Link to Article: statesman/news/news/local-govt-politics/attorney-steve-adler-says-as-austins-mayor-he-woul/nhcTC/ Attorney Steve Adler says as Austin’s mayor, he would offer fresh start One of the most striking things about Steve Adler is his voice, friends of the Austin attorney say. Adler has run a law practice for 30 years, worked on public policy at the Capitol and led Austin nonprofit organizations. But he lacks the bravado of someone with a long resume. His voice is often barely above a whisper, forcing you to lean in and listen. +Attorney Steve Adler says as Austin’s mayor, he would offer fresh start photoDEBORAH CANNON Mayoral candidate Steve Adler talks with supporters at a campaign event. “For someone who has done so much, he’s surprisingly modest,” said Dick Lavine, a friend and senior fiscal analyst at the Center for Public Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank. “Never trying to take credit, but focusing on the task at hand.” This fall, Adler is vying to be Austin’s next mayor. As two other leading candidates, City Council Members Sheryl Cole and Mike Martinez, tout their insider experience, Adler, 58, emphasizes his experience outside of City Hall. Austin has fallen behind on affordability, transportation, water planning and education, he says, and it needs a fresh face to tackle those issues and lead the new “10-1” system — 10 council members who will represent districts instead of the whole city. +Attorney Steve Adler says as Austin’s mayor, he would offer fresh start photoRESHMA KIRPALANI Mayoral candidate Steve Adler poses for a portrait on September 10, 2014. “I love this city and think it’s at a crossroads,” he said. “It’s facing challenges we need to fix and we’re running out of time. Ten-one gives us the chance to reinvent government and I want to be a part of that.” Coming to Austin Adler grew up in a middle-class family in Washington, D.C. His mother was a homemaker and his father was a film editor at CBS News. With the help of scholarships, Adler attended Princeton University, then pursued his law degree at the University of Texas, drawn in part by the school’s low cost. As a UT student, Adler clerked for a law firm specializing in eminent domain, the legal process for government or companies to condemn land so they can build utility lines and structures. He stuck with that specialty — opening a private practice that he still owns with law partner Mike Barron — because condemnation raises interesting constitutional questions about land use, he said. Adler has represented hundreds of clients. For example, a few years ago, he represented the Texas Nature Conservancy when the federal government wanted to condemn land the nonprofit owned in South Texas to build a border fence. He got the conservancy a $1.1 million settlement. Early in his career, Adler also worked on employment lawsuits in which workers alleged they had been discriminated against. Stan Kerr, then a city of Austin hearings officer who oversaw those cases, said only a few Austin attorneys offered to handle those important but low-paying lawsuits. Adler had a natural rapport with clients of all races and ethnicities, Kerr said. “He was an incredibly effective and ethical attorney who worked hard so that these folks would get some sort of justice,” Kerr said. A Capitol solution-maker In 1997, newly elected Democratic state senator Eliot Shapleigh asked Adler, a friend since law school, to be his chief of staff. Adler focused on education policy and quickly became an expert on Texas’ complex school-finance system, Shapleigh said. His only pay was $50 a month and a parking spot near the Capitol, where Adler spent 12- to 16-hour days in addition to keeping open his private law firm, Shapleigh said. Besides being a “gentle, loyal friend,” Adler excelled at navigating the Capitol’s diverse personalities, Shapleigh said. “He was a great negotiator and solution-maker. He would find solutions that each side would think were fair and ingenious.” For example, pipeline and railroad interests were constantly battling over the value of rights-of-way that pipeline companies needed to build new lines. Adler came up with a creative solution that gave each side condemnation power, Shapleigh said. Adler left Shapleigh’s office in 2005. Adler and Austin attorney Fred Lewis both wanted to make Texas’ school finance system fairer, and in 2005 and 2006 the two worked on that goal at a nonprofit Adler founded: The Citizens Commission on Educational Excellence. The nonprofit did not raise enough money to survive, but Adler’s character left a lasting impression, Lewis said. “He’s thoughtful and a quick study,” Lewis said. “If he gives you his word, you can bank on it.” Environmental record questioned This fall, Martinez and other opponents have criticized Adler’s environmental record, pointing to a few clients he’s represented and also to land he co-owns in Southwest Austin. The 16-acre parcel sits over the Edwards Aquifer, an environmentally fragile area. Adler bought it in 1995 with Barron and a real estate agent. Adler said the real estate agent suggested the purchase, and the three planned to eventually sell and not develop the land. What makes the land special — and something Adler said he didn’t realize when he bought the site — is that it is grandfathered from