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Austin Sanders Profile picture
Austin Sanders
@daustinsanders
Journalist in Austin, TX. Currently covering public safety for @statesman. Call/text/Signal: 512-666-0903
Apr 25, 2024 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: Travis County Attorney Delia Garza says as of now, her office has been presented with 46 criminal trespass arrests stemming from the protests at UT yesterday.

The court has declined all of those cases for lack of probable cause and released the individuals from jail. Defense attorneys raised concerns with the probable cause affidavits submitted by UT police officers yesterday, as seen here. "We reviewed each case individually and agreed there were deficiencies," Garza told me. The court affirmed and declined the cases.
Feb 16, 2024 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Based on emails I obtained through public information request, Art Acevedo signed an offer letter for his would-be City Hall job seven days before Interim City Manager Jesús Garza told City Council about it. Image Also, per the emails, it appears Austin Police Chief Robin Henderson was not notified of Acevedo's hire until shortly before the news became public.

In an all-staff email, she apologized for not telling them before news broke. She was briefing her exec team as the story broke. Image
Aug 11, 2022 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
MORE: The city’s Liability Reserve Fund is currently at a $2.8 million deficit following $14 million in settlement payments paid to victims of police violence. Most of the payouts were to people demonstrating during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. Staff are proposing to close that deficit with a $14.65 million transfer to the LRF (the fund that allows the city to self-insure) from increased revenue projects discovered in between the time City Manager Spencer Cronk proposed his version of the budget July and now.
Aug 11, 2022 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
With renewed attention on Elon Musk's hyperloop grift, let me share excerpts from a public information request I received following the trip Austin Development Services staff took to Las Vegas in April where they met with Boring Company. Clark Couty, and the LV Convention Center. I didn't write a follow up with these records (emails, notes, expense reports), because there wasn't anything too surprising.

But worth sharing because they show how TBC moves aggressively and kind of bullies municipal employees once they're working together on projects.
Aug 10, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Got a little more info on this.

There is no temperature threshold; free rides to cooling centers activate when the National Weather Service issues an excessive heat warning, which is typically at 103, but not always.

Like today. It's hot, but the service hasn't activated. But when the free rides to cooling centers are activated, they will be available on ALL CapMetro services — local and rapid buses, rail, access and even the on-demand pickup service (drop offs to cooling centers within pickup zones, only).
Aug 9, 2022 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
Settlement payments have always come from the General Fund. The city self-insures by requiring departments pay into a shared liability fund. Payments into the fund are based on each dept's liability in the prior fiscal year. The $14m in a single FY dwarfs prior totals, though. More in this story i reported last year.
austinchronicle.com/news/2021-04-2… Image
Nov 1, 2021 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
Incredible sequence of events here. Shooting in West Campus last night, which the Austin Police Association falsely claimed took 50 minutes for officers to respond to, so the Austin Police Department issues a statement today, through UT Police, correcting the record. Tensions between APA and APD leadership have been simmering since the Justin Newsom racism scandal, primarily in how brass responded. Relationships seem to have worsened since, especially with Joseph Chacon beating out APA's preferred candidate for the Chief job.
Oct 27, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
keepin' austin weird @WholeFoods I tweeted that Mackey hasn't contributed to other local races, but that's incorrect, he's also contributed to other conservative candidates and causes, but the $10,000 SAN contribution is his largest to date.
Oct 24, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Chief Joseph Chacon responds to video of an APD officer fist bumping a neo-nazi. It’s fine that the officer fist-bumped a guy wearing swastikas on his clothing who helped unfurl a banner reading “vax the jews,” because the officer first declined a hand shake from the neo-nazi. Image Last night I asked APD PIO if they were aware of the incident and if so, what actions had been taken to investigate what happened. Based on Chacon’s statement, it’s fair to say that APD leadership found nothing wrong with an officer fist-bumping a neo-nazi.
Feb 16, 2021 • 27 tweets • 5 min read
A press conference with @MayorAdler, @TravisCoJudge, City Manager Spencer Cronk and @austinenergy GM Jackie Sargent is about to begin. I will tweet out updates. One thing that's different from the press conference yesterday: No one is wearing short sleeves. Yesterday Adler and Cronk were blasted in the comments for doing so lol
Feb 16, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
I'm taking down the version of this tweet that has Mackowiak's number in it, because he called to tell me he deleted the FB post.

But I'm posting a censored version to preserve for the record that he is, in fact, an asshole. He is not living it up in, Miami, if you're curious. He tells me he's still "freezing his ass off" at home and that I can "go fuck myself" for sharing a post he published on his public Facebook page. Just stellar leadership from the local republicans lol
Feb 16, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
I’m going to refrain from yelling about buildings downtown being lit up until we have a better sense of what power usage looks like from Monday-Wednesday, by geography and population. Like yeah those pictures look bad but there’s critical infrastructure downtown and people live in some of those towers. They are also concentrated together in a way that might make a small number of users look like they are projecting a lot of light/using a lot of electricity
Feb 15, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Austin Energy is not being as clear about this as they should, but if you do not currently have power, you need to brace for a very cold night and morning without power.

Sunset is in two hours. If people need to move, they need to be told ASAP where they can go. i know that communication is difficult in times like these, but I asked the city/county emergency public info office questions two hours ago and have not received a response.

Maybe strategy is still being formulated. Ok, but people need to make decisions before dark
Feb 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Alarming lack of clear info from the city on what they are doing to immediately house unsheltered people, especially those considered medically high risk.

I have heard that there may be vacancies at ProLodges. It's unclear to me how many have been filled ahead of 10 degree low have heard from a couple of sources that EMS/APD/AFD basically ran caravans last night trying to round people up so they could be taken to a Cold Weather Shelter or ProLodge. Unclear how many were sent somewhere and some refused both options. What's being done about them?
Feb 15, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Austin Energy GM Jackie Sargent says there is nothing the public utility can do presently to restore power people who have lost it.

They've already turned off every circuit not powering critical infrastructure; i.e., everything they can turn off to conserve power. The power outages are ordered by ERCOT as a statewide effort to protect the electrical grid. Austin Energy could not restore power to people who have lost it even if they wanted to.
Feb 13, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Hearing dire concerns from outreach folks about unsheltered people and the coming extreme cold. Please donate if you can. Here are some options. @sunrise and @toofound are 2 of the best orgs in town. Mark H at sunrise tells me they need socks & blankets. The list of orgs ECHO linked to includes Integral Care. You could donate to them, but fwiw, they’re a government agency with a $100 million budget. Take that as you will.
Jan 15, 2021 • 23 tweets • 5 min read
There's been drama between Council Member Alison Alter and APD Chief Brian Manley brewing this week that boiled over today when the Austin Police Association sent out a press release blasting Alter for "clearing being against" APD employees

Why? Here's a thread. #atxcouncil 1/20 Earlier this week, Alter emailed Manley asking that he:

1) "Proactively investigate" whether any APD employees participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection, as other LEOs, including one in Houston, did.
2) Send a department-wide communication condemnding the involvement of LEOs. 2/20
Jan 14, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
NEW: Travis County D.A. José Garza will present the two cases where police killed Michael Ramos and Javier Ambler to the already-impaneled Special Grand Jury before it expires on March 30, 2020. The six other police killing/death in custody cases will be presented chronologically ImageImage Garza also said that, keeping in line with his campaign promise to present every case of alleged police misconduct to a grand jury, the two police shootings this year will be brought to a special grand jury.

I wrote about those shootings this week. austinchronicle.com/news/2021-01-1…