Category Archives: Press Clips

See the Mayor’s latest news clips from media sites in Austin, around the country and around the world.

Oped: New plan to save live music venues

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We’re going to save our live music venues in Austin. And this is the kind of progress we’re been looking for.

This week our office was selected as a winner of the Neighborly Bonds Challenge, which called on innovative public agencies interested in offering their communities the opportunity to invest directly in local projects. Winning will allow us to work with Neighborly to develop a $10-million minibond to purchase and preserve iconic music venues, fulfilling one of the objectives I laid out in the Music & Creative Ecosystem Omnibus Resolution introduced last February.

I am excited about the possibilities that winning the Neighborly Bonds Challenge offers us. This is not a taxpayer bailout. Instead, this provides our community a way out of a problem that has hurt us deeply for generations. We have already lost clubs we will never get back, such as the Armadillo World Headquarters and Liberty Lunch, places where so many of us fell in love with the special spirit of Austin.

We cannot lose these music venues without losing something that is vital to our identity and to our soul. Austin won’t be the Live Music Capital of the World if we keep losing music venues. Now, thanks to Neighborly, we have a way to do something about it. Continue reading →

Oped: Affordability in Austin is about more than just the tax rate

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Your City Council just passed a budget that balances our critical needs with affordability. We cut your electric bills and your property tax rate, and next year we will have the lowest rate of increase in combined taxes and fees in many years. This budget bends the cost curve. We have more work to do, but we are finally headed in the right direction.

On property taxes, this council created and then this year raised the homestead exemption. For the second year in a row, we raised the senior and disabled property tax exemption, and next year the median senior or disabled homeowner will pay less in Austin property taxes than four years ago — even with rising home values. We’re taking an increasingly smaller bite out of a bigger pie.

So, we cut your tax rate, increase the homestead and senior exemption and lower utility rates — does Austin feel more affordable?

so-we-cut-your-tax Continue reading →