2222CONA

Representatives from 2222CONA attended the General Communications session of the 21 April 2005 City Council meeting to express appreciation for Councilmember Raul Alvarez serving two terms of public service.

Honorable Mayor and Councilmembers,
My name is Carol Lee and I am a resident of Glenlake neighborhood, which is located off of City Park Road near Emma Long Metropolitan Park.  I also am the Glenlake representative of the 2222 Coalition of Neighborhood Organizations (CONA), which represents more than 3000 families who live in the FM2222 Corridor.

2222CONA has roots dating to 1991, and has witnessed the intense pressure that developers, and their lobbyists and lawyers, have placed on the City of Austin for high-density development in this environmentally sensitive region that hosts endangered habitat and contributes to our drinking water supply. As such we have spent hundreds of hours attending Zoning and Platting Commission and City Council meetings. This has provided to us much insight into how our City is run and to the wide variety of complex issues that come before the Council. We have gained a tremendous appreciation for what serving as a public official entails, and we thank all of you for your service and dedication to public office.

Today we are here to give special thanks to Councilmember Raul Alvarez. Throughout his two terms as Place 2 representative on the City Council, Raul Alvarez has demonstrated consistent integrity and leadership for the entire City of Austin. As is tradition for the Place 2 officeholder, Councilmember Alvarez has been a champion for issues that particularly affect East Austin, and we applaud his initiatives and accomplishments to give the East Austin area of our community the focus and priority it deserves.  But, as is called for in our At Large structure of the Council, Councilmember Alvarez also has served very admirably as a representative for all of the citizens of Austin.

Time and again we have witnessed Raul Alvarez give thoughtful consideration to a wide variety of issues, providing substantiated arguments for his position, and casting a vote that he feels is in the best interests of all the citizens of Austin.  At times he has been alone, or in the minority, in standing up for citizens and neighborhoods, but he has not let that sway his mind or morals in striving to act in the best interests of the public. What more could one ask for from a public official?!?

Councilmember Alvarez, we wish you could serve another term on the City Council, and we will all miss your presence on the dais. In meeting with Mike Martinez recently we told him that he has a very big place to fill, and we are hopeful that he will strive to provide the quality of leadership that you have. We wish you the absolute best in whatever you undertake next, and hope you have many happy Thursday evenings with your family! Please know that, should you return to public service or undertake efforts that need public support, you have an admiring group of fans and supporters from all over Austin, especially those of us in the FM2222 Corridor