cream.
Adler, who’s widely known for being soft-spoken, was nevertheless forceful in delivering a 22-minute speech that touched on most every major area of concern and sometimes varied from Steve Adler’s Scripted Campaign Kickoff Speech that was shared with the press during the event. (For a more accurate account of his speech, listen to the recording linked near the bottom of this article.)
Adler did not address his main political opponents by name, those being declared candidate Mike Martinez and possible candidate Sheryl Cole, both of whom have served on the Austin City Council since 2006.
But he took a backhanded swipe at both, near the end of his speech, when he said, “Others have had the chance over the last eight years (the length of time that Martinez and Cole have been in office) to address the very same challenges we face today. It is time for new leadership.
“We don’t want experience in how things have been done in the past; we need a new and broader experience and a vision for how things should be done tomorrow.”
In telling his life story Adler noted that his father died when he was 21 and his mother followed six years later. He attended both Princeton University and the University of Texas Law School on scholarships, he said, and chose the latter “because it was the cheapest law school in the country.”
He expressed gratitude for the iconic Barton Springs Pool by saying he had dipped into its cool, clear water within 45 minutes of arriving in Austin (that being the summer of 1978).
Adler noted his years of service for then State Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso), his work as a civil rights lawyer after graduation from law school, and his leadership in numerous nonprofit organizations (all of which were detailed in Part 2 of this series).
“Throughout my career, I have defended renters and landowners when the government or big corporations were unfairly taking their property,” Adler said. “I’ve defended small and large business of all kinds across the state, over a dozen churches, and the Texas Nature Conservancy—and I’ve seen that the government doesn’t always work for everyone. That’s why I’ll work hard every day to ensure that our city government works for all of us in Austin.”
Growth and challenges
“Mayor (Lee) Leffingwell promised to jumpstart the economy and create jobs,” Adler said. “He did. And we owe him a debt of gratitude. But now we must deal with the challenges that growth brings.”
Among the challenges he named were traffic congestion, increased poverty, and floods. Also education, affordability, and protecting the environment and neighborhoods.
“To meet our challenges we need a new way forward,” Adler said. “That’s why I’m running for mayor.”
“It’s appropriate that today we meet in front of City Hall,” Adler said. “Soon, the whole city takes over this building. Today marks the beginning of the citizens’ council. We will have new communities and new leaders sitting at the council table in that building for the first time.
“Together we’ll chart a new way forward,” Adler said. “We will focus on common goals rather than what divides us.”
Family and supporters
Sarah, Susan and Karen, daughters of Steve Adler and Diane Land
Adler was introduced with brief speeches from each of his three daughters, Sarah, Susan, and Karen; by nonprofit executive directors Cookie Ruiz of Ballet Austin and Julia Cuba of GENaustin (Girls Empowerment Network), and by the former Senator Shapleigh.
He closed his speech by introducing and embracing his wife, Diane Land, founder, president and CEO of DT Land Group Inc.
Among the notable people in the audience to support Adler, interviewed before the speech, were Kerry Tate, founder of the Tate Austin public relations firm and now a partner at Moore-Tate Projects + Design LLC and a founding partner at Civic Interest LLC.
Kerry Tate
Tate said she had collaborated with Adler when he worked on education issues during legislative sessions and said of Adler, “He’s smart as a whip.”
Tate said she had been trying to recruit good candidates to run for mayor when in January she heard from Eugene Sepulveda, Adler’s campaign treasurer, that Adler was going to run.
She said she thinks Adler’s experience as an attorney will be valuable in the mayor’s role “because he understands land use and will have the city as a client.”
Gerald Daugherty
Precinct 3 Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty, a Republican, also attended.
“I’m ready for a change, to give a guy a shot who’s been a business guy,” Daugherty. “One of the problems we’ve got is we can’t get business-minded people involved. Some of my party are against government in general,” he said. “… most people want to see some changes.”
Newfound interest in city politics
Adler’s praise for the “citizens’ council” that will be implemented by the mayor and council members elected under the new 10-1 system is remarkable but in fact constitutes a profound shift in his political focus: from the state to the local.
After all, he cut his political teeth working as Senator Shapleigh’s chief of staff and general counsel in the legislative sessions of 1997-2005.
To be sure he has been deeply involved in important local issues through the various nonprofit organizations detailed in Part 2 of this series.
And, in Part 1, Adler praised the 10-1 system and said he voted its passage.
But examination of the contribution and expenditure reports filed by Austinites for Geographic Representation—the grassroots coalition that petitioned to get the measure on the ballot in November 2012—indicate that Adler did not contribute any money to assist the campaign in winning voter approval.
Adler and Land contributed nothing to the mayoral elections of 2009 and 2012, not to Lee Leffingwell or Brewster McCracken in 2009, and not to Leffingwell or Brigid Shea in 2012, according to a review of the contribution and expenditure reports filed by those mayoral candidates.
Adler’s relative disinterest in Austin politics is all the more remarkable, given his generous support for statewide issues.
Over a four-year period, while Adler served on the organization’s board of directors, he and Land contributed $75,050 to the nonprofit Texas Tribune, which covers state politics, state government, and state policy.
This mayoral candidate has given significant time, energy, and money to numerous important causes
Part 2 of a series
Steve Adler
Stephen Ira “Steve” Adler has for decades been an attorney specializing in eminent domain cases to protect the rights of property owners in condemnation proceedings.
But what has he done to demonstrate he has the skills needed to lead Austin into a new era of grassroots governance, in which for the first time every area of the city will have a representative seated on the council dais?
Plenty, according to the leaders of numerous significant organizations.
