Join the fight tooverturn those whowould deny us our rights!

maggie kuhn, founder

On Hottest Day Ever in Austin, Gray Panthers of Austin Had Very Cool Meeting!On Hottest Day Ever in Austin, Gray Panthers of Austin Had Very Cool Meeting!On Hottest Day Ever in Austin, Gray Panthers of Austin Had Very Cool Meeting!On Hottest Day Ever in Austin, Gray Panthers of Austin Had Very Cool Meeting!

Texas Gray Panthers of Austin , Gary Dugger,

Convener 512-225-4789; Ofc: 512-458-3738 www.graypanthersaustin.org

3710 Cedar St, Box 15, Austin, TX 78705

National Gray Panthers

www.graypanthers.org

Sharron Aisenman

, Gray Panther Newsletter Editor sharronaisenman@yahoo.com

JOIN THE TEXAS GRAY JOIN THE TEXAS GRAY JOIN THE TEXAS GRAY JOIN THE TEXAS GRAY PANTHERS OF AUSTIN PANTHERS OF AUSTIN PANTHERS OF AUSTIN PANTHERS OF AUSTIN Call 512 Call 512 Call 512 Call 512- -- -225 225 225 225- -- -4789 4789 4789 4789

Push-Up Foundations, Inc.Meeting with HUD.

The title of our presentation is:"Review of the City of Austin'sCommunity Development BlockGrant Administration or Process."Push-Up hereby invites communityleaders and members of the com-munity to come and observe our presentation to HUD regardingCDBG grant awarded to usin 1999. Thanks.James Wallace, Wallace Develop-ment, LLC

When

Thursday, September 8,2011, 10:30 AM-11:30 AM

Where:

1000 East 11th St., Room400B

Please come!

A major issueof Importanceto Seniors…Prosecution of corrupt official practices key to

eficit Reduction!

Calling all Gray Panthers/Coalitions &others!

Hon. Charlie Baird, former State DistrictJudge, announced at the Gray Panther Annual Meeting onAugust 28, his decision to run for TravisCounty District Attorney.The kick-off of his campaign for TravisCounty District Attorney is to be held on

Tuesday, September 6, 11:00 a.m.

(This is the Tuesday after Labor Day.)

The kick-off will be at the Millennium YouthEntertainment Complex, 1156 HargraveStreet, Austin, TX 78702, (512) 472-6932.

It’s located east of Interstate 35.

Refreshments will be served after theannouncement. Everyone is invited!

Pictured below L to R Gray Panthers,James Wallace, J McCart , Alissa Cham-bers discuss HUD issues/problems 8/28.

Candidates & GP’s David Wahlberg (Lf), running for Judge 167 District & (Rt) Hon. Charlie Baird, running for Travis County District Attorney.

Comment/Questions by Clint Smith

:Regarding 9/1/11 Austin City Council FY12 budgethearings and for those concerned about Official Accountability for PRUDENT decisions,a Question:

'What was the final outcome of the following2009 HUD Audit of Austin Housing Authority?'

cited inwww.austinaccountabilityproject.com.

Have City of Austin (Travis County) officials inquired regarding ANY of these Referrals?

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Article submitted by James Wallace:

This Is Why We Are Requesting a Federal Investigation!

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE MONEY?

HUD Audit 8/17/2009Date Issued August 25, 2009

Audit MemorandumNo.: 2009-FW-1801

Title: Travis County Housing Authority, Austin,Texas, Lacks Capacity to Administer AmericanRecovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 PublicHousing Capital Funds.

The memorandum reports that the Authority lackscapacity to administer ARRA public housing capitalfunds. The OIG recommended that HUD increasemonitoring and oversight of the Authority's financialand program activities, and either recover ARRAfunding from the Authority or place the Authority's ARRA funding on a cost reimbursement basis.Date Issued: August 17, 2009

Audit Report No.:2009-FW-1015

Title: The Housing Authority of Travis County,Austin, Texas, Could Not Adequately AccountFor or Support Its Use of Federal ProgramFunds.

We audited the Housing Authority of Travis County(Authority) due to several problem indicators in-cluding the U. S. Department of Housing and Ur-ban Development's (HUD) rejecting the Authority's2005 and 2006 audited financial statements andnoting that the Authority's 2007 financial state-

Continued page 6 What Happened to the Money?

