Two new, but likely familiar faces, are vying for the District 8 Austin City Council seat this November. Paige Ellis, who currently holds the position, petitioned to seek a third term, but fell short of the signature threshold in August. That leaves Selena Xie, who led the Austin EMS Association, and Jeffery Bowen, who previously ran for mayor, on the ballot.
You can find who represents you on the city’s website.
District 8, which encompasses West and Southwest Austin, has more than 99,000 residents and hundreds of acres of green spaces, including Zilker Park, the Barton Creek Greenbelt and the Violet Crown Trail.
Xie and Bowen said the district’s unique location makes it prone to natural disasters, increasing risks of wildfires and flooding, one of the top issues facing the area.
But there are several other issues both candidates said they are hoping to address if elected. They both joined KUT for a candidate forum last month. This is a condensed version of the conversation. You can watch the full conversation on our YouTube.
Affordability remains a big concern across the country, and especially here in Austin… The city recently passed a budget that raised tax revenue 3.5% — the maximum without voter approval under state law. How would you balance the property tax burden Austinites are feeling with the need for the services tax money provides for the community?
Xie, who works as a commander for Austin-Travis County EMS, said as a city employee she has a unique perspective on ways to save money.
“I do see areas where we can save money,” she said. “There are a lot of programs that I think we would need to cut before we ask to tax our residents even more.”
She said performing an audit of the city’s spending could be helpful, and proposes expanding the city’s auditing team and performing an audit every five years.
Bowen said balancing affordability with essential city services means taking a deeper dive into the city’s spending and finding ways to cut back before putting the burden on taxpayers.
“Nobody wants to go in and start looking at what issues need to be looked at,” he said. “Where’s the performance on these? What’s working and what’s not working?”
Do you support the $260 million park bond and the $35 million library bond that will be on the ballot this November?
Bowen said he would not support the city’s $295 million bond package citing the city’s already large debt.
“I realize we have parks [needs],” he said. “We are sitting on a bunch of parkland that we haven’t even developed. We have $700 million in deferred maintenance. So I really want to see a complete overhaul of the parks [budget] issues…. I don’t want to reward for issues that we seem to get out of hand.”
Xie said she supports the bond package because it will address some of the city’s pressing parks and library needs.
“When I talk to parks staff they tell me how critical it is,” Xie said. “A lot of our pools are in disrepair, leaking water, and so this would actually help fix at least four of our swimming pools in Austin. There are a lot of infrastructure projects in District 8, including Zilker Park, our Circle C Park as well, and also fund sidewalks.”
Xie said that she supports the library bond, which will fund libraries in Northeast Austin and the Hampton Branch Library in District 8.
From the latest data we have, District 8 has not been meeting its affordable housing goals it set in the Strategic Housing Blueprint. How do you feel District 8 could do better and what is your plan to address that?
According to Housing Works data, District 8 has built nearly 1,500 affordable housing units, which is about 20% of its goal. It’s the second lowest in meeting that goal out of the 10 city council districts.
The median home price in District 8 is $680,000, according to city data.
Xie said building affordable housing is a challenge and is something she hopes to tap state and federal partners in helping with, if elected.
“To me that looks like using land that the city does own and also really leveraging our bond dollars,” she said. “If you move here and are single you can generally afford a one-bedroom apartment. A lot of those rents have really dropped. But when it comes to trying to raise a family and settling down, that is when people really struggle [to find something affordable].”
Bowen said apartments are being built throughout the district, and that is moving the needle in the right direction. But he said it’s going to take time to get there, especially with the district being in an environmentally sensitive area.
“It’s not as easy to build because we have the limits with all the green areas and land is pretty expensive,” he said.
Austin has invested significant resources into homelessness, yet there is still much to be done to prevent eviction and to keep people from falling through the cracks. How do you think the city is doing on its homelessness response? What might you change?
Bowen said the city can do a better job of addressing homelessness but not before the city takes a good look at which programs are succeeding in their mission to get people off the street.
“We are seeing more and more people move from downtown to our area and are getting into the wildland areas,” he said. “We need to take and work with those that are on the verge [of homelessness], and get them off the street before they ever get there. I think that’s where our priorities should be.”
Xie said the city can do more to help people who are living unhoused. Working as a commander with ATCEMS, she said there were not a lot of ways to keep people from getting to that point in the first place, such as access to medications, housing and other resources.
In District 8, she said her concern is also people camping in wildfire prone areas.
“That is a public safety risk and that needs to be mitigated ASAP,” Xie said. “There are a lot of folks that are homeless in Austin but a lot of them are not the ones causing public safety issues that are very public — like walking on the streets, or potentially having some overdose, or on drugs. And we don’t have good options for people when they are suffering from something like that.”