{"id":479948,"date":"2026-10-29T02:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T02:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/479948\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T02:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T02:50:12","slug":"austin-city-council-district-1-race-draws-six-candidates-as-harper-madison-terms-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/479948\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin City Council District 1 race draws six candidates as Harper-Madison terms out"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 With half of Austin voters choosing a City Council member in this midterm election, the race for District 1 is drawing attention as six candidates compete to replace the term-limited incumbent, Natasha Harper-Madison.<\/p>\n

District 1 stretches up the east side of Austin into North Austin. In a crowded field, <\/a>the six candidates are Alexandria Anderson, Steven Brown, Amber Goodwin, Michael Nahas, Misael Ramos and Portia Riggins.<\/p>\n

All six were asked about balancing the city budget with less money coming in<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anderson said the city needs to be candid with residents about financial constraints. \u201cWell, I think, first and foremost, you’re being honest with the people. I tell people, and when I’ve been meeting with them, I was like, we are dealing with an economic issue from the federal level on down,\u201d Anderson said. She added that \u201ca lot of the projects or programs that we initially wanted to see come out or were here that were flourishing may have to be put on a pause,\u201d while emphasizing that \u201cthat doesn’t mean that it’s going to last forever, but it’s just being honest with folks.\u201d<\/p>\n

ALSO| ‘It feels so important’: Texas families prioritize education at the ballot box<\/a><\/p>\n

KEYE<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Brown, a fourth-generation Austinite, pointed to the size of the city\u2019s budget and questioned spending priorities. \u201cYou know, $6.6 billion is a lot. I think we should be focused on our community members’ priorities,\u201d Brown said. He also raised concerns about consulting spending, saying, \u201cWith us giving out $279 million in consulting before this audit comes out, we really need to see what’s going on and where our tax dollars are going and where we can be most efficient.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goodwin, a Travis County assistant district attorney, said she is involved in litigation tied to federal funding. \u201cRight now I’m in the middle of a lawsuit on behalf of many community-based organizations in East Austin fighting to get those federal funds back from the Trump administration,\u201d Goodwin said. She added, \u201cBut I also think that we need to figure out other ways to balance our budget.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nahas said he is running with a focus on city finances and debt. \u201cI’m running because the city has borrowed $3.1 billion from the pension fund,\u201d Nahas said. \u201cThe interest on that debt is about $450 per family in Austin every year, and the city is borrowing more money this year, $32 million more.\u201d He said his background includes economics and finance and that he previously served as chair of the Economic Prosperity Commission. \u201cI’m an expert on this. I figured my skills would be useful on city council, so I decided to run,\u201d Nahas said.<\/p>\n

Ramos, who was arrested at protests the day Wilber Garces Perez was shot by an ICE agent, said he wants more accountability in city spending. \u201cWe can be more accountable on how we’re currently spending our dollars,\u201d Ramos said. He cited consulting contracts, saying, \u201cWe spent about 280 million on contracts for consultants, but we haven’t actually seen what those results have come out to,\u201d and said he wants to ensure funding can be used \u201cto actually pour back into our social services and other roles within our city.\u201d<\/p>\n

Riggins said her campaign has centered on the city budget and looking for investments. \u201cI’m going to look into investments and finding investments,\u201d Riggins said. \u201cMy priority in this campaign has been looking at the city budget.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 With half of Austin voters choosing a City Council member in this midterm election, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-479948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}