Texas Scorecard by Jacob Asmussen August 25, 2021
“The city is choosing not to respect the will of the voters.”AUSTIN — Amid a two-year public safety disaster in Texas’ capital city, citizens are again rebuking and challenging their local officials.
On Wednesday, citizen group Save Austin Now announced they filed a lawsuit against the City of Austin for not fully implementing Proposition B, a citywide public camping law approved by a majority of voters in May.
The City Council’s Mess
The publicly approved law was the climax of a contentious two-year saga, tracing back to when the Democrat-run Austin City Council first legalized open camping on nearly all public spaces across the city (except city hall, notably). The decision incited a swarm of tent cities along sidewalks and neighborhoods, a drastic surge of homeless individuals in the city, a wildfire of public outcry, a more dangerous public environment (including record numbers of violent crime and homicides), a citizen movement and petition campaign, and finally, a May election where Austinites overwhelmingly voted to restore the city’s original camping rules.
However, since then, Save Austin Now says city officials are stalling on cleaning up the city.
“We have been immensely patient with the City of Austin on full enforcement of Prop B. Their four-phase, 90-day enforcement plan entered the final phase on August 8, and it is undeniable that Prop B is not being fully enforced,” said Matt Mackowiak, co-founder of the group, in a Wednesday press release. “The city is choosing not to respect the will of the voters when nearly 91,000 of them clearly expressed their desire to see the city reinstate the public camping ban and advance actual, effective solutions for our homeless.”
Mackowiak also pointed out how the city council has spent hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on the homelessness issue over the past couple of years, with few results and many questions.
More:
https://texasscorecard.com/local/citizen-group-sues-austin-officials-for-not-enforcing-citizen-approved-law/