and not subject to Austin’s Save Our Springs (SOS) Ordinance, which limits development over the aquifer to prevent pollutants from entering that water source. That Adler owns land that doesn’t need to comply with some of Austin’s strictest environmental rules has angered some activists. Adler said he and his partners have sold most of the 16 acres to Travis County and the City of Austin, which have built buildings but have not developed the land as intensely as they could have. Critics also cite Adler’s involvement in an environmental lawsuit that unfolded a decade ago. The City of Sunset Valley sued Lowe’s and the City of Austin for granting permission to Lowe’s to build a large store on land over the aquifer, where development pollutants could threaten water quality in Sunset Valley. The complex case had lasted a few years before Adler entered the picture to represent Lowe’s. Adler argued that the property had never been officially annexed by Austin, and so it should not be subject to Austin’s SOS rules. The case ended in a settlement that allowed Lowe’s to build the store, but required Lowe’s, Sunset Valley and Austin to contribute more than $1 million to buy open space and mitigate the effects of the development. Adler said he achieved what he was hired for: To help the parties find an amicable outcome. ‘Quietly moving mountains’ Opponents have implied that, as a wealthy lawyer who owns two downtown Austin condos and a large home in West Austin, Adler can’t understand the plight of low- and middle-class Austinites. Adler as of mid-summer had put $194,000 of his money into his race and raised $366,000 more — both unusually large sums for city races. He said he’s worked hard to build a successful law firm, but has focused on helping others through his nonprofit work. As the father of three daughters, one of whom took ballet, Adler wanted others to have access to the arts. In the late 1990s, he joined Ballet Austin’s board and later became president. Adler helped increase the number of low- or no-cost tickets offered to low-income people and led a capital campaign that allowed the ballet to move to a permanent space downtown, said executive director Cookie Ruiz. When Ballet Austin staged “Light / The Holocaust & Humanity Project,” Adler used his contacts and persistence to get the ballet seen in other U.S. cities and in Israel, along with a school curriculum and public dialogue, Ruiz said. “He was instrumental in the creation of that project in a quietly-moving-mountains kind of way,” Ruiz said. “There are charismatic leaders who are out in front and leaders who quietly lead by example. That (latter approach) is Steve.” While leading the board of the Austin Anti-Defamation League from 2009 to 2012, Adler helped expand a program called No Place for Hate into every Austin public school, said Karen Gross, an attorney who served as the nonprofit’s executive director. Adler’s wife, Diane Land, a property manager, has also served on the board. “Steve has a ‘big tent’ philosophy when it comes to community organizing and leading; he always encourages more voices and engagement,” Gross said. “He’s not driven by ego, so when people work with him, they feel respected, heard and invested in whatever project is on the table.” Changing City Hall This fall, Adler’s pitch to voters is that, as an outsider, he’s not wedded to ingrained protocols at City Hall. He’s been endorsed by a diverse set of groups, including the Austin Neighborhoods Council, Central Austin Democrats and the Austin Police Association. Partly to satisfy his distaste for sound bites, he’s been releasing long policy papers describing how he would tackle Austin’s biggest problems. Some of the ideas aren’t novel; for example, he wants to streamline Austin’s slow permitting process to cut construction and housing costs, and he wants to enact a 20 percent homestead exemption to help homeowners burdened by high property taxes. He said he would use budget surpluses, cut “pet projects” or raise the tax rate to pay for the tax break. Adler supports the $600 million item on the November ballot to build an urban rail line, but says he’s frustrated by the process that led to it and the lack of community consensus that resulted. One City Hall tradition that bothers Adler: All-day council meetings that stretch well past midnight. He wants to enact a committee system, similar to the Legislature’s, that would allow smaller groups of City Council members to vet and study ideas — with public input — before those measures come to a full council vote. The mayor’s office should also play a more active role in education issues, Adler said, including marshalling Austin philanthropists to donate time and money for mentoring programs, pre-K and other initiatives. The focus of Adler’s first 100 days as mayor, he said, would be helping the 10 other council members elected this fall coalesce as a group. He envisions the council touring each of the 10 new districts and enlisting experts to visit City Hall and talk about key policy topics. “I think my job as mayor will be to help the new council be as successful as they can be in their districts and in the city, and make the group greater than the sum of its parts,” he said.
Posted on: Mon, 06 Oct 2014 02:41:15 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015