Austin Justice

Covering crime, courts, and policy in Austin. The local lens that explains national patterns. DMs open.

[Matt Mackowiak @MattMackowiak]

Enraging, indefensible, grifting and repellent.

#ATXcouncil

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

More here: https://t.co/dO97XSLpyZ

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin's firefighter entrance exam is designed around racial outcomes.

The firm that builds the test sold itself to the city by saying it "increased Blacks in the passing list by 208%" in Houston.

In its pitch it also points to Kansas City, where it says "black representation in the department matches the relevant labor market" and women make up "3 times the national representation of women in the fire service."

In Austin, the written test is 20% of an applicant's score. The other 80% is an oral interview, graded by outside evaluators who take at least four hours of "bias" training first.

In the last hiring cycle, 1,398 people applied and 667 took the test. The firm ranked them by combined score, and a selected 150-200 candidates went on to physical, medical and background checks.

Before the rankings go to the city, the firm (Morris & McDaniel) breaks every score down by race and sex and runs statistical tests on each group.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin is paying a firm $1.2 million to design its firefighter entrance exam so that black, Hispanics and women score better.

The contract orders the firm to use test sections that "reduce or eliminate disparate impact" on those three groups.

If those groups still score lower, the firm says it will recommend branding and "compensatory adjustments," among other things.

Federal law bans adjusting hiring test scores by race or sex. In 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that New Haven broke civil rights law when it threw out a firefighter exam because too few black candidates passed.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin's firefighter entrance exam is designed around racial outcomes.

The firm that builds the test sold itself to the city by saying it "increased Blacks in the passing list by 208%" in Houston.

In its pitch it also points to Kansas City, where it says "black representation in the department matches the relevant labor market" and women make up "3 times the national representation of women in the fire service."

In Austin, the written test is 20% of an applicant's score. The other 80% is an oral interview, graded by outside evaluators who take at least four hours of "bias" training first.

In the last hiring cycle, 1,398 people applied and 667 took the test. The firm ranked them by combined score, and a selected 150-200 candidates went on to physical, medical and background checks.

Before the rankings go to the city, the firm (Morris & McDaniel) breaks every score down by race and sex and runs statistical tests on each group.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin is paying a firm $1.2 million to design its firefighter entrance exam so that black, Hispanics and women score better.

The contract orders the firm to use test sections that "reduce or eliminate disparate impact" on those three groups.

If those groups still score lower, the firm says it will recommend branding and "compensatory adjustments," among other things.

Federal law bans adjusting hiring test scores by race or sex. In 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that New Haven broke civil rights law when it threw out a firefighter exam because too few black candidates passed.

[Matt Mackowiak @MattMackowiak]

More astounding waste

Remember: They raise your taxes to the maximum 3.5% every year to fund this nonsense.

[Peter Kazanjy @Kazanjy]

Remember that obese lesbian black lady fire chief in LA who when asked about potential issues carrying a man out of a fire, answered “if I have to carry you, you put yourself somewhere you shouldn’t have been!”

This will create more retardation like that.

[Corey Walker 🇺🇸 @CoreyWriting]

Who cares if we die? All that maters is that the fire fighters that failed to save us were "diverse."

Lord help us all.

[Blake Neff @BlakeSNeff]

Easy tip: The easiest way to make women score better on this test is to make it have nothing at all to do with firefighting.

[Razib Khan 🧬 ✍️ @razibkhan]

the worst immediate life consequence of dems winning gov. office and house of rep. in texas is cities like austin can now go buck-wild; before they would be checked

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin is on track to pay over $4 million to an NGO whose strategic plan demands the city “follow through on its formal apology to the Black community with action.”

Government grants make up about two-thirds of Six Square’s revenue. The first goal the city lists for its current contract is keeping Six Square in existence.

