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For additional context, watch the video from last week's City Council meeting (click "Part 4" of Items 1,2 & 4). The City of Austin's Chief Sustainability Officer Lucia Athens provides a thorough explanation of this environmental term sheet. Going forward, her office will take the lead on working with Circuit of the Americas to implement this bold initiative.
I am optimistic that within a few years, this track will be looked at as a model of how to bring big events to cities in a sustainable manner that gives tremendous benefit to the hosting location. I'm not a player, I just Tweet a lot: @KathTX
On the deal, the language is problematic because most of it contains caveats. For example, language in items 1 & 13 for the environmental issues of F1 is not nearly strong enough. With the exception of transportation/parking plans, there is not enough annual reevaluation of many of these provisions. Idling for 30 minutes is ridiculous; if F1 really wanted to be idling longer than that, then it shows how little they care about the environment. If we want people to carpool or use public transit then why on earth would we create 25,000 parking spots?! The $15k cap on offsets is far too low; as I said last week, the event is not going to be carbon neutral (despite how some are selling it), because purchases of offsets help the air elsewhere, but not here. I don't know why we need to spend $5 million on R&D for green energy; I could produce a list of 100 ways we can be improving the environment with better energy, and I'd rather that $5 million went to directly stimulate demand for existing clean energy practices than spend more on researching new R&D. Additional bike and foot races? Because the dozen Austin hosts already aren't enough?
There are better environmental issues Austin City Council Members can campaign on than this. If we want to sell this as an economic win for Austin, go for it. I'm glad we got something rather than nothing. But I respectfully disagree and remain confused by the environmental enthusiasm for F1 in Austin. Now, a very great man once said that some people rob you with a fountain pen.
It showed that we are serious in our commitment to the environment and sustainability and has garnered  global attention and admiration from important players in the environmental world. Â
Austin stood up for its values throughout this discussion about the future of our city and the role of Formula 1 in it and I predict that this will help move us closer to our ideal of being the sustainability capitol of the world and an example to other cities regarding the importance of living their values.
Bizarre as it may seem that this editorial was published in the same paper that never saw an "economic development" scheme it didn't love and which just endorsed the Pl.3 city council candidate who ran ads touting her support for the F1 track, it is in keeping with a long tradition. First The Statesman endorses an Establishment candidate for some office - George W. Bush twice, Dewhurst, Abbott, Shade - and a short time later we are treated to an editorial like this one that is highly critical of some program espoused by the candidate that it just endorsed. One wonders if that isn't done in an attempt to salvage some remnant of its credibility with the more forgetful, naive and gullible readers in Austin.
Equally bizarre is that in its third paragraph from the bottom, the Statesman lists the CELOC board members and then says "No other information was immediately available." That's flat wrong. A Google search is pretty immediate, and when the first name listed by the Statesman as a CELOC board member, Sam Bryant, is Googled, we are informed that Gov. Rick Perry appointed him to the Board of Regents of Texas Southern University on March 7, 2011. Three months later, on June 6,2011, Jeff Hahn, "Representing Circuit of the Americas" issued a press release that you can bring up by typing this into the Google search engine, "Community and Business Leaders Assemble to Support Formula 1 Bid." Had they looked at that press release, the Statesman's editorial writer would have found some biographical info on the CELOC Board Members. However, as you would expect, Sam Bryan's recent appointment by Rick Perry is conspiciously omitted. That should surprise none of you F1 supporters because there has also been little or no mention of Ecclestone's long record of sympathy with extreme right wing causes. Check it out for by Googling him.
Finally, serious environmentalists will give more credence to the judgment calls of the Sierra Club and Public Citizen's Texas office than to the usual lineup of Establishment environmentalists, weak sisters and sell-outs. They are one- and- the- same with the Establishment Democrats.
Dave Shapiro
The tract of land that is currently being developed was slated to be a series of Kyle style tract homes, which I doubt would have complimented either our green ideals or long term growth goals.
