SARAH ASCH Published October 10, 2022
Article edited for brevity, includes only candidate stances on public safety issues.
The American-Statesman surveyed the candidates in the upcoming Austin City Council District 3 race to get their positions on some of the key issues facing the city and their district.
Here are the candidates’ responses, some of which have been edited for length and clarity:
José Velásquez
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
Ensure that those policies are better informed by people of color and those with lived experience. Hispanics represent 32.4% and African Americans represent 32% of Travis County’s unhoused neighbors. We need to ensure those voices are better represented. In my conversations with POC advocates of our unhoused neighbors, one of the biggest issues I’ve found is that people of color and those with lived experience are not included in drafting these policies.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
Austin remains one of the top safest cities among the 30 major populous U.S. cities. My family has experienced a violent crime, so ensuring all Austin residents feel safe is an absolute top priority to me. I’m committed to doing the work needed to ensure we get there and that Austin remains one of the nation’s safest big cities.
At the same time, simply increasing the number of officers will not fix our public safety challenges overnight. The city must trust and invest in the community, not just on increasing stats. We need to put a focus on Undoing Racism training, heavy deescalation training, oversight and focusing on tactics that improve outcomes for the community. We need to ensure that APD is recruiting cadets from the areas that they patrol. We need to reimagine the job, re-evaluate their goals and the department in partnership with the City Council needs to build around that.
Daniela Silva
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
As a city we need to change our culture and attitude to remove the stigma placed on the unhoused. I will work towards decriminalizing houselessness again and stop the sweeps. I plan to sponsor housing-first policies and promote investment in community benefits; not just investment in more public housing but investment in mental health services, EMS, mobile clinics, wrap-around services and community resiliency hubs. I will vote to partner with organizations like the Other Ones Foundation and Foundation Communities to expand our supply of deeply affordable and long-term supportive housing. Additionally, I will advocate for change in current policy so we can keep shelters open to all in extreme weather, particularly in extreme heat. Just as importantly, drug addiction is an illness and we need to treat it as such. Laws that punish the use or dependence of drugs are just as harmful as the drugs themselves. I plan to work to decriminalize drug usage, support harm reduction in our community, and expand addiction recovery resources.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
We Austinites need to ask what we can be doing as a community to decrease the dependency on such a large law enforcement presence. I would like to see significant and unprecedented investment in education, health care and housing. I feel it is important that the officers who are patrolling our communities be able to afford to live in them so they’re interacting with their neighbors, not strangers. I would champion an investment in mental health services and social workers with the end goal being to divert non-emergency calls to other resources, like Integral Health and the Community Paramedic Program. This additional staff would aid in preventing or responding to mental health crises so officers don’t have to. I think it’s important to hold officers accountable for violence, harassment and abuse of power in order to maintain the integrity of the department and further promote the Reimagining Public Safety Initiative and a healthy workplace culture for all. I’ll support creating a hotline exclusively for unhoused resources/support to provide an option other than 911.
José Noé Elías
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
The city’s policy on homelessness lacks a clear strategy that can be implemented and fully funded. We need to employ all resources throughout various departments to create a strategy and fully fund that strategy. This is a multi-faceted issue that requires the collaboration of public health and mental health service providers, Austin Resource Recovery and the Parks and Recreation Department to work together to address. In the instance of my neighborhood park, the parks department responded to our concerns about unhoused people living in the park by coordinating visits by these city departments, which has helped the issue, but the parks department lacks the strategy, the funding and the resources to deal with these issues city-wide alone.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
I believe that we must look at the data to identify the types of 911 calls that are coming from our communities. There are many issues that are referred to law enforcement that could be better resolved by other departments or service providers. In many cases, the police do not prevent crimes or even solve crimes. We need to look beyond the scope of law enforcement to address issues including mental health, domestic violence, lack of housing and drug use that lead to interactions with law enforcement, yet law enforcement is not able to solve these problems. We need to coordinate city services and outside providers to create vibrant and resilient communities, which will be safe communities.
Gavino Fernandez, Jr.
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
- Reduce time in placing them in housing
- Provide mental health services
- Hire unhoused people into city jobs, permit unhoused people to use restrooms and showers at local recreation centers
- Include the Tech Companies in addressing funding for unhoused programs
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
In East Austin, there seems to be no shortage of police response. So I would rate it at 95%. We are supposed to have 1,809 officers but are at 1,550, 250 positions short. Increase cadet training classes. We need to hire more officers to improve coverage city-wide.
Yvonne Weldon
What is something you would change about the city’s policies on homelessness?
We need to enforce the camping ban utilizing the resources of the DACC and end the receipt of HUD’s Housing First dollars that do not provide any incentive for folks experiencing homelessness to get the help and resources needed and available.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
The Austin Police Department cannot reasonably serve and protect its constants with the critical staffing crisis levels. District 3 is one of the worst districts for major crime including homicides, aggravated assaults and robberies, etc. The shortage of police and specialty units as well as the 911 call center operation are exacerbating the crime and traffic accidents and deaths in Austin. We must prioritize efforts to ensure APD and the 911 call center is fully staffed and specialty units are restored. Constituents in District 3 and all over Austin should not be put on hold when their lives and property are on the line.
Esala Wueschner
What is something you would change about the city’s policy around homelessness?
The City Council members are incentivising the homeless people to do more drugs so they are dependent upon government assistance. They are creating organizations to combat the homeless and giving taxpayer money to their friends to fix the homelessness crisis they caused. I will make sure people hold each other accountable for their actions in order for them to better themselves like many others that have gotten off of drugs using their own free will.
How would you rate the quality of policing services Austinites are getting as the police department deals with hundreds of officer vacancies, and what can be done to improve those services?
The police force has always been underfunded due to the growth of the city. The police force never got enough training to deal with situations that put their life and their suspects life in danger. I will fight to fund the police and the firefighters so they can work together to make the city a safer place.