Austin News

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated the Austin music scene – shuttering venues, costing musicians the majority of their gigs, impacting affiliated businesses. Proponents have called on the city to invest more money in supporting the people and businesses suffering due to the coronavirus.

There is just one option, says lawyer Bill Bunch.

“Unless some other hidden funds show up, the only real funds available to help live music, the arts, and unique local businesses – the people and places that make Austin a great place to live and to visit – is the hotel tax reserve funds,” Bunch told Austin News. “Those funds are sitting in an account to support the convention center expansion. The expansion should die as a terrible investment of our hotel tax dollars. At the very least it should be put on hold for a few years while we save the best of Austin before it’s too late.”

Bill Bunch | File Photo

He has said it comes down to a question of values. While Mayor Steve Adler said the HOT funds are not available to help musicians and venue owners, Bunch and other arts advocates say the law allows it – and common decency demands it.

“This really is a moral choice for the mayor and City Council: they can put the money into the pockets of a few wealthy downtown property owners for the convention center expansion or they can help thousands of people and hundreds of venues survive the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression,” Bunch said. “What funding is available now for the city to use to save Austin's iconic local businesses and music culture? It is a moral choice, between helping the people and places that we say we love and care about with the hotel tax reserve funds that built up because these people and places have drawn visitors to Austin in droves for the last 15 years, or tell lies and hoard the money to pay rich downtown property owners for land to expand the convention center. That is the choice.”

He said there really are no alternatives. A large pool of money is required and the HOT reserve fund is the only answer.

“I think funds other than the hotel tax reserves available for music and iconic businesses is couch money. Not much,” Bunch said. “The reserve funds are in the neighborhood of $200 million. Some of this is committed to covering the construction bonds from the 2000 expansion of the convention center, but the bulk of it could be redirected to saving what we love most about Austin.”

He said Adler, a lawyer, is making “a false legal argument” that the reserve funds cannot be directed to saving live music, the arts and iconic businesses.

“The law is very clear that they can as long as the payments owing on the 2000 bonds are covered,” Bunch said. “The hotel taxes accumulated over the years are far in excess of that amount.

“Four lawyers, including me, released a memo analyzing the state law that governs how cities and counties can use the hotel tax funds they collect,” he said. “The memo shows how the city can fund music, the arts, iconic local restaurants and other venues and comply with the law. In my opinion the mayor knows he is misleading the city on these issues. He wants his billion dollar boondoggle expansion, and he wants it now. He doesn't really care about Austin musicians, artists and small businesses that are suffering.”

Bunch is an environmental attorney who has worked on behalf of the Sierra Club, Hill Country Foundation, Travis Audubon Society, Texas Rivers Protection Association, Texas Center for Policy Studies, San Marcos River Foundation, as well as private landowners and neighborhood groups.

He has led Save Our Springs Alliance for three decades. The Alliance is dedicated to protecting Barton Springs and other major Edwards Aquifer springs through the development and enforcement of water quality ordinances, the listing of endangered and threatened species and other measures.