Adler started law school at the University of Texas in summer semester 1978, fresh out of Princeton, and immediately jelled with fellow law student Eliot Shapleigh, a future Texas state senator.
Eliot Shapleigh
Shapleigh said in a recent interview that after serving three years in the Peace Corps he entered law school at the same time as Adler. Both were slow to graduate, Shapleigh in 1981, Adler in 1982.
“We took off a year and worked for Procter & Gamble,” Shapleigh said. “One of his friends in Princeton had a connection and Steve and I went over there and learned how to take a product and market and got an experience in life.”
For Adler, earning money was essential: “I took off a year-and-a-half after my first year to make some money to finish law school,” he said.
Shapleigh said, “We got to be really good friends, played on the touch football team against a guy who defended (President Richard) Nixon, Charles Alan Wright. … Our team was set up to defeat Wright… (but) I broke my thumb so we got beat pretty bad.”
Adler and Shapleigh formed a lasting bond that included being best man at each others weddings. Adler married Melany Maddux in 1989 and they divorced in 1995. In 1998 he married Diane Tipton Land, president and CEO of DT Land Group Inc. The couple celebrated their 16th anniversary last month.
In 1996 Adler helped Shapleigh, an El Paso Democrat, achieve a come-from-behind election victory for a seat in the Texas Senate, then served as his chief of staff and later general counsel during the legislative sessions of 1997 through 2005.
“He wanted to do pubic education and in a few short months he was the expert on school funding formulas and how that works,” Shapleigh said of Adler’s quick mastery.
Wayne Pierce
Wayne Pierce, EdD, executive director of the Equity Center, an organization that since 1982 has worked to correct gross inequities in the state’s school finance system, is also enthusiastic about Adler’s work on educational issues. Pierce has led the Equity Center since June 2000, a period that coincided with Adler’s service on Shapleigh’s staff for several legislative sessions.
“He’s brilliant, he’s extremely intelligent, he’s very logical in his approach,” Pierce said of Adler. “He’s soft spoken. He can talk with people who have different opinions about things and he can sit and talk with you in a way that’s not confrontational. If you had a problem that was really thorny he could … analyze it and come up with a rational fair way of getting though it.”
Adler’s work during legislative sessions provided a demanding seasonal job in addition to keeping up his law practice.
Shapleigh recalls, “He said, ‘I’m not here for the pay.’ He would work in his law office till about 11am, and then Steve would show up at the Legislature around noon when the committees cranked up and he’d do his work.”
“During (legislative) sessions he would come give us 10 to 12 hours a day,” Shapleigh said. “I don’t think the guy slept.”
About Adler’s pay? Steve Adler’s Pay Record as Texas Senate Staff Member obtained through a public information request indicates that Adler started at $3,000 a month in January 1997 but quickly ratcheted down so that by the 1999 session, and for the rest of his time serving Shapleigh’s office through the 2005 legislative session, he was paid $50 a month. His biggest perk: a parking place.
Shapleigh credits Adler for being a superlative problem solver. In one of the last legislative sessions Adler worked, two behemoth financial interests were at loggerheads over how a gas pipeline company could get authority to run lines under the railroad tracks intersecting the pipeline route. Railroads had owned fee-simple title since the 1850s, Shapleigh said, and were going to charge gas companies unheard of sums to allow the pipeline to cross under their tracks.
“These were equally powerful interests, 500-ton gorillas looking at each other,” Shapleigh said.
“Steve said, ‘If we give them the (gas company) ability to do condemnation on the square of land where the pipe crosses the railroad, you’ll get this done,’” Shapleigh said. Permitting the gas pipeline company to exercise the power of eminent domain allowed the case to go before an independent tribunal that set the price at fair market value. “That was the genius of it,” Shapleigh said.
“He came into the room with 40 people and worked it out, and had Democrats and Republicans hugging.”
Dennis Kearns
Dennis Kearns was a government affairs attorney for the BNSF Railway (Burlington Northern Santa Fe) and was directly involved in what had been an impasse. Kearns agreed with Shapleigh’s account.
“Steve was an excellent facilitator of the compromise language,” said Kearns, who retired from BNSF in late 2013. “I believe his skills as a negotiator and facilitator would serve him well as Austin Mayor.”
Early law practice
“When I graduated from law school (in 1982) I spent the ’80s doing civil rights law on cases here in Austin,” Adler said in an April 14 recorded interview. “I did probably more Title VII EEOC (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 established the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) cases than anybody else in this city, so the hearings examiner told me in the ’80s.
“I was in federal court suing on behalf of workers. Hispanic workers that were being … denied the opportunity to go to the heavier pieces of equipment, and the heavier pieces of equipment brought with it the promotions and the additional pay. I was in court for sexual harassment cases, equal pay cases on behalf of women, and handled a lot of cases at the administrative level, both at the Austin Human Rights Commission and the EEOC in San Antonio.”
“He didn’t start as condemnation attorney,” Shapleigh said of Adler. “He was doing Title VII. He would go up against Kirk Watson as defense lawyer and Steve was plaintiff’s attorney.” Watson in 1997 was elected Austin’s mayor. He ran for state attorney general in 2002 (losing to Greg Abbott), and in 2006 succeeded Gonzalo Barrientos as state senator. Back then, in Adler’s Title VII cases, Watson was Governor Ann Richard’s appointee to head the Texas Air Control Board, one of the agencies that merged into what is now the state environmental agency.
Senator Watson did not return calls requesting comment that were left at his Husch Blackwell LLP law office and Capitol office.
