Some Austin stakeholders integral in helping to pass a $40 million bond package for Town Lake Park improvements 13 years ago are sounding the alarm about money they say is not being used by the city the way voters thought it would be. The same stakeholders also claim that there is no money left to fulfill the wishes of those votes when it comes to park improvements.
“One of the things we're working on as a stake holder's group is the whole issue of accountability of where the money has gone,” said Jeff Jack, a former neighborhood association president.
Jack worked closely with then-Austin mayor Kirk Watson in 1998 on Proposition 11, a $40 million bond package which included the construction of a new Palmer Events Center, its garage, a park to the west of it called Butler Park, a children’s garden, and improvements to Auditorium Shores -- specifically electrical improvements for bands, improvements to bathrooms, and an area for dogs.
The bond package was supposed to take a percentage of car rental tax money and use it for park improvements. Instead, millions of dollars from car rental tax money has been going to fund the operations and maintenance of the Palmer Events Center.
“If the voters vote on a bond package and then staff is then able to take that money and use it however they want, how do we have any assurances that other bond packages are not going to fall the same victims of staff decisions?” asked Jack.
Assistant Austin City Manager Rudy Garza said Tuesday that the city consulted with an outside law firm in 1999 about the legality of using car rental tax money slated for park improvements instead for operations and maintenance of the Palmer Events Center. Garza says attorneys said it was okay despite the fact that operations and maintenance costs were never mentioned in the original bond wording.
The big issue that stakeholders now have is that they are hearing from city staff that there is now no more of that bond money to finish the last three of five phases of park improvements.
“Where is the money? Follow the money,” said Earl Broussard, the designer of Butler Park who says that there has been no movement on a planned children’s garden, nor improvements to Auditorium Shores for two years now.
“I can't speak to what people understood at the polls, but I can speak to what the city's intent has been and that is to have a Palmer Events venue, a center that serves our community,” added Garza.
Garza says city staffers are also talking about asking voters to approve another bond package to finish the plans for Butler Park.
