Government should be transparent and responsible to its citizens, and our current level of municipal bureaucracy is neither. Last year, during the process of hiring a new City Manager, our city council seemingly attempted to keep the average Austinite out of the informational loop through intentionally hampering measures, such as instructing potential candidates to hide their identities and concealing the interview and negotiation process. In the course of trying to reach a sitting city council member, last year, to discuss with them the level of crime impacting businesses in their district, I was told I could not schedule a meeting with, talk to, or otherwise communicate directly with said council member — my only option was to send an impersonal email and hope that my concerns were passed on to the council member by their staff. Earlier this year, when trying to manage the aftermath of a traffic collision caused by someone else, it took me four different 311 operators, two websites, and an APD communications supervisor to finally be directed to the statewide Crash Records Information System.
These types of deep-rooted and intentional blockades between citizens and their governmental bodies is unacceptable. Bureaucracy does not need to be slow, painful, or deliberately complicated. If elected, I promise to have an open-door policy in place to allow my constituents better access to their elected representative. It is my goal to personally help and otherwise instruct my staff to assist my constituents to find the appropriate resources they are having trouble locating. With these measures and a commitment to make the partnership between Austinites and me, as your representative, more collaborative, I intend to reduce the frustration experienced and time wasted by negotiating bureaucratic red tape with the City of Austin.