Shapleigh said, “He become one of the best condemnation lawyers in Texas. One of the two or three best in state, and then he would go to Legislature and work on one of the most complicated things, school finance.”
Education a continuing focus
In Part 1 of this series, Adler stated his intention to make education a priority if elected mayor, hardly surprising given the numerous nonprofit organizations he’s been part of that focused on education.
Even before leaving Senator Shapleigh’s staff in June 2005, Adler, along with Michael Nixon and Jonathan L. Collins, in November 2004 formed a nonprofit corporation called the Citizens Commission on Educational Excellence Inc., “to support various programs and policies beneficial to the educational goals of the people of Texas.”
In October 2005 the name was changed to The Citizens Commission on Educational Excellence Inc. and the board was expanded to include Adler’s wife, Diane Land, and Ann Kitchen (who served in the Texas House 2001-2003 and is currently a District 5 candidate for Austin City Council).
The effort was short-lived, as the charter was forfeited in September 2006.
Fred Lewis
“Texas was last in (school) funding, paid teachers poorly, had high dropout rates, a regressive school-tax-finance system and we were trying to promote a fair system, a better funded system, a more equitable system,” Austin attorney Fred Lewis said of this initiative.
“Steve and I tried to start up a nonprofit to better fund education to raise teachers’ salaries and quality of programs in public schools and create a fair tax system. I was temporary executive director. We never raised enough money to make it viable.”
Lewis is supporting Adler for mayor, he said.
“He is a big-picture person but he’s got the skills to be practical and he brings people together. … He cares about quality, equity, and fairness to those who have less.”
(Disclosure: Lewis is a friend of Bulldog editor Ken Martin.)
Girls Empowerment Network
Also related to education is Adler’s work with the Girls Empowerment Network of Austin, a nonprofit originally formed in 1997 as The Ophelia Education Foundation. Its purpose was to work with local school districts to implement programs for greater self-esteem and career awareness for adolescent girls. The name was changed to GENaustin in 2001 and the corporation involuntarily dissolved in April 2008.
Two years later, in April 2010, GENaustin was restarted with board members including District Judge Darlene Byrne, Linda Benge, Christie Horne, Richard Bennett, Jane Chambers, Steve Adler, and 11 other directors—one of which is Diane Land, Adler’s wife.
Since reforming, GENaustin has expanded to provide a number of programs including clubGEN for girls in grades 4-8, the We Are Girls Conference, girlTALK, girlCONNECT, and the 180 Program for prevention and intervention to reach girls in middle and high school at high risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system.
Rossana Barrios
Rossana Barrios is the immediate past chair of GENaustin and has been involved in the organization for more than a decade, she said. As such, she worked with Adler.
“Steve was very instrumental in establishing a strategic plan for the board. He was extremely proactive. He would sit down with you individually,” said Barrios, who previously served more than four years as chief of staff for then-Council Member Brewster McCracken.
“When I first came on the board there wasn’t as much interaction among the members. He made us a much more collaborative board. I just admired his style of doing more one-on-one with the board members to see what you as an individual would bring to the board” Barrios said. “He’s a great listener, great at collaborating.”
Breakthrough Austin
Breakthrough Austin is another nonprofit organization focused on education with which Adler has served.
Breakthrough was incorporated in February 2001 for the purpose of conducting tuition-free programs including but not limited to summer and after-school programs for middle- and high-school students. Its programs were designed to improve student capabilities, especially those from low-income and diverse ethnic backgrounds, for academic success in college preparatory classes and to encourage them to become teachers.
Adler joined the Breakthrough board of directors in September 2009 and is still on it. He served as board chair in 2012 according to the organization’s IRS Form 990 tax return.
Today, Breakthrough’s mission is to create first-generation college graduates. “Our philosophy is built on the belief that there are no quick fixes and that early, long-lasting interventions can make the difference between dropping out of high school or going to college,” according to its website.
“Breakthrough admits students in middle school and provides intensive, academically rigorous programming for three to four summers, year-round case management, and personalized, long-term support,” the website states.
Micheal Griffth, executive director of Breakthrough Austin, and board members Taylor Sisson and Brian Roberts, did not return calls for comments about Adler’s service with Breakthrough.
Anti-Defamation League
Adler has long been a local leader with Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Austin and also played a significant role at the national level for the organization.
Karen Gross
Karen Gross is now a criminal defense attorney but for three years, 2009-2012, she was executive director of ADL Austin, when Adler chaired the board.
“One major accomplishment has been the growth of the No Place For Hate Program, which provides preventive education in schools,” Gross said. “Right now (Austin Independent School District) is working to make sure every school earns that designation.” Schools wanting to participate must create a student-led coalition that selects and implements three programs to promote respect for individual difference while challenging bigotry and prejudice. “We hit a tipping point when Steve was chair. … Now it’s directed from the top, the superintendent.”
“The intent (of the Task Force) is to take groups our of their silos and bring them to the table three times a year to talk about issues related to bias and hate, and look at what our community can do to make Central Texas more welcoming and inclusive,” Gross said.
Diane Land
Gross noted that Adler’s wife, Diane Land, was on the ADL Austin board at the same time he was. ‘When looking for good board members you look for people who can give us their time, who can reach out to their networks to fundraise, and who can give us their talents,” Gross said. “And rare are the board members who can give all three. Steve and Diane are those rare gems.”
Kirk Rudy
Kirk Rudy, founding principal and chief executive officer of the Endeavor Real Estate Group, is still on the ADL Austin board and served when Adler chaired the board as well.
“He made ADL the go-to civil rights organization in Austin,” Rudy says of Adler. “He was instrumental in creating the Hate Crimes Task Force.”
