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In the last fiscal year, Capital Metro spent $772,000 on sponsored content about Project Connect, a proposed $7.1 billion overhaul of Austin's transit system.
On Nov. 3, Austin residents will choose whether to approve Proposition A, which would increase the city property tax by around 20% to help fund Project Connect, a 15-year, $7.1 billion overhaul of he city's transit system.
Although it has been in development since 2013, the plan is still opaque to some residents, who have questions about what it might mean for their neighborhoods—and their wallets.
This week, Austonia will be answering some questions, ranging from the cost of the plan to the projected ridership. Each day, we'll tackle a new one. So far, we've answered: How much will Proposition A raise my taxes if approved? and How feasible is Project Connect's $7.1 billion price tag? Now, for today's question, a two-parter:
How much has Capital Metro spent on advertising Project Connect? And who is funding the groups that oppose and support the plan?
Sponsored content, paid for by Capital Metro and providing a "quick snapshot" of Project Connect, has appeared on The Daily Texan, the Austin Business Journal, on radio stations and billboards—even in Instagram feeds.
Jenna Maxfield, a spokesperson for Capital Metro, wrote in an email to Austonia that the agency is required by the Federal Transit Administration to advertise public meetings and "create educational messages," which it does by paying for sponsored content on area news sites. In FY 2020, which ended Oct. 1, Capital Metro anticipates it spent $1.1 million on such messaging; the agency is still tallying its September expenses.
The sponsored content varies, but one thing is always missing: the cost of the project.
Jeffery Bowen has lived in Austin since 1989 and is a member of the Project Connect ambassador network, where he represents the Austin Neighborhood Council. The experience, he said, has left him concerned about transparency.
"There's a lot of confusion by the general voters," he told Austonia. "There's still some that think this is a bond. It's not."
Instead Proposition A would raise the city's property tax rate permanently, creating a revenue stream that would go toward the construction and maintenance of Project Connect.
A New Transit Plan for Austin | Project Connect by Capital Metrowww.youtube.com
These placements have fueled opposition groups, such as the political action committee Our Mobility Our Future and the recently formed nonprofit Voices of Austin, both of which have characterized Project Connect as something akin to smoke and mirrors.
Roger Falk, an Our Mobility Our Future analyst and Travis County Taxpayers Union volunteer, said Capital Metro would be better served spending that money on engineering studies. "They haven't done the planning," he said. "What they've done is spent all the money on marketing."
Our Mobility Our Future is a political action committee that is opposed to Project Connect.(Our Mobility Our Future)
On the other hand, some Austinites may have questions about the opposition groups.
Our Mobility Our Future is the latest iteration of a small group of motivated and monied conservatives who have bedeviled Capital Metro since the 1990s and helped defeat two previous light rail plans.
The political action committee has raised nearly $375,000, according to its July 15 and Oct. 5 campaign finance reports, with the majority coming from four donors: real estate investor John Lewis, Mercedes-Benz dealer Bryan Hardeman, Travis County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty and Aminez Therapeutics chairperson Jim Skaggs.
Voices of Austin is a 501(c)(4) organization, which means its financials are not public record. It describes itself as a bipartisan and diverse group with a goal "to change what is happening now at City Hall." It supports increasing police funding and a land use policy that continues to preserve neighborhoods.
Executive Director Peck Young said it is funded by locals and unaffiliated with police unions or Michael Levy, the founder and former publisher of Texas Monthly. "None of us know the surviving Koch brother either," he said, referring to the role of the billionaire Republican mega-donors in defeating a recent transit referendum in Nashville.
Mobility for All, a pro-Project Connect PAC, recently filed its first campaign finance report, which reports it has raised $969,941. Its biggest individual donor, Impossible Ventures CEO Jonathan Coon, gave $50,000. Other top contributors include Silicon Labs Chairman Nav Sooch and CEO Tyson Tuttle, Fairway Real Estate Management President Timothy Horan Jr. and Enoctech Engineering Consultants CEO Ali Khataw.
Organizations that contributed at least $100,000 include the transportation engineering firm HNTB, Major League Soccer club Austin FC and developers Brandywine Realty Trust and Endeavor Real Estate.
This story has been updated to include details from Oct. 5 campaign finance filings and an update from Capital Metro regarding its paid media costs.
