Posted on 08/19/2020 9:07:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
A little less than a week ago, blue Austin made itself a laughingstock across the rest of Texas. The all-Democrat city council and its left-wing Mayor Steve Adler voted unanimously to chop $150 million out of the city’s $434 million dollar budget. That’s a cut of one-third.
Austin did this as the WSJ revealed that the fast-growing city of about a million leads the nation in the percentage increase of homicides in 2020. Yes, its rate of increase is worse even than New York and Chicago.
Austin recently billed itself as safe. It can no longer honestly say that it is.
The cuts are draconian, and the nature of the cuts is nonsensical. For instance, the council voted to do away with the mounted unit. That unit has been very effective at establishing order when rioters illegally take over city streets, without having to resort to more kinetic means of clearing thoroughfares.
Austin’s former police chief, Art Acevedo, sounded off after the vote and warned of “consequences” for taking so many police officers off the streets and so many useful assets away from those officers who remain. He called on residents to rise up and oppose the cuts.
“If you don’t speak up now,” Acevedo said during an interview with the city’s CBS affiliate after the vote last week. “If you don’t speak up and absolutely set on fire those phone lines, the emails, the letters to your mayor and council, standby to standby. The economic engine that drives that great city, that provides the quality parks, the quality libraries, the quality life that we’ve enjoyed, I say we because I still have property there, is going to go by the wayside.”
Acevedo is merely previewing for Austin what’s already happening in Seattle,
(Excerpt) Read more at pjmedia.com ...
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott appeared with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other leaders including Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price Tuesday to address Austin’s defunding its police. Gov. Abbott proposed legislation that would forbid any city from being able to increase property taxes until it restores funding to satisfy the proposed law.
There will be sausage-making when the legislature convenes in January 2021. It’s impossible to predict at this point exactly what the law, if one passes, will look like. There may be more than one. Austin’s batty brand of leftism makes it a frequent target of the more conservative legislature. The lege will have more ideas for punishing it next year.
Former Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel, for instance, has proposed taking APD away from the city entirely and putting it under the state Department of Public Safety. Former Mayor Lee Leffingwell has endorsed Flannigan’s opponent in November, Mackenzie Kelly of Take Back Austin. Everyone seems to recognize that Austin has a problem, other than those elected to set budget and policy and the fringe activists they listen to.
Today’s move by the state’s top leaders suggests they have a galvanizing issue at a time when they might have gone into session more divided. Austin’s move has probably taken Texas off the map for the Democrats in the upcoming presidential election.
Has the Overton window shifted to being able to talk about well regulated militias yet?
Democrats: bowing to the enemies of our civilization because they share goals with them.
Given Abbott’s tone-deafness when it comes to addressing runaway property taxes, it now appears that the most effective form of tax relief is to de-fund local police departments.
Send them a bill for 1000x the cost.
Actually, it is K-12 property tax that is the most punishing, as I hear it.
The police vacuum will be partially filled by private security contractors...for a price.
For the time being, the state should hire all the laid off Austin police, then put them in Texas State Trooper (Highway Patrol) uniforms and station them all in Austin. Then send Austin the bill to pay for them.
Then augment their numbers with police laid off from other police departments willing to relocate. So Austin would be up to its eyebrows in cops. And all working under state, not city rules.
And those arrested by them would go to state, not city, jails, under state laws, even if they are dozens of miles away from Austin.
With no police on the streets in Austin then who’s going to protect the looters, rioters, arsonists, child molesters, and murderers from the wrath and fury of an armed populace?
Nobody should side with Austin. Let’s see how they make out and how long it will take them to reverse course.
As long as I’m not footing the bill for ‘em, I dont’t care if another agency manages them. But, I prefer that the residents of Austin get what they voted for, and learn their lesson.
Everyone in Texas goes on and on about how bad Austin is, but just wait.
Sooner or later the state of Texas will need an enema, and then we’ll be darn glad to have Austin!
Yup, they voted for it just like Portland. Portland disbanded their police gun violence prevention program (too many of those contacted were black) and the homicide rate is over doubled in a month.
Austin and Portland claim sister city status in both being proud that they are weird.
E: Everyone in Texas goes on and on about how bad Austin is, but just wait.
Yes, the Californians are coming by the thousands, abandoning their state, and they’re bringing their politics and voting habits with them. Add the illegals in and Texas will be Texas no more in the future.
DemoRats insist and persist in promoting policies proven not to work and that leads to destructive results. Throw facts, reason and logic to the wind while claiming to have the higher ground in governance. It’s madness and lunacy yet it’s onward Warriors of Social Justice and Equality. To the abysses they go gladly. So many fools it’s bewildering.
The only good thing about Austin is that it is surrounded by Texas.
I will never again even pass through that city without being well armed. As it is, I usually carry there anyway, but now it is required. The Schitty Council has made it clear that they’re not interest in the safety of the public, so we have to act accordingly.
Either that, or just boycott the whole damned place - don’t visit, don’t buy products from any Austin company (and let them know why, so they can feel the pressure and then turn it on the idiots in the government).
Sixth Street is dead to me.
The all-Democrat city council and its left-wing Mayor Steve Adler voted unanimously to chop $150 million... the fast-growing city of about a million leads the nation in the percentage increase of homicides in 2020. Yes, its rate of increase is worse even than New York and Chicago... Austin's former police chief, Art Acevedo, sounded off after the vote and warned of "consequences" for taking so many police officers off the streets and so many useful assets away from those officers who remain... "If you don't speak up now," Acevedo said during an interview with the city's CBS affiliate after the vote last week. "If you don't speak up and absolutely set on fire those phone lines, the emails, the letters to your mayor and council, standby to standby. The economic engine that drives that great city, that provides the quality parks, the quality libraries, the quality life that we've enjoyed, I say we because I still have property there, is going to go by the wayside."
Art Acevedo must be one-a-them white hispanics!!! /sarc
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