“There are few people I know who have the smarts and the compassion and the listening ability and the wise counsel that Steve has. He has the whole package. I’ve always thought of him as a convener of people with different interests. He has a unique ability to bring people together and move them in a positive direction,” Rudy said. “He’s one of the leaders I’d follow to the ends of the earth.”
Like everyone interviewed about Adler, Rudy remarked on the mayoral candidate’s quiet way of speaking. “I used to make fun of him because he talks softly to get people to listen to him,” Rudy said. “He makes you move closer and work harder to listen.”
Barry Curtis-Lusher
Adler’s work for the Anti-Defamation League extends far beyond Austin and in fact has had an impact nationally and internationally, according to Barry Curtiss-Lusher, ADL’s national chairman.
Curtiss-Lusher said that the ADL Austin office started as a satellite of the organization’s Houston office. “Steve grew it and launched it as an independent office,” he said.
He said that Adler serves on ADL’s national executive committee and chairs the Washington Affairs Committee, a job that Curtiss-Lusher requested he take.
“The Washington Affairs Committee deals with Congress and national issues that arise beyond the scope of any one region, and usually involves federal law, such as hate crimes, extremism, and issues such as discrimination and separation of church and state,” Curtiss-Lusher said. “We have professionals in Washington that work for and against legislation. Steve works with developing policy and how to execute on it, so we have the kind of leadership in Washington to deal with it.”
Adler’s work with the ADL on the international level grew out of his work as a board member of Ballet Austin.
Ruiz made it clear that as a nonprofit leader she never gets involved in partisan politics and was speaking as an individual who knows Adler well, given his service on the Ballet Austin board since the late 1990s.
Among Austin’s nonprofits, Ballet Austin’s board of directors may be one of the largest. “I have 65 board members every year,” Ruiz said. Of Adler, she says, “The impact he has left has been transformational. In a fairly short time of coming on the board, the board members pushed him into leadership.”
“I could speak honestly for hours about all the things he has quietly done. His passion for community revolves around equal access, to be sure everyone has access,” Ruiz said. “Our job is to address barriers,” she said. “We give 10,000 tickets to people who can’t afford the cheapest $15 tickets for ballet performances. And people come and enjoy it, and that is an honor to us.”
“To Steve that means if you can’t hear, we need amplification devices. If you can’t see, we have audio describers, and Spanish language.”
“He’s one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met,” Ruiz said of Adler. “He’s the best of the best. … He’s rigorous around fiscal responsibility and governance, and he’s rigorous about us doing all we can do.”
Less well known about the Ballet is that in 2005 it created “Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project.” “It’s a dance work of art but preceded by three months of community-wide collaborative conversation about protection of human rights against bigotry and hate,” Ruiz said. “Steve helped us build that project, and … the Anti-Defamation League nationally has been our partner in this project.”
The Project travelled to Pittsburgh in 2009, Miami in 2012, and Denver in early 2013. A three-city tour of Israel was conducted later in 2013.
“Steve was responsible for meeting people (in Israel), introducing us, creating open doors,” Ruiz said. The project spent three weeks in Israel “as a result of Steve’s two and a half or three years of work.”
Jon Ivester
Jon Ivester, senior vice president of operations for Silicon Labs, and a recent board chair of Ballet Austin, was similarly effusive about Adler’s work.
“He was a motive force to make that trip to Israel happen, and worked with the folks in Israel and Washington to clear the way for that, to get the funding for that in Austin and elsewhere,” Ivester said. “A lot of others were involved but in my mind, Steve was the guy who made that happen,” Ivester said.
Curtiss-Lusher said, “I was with Steve in Israel, to meet people in Tel Aviv to bring the ballet project to Israel. … When we first started talking to the Israelis, to tell them about a special ballet from Austin, Texas, that teaches a unique story about the Holocaust, and they’re saying, ‘Exactly how are you going to arrange that?’
“He was masterful,” Curtiss-Lusher said of Adler. “He’s a tenacious guy and got it done.”
Texas Tribune
The news organization that launched with great fanfare in November 2009 has had a tremendous effect on state politics, state policy, and state government, and has made a name for itself as one of the great success stories among nonprofit news organizations.
Steve Adler served on the Texas Tribune’s board of directors from the beginning in 2009. In fact, he was serving as board chairman when he resigned on January 12, 2014, to run for mayor.
John Thornton
Founder John Thornton, a longtime general partner in Austin Ventures, declined to be interviewed for this article, stating in an e-mail, “When we started the Trib, I retired from partisan politics. And I think that likely extends to commenting publicly on someone who is running for mayor. Other than to say that Steve was an early supporter, a fine board member, and briefly a fine board chair. I stepped back into that role on an interim basis when he decided to run for mayor.
As for being an early supporter, the Texas Tribune IRS Form 990s indicate that Adler and wife Diane Land contributed $50,000 to the organization in 2009, $10,050 in 2010, and $15,000 in 2012 (the latest return available), for a total of $75,050. The Tribune verified that Adler and Land contributed nothing in 2011.
Of all the nonprofits in which Adler has been involved that were researched for this article, only the Tribune made public a list of its major donors by reporting them on Form 990s.
The IRS does not require public disclosure of major donors and none of the other nonprofits interviewed would say how much money Adler has donated, although most did say that his financial support was substantial.
He views the 10-1 system as a gift and an opportunity to restart, revitalize city government
Part 1 of a series
Steve Adler
It may have been inevitable that Stephen Ira “Steve” Adler, a soft-spoken attorney, would one day want to lead the City of Austin into a new era of governance.
