From – who else? - Debbie Russell - to council members and staff:

Six commissioners yesterday voted FOR recommending City Council pass the Interlocal Agreement creating the ARIC.  One voted against it. Those six in favor did NOT read what comprises the Interlocal, taking APD/City at their word that it’s ‘no big deal/JUST the interlocal’ (confirmed during the meeting & in private conversations after the meeting). The one who read it voted against it and made an alternate motion to recommend Council not have it on the 5/27 Council agenda to provide more time for the PSC to digest it and get VERY important questions answered before moving forward.

PLEASE watch Commissioner Ramey Ko’s questioning of APD near the end of the item.  Please take time to understand why observers became ‘unruly’ and exclaimed “shame!” after the vote.  Sometimes there is basis for disorder.  Some claim that our message (ACLU’s), which they say is convincing on many grounds, is being drowned out by disrespect of others (to which, according to a couple of Commissioners, I’m supposed to ‘control’ others folks’ speech, you see, the chapter lead of ACLU-TX! Besides, that’s the Chair’s job.).  If messaging and behavior are also the most important factors for you, you needn’t read further…
 
APD insists that the Interlocal is separate from the policy privacy which is clearly not in a state to be voted on, yet the Interlocal is the agreement TO the privacy policy.  It also lays out that the City of Austin is the fiscal agent for ARIC but we have not had any discussion about what that liability actually means.

More importantly, the Interlocal has new wording spelling out that it and the privacy policy are “living documents” to be changed at any time by who, we don’t know, and by a process not defined. Up until this new draft Interlocal, it was touted to be EXACTLY the opposite.

Since when are contracts “living documents?” This is truly absurd.

We will be contacting you for meetings to explain to you why 6 of 7 public safety commissioners failed to do their job and fully study these important items in which to make recommendations to you on. So it seems they are going to sit on this commission just to vote on what seems to be a good idea without actually doing any research (much less READING the policies they are voting on). One commissioner, who has amazing knowledge about these issues and could be very helpful if he did any background digging, has continually claimed in private conversations he has no more time than the 2 hours a month the commission meets to dedicate to being a public servant. Well, you can understand the level of my personal disappointment, not having been appointed to the commission myself since all of you know I would spend countless hours -the hours necessary plus more- to make sure I was as informed as possible before casting any vote.  Yesterday, I had to walk away from this very conversation in frustrated tears, leaving my colleague to plead with him directly to do the job he signed up for.

This is the Commission you created, these are the appointments YOU made. You can recognize the lack of responsibility that went into this vote and choose to ignore the vote, taking the time necessary to untangle this mess or you can consider the vote political cover to rubberstamp this very problematic project on APD’s timeline because of some vague remarks about grant compliance.

Your choice.

In justice,
Debbie

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