AUSTIN (KXAN) — Former Austin City Council Member Kathie Tovo is already hitting the campaign trail in her race for mayor. She hosted her first official campaign event in south Austin Wednesday.
She sat down with KXAN’s Grace Reader ahead of that event to talk about priorities and how she would handle major issues like police staffing shortages and challenges to the city’s land development code. This transcript was lightly edited for clarity and conciseness:
Introduce yourself:
I’m Kathie Tovo, I served on the Austin City Council for three terms, was the only one to serve both at-large and then as a district nine representative and served as Mayor Pro Tem for four of those years. So I have lots of experience at City Hall and ready to get back to work for the people of Austin.
Why are you running for mayor now?
I really believe that we need better leadership at City Hall. And I believe we need a mayor who is accountable, believes in transparent, accountable government, is ready to really fight for the working families of Austin and is really focused on bringing energy to the job of preparing Austin for the future — for the challenges that we’re going to face in the future — from climate change to economic changes to you know, all of the other things that Austin is facing.
Top priorities?
One of the key things I hear as I talk to people at their doors and talk to people around the city is affordability, many Austinites, whether they’re homeowners or renters, are really struggling to stay in Austin. And that’s a huge concern. And we need to do everything we can to expand our pool of affordable housing, to preserve affordable housing, to really pay attention to some of the other things that make Austin more expensive, especially for working families. And that includes transportation, childcare.
You were a big part of CodeNEXT, which was challenged in court successfully. What would you do differently to make sure that any future land development code changes that you thought would make Austin more affordable really stuck?
What I see with the current administration, certainly, are lots of sweeping changes that really don’t work with the community to create those solutions. Many community members are really concerned about the speed at which those changes went through, but also the fact that they didn’t happen in concert with the community, and they didn’t respond to community concerns — concerns about displacement, especially in our eastern crescent, where we’ve seen so much gentrification drive out communities of color, they didn’t successfully prohibit short-term rentals and so some of that new housing that they were trying to create really may end up being hotels.
I think we do our best work at City Hall when it’s done in concert with the community and really looking to the community to help craft those solutions.
How do you balance listening to the community, but also moving on things and making sure that stuff is happening at City Hall?
That is definitely the job of our leaders. And, you know, as a council member, I did that all the time. I passed as a sponsor or co-sponsor more than 700 resolutions while I was at council, and many of those were ideas that came from the community, or were things that that were inspired by community ideas. And so I think we do definitely do our best policy when we’re working with the community. And I think it doesn’t need to stop us from moving forward. And very often we have better policy decisions when we have more voices at the table, really creating the solutions.
A lot of folks are very interested in Project Connect, they voted for it, they want it. How would you ensure that the project moves forward?
I’ve always been a big supporter of public transit and supported it even when it was unpopular to do back when that was put on the ballot, and I intend to be a champion for it. I think we need it here in Austin. We need it both for the environmental and the financial benefits that it really brings to Austin families. And so people of Austin can count on me to be a champion for it.
I do think it needs to be a plan that makes sense. And I know that the community had a role in really shaping that plan. It did have to be cut back a bit because of the increasing costs, which is disappointing. And I certainly understand the frustration, the disappointment of that. But I do agree that we need to move forward, and we need to move forward in haste. We need that transit, we need it now.
The other transportation project that people are watching very closely is the I-35 expansion. That’s TxDOT’s project. What can be done at the city level? And what would you do at the city level to work with TxDOT to get what Austinites want?
Well, I think it’s unfortunate that TxDOT is moving forward with a highway expansion. I think we’ve seen throughout the country, that the tide is really shifting on that. Investing more in public transit, investing in other options is really a better solution. And here in Austin, we had an opportunity — and I think it should have been the one pursued — to really divert trucks off I-35, perhaps by removing the tolls on 130. So, you know, I think that would have been a much better option.
Expanding the highway is going to increase the pollution and really not be a great way forward. That being said, if TxDOT does move forward — and I’m part of the lawsuit, the Rethink I-35 lawsuit, raising some of the civil rights concerns — but if TxDOT does move forward, I think it is important to make sure that it’s the best possible for the people in Austin and to really see if we can get some outside funding, some external funding for those caps.
