Category Archives: Public Safety

Public Safety refers to criminal justice, code enforcement, disaster preparedness, fire, police, emergency medical services, municipal court, judicial appointments, and related matters.

Austin Selected as National Vision Zero Network Focus City

National Program of 10 Cities to Collaborate to Eliminate Traffic Fatalities, Severe Injuries

Austin was selected as one of 10 leading cities to participate in a new national program announced today to advance Vision Zero, the goal of eliminating traffic fatalities and severe injuries among all road users.

The new Vision Zero Focus Cities program, launched today by the Vision Zero Network, includes: Austin, TX; Washington, DC; New York City, NY; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Fort Lauderdale, FL; Seattle, WA; Portland, OR; San Francisco, CA; and Los Angeles, CA. Austin will be represented by the Mayor’s office, Planning and Zoning, Austin Police, and the Health and Human Services departments, and will work with other city departments, the Vision Zero Task Force, and other partners to end serious injuries and traffic fatalities in Austin. Continue reading →

Can We Talk About Uber and Lyft?

Here are four things I know for sure:

First, Austin is safer with ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyft because they take drunk drivers off the streets and provide more transportation options, and I’m certainly not trying to get them to leave town.

Second, fingerprinting drivers enhances safety for passengers.

Third, the City Council voted to create safety incentives to increase the number of fingerprinted ridesharing drivers in Austin. On January 28, 2016, the City Council will discuss what those safety incentives and disincentives will be.

Fourth, this is Austin, the city that reinvented the assembly line, country music, dinner-and-a-movie, and grocery stores. This is not an either/or city. We can find a creative solution that both allows Uber and Lyft to stay in Austin while at the same time protects women from sexual assault. Within the framework of safety incentives and benchmarks that the City Council approved on Thursday, I believe we can accomplish these goals.

Continue reading →

NEWS: Mayor Adler declares Local State of Disaster to help flood recovery

Today Mayor Steve Adler declared a Local State of Disaster which remains in effect for seven days until it is ratified and extended by the City Council. An item will appear on the agenda of the special called meeting of Sunday, November 8, 2015 for ratification and extension.

“Due to the extreme amount of rainfall and record flooding that struck the City of Austin on October 30, 2015, the City is facing tremendous physical and economic losses. Tragically, there has been loss of life. Hundreds of homes and businesses have been damaged, and many more residents and families are in need of temporary housing and other individual assistance,” Mayor Adler wrote in a memo to the City Council today. “Likewise, our City departments and public utilities are incurring unanticipated costs as they support our residents and address damages to infrastructure.”

The disaster declaration allows for greater coordination with Travis County’s own disaster declaration to facilitate reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

For questions and media requests, please contact Jason Stanford, Communications Director, Office of Mayor Steve Adler, (512) 978-2153 office (512) 619-5756 cell.

Results from Spirit of East Austin Community Forum

Feedback from the Spirit of East Austin Community Forum has been overwhelmingly positive due in part to the dialogue focused on ways to create equitable economic and community development in East Austin. After September 12, a qualitative analysis team assembled and collected 1,990 Post-it notes to help determine next steps.

As part of our next steps, we will be scheduling community meetings to present the initial results and receive feedback to ensure they honestly reflect the community’s needs. The intention is to continue receiving ongoing input from the community while inviting stakeholders to volunteer for working teams to develop a set of community-based recommendations (i.e., projects, policies, and/or programs).

These working teams would be located in critical areas needing attention including, but not limited to, the following neighborhoods: Montopolis, Dove Springs, Colony Park, Rundberg, and Central East Austin among others. The working teams would not replace current neighborhood organizations or efforts. Instead, they would form parallel to and in collaboration with these groups to gather information and make recommendations. We want to move quickly to form our recommendations and want all input. We expect to have city staff, community members, and other experts to participate in these working teams. Satisfying a set of community-based attributes, each community team would be responsible for developing a set of recommendations that would fall into one of the following categories:

Shovel-ready (up to 1 year): Some recommendations would focus on quick, “shovel-ready” projects that may have already received attention, for example, creating sidewalks to increase walkability.
Fertile Ground (1 to 3 years): Additional work would focus on projects that require relatively minimal effort, but they have high impact on the community.
Strategic (3 to 5+ years): Long–term investments that offer greater community impact and would be strategically focused on dynamic economic development.

Helpful links:

Spirit of East Austin Community Forum analysis (online, interactive presentation)

Spirit of East Austin Online Community Forum (You must log in to access, contribute)

SPEECH: “The future of Austin rises in the East”

“It’s time to take stock of what is good and to build from that foundation of good a better, stronger and more equitable East Austin. To press forward faster, to taking our best assets and leverage them to bring unprecedented focus, energy, investment and opportunity to East Austin.

“As we Face East, we do not excuse or dismiss the parts of our past that are, at best, ugly and unjust. Rather, we can use this history as fuel for the kind of determination to shape a more equitable and prosperous future in our City’s East Austin. The community has gathered before to participate in studies and help create plans. Just by way of example, The African American, Hispanic and Asian Quality of Life reports; Colony Park master plan; the 1984 master plan; neighborhood Master Plans. We thank you for this important work. From those gatherings, some progress has been made. Yet, we all know that what has happened in the past is not nearly enough and not nearly as great as our potential. And, I hope in knowing that, it makes us all the more determined. I am determined.

“This is our shared dilemma: Many of our highest achievements in job creation, higher education, health and technology, happen in other zip codes. This imbalance has threatened the idea of Austin as a just and equitable community for decades. This imbalance does not come as a surprise. This imbalance comes as the outcome of design – the direct result of where this city has focused. It is time to turn that same level of focus to Face East.”

Continue reading →