KXAN is doing one-on-one interviews with all candidates for mayor so that you can be better informed heading into the November election.
AUSTIN (KXAN) -- There are currently four people in the running to be Austin's next mayor, including incumbent Mayor Kirk Watson. You'll vote for the next leader of our city in November.
Carmen Llanes Pulido, one of the four candidates, sat down with KXAN’s Grace Reader to talk about everything from public safety to transportation to her fundraising efforts.
This transcript was edited for clarity and conciseness (Addendums may be added after each answer that provide context):
I am a lifelong Austinite, 20-year community organizer, 10-year city board and commissioner -- in the past -- and somebody who cares a lot about the city and was asked by a lot of people all over town to step up for this position.
I have seen so many beautiful things come out of Austin, out of our community efforts for a long time and just bringing together different sectors in the city to craft really good policy. And I've also seen big mistakes. What I noticed is that we can work for stuff 10-20 years, and it can easily be undone with the stroke of a pen and some poor planning or some poor spending. That includes people's efforts around transit, affordability, climate resilience, trying to get more social and racial equity in the city, less disparate outcomes. I think we've made progress, but I think we're slipping backwards. And I'm really concerned with the stark inequality in our city, and not planning for a challenging future ahead. And so I think, right now, a lot of people have been shut out of their public process, they don't feel heard by their local government, I think it's the time to bring everybody back in, bring our stakeholders in and craft the solutions we want to see in front of us.
Top three items would be securing our critical infrastructure, especially with the intensity of the climate. Real affordability, and not just talking about affordability, but actually stabilizing our housing prices with what we can regulate and invest in as a city, and also reducing taxes. Then holistically addressing public safety -- and that includes the homelessness issue.
Project Connect: Voters overwhelmingly approved a plan that brought city-wide transit options. And if you look at that ballot language, it was about relieving congestion, serving essential workers, addressing the climate issue by getting more cars off the road. And the big concern a lot of folks have is that the plan has greatly strayed from that. So certainly I am pro-Project Connect when we look at the the larger mass rapid transit plan, but we have to reevaluate and see how are we equitably going to get transit services across the city and effectively get people commuting? If we spend all of this half billion dollar investment on light rail between 38th street and Oltorf and a line from downtown to not quite the airport,* that's not going to take cars off the road, it's not going to help commuters, it's not going to make anything more affordable.
*The city of Austin has introduced phase one of its Project Connect light rail plan, which is an 9.8-mile transit line from 38th Street in Austin down to Oltorf Street in south Austin and Yellow Jacket Lane in southeast Austin. That is the first phase of the project and the city says it will expand to other areas of Austin in future phases. You can read more about the phase one design here.
I-35: I live in a neighborhood that's directly impacted by the I-35 expansion.* I think it's, you know, in many ways, the wrong direction for alleviating traffic in Central Texas and what we need to be doing. I'm accepting that as long as we have the state leadership that we have right now, this is what TxDOT's marching order are. The engineers from Texas Department of Transportation have been listening. And I will say, I've seen a lot of improvements in what it looks like we get in terms of bicycle and pedestrian safety.
I'm very, very interested in following the legal battles, especially over our environmental rights to assess, I think it's important that we slow down as much as possible and negotiate for maximum community benefit. And look very carefully at what we're going to spend as a city to make this more tolerable in terms of cap and stitch especially.
*You can read more about the I-35 expansion project here.
I had the privilege of participating in a panel interview with the finalists for the police chief position and I'm pleased to see people who come with values around accountability, transparency, you know, all the good things you want to hear -- responsibility and community policing, responsiveness. I think that there is promise in a culture shift for the whole city around policing. We all want a better response to 911 and we all want to live in a safe city regardless of how we feel, you know, across the spectrum.
I'm very concerned that we don't have a police contract, and that we have been doing all of this without a police contract.*
*You can read more about the status of the police contract here.
First, we have to get realistic about what people are making, where those salaries are and what is actually affordable. I think some of the recent policies focused on housing talked about middle income, but they were way out of the reach of any actual middle income people in Austin, and that includes our first responders.
There will be workforce housing opportunities, there are some in front of us now that we can take advantage of. But I also think we should be looking at how can we keep people in the neighborhoods they live in in Austin who are living in the city of Austin. And then for those commuters, if we're looking at realistic transit options, you know, our first responders are going to need to be able to commute. But a lot of our essential workers could probably be served by much better commuter transit options.
I think the best changes made to our land development code take into account who's impacted and gets stakeholders truly at the table in an equitable way. Every time there's community engagement, and there are legitimate concerns brought up about infrastructure, quality of life, safety, and affordability, they often get dismissed, we end up in legal battles.
I don't think there's been appropriate notification. These changes have no affordability in them whatsoever. And in fact, these kinds of policies tend to target our most affordable units for redevelopment into expensive rental units. So I'm hopeful that we could make much more wise changes that actually do increase housing because there's no proof that these policies actually even increase housing. But they can definitely drive up prices.*
So there are certainly changes that we can make to allow more housing types, but they need regulations, for affordability, for infrastructure, for water quality, for basic services to be taken into account.
*One of the most recent land development code changes include the HOME initiative (phase one and two). GAVA, which Llanes Pulido is the executive director of, was one of the focal groups against those changes. We reported previously on research that points to those initiatives allowing for the creation of more affordable housing, and also highlighted community concerns about the initiatives actually maintaining or forcing the creation of affordable housing.
I want people to know that there is a place for everyone in this campaign and also in our local government. I have had the pleasure of working shoulder to shoulder with Austinites in far north Austin, far south Austin and east and west. I know that we all have unique issues in our neighborhoods, whether we're worried about wildfire, whether we're worried about crime, wildlife, all kinds of things. And I want people to know that there's a place for everyone that I am here to listen, collaborate, that I'm ready to be strong -- and to be a true representative for the people of Austin.
You won't see me climb for higher office. I'm doing this for my hometown, the city that raised me. I know what it means to have caring involved neighborhoods, good schools, family friendly, inclusive, where all kinds of different kinds of people want to live. And that's what we want to keep and that's what we're fighting for.
KXAN is doing one-on-one interviews with all candidates for mayor so that you can be better informed heading into the November election.
You can find our sit down interviews with the other candidates here:
Election Day is Nov. 5, 2024.