Adler is one of three children born to Lee Elliott Adler and Selma Adler. He was born in Washington. DC, March 23, 1956, and raised in that city and in Maryland, where he went to public schools. He grew up steeped in the culture of national news and political coverage broadcast from Washington by CBS television, where his father worked. As a boy he sometimes found himself in the studio with legendary journalists Eric Sevareid, Roger Mudd, and White House reporter Dan Rather, with an occasional visit from New York-based Walter Cronkite.
As a budding 17-year-old high school senior Adler clerked for Congressman Gilbert Gude, R-Maryland, in the Capitol. It was 1973 and the Watergate hearings were underway that summer. Adler said he sat in on the Senate hearings on the only day, June 27, 1973, when John Lennon and wife Yoko Ono also attended the hearings. At the time Lennon was appealing a federal deportation order that sprang from President Richard Nixon’s disdain for Lennon’s political views and influence.
John Lennon and Yoko Ono at Senate Watergate hearings
Forty years later, in an exclusive interview with The Austin Bulldog, Adler said, “That was one of the highlights of my life. I sat behind John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was pretty cool.” (Unfortunately he didn’t get into the widely circulated photo shown here.)
Adler arrived in Austin in 1978 to attend law school at the University of Texas. He was fresh out of Princeton University with a bachelor of arts degree. “I worked and they gave me a scholarship, which is the only way I could go to the college I went (to).”
Over the ensuing decades Adler has spent a lot of time, energy, and money supporting nonprofit organizations and political causes. (The next story in this series will provide an in-depth examination of these community service endeavors.)
Now he wants to be Austin’s next mayor.
“I think that when you find yourself in a city that you love that has been so good to you, that’s facing the challenges that it’s facing with a new government restart, making it an absolutely crucial moment in time, and you are able to be able to help, I don’t know how you don’t do that. I don’t know how five years from now you look back and say, ‘I was in a position to be able to do something and I didn’t do it.’ That’s why I’m running.”
A new mayor for a new government
There has perhaps never been a time when electing the right mayor is more important.
Come January 2015, a new form of government will be implemented with council members elected from 10 geographic districts drawn by a nonpartisan commission.
Whoever is elected mayor will have the Herculean task of leading a City Council that will have no fewer than nine new members—most if not all of whom will have no experience in elective politics or making the momentous decisions that will affect our future.
All registered voters can cast ballots to decide who will be Austin’s next mayor, but only the residents of each district will decide who represents them on the council dais.
Only two incumbents now serving on the City Council—Chris Riley and Kathie Tovo—are eligible to run for reelection, and they will face off in District 9. The mayor and all other council members currently serving are term-limited and can only get on the ballot through a petition drive. None have initiated that effort.
Much depends on whether these new officeholders will coalesce behind a new mayor to do what’s best for the 11th most populous city in the United States—and one of the fastest growing.
Mike Martinez
The two leading announced mayoral candidates are current Council Member Mike Martinez and Adler.
Martinez, a council member since 2006, kicked off his campaign April 5.
The Austin Bulldog published an in-depth background investigation about Martinez on February 25, 2012, when he last ran for reelection as a council member.
Adler launches his campaign at 3:30pm Sunday May 4 at City Hall.
Sheryl Cole
Council Member Sheryl Cole is also contemplating running for mayor. Like Martinez, Cole has been on the City Council since 2006.
Randall Stephens
Aircraft maintenance technician Randall Stephens has appointed himself campaign treasurer to indicate his intention to compete as well.
The campaign that brought about a new system of electing people to the Austin City Council was years in the making.
Austinites for Geographic Representation formed a broad grassroots coalition, completed a six-months-long petition drive, and waged a vigorous campaign to win voter approval. And win it did in November 2012—despite an attempt to override the citizens’ initiative with a last-minute alternative ordinance placed on the ballot by council members who preferred something else.
Adler said he voted for the 10-1 plan (Proposition 3 on the November 6, 2012, ballot) and did not vote for the alternative 8-2-1 plan (Proposition 4). (Voters were able to vote for or against either or both of these propositions.)
Why is Adler running?
“There are a lot of wonderful things about Austin,” he said, “but I think there are challenges we face that are risking what makes Austin special, (which is) the reason that I stayed here when I got here in ’78. I think that we need to get long-term solutions to some of these issues.
“The need to do that’s happening at the same time that we’re moving to the 10-1 (form of) government and I think that the 10-1 government is a gift to the city, and provides an opportunity for a governance culture restart, a whiteboard. And I think that it provides us the dynamic to actually be able to meet those challenges in ways that we haven’t been able to in the past.
“I think that it’s critical that we get this right as we start because however it happens … good or bad, is going to get institutionalized and set for the next five, ten, 15 years.”
“I just think we need to be able to nail it.”
Later in the interview Adler said, “I think that I … have the skillset to be able to maximize the potential that 10-1 has. And at this point in our lives, Diane (Land, his wife) and I are in a position where we can do this.”
“I think that the new council and the new mayor have the opportunity to create something new and something that can more boldly and directly deal with the challenges that we face. When the citizens of Austin approved 10-1 they approved it with the expectation that it would work—and not that that government would seize and stop. So, I think there’s an obligation to make sure that that happens. As I go around and talk to the candidates that are running for city council. … I am real encouraged by the caliber of people that are running for those roles. I think it’s important for us to set this new government in a deliberative way, (a) thoughtful way. I have full belief that we can do it and do it well, and it’s the reason I’m running.”
What about Martinez, Cole?