What Six Square has put on:
- "Black Minds Matter," a virtual meditation series with Black therapists and "healing practitioners"
- "Beyond the Square," the Big Freedia festival
- "Stay Black and Live," a festival with a "Free Your Mind Symposium Series"
- Grocery deliveries to artists

Its strategic plan calls on the city to "follow through on its formal apology to the Black and African-American community with action," and says "true repair and reconciliation requires sustained investment, policy change, and community-led decision-making."

Austin has paid Six Square $2.87 million since 2017. Its current contract allows up to $1.2 million more through 2030.

The city also subsidizes the group tens of thousands of dollars a year by renting it office space on East 11th Street for $100 a year.

[Wesley Yang @wesyang]

A few less woke candidates won office and a few ultra-woke candidates won by pretending to be post-woke. But the woke places never stopped being woke and now that their party dominates the whole country, they will simply exercise power without constraint.

[Caitlin Cloud @CaitlinCloud9]

i would like to submit my proposal for a $2 million public art installation. it’s called “your tax dollars at work” and it’s literally just someone lighting giant stacks of cash on fire.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

@j_why If you write up the full break down of the $22 million, I’ll repost it.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

City of Austin gives the Austin Film Society two massive handouts:

1. $22 million in cash
2. City property worth at least $29.8 million, for just $100 a year in rent

The Film Society then rents that property to film and TV productions and collects millions in rent.

Next week, the City Council votes on giving it $1.2 million more.

The Film Society says its mission includes “actively dismantle the structural racism, sexism and other bias in the screen industries.”

It has $10.9 million in net assets.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin's airport gave $1.66 million to an artist for a pile of cinderblocks that it put in the garage walkway. Now it’s preparing to demolish the garage and will remove it, claiming it has nowhere to display or store it on the airport's 4,200 acres.

A second piece on the list for removal is a set of concrete sculptures from 1999, which the artist said he doesn’t want to take back.

The airport's expansion includes tens of millions of dollars in new public art by dozens of artists.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

@j_why Yes, $22 million of taxpayer cash grants over 18 years to an NGO.

[Rick Rule @RealRickRule]

Is this the highest and best use of the citizens funds?
Any Austin taxpayers here?

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

AUSTIN MAN pleads guilty to robbery, skips prison, and is arrested for theft four days later.

Robbery is a second-degree felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. Dominique Sita-Massolola pleaded guilty to it and got a county jail sentence. A felony criminal mischief charge in the same case was knocked down to a misdemeanor.

Four days later, he was arrested for theft again, this time with two prior theft convictions on his record.

This was not the first break DA Jose Garza's office gave him. Last December, he was charged with felony theft with two prior convictions, and prosecutors reduced it to a misdemeanor.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

AUSTIN WOMAN skips court, forfeits her bond, and prosecutors drop the case anyway.

Marie Hefley was arrested for trespassing at the Texas Capitol. She stopped showing up to court, and the judge forfeited her bond. Then the case was dismissed.

She has 13 cases since October 2024, nearly all of them along Congress Ave downtown.

She has been arrested for trespassing eight times. County Attorney Delia Garza's office declined three of those cases and dismissed three more.

She has been arrested twice with meth. DA Jose Garza's office filed no charges either time. A third meth felony was pleaded down to a misdemeanor "attempt."

She was convicted of causing at least $750 in damage at the Freebirds on South Congress and got 60 days.

On Sept. 30, she allegedly assaulted someone outside Urban Wine and Liquor on Congress. She bonded out with orders to stay away from the store. Four days later she was arrested for trespassing again.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

@RogerRogerATX The garbage facility will also do vehicle repairs.

[Austin Justice @AustinJustice]

Austin will pay $3 million to decorate its new garbage truck yard.

The plan is to pay artists:
- $1.8 million for the garage façade
- $600,000 for five sculptures
- $300,000 for two murals on water cisterns
- $300,000 for a "suspended 3D artwork" over the lobby's staircase

Next week, Council votes on the $300,000 hanging piece by Carlyn Ray, a Dallas glass artist.