Last Wednesday, I crossed paths with two mayors from our Central Texas community.
First, I encountered Round Rock Mayor Alan McGraw at the grand opening of Ology, the student-run restaurant of The Art Institute of Austin (a Pierpont client). Mayor McGraw spoke at the event about how organizations like The Art Institute add to the fabric of our community and make it a great place to live and do business. His comments were on point and appropriately brief, since directly afterward we were treated to some very tasty cuisine from the student chefs of Ology.
Later that day, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell addressed a small group of Leadership Austin Essential Class Alumni, which I’m fortunate to be among. Several highlights struck me from the discussion.
- A former Air Force base, Austin's airport is one of the few with runways long enough to accommodate the large aircrafts that carry Formula One cars. That's part of what helped us attract F1 to Austin, which is expected to add nearly $400 million to our economy when it's up and running in 2012. Suddenly, I think I've become an F1 fan!
- Austin tops lots of "best of" lists for everything from quality of life to real estate to business friendliness. Unfortunately, we also top lists like "worst traffic congestion." We have to fix that if we hope to continue to thrive. Mayor Leffingwell believes the solution must be multi-mode and that, if we can make our start on urban rail a success, we'll be more likely to attract federal funding to help us build out the rail system into a real solution for Austin.
- Renewable energy is crucial to Austin's future, both for consumption by our residents and attracting clean tech businesses (like SunPower, which just opened an office here). However, Mayor Leffingwell feels we must pursue the city’s goal to generate 35 percent of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 carefully. In doing so, rates cannot rise more than two percent per year and we must remain among the most affordable utilities in the country. The approach is clean, reliable and affordable and gives businesses comfort that their energy costs will remain predictable.
Mayor Leffingwell discussed many other topics, including his bid to establish single-member representation within the Austin City Council, his desire to increase campaign finance limits for city elections, the impact of (and misperceptions about) economic agreements with companies relocating to Austin and the importance of supporting Austin's nonprofit community. These issues were also the principal components of his 2011 State of the City address delivered on Friday.
As I closed out my day and drove home, I was left with the impression that we’re lucky to have strong leaders in Central Texas ready to embrace opportunity and tackle the challenges that lie ahead.