Both Cole and Martinez, who also chairs the board of Capital Metro, have eight years of experience in managing city government from the dais. What does Adler think he can offer as mayor that neither one of them may be able to offer?
“I think I can offer a fresh eye and a new perspective, a new way forward,” Adler said. “I have been in and around government and city government for a long time. I’ve been in this city since 1978, but I think that moving forward we need to figure out a new and different way to deal with some of the challenges we have that we’ve been dealing with for the last eight, 10, 15 years and don’t seem to really be able to get a handle on.”
Of Cole and Martinez, Adler said, “I’m not running because they’ve done me wrong. I’m running because I think with the 10-1 system we need to be able to think forward. We need to take the fullest advantage of a cultural restart. We can’t be comfortable with how we’ve done things in the past. You know, we run the risk of reflexively going back to what we know best because we’ve done it before.
“But the traffic issues we face are issues that we’ve seen for a long time. We have issues with respect to affordability. We have issues with respect to the disparity and wealth in this city. We have issues relating to public education and funding in this city with AISD (Austin Independent School District). These are not new issues that we have. We just maybe need to look at them differently or move on them differently.”
Q&A on Adler’s priorities
The following exchange took place in a March 14 meeting with the candidate. Adler’s statements are direct quotes from the recorded interview.
Bulldog—What are your top priorities if you’re elected mayor?
Adler—I think the top priorities are dealing in a long-term way, setting a direction that we can follow consistently, implementing solutions to the challenges of traffic congestion, public school funding and programs, affordability, poverty, water, the environment.
Bulldog—Public education is a huge problem, but the city doesn’t have a direct impact on it. What would you do with respect to education?
Adler—I think one of the roles of the mayor is to use the bully pulpit and the power to convene in order to address the biggest issues facing Austin as a community. I think education is one of the biggest issues that we face as a community. I think it’s in the mayor’s portfolio for that reason alone. If you look at other cities, there are mayors that are getting involved in helping communities to address those issues.
Bulldog—Are those cities that have a strong mayor (system) or a (weak mayor) system like we have?
Adler—Both. San Antonio did. That’s a weak mayor system is my understanding. There are things that a mayor can do in terms of helping to set a community agenda and setting community focus. The funding formulas that redistribute the money once the state collects it are not being equitably applied at the City of Austin. There are Pre-K programs that we should have in the City of Austin and potential federal and other funding sources that we need to go after and seek. I understand that we have multiple independent school districts in the City of Austin but I think that the mayor and the City Council ought to be working with them and with the county to address these issues that cross jurisdictional lines and interests.
Economic incentives
Bulldog—On March 27, Mayor Lee Leffingwell sent out an e-mail update in which his quote of the week was, “I think it’s undeniable that incentives have played a key role in Austin’s economic success in recent years. Incentives have proven to be an effective tool that actually result in a benefit to the taxpayer.” Do you see a benefit to the taxpayer?
Adler—I think incentives are a tool that a city has and I think that the city ought to be able to have in its toolbox as many tools as (it) can in order to be able to succeed in its mission. My concern with the incentives application in the City of Austin is that we focus too much on rate of return, and the formulas that the city uses to assess those, and not enough attention on a return on values. I think that the use of incentives, if they were driving jobs that were in the 50-, 60-, 70-thousand-dollar range for people that live here, and incentives would enable us to get those jobs for those people where we wouldn’t have gotten them otherwise, then I could see using that tool in that kind of situation. I don’t see incentives themselves as being evil. I just think we have to be judicious on how we apply them.
Bulldog—But when you talk about changing from return on investment, which is the formula the city uses for what it’s giving up in order to get these jobs in here, and you talk about basic values it seems sort of squishy. You’re getting into good things but maybe intangible. How do you measure those things? How do you know that you’re making a good deal if you’re basing it on values instead of return on investment?
Adler—I don’t know exactly how you enforce those metrics but it would seem to me that there’s got to be a way to be able to tell whether or not people are bringing in jobs that are in that range, for example, and whether the people who are entering those jobs are people that already lived here. … I think it’s one of the things we should find out.
Water supply
Bulldog—The Lower Colorado River Authority has declared that we are in a drought of record. Lake Travis is drying up. The City of Austin and other jurisdictions in Central Texas are scrambling to find ground water. Where is the water going to come from to slake the thirst of our growing population?
Adler—I think we need to increase our reuse of water and I think we have to be prepared to increase our water conservation. I think those are the first two places we should look for increased water supply. I think we’re losing a lot of water in our infrastructure because it’s old. We should look at that.
Bulldog—If you had been on the City Council, would you have voted to build Water Treatment Plant 4?
Adler—I don’t understand spending that much money on a plant that at this point doesn’t seem to be something that we need or can use.
Transportation
Bulldog—Our roadways are over capacity, the traffic in Austin is among the worst in the nation. What mobility solutions would you favor?
Adler—It’s hard for me to imagine Austin in 25, 30 years when we go from two million people in the (Metropolitan Statistical Area) to what they predict is four million people. But even if we don’t sustain that kind of growth pattern, (and only grow to) three million people, without some kind of mass transit interconnected system that we don’t have today, it’s hard for me to imagine a future without rail. It’s hard for me to imagine a future without significantly greater bus connections. In addition to that, I think that there are additional roads that need to be built. But if you talk to the urban transportation people they say that if you build all of the (roads included in the) 2035 CAMPO plan, you build all of the roads and you build all of the rail, and all of the interconnectivity, that the traffic congestion problem is worse in 20, 25 years than it is today. Which means that in the conversation about mobility and traffic congestion we have to be talking about how we live and where we live as well. Because some of those are long-term planning issues that we need to drive to. It’s the kind of thing that Austin historically has not done well with. So we need to figure out how not to send 28- to 30-percent, or whatever it is, of the region’s jobs that are downtown, sending that number of people to and from downtown, or through downtown, every day. We need to have places where people can live closer to where they work and we need those kinds of expanded centers so that the only option for people isn’t working downtown.