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(Paxton Smith/Instagram)
Paxton Smith’s 2021 valedictory speech at Lake Highlands High School in Dallas wasn’t the same speech she had previously shared with school administrators. She dropped the approved speech and made a case for women’s reproductive rights after lawmakers passed the Texas "Heartbeat Bill.”
Her advocacy made news on NPR, YouTubeTV and in The Guardian. Just over a year later, the “war on (women’s) rights” she forewarned has come to a head as the U.S. Supreme Court voted Friday morning to overturn Roe v. Wade, ending constitutional protection for abortion access.
“It is up to the people to show up and show the courts and the politicians that we won’t sit back and let this happen,” Smith told Austonia Friday morning. “We will show up, we will fight back. Before, we were scared of them, now they should be scared of us.”
Now a University of Texas sophomore and abortion rights activist, 19-year-old Smith said she wanted to give the same speech in the “the most public way possible” to reach “as many people as possible who don't agree that I deserve this right.”
However, she says the response was “actually overwhelmingly positive” and supportive of her cause. According to a recent UT poll, 78% of Texas voters support abortion access in most cases.
The speech opened up further opportunities for activism: she advocated for reproductive rights at the International Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, interviewed with Variety magazine and spoke to tens of thousands at Austin’s Bans Off Our Bodies protest at the Texas Capitol in May.
Smith also serves on the board of directors for the Women’s Reproductive Rights Assistance Project, a national nonprofit organization that helps fund abortions or medication abortion—like Plan C pills—in all 50 states. Most recently, Smith has been attending protests in Washington, D.C. leading up to the ruling.
“This is land of the free. This is where you get to choose how you live your life,” Smith said. “Overturning Roe v. Wade violates everything that we have come to believe about what it means to live in this country. I think a lot of people aren't willing to accept that this is a human right that is most likely just going to be gone for over half of the country within the next couple of weeks.”
Bracing for the next steps, Smith gave some tips for supporters:
- Find a protest to attend.
- “I would say invite somebody to go to those protests with you, invite a couple of friends, invite people into the movement,” Smith said.
- Talk about the issue on social media—use the platform you have.
- “Have these kinds of conversations where people can just talk about their fears and then find ways to go and advocate for yourself,” Smith said.
- Volunteer at a nonprofit near you.
“I feel like a lot of the reason things have gotten as bad as they have within the abortion rights world is that people are not making a scene, not protesting, not putting the effort into ensuring that the government doesn't take away this right,” Smith said. “I want to emphasize that if you're not doing anything, don't expect the best scenario, expect the worst because that's the direction that we're going in.”
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(Council Member Chito Vela/Twitter)
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion, Friday morning. Moments later, Austin City Council set a special meeting for next month to pass a resolution aimed at decriminalizing abortion.
The GRACE Act, which stands for guarding the right to abortion care for everyone, is a twofold plan submitted by council member Jose “Chito” Vela. It recommends that city funds shouldn’t be used to surveil, catalog, report or investigate abortions. It also recommends that police make investigating abortion their lowest priority.
Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who co-sponsored the resolution along with council members Paige Ellis, Kathie Tovo and Mayor Steve Adler, said the importance of the GRACE Act cannot be overstated.
“By introducing this resolution during a special session, City Council is doubling down on fighting back for reproductive health,” Fuentes said. “Items like the GRACE Act will promote essential healthcare while enabling individuals to exercise their bodily freedom.”
The act takes an approach similar to when former council member Greg Casar moved to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. Ultimately, state law doesn't allow city officials to order police chiefs to adopt specific enforcement policies so the resolution would be a request to Police Chief Joe Chacon. In May, Politico reported that Vela is having "ongoing conversations" with Chacon about the proposal.
Austonia contacted Attorney General Ken Paxton for comment on the GRACE Act but did not hear back by time of publication. On Friday, Paxton celebrated the overturning of Roe and announced an annual office holiday on June 24 in recognition of the high court's decision.
In a press release, Vela said the Texas state government has a history of overturning municipal protections of human rights. Thirty days after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Texas will ban all abortions, with exceptions only to save the life of a pregnant patient or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”
Still, Vela expressed hope for the GRACE Act’s longevity. Council’s special meeting on it is set for the week of July 18.
“We know this resolution is legally sound, and Austin is not alone in this fight,” Vela said. “We are working with several other cities who are equally horrified by the prospect of an abortion ban and want to do everything they can to protect their residents.”
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