City of Austin Council Message Board

Posted on behalf of Council Member Qadri:

Colleagues-

I’m proud to bring forward Item 122, which directs the City to strengthen our response, communication, and resources to address hate crimes in Austin. In recent years, we’ve seen a disturbing rise in hate crimes both nationally and locally. Item 122 provides clear direction for the City to take action and builds on critical investments already included in the proposed FY25–26 budget:

$150,000 and one position are being transferred from Development Services to establish a Human Rights Division within the Office of Equity and Inclusion, which will lead inclusive outreach and engagement.
$150,000 in ongoing funding will support We All Belong, a public education campaign against hate crimes and incidents.
$250,000 will support the development of a transition plan to improve accessibility in public spaces within the Office of Equity and Inclusion.

I want to thank MPT Fuentes, CM Velásquez, CM Alter, and CM Duchen for co-sponsoring this item. I invite all of you to join as a co-sponsor for Item 122 on the July 24 agenda.

Let’s send a clear message that Austin stands united against hate.

Best,
Zo

Council Member Qadri,

Thank you for bringing Item 122 to this week's agenda. I would like to add my name as a co-sponsor.

Best,

Krista Laine

CM Qadri,

Thank you for bringing this important item. Please add me as a cosponsor.

Thanks,
Paige Ellis

CM Qadri, thank you for bringing this to the council and raising awareness about important work we need to combat hate in Austin.

I will be bringing an amendment to pause the We All Belong campaign for 1 year, specifically to "Pause the We All Belong Campaign for one year to revise budget priorities to shift away from its event focus toward a data-driven programs and services model." There are two primary reasons for this:

1. I have tried to rely on the We All Belong dashboard for understanding trends in hate crimes across Austin for some time now. I was excited the other day when I noticed that the data set had been updated after what seemed to be over a year without updates. However, thanks to Sara from Zo's team, I reviewed the data found on the We All Belong dashboard (https://experience.arcgis.com/experienc ... org=austin) and saw that totals don't appear to match up with the APD hate crime data set (https://data.austintexas.gov/Public-Saf ... about_data). The individual district data appears to generally line up, but the reported totals appear to be doubled for respective years (2024 should be 60, but lists at 120, 2023 should be 51 but lists at 102, etc.). Between the challenges having regular data updates and the issues in portraying accurate data, this system needs more work. I think it's hard to make good decisions without reliable data and I believe the intent here is for this to be a public-facing dashboard that can inform communities across Austin.

2. The trends in the data (relying on the APD data set) are not encouraging as hate crimes have consistently increased year on year. This alone should support revising how the We All Belong program is achieving it's goals and addressing it's original mission.

I believe CM Qadri may we be willing to accept this as a friendly amendment and/or incorporate it as part of his resolution.

Thank you,
-Marc

Thank you for this item, CM Qadri. Please add me as a cosponsor.

Chito

CM Qadri and all: please add me as a co-sponsor. Thank you for your important work on this item!

Mike

Posted on behalf of Council Member Qadri:

CM Duchen, thank you for bringing forward your amendment. I’ve incorporated it into Version 2, along with clarification edits, a recommendation from the Joint Inclusion Committee to expand Undoing Racism and Bystander Intervention training, and additional opportunities for community input.

Redline version- http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 084741.pdf

Best,

Zo