The question surfaced two weeks ago in the shocker delivered by the CEO of the city water utility, Greg Meszaros. Meszaros told the council the project might well pose significant risk to Decker Lake in its capacity to function as an off-channel reservoir during Austin’s prolonged drought — risk that was not mitigated in a contract the city was preparing to sign with the project’s developers. He had anxiety about the deal and let the council know it.
To say that jaws dropped and eyebrows rose would be an understatement. Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell publicly upbraided Meszaros for raising the issue at the eleventh hour, telling Meszaros his attitude was “counter to the interest of the city of Austin.” Council Member Mike Martinez thanked him for speaking candidly about an inconvenient truth. Meszaros’ concerns were enough to briefly postpone the item as city staff scrambled to address the project’s impact on Austin’s water supply and security. Those concerns shined a light on the lack of due diligence by the city on the deal.
Decker Lake is strategic to Austin’s water resources as a backup source to the Highland Lakes, the city’s sole source of drinking water. A four-year drought has left the Highland Lakes holding just 34 percent of their total capacity. The goal is to use Decker Lake to hold rainwater so that when there is a call for water to replenish estuaries or water crops downstream of Austin, it could be taken from Decker Lake. The lake then would be replenished with reclaimed water. That would allow more water to stay in the Highland Lakes. As much as 20,000 acre-feet of water could be released annually from Decker for such purposes, Meszaros told us.
Water concerns regarding the project – with two PGA quality golf courses and a short course – still loom large.” And there are other concerns that have not been fully addressed regarding the project’s economic benefits to neighborhoods near the project, the amount of income the city would get from the deal and whether the city was being transparent on a deal involving the disposal of 735 acres of parkland to private developers for 50 to 90 years. None of those issues were fully vetted, which City Manager Marc Ott now has pledged to do.
As we said in a previous editorial, the deal also raised questions about whether the contract was designed to circumvent city charter provisions stipulating that voters get the last word on their public parks. Instead of using a lease agreement, which would have required the issue to go to voters, the city is using a license or concession contract that does not require a vote, though it is essentially a long-term lease. City officials could name no other circumstances in which hundreds of acres of public parkland have been consigned to private developers using a concession agreement.
And Austin’s image has been tarnished. As the public learned of the proposal, perceptions of Austin as a nasty neighbor took hold. Here was the city readying itself to build a couple of water-sucking golf courses even as rice farmers, who depend on the Highland Lakes that serve Austin’s water needs, are losing their crop. Against that backdrop, several key players — including the developers, Decker Lake Golf — called for a delay until February.
It was a wise move that gives the city time to do due diligence, get more public input and sort fact from fiction. Ott says he wants to do a full analysis of the deal, using city experts to assess the deal’s economic development and environmental impact and its claim to achieve water neutrality — meaning that the proposed golf courses once they’re built don’t result in the city using more water for golf purposes than the city currently uses for its six current golf courses. To that we say, better late than never.
We agree with Ott that a postponement would give the incoming 10-1 council an opportunity to make the upfront decisions on a project that would be left to them to execute. That is fair. We wonder why the outgoing council would not apply that bit of wisdom to other such items on Thursday’s agenda, which now has more than 200 items up for consideration. An agenda that large gives the impression that the current council is attempting to get their pet projects approved ahead of the new council being seated. We urge council members to act with fairness and respect to the new council and the voters who elected them.