More Articles & Pictures from 8/28/11 Annual Mtg, pg 11

Since last week, I have received several responses to a column I wrote about the City of Austin's lack of due diligence in vetting the Formula Oneagreement between the city and the Circuit Events Local Organizing Committee. It was clear that city attorneys were outmaneuvered by the well-connected, skilled lawyers representing Formula One.I questioned why City Manager Marc Ott or City Attorney Karen Kennard did not hire outside legal experts to ensure that the city's interests wereprotected. The blunders by city attorneys were big and obvious. They were on board with demands that greatly favored F1 but weakened the city'sposition.That was evident in their nod to the way in which environmental measures were handled. That approach required City Council members to ap-prove a contract with F1's handpicked local organizing committee — the Circuit Events Local Organizing Committee — before environmental provi-sions were negotiated. That surely would have weakened the city's bargaining position had it been done that way. It was not, thanks to City Coun-cil members who delayed voting on the contract until environmental negotiations were done.There also was that glaring stumble by city attorneys in missing a key clause in the contract that would have permitted the events organizing com-mittee working with F1 to change its contractual obligations simply by notifying the city and the state comptroller.It was the diligence of a regular citizen that brought that to light. Susan Moffat deserves our thanks. The final contract stipulates that the eventscommittee must get approval of the city and comptroller to make changes.Since that column ran, I've heard from readers also concerned about the city's flawed methods in negotiating the F1 contract as well as other deals. They cited the Holly Power Plant decommissioning deal as another example in which the city needed outside help from experts.That was evident after city staff initially recommended hiring TRC Environmental Corp. to dismantle the Holly plant in an East Austin neighborhood— even though its $24.9 million bid was $6.1 million higher than its nearest competitor.I'm not saying that the city should have gone for the lowest bidder on an environmentally sensitive project such as Holly. But it certainly appearedas if the city was being taken for a ride on that deal. After months of delay and public fallout, the company ultimately sliced its bid to $11.5 million, which the council approved in May. The change inprice prompted some council members to question the credibility of the bid and led the chairman of the city's Electric Utility Commission to declareat its April meeting, "This one stinks."In explaining the price cut, the city and TRC company officials blamed in part a $5 million accounting quirk by the city. That is some quirk. Ameri-can-Statesman City Hall reporters will be watching to see whether that project stays within budget. Taxpayers should not be on the hook for anymore money on that deal.Ed Wendler Jr., a local developer, recommended that the city tap its wealth of experts in the community by creating an advisory board to help vet(for free) future ventures and transactions. He said most of those experts could come from local professional groups, such as the Austin Bar Asso-ciation, Real Estate Council of Austin, Austin Association of Architects and University of Texas' McCombs School of Business.That's worth thinking about. I think the city should take a page from the Travis County Commissioners Court, which is soliciting outside help toassist with evaluating proposals for the private-public partnership that will finance and build the county's new downtown courthouse.

With such abig investment, it just makes sense to hire experts. You get what you pay for.

Still waiting on Ott,

City Council Members Laura Morrison and Sheryl Cole have yet to receive a credible explanation from Ott and Kennard re-garding their decision not to hire outside legal help on the F1 deal when it became apparent that the city legal staff wasn't up to the job.

Those council members rightly requested that the city to hire experts to assist with the complicated F1 deal. They deserve an answer and the pub-lic deserves one, too. Ott's silence on the issue won't make it disappear; it is making matters worse by continuing to fuel the fallout over the F1deal.It's not wise to ignore that fallout — not in Austin, where it has a way of coming back to bite you.

City Shouldn't Shy Away From Outside Help in Big Deals

Alberta Phillips, Commentary

Published:

July 11, 2011

Not pursued by Ms Phillips, a Question*

may usefully raise: Why does CoA and CapMetro use taxpayer money

to hire outside lawyers todefend themselves against challenges from the Public regarding

violation of the Texas' Open Meetings Act?CoA's own lawyers, obviously lacking the Council's confidence, do not defend CoA nor CapMetro. Could it be a reason to allow Council to cloudthe issues as in the past? - An even more direct/pertinent issue: Why does CoA

employ

incompetent staff Attorneys? AND that'll open really big bag o' worms including

past

decisions re housing, and many other issues that have yet to be answered or settled.

*Maybe it’s time for a G/Panther

written

request to Morrison/Cole/Tovo for their Report to the Public with

answers

to their questions, which Ott &City Attorney Escamilla seem to be stonewalling our City Council.

