Max’s major accomplishments
 

 Built the Convention Center…on time and on budget.  And it made money!
 

Moved the Airport.  Max was the first elected official to advocate moving the airport to Bergstrom, saving hundreds of millions of dollars.  Max worked to make sure the new airport included Austin’s unique flavor.

Max introduced the city’s first non-degradation water quality ordinance to protect Barton Springs.  This evolved into the SOS ordinance, approved by voters in 1992.

Max put endangered species on the local agenda for the first time.  This action resulted in voters approving millions of dollars to purchase habitat.

The trail of lights in Zilker Park used to be a miles-long traffic jam, polluting the air and disrupting businesses on Barton Springs road.  Max transformed it into a pedestrian event, enjoyed by hundreds of thousands every year.

 We kept Liberty Lunch open.  It is no coincidence that the Lunch closed shortly after Max left office.  It, along with Steamboat, Electric Lounge, Ruta Maya, and The Hole in the Wall, were all victims of the city’s “Smart Growth” policy.

 Reduced city spending.  When Max took office in 1987, Austin was in a financial crisis.  Making hard decisions in very difficult circumstances, Max put the city’s financial house in order.

 Max helped to revitalize the local economy after the bust of the eighties, focussing on tourism, music, and technology.  His policies demonstrated that we could have strong environmental protection and a strong economy.

 Max was the first councilmember to recognize the importance of music to the local economy.  He created the Austin Music Commission, a music staff position, the music industry loan program (which helped to create the Austin Rehearsal Complex), music at the city council chambers, the Austin Music Network, and the “live Music Capitol of the World” slogan.  He also worked to place the Stevie Ray Vaughan monument in a prominent location.

 Max worked with the Arts Commission to end the “Arts War” in the late eighties.

 Max helped to put Austin on the nation’s bicycling map by supporting the Veloway, a bicycling track in a City park.  Austin’s most famous cyclist, Lance Armstrong, put Austin on the world’s bicycling map.

Max has worked on electric utility issues since his first campaign in 1979, when he spoke out against the South Texas Nuclear Project.  In 1983 he helped to defeat the lignite plant (which would have strip-mined Bastrop County), and in 1985 he campaigned against spending $20 Million to buy land on which to build coal-burning power plants.

 Max helped to shut down high-dollar, high-pollution electric utility projects like the trash burner, the lignite plant, and the proposed coal-burning plants, thereby saving hundreds of millions for Austin ratepayers.

After leaving the city council in 1996, Max worked to improve his neighborhood by removing the Cinema West porno theatre and working with the Austin Police Dep’t. to shut down prostitution on South Congress Avenue.  These efforts helped to bring about the revitalization of The Avenue, now the coolest area in the city.
 

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