Like I mentioned above, the stance that the city took on this project is garnering international respect and attention from serious players in the sustainable tech world, which from what I've heard so far has significantly increased their interest in being involved here.
Everything I've seen so far indicates that CotA is serious about honoring their commitments with the city and are looking for ways to go even further in making this not only the greenest F1 track in the world, but incorporating components that will make that site a mecca for sustainability that will be unmatched by anything else in the world.
I am all for practicality (although wouldn't it have been more practical to work out all the potential contractual issues BEFORE saying yea or nay?) - but when do we stand on principle? When we are the minority in the Legislature and have little if any power? How about when we CONTROL A CITY that for ONCE gets to tell the Lege no?
This just posted a few hours ago by the second largest online news publication in Merry Old England.
If Dallas endorses another Super Bowl, they get the taxes and do nothing to make it more green. Ditto Houston or San Antonio.
Either you don't think it was wrong for them to use the money in this way when they were simultaneously cutting things that are, IMO, critical to a just society - or you DO think it was wrong, but you don't think taking advantage of their wrong action is wrong. Most of what I am seeing people say appears to fall into the second category - well, they did it so we might as well be the beneficiaries. And I want to think people are just not connecting the logic dots - and not that people dismiss the wrongness of an action if they/their city gets to benefit from it.
If someone stole money from a charity that helped kids with disabilities and elderly people, and then offered up that money to bring in events to the state, would you still feel like it was ok to take the money? In my mind, what the Lege did is not so different, and it is wrong for the city to take that money. I'd have liked the Democrats on City Council to call them out on it, particularly as we had a big stage for doing so.
You have a good heart and use sound logic, but you not only expect too much of Establishment Democrats, you seem to not even understand the nature of that category. The Democratic Party is no more monolithic than the GOP. We've had our "Gold Democrats" even since Grover Cleveland became the first Democratic president to turn his back on the Jeffersonian heritage and Jacksonian populism and began pushing a Wall Street/business-friendly agenda that was in the tradition of Alexander Hamilton. That's how you identify Establishment Democrats - they advocate for Hamiltonian projects whose very essence is the use of the powers of government to advance the special interests. Public Utility Districts(PUDs)are the quintessential Hamiltonian projects, giving private business a governmental entity to play with. F1 is another project that Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists, precursors of the Republican Party, would love. It subsidizes the schemes of billionaires Berney Ecclestone and Red McCombs. And you see how Republicans like Susan Combs and Rick Perry are lined-up on the same side with Establishment Democrats on the Austin City Council (5-2) and their hirelings, staffers and sympathizers and how well their efforts mesh to advance the Establishment's agenda. Oh, and did I leave out WTP4.
Ecclestone may face $50m bribe charges - Yahoo! Eurosport
uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/.../ecclestone-face-50m-bribe-cha... - United Kingdom
Jul 6, 2011 - Bernie Ecclestone will discover today whether he will be hauled before the German courts on corruption charges over the sale of F1 to CVC. ... Prosecutors are attempting to link Ecclestone, who gave evidence .... Trust ze Germans to be the ones to bring this scum to stand for his criminal behavior! ... ---------------------------
Unlike his operation in German, in Austin, Ecclestone and Red McCombs, his fellow billionaire seeking public subsidies for their F1 race track, appear to be going about it under color of law. They have hired the Armbust & Brown law firm to get governmental holy water sprinkled on their project so as to gain access to the public treasury. They've also hired the remnants of what was once known as Tate Austin PR firm, now Hahn Austin, to run what George Orwell called the Ministry of Truth. They then enlists the usual retinue of political consultants, flacks, hacks and those who know how to use the levers of BOR and other Democratic organs to further special interest goals through the fine art of co-opation and seduction of the innocent.. There's nothing new about this at all. It's a recurring pattern throughout history, and is a constant challenge to everyone with populist blood in their veins, egalitarian impulses and the common sense to see through such mindless inanities as the environmental benefits racing fast cars. You know who they are. Yeah, and it also will lead to research on the ozone layer in the summer heat. And don't forget the "gift" of the park to the City that Chris Riley touts. Anybody buy that?
