Politics

Soros group donates $500K into campaign opposing re-funding Austin police department

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The advocacy group founded by financier George Soros has donated $500,000 to a campaign to defeat a proposal in Austin, Texas, that would bulk up the city’s police department.

Proposition A, an Austin ballot proposal for the Nov. 2 election backed by the group Save Austin Now, would require at least two Austin police officers for every 1,000 residents and would provide officers with an additional 40 hours of police training each year on topics such as weapons proficiency and active shooter scenarios. 

According to financial records reviewed by Fox News, Soros’ Open Society Policy Center last week donated $500,000 to Equity Austin, a group that is working to defeat Proposition A.

“It sickens me that out-of-town billionaires are able to swoop into Austin to fight against citizen-led ballot initiatives,” Austin City Council member Mackenzie Kelly said in a statement to Fox News. “The purpose of our city’s charter is to allow regular, everyday people to fight for what they believe in when the city council fails them.”

The co-founders of Save Austin Now used the Soros opposition as a fundraising point with supporters. “Massive out-of-state funding for our opponents show two things: That Austin donors won’t fund the anti-Prop A campaign and that the stakes in this effort to restore public safety to Austin could not be higher,” Matt Mackowiak and Cleo Petricek said in a joint statement. “We are now going to fight twice as hard and we hope all our supporters will as well.”

In the wake of protests from the previous year, the Austin City Council voted to cut up to $150 million from its police department budget, which represents a little more than a third of its total budget.  The proposal went onto say that this money should be invested in other public services.

Austin has seen a steep rise in homicides over the past year, and, due to police staffing shortages, residents are being encouraged to call 311 instead of 911 to report non-emergencies.

“Please understand, if somebody is in danger, we’re still going to send a marked unit and a uniformed officer to go handle it,” interim police chief Joseph Chacon explained Wednesday, according to KXAN-TV. “But for crimes that may have already happened and are now being reported, we are looking at alternative measures, and that’s what we’re working on now.”

ARTICLE: PAUL MURDOCH 

MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE

PHOTO CREDITS: THE EPOCH TIMES

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Paul Murdoch

Paul, 37, is from Scotland in the UK, but currently lives and works in Bangkok. Paul has worked in different industries such as telemarketing, retail, hospitality, farming, insurance, and teaching, where he works now. He teaches at an all-girls High School in Bangkok. “It’s a lot of work, but I love my job.” Paul has an active interest in politics. His reason for writing for FBA is to offer people the facts and allow them to make up their own minds. Whilst he believes opinion columns have their place, it is also important that people can have accurate news with no bias.

Paul, 37, is from Scotland in the UK, but currently lives and works in Bangkok. Paul has worked in different industries such as telemarketing, retail, hospitality, farming, insurance, and teaching, where he works now. He teaches at an all-girls High School in Bangkok. “It’s a lot of work, but I love my job.” Paul has an active interest in politics. His reason for writing for FBA is to offer people the facts and allow them to make up their own minds. Whilst he believes opinion columns have their place, it is also important that people can have accurate news with no bias.

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