Then I think we need to do a lot more with things like telecommuting. We are the perfect community to be doing a lot more of that than we do now. We need to do things like staggering work hours, getting some kind of community vision and purpose around the congestion issue. I think that would also work in a city like Austin.
Bulldog—Do you think that you can get large government agencies here that employ thousands of people to stagger their work hours?
Adler—I don’t know. But I think there needs to be an effort to try to do that.
Bulldog—Do you support a bond election this November for an urban rail system?
Adler—You know, we have a deliberate process that the city’s involved in right now that’s just about to make its recommendations. I was at some meeting the other day where they were talking about what the recommendations could be. The person speaking said that the recommendations would come from a continuum of rail or tires and that they hadn’t made a recommendation yet. So, I don’t know what the recommendation is going to be. But I would certainly support us acting in November to move that project, a project, forward. We need to do that.
Bulldog—There are kids and old people and people who don’t own cars, or are too poor or don’t want to have a car. They can’t get around unless they have a public transportation system.
Adler—I agree. We start isolating people and then it starts happening in social-service impacts. It’s all related. The transportation system is related to the affordability issue. When traffic is bad everybody wants to move downtown to avoid it. Everybody moves downtown and you start raising property values and you start chasing people away. You start chasing people away without a transit system and that becomes anything they would save in terms of (housing) gets eaten up in the transportation costs.
Chamber of Commerce, RECA
Bulldog—Are you a member of the Chamber of Commerce?
Adler—No
Bulldog—Have you ever been?
Adler—No. Although the newspaper (Austin American-Statesman) said I was chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. … It came out when they posted it online … the night before and I called over and said, “Really?” So it didn’t appear in the print edition but it was in the first posting (online).
Bulldog—How about RECA (the Real Estate Council of Austin)?
Adler—No.
Man in a hurry
Bulldog—From March 2009 through July 2013, you got five speeding tickets, took drivers education three times and paid $712 in fines. Is that correct?
Adler—Could be (blushing).
Bulldog—That’s what the municipal court records say.
Renewable energy
Bulldog—The City of Austin has achieved aggressive goals in purchasing green energy for its contribution to fighting climate change. In fact, the city has achieved its green energy goals years ahead of schedule. Do you support setting new goals to purchase more green energy?
Adler—Yes.
Bulldog—Do you have any idea how much more green energy? I think we’re shooting for like 35 percent and are right at it right now.
Adler—I don’t know what the specifics of the new goals should be.
Fayette Power Plant
Bulldog—What are your thoughts about shutting down our coal-fired power plant? We import some of the pollution from it right here in Austin and of course it’s allegedly causing deforestation in some orchards over there closer to the plant and all that kind of stuff?
Adler—I’d like to see us close it down.
Bulldog—Do you have any concept about how to go about it?
Adler—No.
City manager
Bulldog—Do we need a new city manager?
Adler—I don’t know the answer to that question. I think when we have the 10-1 new council we’ll be able to see whether or not that relationship is productive going forward. If it’s not then it would need to be fixed.
Part 2 in this series of stories about mayoral candidate Adler will address his early legal career and extensive community service.
The complaint came the day before the Travis County Commissioners Court could vote to approve an initial payment of $2.5 million to help pay for design and construction of SH45 SW and to be obligated to pay an additional $12.5 million by October 30.
The SOS Alliance has long opposed the construction of SH45 SW over the sensitive recharge zone of the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer. Daugherty has spearheaded efforts to get SH45 SW built.
The timing of the vote is important, given the recent Democratic Primary election. Former Travis County Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt is the Democratic nominee for county judge, and former City Council Member Brigid Shea is the party’s nominee for the Precinct 2 county commissioner’s seat that Eckhardt vacated to run for county judge. Both are unlikely to support the new highway.
In the November 2014 general election both have Republican opponents: Eckhardt faces Mike McNamara and Shea faces former Travis County Sheriff Raymond Frank.
Bill Bunch
The complaint, signed by William G. “Bill” Bunch, executive director of the SOS Alliance, alleges that Daugherty failed to turn over correspondence related to SH45 SW that the Alliance had asked for in a public information request May 10, 2013.
Commissioner Daugherty told The Austin Bulldog the criminal complaint “is nothing more than a rehash of the allegations they brought in the civil suit. I don’t put anything past Bill Bunch or the SOS organization to thwart the will of the people,” he said, referring to efforts to halt construction of SH45 SW.
County Attorney David Escamilla, to whom the SOS Alliance’s complaint was addressed, confirmed that he had received the complaint but could not comment.
Randy Leavitt
Attorney Randy Leavitt of the Law Office of Randy Leavitt confirmed that he is representing Daugherty in this matter.
Leavitt was one of three attorneys hired to represent the City of Austin when the mayor and City Council members were being investigated by the Travis County Attorney’s Office for violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act exposed by The Austin Bulldog’s investigative report of January 11, 2011.
Civil lawsuit against Daugherty
The SOS Alliance filed a lawsuit November 12, 2013, Cause No. D-1-GN-13-003876, alleging that Daugherty failed to provide requested records, for example e-mails related to the SH45 SW project that had been exchanged on the commissioner’s personal account.