Well, then, you could make the same argument against accepting any state money of any kind for ANYTHING, couldn't you? After all, we know their budget priorities don't match those of you or I - they don't tax who we would prefer them to tax in the proportions we would like them to be taxed; they don't spend money in a million different ways the way we would like. So all money they offer you, for ANYTHING, is tainted if you think that way.
If the city had rejected the agreement I think COTA would have started looking for alternative municipalities to endorse the contract. It wouldn't be difficult to get some small city desperate for jobs to endorse if COTA offered to pay the $4 million each year. The track would simply end up a few miles further out and would be the environmental nightmare that so many fear.
The city got COTA and F1 to accept what I consider pretty substantial environmental changes. It is not perfect but it will make a big difference. As I said at city council, it is the job of the council and the citizens of Austin to hold them accountable to those standards and push them to go beyond.
It goes back to what Clinton and Gore talked about when they were in the White House that with a smart balanced approach growing the economy does not have to be mutually exclusive from protecting the environment. We can bring more jobs to Austin and reduce the environmental impacts of Formula 1 more than any other city could.
Your second paragraph asserts that "If the city had rejected the agreement (you) think COTA would have started looking for alternative municipalities..." Please tell us where you read that. I must have missed it, and have seen nothing indicating that Barney Ecclestone and Red McCombs were shopping around the F1 track. If you have evidence to the contrary, it might be persuasive, But "I think" is less than persuasive. Do you have some expertise in this area that would lend weight to your pronouncements about what "COTA would have started looking for?" How about your expertise and educational background or some evidence that "It wouldn't be difficult to get some small city desperate for jobs to endorse if COTA offered to pay the $4 million each year?" Have you discussed this with the Mayor of Smithville? How about the city manager in Elgin or Manor? Have they told you that they were ready and willing with the resources to move forward with F1 if Austin hadn't done so? Did Comptroller Susan Combs tell the wealthy people promoting F1 that if Austin turned them down, there were other cities willing and able to come to their rescue?
Ken, your third paragraph leads off bey telling us "what (you) consider pretty substantial environmental changes." While everyone is entitled to their own views and beliefs, the Sierra Club's Austin group disagrees with you on this. Likewise, Tom "Smitty" Smith, longtime director of Public Citizen's Texas Office said in an interview late last week on the KVUE evening news that he viewed the Chris Riley environmental package as pretty unsubstantial. Please list the reasons why anyone should give greater weight to what you "consider" than to what the Sierra Club and Public Citizen have to say about the environmental aspects of this or any other project. You say "It will make a big difference." The Sierra Club and Public Citizen's Smitty Smith sharply differ with you.
Your last paragraph stacks unsubstantiated assertions on top of flawed logic when you make the claim that "We can bring more jobs to Austin and reduce the environmental impacts of Formula 1 more than any other city could." Sez who? Where's the citation to reputable authorities with recognized expertise in this field? Where's the hard numbers and the empirical data to back up a Topsy-turvy claim that having fast cars race around a track in the heat of the summer in Austin will somehow "reduce the environmental impacts of Formula 1 more than any other city"? By "reduce the environmental impacts of Formula 1" you acknowledge that it will still have some (presumably unfavorable)environmental impacts. Have you measured them? Is there any reason to believe that if Austin had turned down Armbrust & Brown on F1 that Smithville, Manor or Elgin would have picked up on it and the measurable environmental impacts would have been less?
i historically oppose govm't giveaways to sports facilities, but something like this could mean a huge influx of well-heeled tourists and business people that should significantly impact the tax base of Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays and Travis counties.
i'm happy to see that some efforts are being made to highlight the carbon offset issue. it should be very interesting to see how this progresses. Please refer to KT's signature.
