AUSTIN — A group working to recall Austin City Council member Ann Kitchen claims the councilwoman “has purposefully hurt businesses that employ citizens of Austin.”
(Article by Quita Culpepper, republished from http://www.kvue.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/01/council-defends-ann-kitchen-recall-effort-moves-forward/79660760/)
The group Austin4All said it has enough signatures on its petition to force Kitchen to resign, or go through another election to keep her seat. Other members of the city council came to her defense Monday.
“She is so hardworking and diligent,” said District 4 council member Greg Casar.
“Ann has done a great job on this dais,” said District 7 council member Leslie Pool. “She has been a friend to our neighborhoods the environment and affordability.”
“To have a recall effort started because some people don’t like the views or opinions that a particular council member is expressing is absolutely the wrong reason to have a recall,” said Mayor Steve Adler.
Kitchen has been very vocal about wanting fingerprint-based background checks of drivers for app-based ride providers like Uber and Lyft. She believes that’s what’s behind this recall effort.
Kitchen said she’s been getting calls from constituents about canvassers going through their neighborhoods, allegedly giving out false information, and trying to get them to sign a recall petition.
“One of them for example said that he actually asked the petitioner who was behind this and the petitioner told him it’s a secret,” Kitchen said.
Austin4All’s office address is a UPS store on South Congress Avenue. The group has not registered itself as a political action committee (PAC) with the city, and a majority of its members are still unknown.
“A: it’s secret, it’s not supposed to be secret. B: it’s outside the district so it’s not respecting the constituents of District 5,” Kitchen said.
As of late Monday afternoon, the signatures had not been turned over the city clerk’s office. KVUE did get in touch with Austin4All co-director Tori Moreland, who said she and co-director Rachel Kania are in Iowa.
Moreland said the petition would be turned over to the city clerk’s office, “As soon as we’re finished with internal verification of all collected signatures.” Moreland and Kania also wanted to emphasize that “Uber and Lyft are not involved with Austin4All PAC at this time.”
Austin4All also sent KVUE the following statement:
“There have been accusations of secrecy on our part, however, we have not shied away from who we are and what we stand for. Councilmember Ann Kitchen clearly does not represent the majority of Austinites’ view that open access to ridesharing improves the quality of life for all Austinites, including riders and drivers, and the overwhelming success of our petition reflects that. But Austin4All is about more than just ridesharing; we’re interested in taking political action whenever necessary to bring pro-growth, pro-innovation, & pro-technology leaders and policies to Austin.
“The end goal is a more prosperous and innovative city. We need to celebrate what it is that makes Austin special- not regulate it out of existence.”
The Ridesharing Works coalition issued a statement Monday evening regarding the recall petition:
“The Ridesharing Works coalition does not support the effort to recall Council Member Kitchen. While we disagree with Council Member Kitchen’s effort to impose mandatory fingerprinting and other unnecessary regulations on rideshare drivers, we do not support the recall effort.”
Read more at: http://www.kvue.com/story/news/politics/2016/02/01/council-defends-ann-kitchen-recall-effort-moves-forward/79660760/
