Austin City Council to vote on resuming APD cadet classes
Council to vote on resuming APD cadet classes
Last summer, the Austin City Council voted to temporarily stop cadet classes until the Austin Police Department examined its training curriculum.
AUSTIN, Texas - It s no secret that the Austin Police Department is short officers. The police department has 130 vacancies, at least six more expected in May, and that s on top of the 150 police positions that were cut by city council, said Cary Roberts, executive director of the Greater Austin Crime Commission.
In response to public outcry over the murder of George Floyd and calls for police reform, the Austin City Council canceled cadet classes for APD.
UpdatedSun, May 2, 2021 at 12:19 am CT
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A homeless camp under a bridge on I-35 in Austin, Texas on February 17, 2021. (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images)
AUSTIN, TX The city of Austin has voted for the city s proposed ordinance to criminally charge and penalize individuals who camp and or solicit money in the city limits, according to unofficial election 2021 results.
Proposition B took center stage in Saturday s city election, giving residents the voice they did not have two years ago when the Austin City Council made it lawful to camp in most public spaces by canceling a 23-year-old ordinance that had prohibited it.
Austin residents finally got their say on the city s homelessness crisis, and their message was clear: They are opposed to people camping almost anywhere they please, and they have little faith in city leaders ability to find housing for them.
In a stern rebuke to Mayor Steve Adler and the Austin City Council, voters opted to reinstate the citywide ban on public camping that the council had canceled in 2019.
The final tally on Proposition B was 57.7% in favor, 42.3% against. Final results came down late Saturday night, with one-fourth of the city s registered voters about 156,000 people submitting a ballot.
Since the count is unofficial, the camping ban won t go into effect until after a canvassing of the results. That is expected to happen May 11. By approving the proposition, voters agreed to punish camping in public spaces with a fine as a Class C misdemeanor. A city spokesman said Sunday that the Austin Police Department is evaluating options for how to best imp
By the end of Saturday, Austin residents will have answers to two key questions facing the city: whether the unsheltered population can continue to camp almost anywhere they want, and whether the city manager will continue to wield the most power in the local government or will be replaced by the mayor.
After nine days of early voting, registered voters have one final chance to weigh in on these two issues and six others flying under the radar.
Polls open at 7 a.m. Saturday and close at 7 p.m. Results will trickle in shortly thereafter, beginning with those from the early voting period, when 15% of Austin registered voters submitted a ballot through the mail or in person. That s a total of 90,846 voters.