Questions from National Gray Panther, Clint Smith

Page 2

September/October 2011

Back in June, Austin City Council looked more like a convention for F1 with the many hats and checkered flags being waved by supportersand employees of local F1 sponsors and supporters. It was apparent to those of us present in the Council Chambers that the orchestratedpacking and demonstration by local F1 sponsors and supporters were intended to pressure City Council to cave to their demands. Were staff attorneys also part of the plan to push through a yet unfinished contract agreement? Mayor Leffingwell led the charge to vote to agree to theyet unfinished contract as presented by F1 sponsors. Reasonable and insightful cautions by

Susan Moffet

to postpone vote until City Coun-cil could obtain specialized Legal Council to review the contract (between the City of Austin and the local F1 sponsors) were ignored as wellas urging by the many people opposed in attendance.Thursday, June 23, the Council postponed voting on whether to approve the F1 race, which would begin in 2012 and run for at least 10 years.The Council vote, according to Richard Suttle (Council for the local F1 organizers) was crucial for race promoters to get a projected $25 mil-lion per year subsidy from the state. Heargued that

any

delay on the part of City Council to signing their contract as presented without delaycould jeopardize the

entire

F1 project in Austin.In a statement to John Maher,

Austin American Statesman

, investor Bobby Epstein warned, “In good faith, our investors have continued tospend millions of dollars each week creating more than 1,000 construction jobs……...If things get delayed any more, job lay-offs are a cer-tainty and construction spending will stop.”Spokesman Jeff Hahn noted that F1 construction workers were some of the workers who were being paid to attend the Council meeting toshow support for the project. Now that Austin’s City Council has been coerced to agree to a still unfinished contract with F1 under the guiseof “time is running out,”

so what was the big rush

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Key F1 Meeting Canceled;

Committee Must Vote To Make Project Eligible For $25 Million State Subsidy

Marty Toohey

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Monday, July 11, 2011

Call it the case of the disappearing Formula One meeting. As part of a complicated set of arrangements with Austin and the State of Texas,local F1 sponsors established a quasi-governmental "local organizing committee" to act on the city's behalf — and the committee was sup-posed to hold a key meeting Monday, July 11, 2011...it was canceled by the F1 committee, comprised mainly of local F1 backers.The committee is required to cast a few votes to make the project eligible for as much as $25 million in annual state subsidies. As recently aslate June, the local lawyer representing the F1 efforts told the City Council the project's finances could be imperiled if the committee met later than the July Fourth weekend. The meeting was scheduled to be at the 13-story downtown office of the Armbrust and Brown law firm. Butseveral members of the public were told by a receptionist at the law firm that the meeting was canceled and that no additional information wasavailable.City Council Member Laura Morrison's office said a posting error resulted in the cancellation after the F1 committee tried to post meeting no-tice at City Hall. The city's public information office referred additional questions to F1 organizers. The firm handling F1's public relations couldnot immediately say what happened or when the committee will attempt to meet again.It's not clear what effect a delay could have. In late June, Richard Suttle, the local attorney representing F1, told the City Council that if theorganizing committee did not meet before July 4, the $25 million annual subsidy could be at risk. Critics in turn accused Suttle of manufactur-ing that deadline to push a hesitant council into granting a hasty approval for a complicated deal. The council decided to delay a vote at thatmeeting and then voted the next week to endorse the event.

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UPDATE! The first F1 race is now scheduled to take place in November 2012.

As was said at the time, there was no rushto authorize because the F1 race was going to be rescheduled. No one is in their right mind would run it in Austin’s summer heat. November is far more logical, if equally questionable.We had all the time necessary to take a good, deep look at these agreements. I doubt the full ramifications have yet beenparsed. Is anyone working over the contracts on behalf of CofA? I wonder if it has already been violated by this resched-ule? Probably not, since

their

lawyers drew up the contracts and no one in the city's offices fine-combed it, or seemingly hasadequate training and/or background to understand such if the noxious exhibition at the council meeting was any example of their capacity. They may be nice people, but I never heard so many legal non-answers and self-protective responses in mylife

Leslie Aisenman

as CoA Hoodwinked Into Granting Hasty Approval for Complicated F1 Deal?Was CoA Hoodwinked Into Granting Hasty Approval for Complicated F1 Deal?Was CoA Hoodwinked Into Granting Hasty Approval for Complicated F1 Deal?Was CoA Hoodwinked Into Granting Hasty Approval for Complicated F1 Deal?

Page 3

September/October 2011