AUSTIN (KXAN) — While constituents are expressing comments and concerns in front of their elected officials, a former staff member for an Austin City Council member said some council staff are playing constituent ‘bingo’ behind the scenes.
That former staff member snapped a photo of one of those bingo cards, which was shared with KXAN. It included tiles like “MAGA hat,” “‘Do your job,'” “Israel Palestine” and “Sassy mayor.”
Steven Brown, a District 1 resident, first brought the bingo card to KXAN. He had posted on social media about the general feeling that city council members were not listening to constituents during the public comment period of council meetings.
He then got a message from a former city council staff member, who told him staff were actually playing constituent bingo during that time in what’s called the “bullpen” (which is where staff sit behind chambers).
“For a community member to come down to City Hall, they often have to take off of work, make arrangements, miss time with their family members and to literally see that city council and staff are playing a game with our concerns is very disparaging,” Brown said. It’s worth noting that in KXAN’s research, it appears staff members were the ones playing the game, not council members themselves.
KXAN was also able to get in touch with that former staffer, who confirmed they saw the game being played firsthand during the budget process this year and that the photo represented one of those bingo cards. That person asked not to be identified.
“I was in there and was handed a bingo card and I was like ‘what is this?’ and they said ‘it’s a bingo card, and it’s played just like regular bingo’ and it had some things on it that I thought were kind of rude,” that former city council staff member told us.
KXAN received a response from every city council district with the exception of District 6 (Council Member Krista Laine), District 7 (Council Member Mike Siegel) and District 8 (Council Member Paige Ellis). We reached out first on Wednesday, Sept. 17. We then followed up again on Friday and again Tuesday.
“I just heard about the Bingo game yesterday,” Sharon Mays, Austin City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison’s chief of staff, told KXAN on Friday. “I’m in Chambers during the meetings and usually only go into the bullpen for lunch. I don’t know when the game is played because when I go in for lunch there aren’t any Bingo cards in there, so I wasn’t aware that this was going on. I talked to my team about it yesterday, and they have seen the cards but they don’t participate in the game.”
Similarly, representatives for Mayor Pro Tem Vanessa Fuentes, Council Members José Velásquez, Chito Vela, Ryan Alter, Zo Qadri and Marc Duchen told KXAN they were not aware of the game and their staff members had not participated.
“This is really disappointing and disrespectful. Serving the people of Austin as members of council staff is a privilege — not a right. The Office of the Mayor does not have knowledge and has not participated in these “games” and believes this sort of activity is inappropriate,” said Rebecca Szeto, spokesperson for Mayor Kirk Watson.
Brown and the former city council staffer both expressed concern that, while some district representatives told us some staff members had seen the bingo cards, nobody took responsibility for the game.
“To see our comments and concerns being mocked, just was very [dis]heartening,” Brown said.
For transparency, we want to note that after our interview with Brown on this topic, members of City Hall security said they were familiar with Brown.
“During the HOME initiative, after I gave my testimony, the auditorium began chanting ‘Vote No on HOME.’ Following the chants, I was asked to leave, but I refused. I was civically engaged and exercising my right to protest…Both the police and legal counsel agreed with me, and I remained until the end of public testimonies,” Brown said of that interaction.
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