Why Is the City Hiding the Zucker Report?

The city took weeks to respond to open records requests and initially refused to release the report. Then the city provided 71 pages, which consisted of an array of charts, financial data and redacted pages.

“They deleted all the words,” said Hebert.

Read more:

www.mystatesman.com/news/news/local/austin-activists-push-for-planning-report-only-to-/

Edit: Statesman has moved this behind their paywall now, so click read more for the rest of the article. 

Austin activists push for planning report, only to find it redacted
Posted: 12:00 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015
By Lilly Rockwell - American-Statesman Staff


For more than a month, University of Texas business professor Betsy Greenberg and business lawyer Mike Hebert have been trying to get their hands on a document called the Zucker Report.
Though it sounds like something out of Edward Snowden’s NSA files, the report is the stuff of mundane city governance: It is a $250,000 review by California-based Zucker Systems of Austin’s Planning and Development Review Department, timed to coincide with CodeNEXT, a major rewrite of the city’s land development code.

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LAURA SKELDING
Donald Birkner, assistant director of the city’s Planning and Development Review Department, is shown in 2012 looking over documents in the ... Read More

The city took weeks to respond to open records requests and initially refused to release the report. Then the city provided 71 pages, which consisted of an array of charts, financial data and redacted pages.

“They deleted all the words,” said Hebert.

This report, described as a “workflow organizational assessment,” has captured the attention of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, a group of politically powerful central Austin neighborhoods that is often at forefront of some of the most heated battles against real estate developers, particularly when it involves the intersection of high-density housing near established neighborhoods of single-family homes. Greenberg is an ANC member; Hebert describes himself as a Hancock resident concerned with neighborhood issues.

• Zucker report 1 
• Zucker report 2 
• Letter from attorney Mike Hebert 
• City of Austin legal letter 

Mary Ingle, the president of the ANC, said she is hopeful Zucker’s report will offer an unvarnished, critical view of the city’s planning and development department that will lead to reforms.

The city commissioned the report in June following a milder shake-up of the planning and development department by the city manager, according to city spokesman Kyle Carvell.

“Recognizing the value of this initial exercise in self-improvement, the city manager’s office determined a comprehensive evaluation of PDRD was warranted,” Carvell said.

The department is responsible for vetting and approving nearly anything related to housing development or land use throughout the city, from house remodeling to building a new office complex or subdivision. It employs 324 people and is one of the highest profile and most powerful city departments because it is often in the middle of clashes over controversial, multimillion-dollar developments, or playing a big hand in shaping long-term planning decisions.

Both neighborhood groups and the real estate development industry, which are usually at odds over development decisions, have found a common enemy in the city’s planning and development department. Each say they are hopeful this report will lead to an overhaul of the department to correct deficiencies.

Ingle said the problem is inept management, inaccurate interpretation of the law and a too-cozy relationship with developers; Ward Tisdale, the president of the Real Estate Council of Austin, said the issue was slow permitting and site plan approvals, as well as conflicting advice and lack of coordination.

Within the law

A draft of the Zucker report was due in December to the city. Greenberg and Hebert filed their open records requests in mid-January. (The American-Statesman also filed a request for the report around this time.)

On Jan. 30, the city issued a letter declining to release the report, citing an exception to the state’s open records laws dealing with “an interagency or intra-agency memorandum or letter that would not be available by law to a party in litigation with the agency.” The city declined to explain its reasoning behind this exception.

The heavily redacted version of the report was released a week later.

Joel White, a Houston-based attorney familiar with open records laws, said that portion of the state’s open records laws allows “opinions and recommendations concerning policy matters within the agency” to be exempted from the records that must be released to the public.

Looking at the case as an outside observer, White said it sounds like the city can legitimately withhold substantive parts of the report. “The question is: Have they over-redacted?” he said.

Contacted by email to discuss the report, Paul Zucker, the head of Zucker Systems, told the American-Statesman to direct its questions to the city instead. Zucker has been paid $175,000 so far for this report, and a copy of his contract indicates that a draft would be “under review” in late January with a final presentation delivered around late February.

In a Jan. 21 memo to the Planning Commission, Planning and Development Review Department Director Greg Guernsey wrote that the consultant’s December 2014 release date didn’t take into account “the time required for staff review.”

“To date, staff is correcting errors, inaccuracies and providing additional information as requested by the consultant … the consultant continues to make modifications based on the information submitted by the department,” Guernsey wrote.

Seeking transparency

City Council Member Greg Casar, who is chair of the Planning and Neighborhoods council committee, said he wants to work on ways to make the policy review process more transparent.

“I’m somebody that wants the city to be as transparent as possible,” Casar said, suggesting a public tracking system for when the staff is reviewing policy at the council’s direction, or undertaking department reviews like the Zucker report.

“Often times council members don’t even know” what the status is of a given policy study, he said. “Our city staff have some idea of how it is moving forward — that is their job. But there isn’t that level of transparency.”

The city’s persistent refusal to release the full draft has only stoked the flames of ANC’s suspicion.

“Not releasing the report seems far worse than whatever it is that the report says,” Greenberg said, adding that taking so much time to release it means “they want to change it.” 

Tisdale said his members share in the angst to see the report.

“It’s in everyone’s best interest to get this out in the light of day,” he said.

(but apparently not, since Austin Statesman moved this behind a paywall. huh)