AUSTIN — While violent homelessness chaos unravels in the streets and working families’ wallets are getting plundered by city hall, the mayor is busy relaxing in a mountain-view infinity pool.
Amid startling citywide crises that he helped create, Mayor Steve Adler took to Twitter over the holidays and posted a picture of himself wading in an infinity pool that overlooked bayside mountains.
“Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Hollidays [sic],” Adler tweeted.
With Sarah, her fiancé Matt, and Diane… wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Hollidays. pic.twitter.com/mVhSPiq6rj
— Mayor Adler | ????wear a mask. (@MayorAdler) December 25, 2019
For many Austinites, though, Adler’s actions haven’t exactly made their spirits bright.
Over the past several years, Adler has constantly voted to take more money from Austinites. In fact, compared to just 11 years ago, city hall is now taking 100 percent more cash from the median homeowner—what used to be a $705 median tax bill, Adler has helped raise to over $1,400 per year.
On top of that, Adler and the Austin City Council have raised both rent and cost-of-living prices through their strict construction regulations, affecting the builds of new apartments and homes.
Still more, over the last several months, Adler led an effort to legalize homeless camping throughout the city—a controversial decision that sparked a wildfire of community outrage, alarming public safety risk, and statewide backlash. Adler and the city council eventually overturned their law, but only partially.
Despite all of that, while Austin families struggle to afford Adler’s Austin and pay up the cash he and the city council demand, the mayor appears to have had a great time vacationing overseas. Though the location of the mountain-view pool was unspecified, Adler posted a picture three days earlier of he and his family touring the famous terracotta warriors site in China.
“Must be nice cyphoning [sic] all that tax money to something luxurious!!!” one citizen replied to Adler’s tweet.
“What was your carbon footprint?” another citizen asked.
“This is the perfect example of how out of touch Adler is!” another tweeted. “Austin is a mess, horrible traffic, homeless camps, racism amongst top leaders, extremely high taxes. But here he is waving from a luxurious spot.”
