Posts Tagged ‘Spencer Cronk’

Would You Believe Austin’s New Interim City Manager Is Soros-Backed DA Jose Garza’s Uncle?

Wednesday, February 15th, 2023

As mentioned previously, Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk has been fired.

he Austin City Council on Wednesday voted to fire City Manager Spencer Cronk following his response to the winter storm earlier this month. The council voted 10-1 in a special called session, with only Natasha Harper-Madison (District 1) voting against Cronk’s firing.

Natasha Harper-Madison is an ultra-lefty sort, which makes me slightly more assured that firing Cronk was the right move.

Cronk’s termination is effective Thursday, Feb. 16. He will receive a one-year severance of $463,001.50, under a City ordinance in which he was hired in 2018. The council has appointed Jesus Garza, who served as Austin’s city manager from 1994 to 2002, to serve as interim city manager.

This is where things get interesting. The city of Austin has an Assistant City Manager, Veronica Briseno. Normal procedure is that the Assistant City Manager takes over as Acting City Manager while a permanent replacement is found. Why was that not done here? Could it have something to do with the fact that current Travis County DA and Soros-backed leftist tool Jose Garza is Jesus Garza’s nephew?

What are the odds?

I mean, it’s just plain odd to hire someone who was last city manager 20 years ago. That’s like thinking that M. Night Shyamalan is a sure thing to helm a big budget movie because Signs made a lot of money.

Something here doesn’t add up…

(Hat tip: Friend of the blog RoadRich.)

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Posted in Communism, Democrats, Texas | 2 Comments »

Cronk Conked

Saturday, February 11th, 2023

Following the huge power outages from untrimmed trees in the most recent ice storm, Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk has evidently been fired.

Austin City Council members unanimously agreed to part ways with City Manager Spencer Cronk, two city council members told KXAN under the condition they not be named.

The decision was made behind closed doors in executive session Thursday but has not been announced publicly yet. The city manager had no comment, a spokesperson said.

Mayor Kirk Watson ultimately placed an item on Thursday’s agenda to “evaluate” the city manager’s performance, with the backing of a handful of city council members, after overwhelming swaths of Austin Energy customers lost power during last week’s ice storm.

“The members of the City Council had a productive executive session on Thursday night. I’m going to honor that process and won’t comment on the matters that were discussed,” Watson said Friday.

Council members said they were also frustrated with Cronk’s Wednesday night announcement that the Austin Police Association and the city have reached an agreement in principal without looping in city council members.

Clearly Austin Energy’s ice storm prevention and response was woefully inadequate, but Cronk is largely the scapegoat for the Austin City Council’s own “green” priorities over actual tree maintenance. Austin’s radical leftwing government is filled with people who love preserving trees almost as much as they love raking off graft for leftwing causes.

Scapegoat or not, crazy leftwing causes are why I won’t be mourning Cronk’s departure, as he picked the radical leftwing activist participating in the “Reimaging Austin Police” lunacy. There’s no guarantee, but with Watson as mayor and Mackenzie Kelly on the council, maybe there’s a small chance Austin can hire a city manager more interested in actually managing city government in a competent manner that earning social justice warrior brownie points.

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Posted in Austin, Democrats, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 4 Comments »

Austin City Council Continues Assault On APD

Sunday, April 25th, 2021

It’s obvious that the current Austin City Council hates the Austin Police Department, and will do anything they think the can get away with to strip it of money and power. The most recent example: They’re stripping 911 funding from the police to hand it over to a newly created department:

In continuing to restructure the Austin Police Department, the City Council on Thursday voted to move 911 communications and several other services out of police control and into other city departments.

The total funding to be transferred out of the Police Department’s budget will be about $33.3 million — much of it due to 284.5 full-time positions moving to other city departments.

The decision builds on the council’s work during last year’s budget process when it cut or reallocated $150 million from the Police Department’s budget — one-third of the entire budget. The money removed Thursday came from funds that were set aside to explore shifting roles assigned to police to other city departments.

Why strip money from a functioning 911 dispatch system? Obviously, because the current employees support the police department, and lack of control over it means it can’t be staffed with leftwing cronies, making it much harder to rake off the graft and embezzlement. The “efficiencies” the Austin City Council claims the move to an “Emergency Communications Department” will bring is efficiently siphoning taxpayer money from the causes for which it is earmarked and into the hands of the hard left. But don’t think the crazy stops there:

Thursday’s vote followed a presentation earlier in the week from a community task force assembled by City Manager Spencer Cronk’s office to consider ways to improve public safety.

The recommendations included removing various line items in the Police Department’s budget and investing them in low-income communities through things such as health care access, food, housing and sex worker outreach services.

Some of the more extreme recommendations came from a four-person working group over patrol and surveillance. They included removing all deadly firearms from police officers and putting an end to new cadet classes. By eliminating neighborhood-based policing, the working group said the city would save $210 million that could be reinvested in communities of color.

“Any City Council member who supports that should be fired,” [Austin Police Association President Ken] Casady said. “It’s crazy town. Just by reading this one recommendation this committee has lost all credibility.”

Removing firearms from police and giving money to whores: Your Austin City Council at work.

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Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Waste and Fraud | 7 Comments »