Austin News

As an elite professional boxer, Casey Ramos trained day and night. Now running for City Council District 2, he’s campaigning with the same intensity while raising a newborn with his fiancée.

“I feel like we are underrepresented, underserved and it's just been going on for decades,” Ramos said of District 2 constituents. “Being underrepresented and underserved is exacerbated by other issues like defunding law enforcement and allowing public camping.”

While USA Today reported that the Austin City Council approved a $20 million immediate cut in police department funding to free capital for social programs, Ramos doesn’t agree with the measure.

“We need both," Ramos told the Austin News. "We need a well-funded security force and we need private programs to help the drug-addicted, the poor, the homeless and the mentally ill." 

Instead of defunding the police, however, Ramos hopes to represent District 2 on the Austin City Council in order to advocate for taking out a bond to fund social programs.

“The city is trying to take out a $9 billion bond to build a rail that won't be completed for another 10 to 15 years, and it won't come to our neighborhood in District 2 for 20 years, so imagine what those funds can be doing over that time for people at-risk,” said Ramos in an interview. “If we're going to tax ourselves, then let's take out a bond to provide social services instead of a rail.”

When it comes to public camping or homelessness, the city of Austin has shown an increase of 11%, according to media reports.

“As long as there are mental health issues, drugs and poverty, there will be homelessness but we can at least mitigate some of those issues by taking out a social service bond or public works bond for people who are in poverty and help them to work themselves out of poverty,” Ramos said. “Then, after they reinstate themselves here in the city and buy a home, eventually, all of that money that was paid to the people will eventually go back to the city through property taxes.”

Regarding revising the Land Development Code, Ramos says he is staunchly opposed to CodeNEXT, but not against updating zoning.

Depending on how the Land Development Code is rewritten, real estate use throughout town could change dramatically, according to the city of Austin’s website.

“It's a little bit outdated but the way it's being presented to us through CodeNEXT is outrageous,” said Ramos. “It doesn't follow the demographics of our neighborhood. It's going to bring gentrification. It's going to bring more flooding. It's environmentally insensitive and if we just continue to develop unbridled, then we're going to literally be flushed out by either property taxes or by floods.”