Bunch and SOS attorney Adam Abrams deposed Daugherty on February 20, 2014, in the presence of a court reporter. The commissioner was represented by Assistant County Attorneys Anthony Nelson and Andrew Williams. (See: SOS Alliance v. Daugherty Oral Deposition.) The deposition is not final, however, until Daugherty and his attorney have reviewed it and had the opportunity to make corrections, Leavitt said.
The criminal complaint states that Daugherty admitted in the deposition that he uses his personal cell phone account for county business, that he used a laptop computer for county business and donated the computer without saving messages on it, that he deleted messages from his Travis County e-mail address relevant to SH45, and that he deleted text messages referencing county business.
The deletion of messages required to be kept is permissible only if copies are stored elsewhere and made available in response to a public information request, subject to exceptions provided for in the Texas Public Information Act.
The Local Government Records Act establishes a retention schedule for such records. The SOS Alliance claims Daugherty, who is the official records custodian for his office, has not retained the records for the required two years.
The SOS Alliance’s criminal complaint states that Daugherty has violated the Local Government Records Act by not retaining correspondence concerning county business and has thereby allegedly committed a misdemeanor punishable by Section 552.351 of the Texas Public Information Act.
Section 552.351 states “a person commits an offense if the person willfully destroys, mutilates, removes without permission as provided by this chapter, or alters public information. An offense under this section is a misdemeanor publishable by: a fine of not less than $25 or more than $4,000; confinement in the county jail for not less than three days or more than three months; or both the fine and confinement.”
Special prosecutor possible
A couple of past cases may foreshadow how the SOS Alliance’s complaint against Commissioner Daugherty might be handled.
David Escamilla
In August 2004, County Judge Sam Biscoe was arrested for driving while intoxicated. DWI offenses are normally prosecuted by County Attorney Escamilla’s office. But because the County Commissioners Court chaired by Biscoe approves the county attorney’s budget, Escamilla recused himself from the case. At that point it’s up the courts to appoint a special prosecutor. (The charge was ultimately dismissed based on Biscoe’s medical condition.)
Last November, the SOS Alliance filed a criminal complaint against Judge Biscoe for failing to file his personal financial statement. Failure to file a statement on time is a Class B misdemeanor. Once again the county attorney’s office was recused. Biscoe filed the statement after the complaint was filed.
Public information case has precedents
Although no criminal complaints were filed in two other cases in Central Texas, the lawsuit against Daugherty is based on the same grounds: failure to turn over communications about government business conducted on private devices or private accounts.
The Austin case—On March 1, 2011, The Austin Bulldog sued Mayor Lee Leffingwell, each City Council member, and the City of Austin over the citys’ refusal to turn over messages the elected officials exchanged about city business on private e-mail accounts between January 1, 2010, and January 27, 2011.
The city maintained that it did not collect, assemble, or maintain e-mails exchanged on private accounts and did not have legal access to those e-mails. The claim seemed inappropriate on its face given that The Austin Bulldog’s public information request for those records was addressed to the elected officials as well as the city. These elected officials are the official custodians of the records in their offices.
In the wake of The Austin Bulldog’s lawsuit and during the county attorney’s open meetings investigation the elected officials individually turned over widely varying numbers of e-mails they had exchanged about city business on their private e-mail accounts during the 13-month period.
In addition, a Council Resoluton Adopted April 7, 2011 ordered reforms to the City Council’s own electronic communications policies. Further, the resolution ordered the City Manager to reform e-mail practices for the city’s 12,000 employees and ordered the City Clerk to reform practices for the appointed members of the city’s boards and commissions.
The Austin Bulldog’s lawsuit is still pending in the Third Court of Appeals to resolve the issue of whether the public officials’ private e-mail addresses legally can be redacted, or blacked out, as they were in the messages the mayor and council members had exchanged about city business on private e-mail accounts. The appeal argues that allowing those e-mail addresses to be obliterated when responding to a public information request prevents discovery of whether elected officials participated in an illegal quorum discussion about city business using their private e-mail accounts—a violation of the Texas Open Meetings Act.
Bexar County case—The San Antonio Express-News requested e-mails about county business that Bexar County Commissioner Tommy Adkisson had sent or received on his personal e-mail account. The county requested an opinion from the Texas Attorney General, who ruled the e-mails were subject to the Texas Public Information Act and must be released.
Adkission refused and instead sued the attorney general in Adkisson v Abbott, Cause No. 03-00535-CV. The trial court confirmed the attorney general’s opinion and ordered release of the commissioner’s e-mails. Adkisson then filed an appeal with the Austin-based Third Court of Appeals.
George Hyde
Adkisson’s appeal was argued before the court in October and the decision is still pending, said attorney George Hyde of the Austin law firm Denton Navarro Rocha Bernal Hyde & Zech PC, who represents Commissioner Adkisson.
Legislative action—In 2013, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1368 and the governor signed it into law in June.
The bill requires that in responding to public information requests, public officials must provide e-mails about government business that are sent or received on private devices unless the subject matter otherwise qualifies to be withheld. In other words, electronic communications relating to official business will be accessible by law to the public, even if sent from a private e-mail account or mobile device.
Daugherty was elected to county commissioner in November 2012 and took office in January 2013.
SB 1368 became effective September 1, 2013.
This report was made possible by contributions to The Austin Bulldog, which operates as a 501(c)(3) to provide investigative reporting in the public interest. You can help sustain The Austin Bulldog’s reporting by making a tax-deductible donation.
Related Bulldog coverage: This is the 43rd story covering local government agencies’ problems and progress in dealing with open government issues.