On homelessness: What piece of the homeless spectrum to you feel is most needed? Where do we need the most units or beds or resources?
I think we need to be very focused on permanent housing solutions. And that’s one of the things that I’ve seen over this last year and a half since I’ve been off council. I’ve seen a shift. The council I served on was very focused on those permanent housing solutions, investing in those permanent housing solutions. It’s really in line with national thinking about best practices. You know, we end homelessness with housing. And while it’s important to have emergency shelter, we need to be single-mindedly, well, not single-mindedly, but we need to be focused on getting those permanent housing options because that’s what our neighbors really need at the end of the day.
Moving on to public safety, you have been critical, in particular, of the DPS partnership. What would be your solution?
It is incumbent, [that] the mayor of Austin to work with colleagues. And so as I faced difficult decisions, I always bring my colleagues in. The Mayor of Austin is one voice on that council and it’s extremely important to be collaborative. And so, you know, many of the issues that arose could have been prevented, or could have been predicted, had there been a conversation of the full council. And I think that’s what’s appropriate, and, frankly, is what our Charter requires, for those decisions to come from the full council, not from one individual on council.
I think we absolutely need to continue to support public safety. I believe that we need to do both work on getting getting a multi-year contract with our police officers and we need to follow the will of the voters and make sure that we have those accountability previsions as we move forward. And, you know, my council did a lot of thinking about the cadet academy, and some of those revisions are underway. But the most recent report shows that a lot of those revisions haven’t been implemented. And I think it’s critically important that we have a police academy that really reflects the community it serves and is in line with community values here in the City of Austin.
You’re referencing some of the changes made by the council you were on back in 2020. A lot of folks believe those changes were also responsible for the shortages at the police department that we’re seeing now. Do you feel responsible for that in any capacity?
Well, there were a variety of things coming together at once. We did have a lot of retirements, we had lots of conversations taking place nationwide, about public safety and policing, and a lot of calls for really looking differently at how we prevent crime, in addition to responding to it. And it was important to me as a council member that we make sure everybody feels safe in Austin. And so it was appropriate, in my view, to pause those cadet academies. It was something we had asked the manager to do, frankly, months before the murder of George Floyd. And that work had not moved forward.
And so when it came time to do the budget, there were problems in the academy that had been brought to our attention by former cadets and others that had to be addressed and had not been addressed. And so, you know, it would have been imprudent, in my beliefs, it would have been imprudent to move forward with the cadet academy until we addressed the problems that we knew were there.
Now, I’m certainly concerned about about the numbers, about the vacancies, and I think it should be a high priority. And I certainly support it being a high priority to recruit officers. And I think having a multi-year contract is going to be the best way to do that. And this current Council has has failed to move forward on that.
I would also say though, as far as it goes with regard to safety, I think we need to look really broadly at how we continue to make Austin safer for folks no matter where they live. And I think a big part of that has to do with some of the programs that we have in our Office of Violence Prevention. I was really proud to have supported the creation of that. And there are some very impactful programs that we can launch to prevent crime.
And as a council member, I led the council in opening the Sobering Center, which is a program that diverts individuals who are publicly intoxicated, brings them resources and keeps them out of jail as well as out of the hospital and really connects them with resources. And so we really need to look at some of those diversion programs as another alternative in terms of safety.
Lastly, I want to make sure just that you have the opportunity to pitch why you think you’re the best person for this job.
I’m excited to be here tonight with lots of supporters, and our campaign is going very well. We’ve got lots and lots of volunteers out there around the city, and all of them are supporting the campaign because they want to see change. They want to see a mayor who is excited about about serving, about fighting and really tackling some of our city’s biggest challenges from affordability to building a more resilient community for the future. And they also want to see transparent, accountable government. And they want to see a mayor who works with the community and create solutions with them. And so that’s that’s the kind of councilmember I was that’s the kind of Mayor Pro Tem I was and that’s the kind of mayor I will be.
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