User:Mbcoats/Mary Arnold (environmentalist)

Mary Arnold (environmentalist) is an Austin activist who played a large part in shaping the city's history for forty years, beginning with her key role in the 1973 "Save MUNY" golf course campaign. She was vice-chair of Save Our Springs Alliance and worked to protect the Edwards aquifer recharge zone from inappropriate development. Her activism impacted multiple development proposals, including Circle C, the controversial Gary Bradley agreement, the Lumbermen's development, Mayor Ron Mullen's proposal, and Stratus Properties (formerly Freeport-McMoRan). Arnold demonstrated that well-informed environmental and neighborhood activism can succeed and deliver environmental benefits. Few citizens have had as much impact on Austin as Arnold.

Saving Lions Municipal Golf Course
In the early 1970s, Arnold learned that the largest green space in her neighborhood, the Lions Municipal Golf Course, was in danger of disappearing.

The city had operated the golf course, known as MUNY, through a lease agreement with UT since 1938, but UT regent Chairman Frank Erwin wanted to turn a profit on the 150-acre property. In 1972 he sought to end the lease and sell the land.

Mary Arnold and her friend Virginia Bedinger joined forces with golfers, activists, and city leaders to oppose the sale. Arnold knew a good deal about land-use history, and she knew that when the George Brackenridge family had donated the land to UT in 1910, there were stipulations prohibiting UT from selling the land.

In 1973 after months of wrangling, the city and UT struck a deal that allowed the city to lease the land for 1$ a year until 1987. In return the city paid to upgrade and move Red River Street for UT. Arnold's research had bolstered the arguments to defeat Erwin's plan and stopped the University of Texas from selling the MUNY golf course to commercial developers.

xxx FROM MUNY xxx

The Save Muny organization was created in 1987 to assure Muny remained city owned and open to the public. Save Muny, the city and UT came to another temporary agreement in 1987. Rent would go up $175,000 a year and then would increase every five years, until it would be $425,000 a year in 2017. Save Muny sought a new deal in 1989. After negotiations the city's lease was extended to 2019. By 2008 the city was paying UT $345,600 a year. As of 2019 the city was paying UT $500,000 per year to lease the golf course land.

Mullen
"If there was a cure for cancer and Mary Arnold was against it, it would be a close vote," developer Gary Bradley remarked one day last fall. He was volunteering a backward salute to Arnold's victory of a few days earlier, when the City Council rejected a Lumbermen's Investment Corp. proposal to build a 180-foot luxury condo on a vacant patch of real estate north of Town Lake. For Arnold, the triumph -- though it may be short-lived -- was just another chapter in a story that began in 1984, when Arnold, Roberta Crenshaw, and Susan Toomey Frost sued the city for passing an ordinance -- without proper public notice -- that gave away a chunk of the city-owned Sand Beach Reserve to Town Lake Joint Venture, a development outfit financially linked to then-Mayor Ron Mullen. The mayor and his partners subsequently intervened in the lawsuit, claiming the conduct of the three women was "willful, wanton, and malicious."

But Mullen was also gearing up for the 1985 re-election campaign, so the timing of his lawsuit against three civic-minded ladies could not have been worse. His mayoral opponent, Frank Cooksey, must have been turning back flips with his good fortune. Two days before the election, a full-page political ad appeared in the Statesman. The bold print screamed, "Why are Mayor Mullen and his partners suing these three ladies for over $800,000? Because they questioned Mayor Mullen's land development deal using city parkland ... and they would not be bullied!" Three days later, Mullen was history. Arnold believes the ad contributed to Mullen's defeat, and helped usher in a new era of city politics with Cooksey and a more user-friendly council that included Smoot Carl-Mitchell, Sally Shipman, and George Humphrey. "It was a huge win for Cooksey," she says, "because he was an outsider running against an incumbent." The Town Lake Joint Venture and Mullen, an insurance executive, eventually went bankrupt, Lumbermen's foreclosed on the land, and the Sand Beach Reserve controversy dragged on for several more years. Finally, in December 2000, the city and Lumbermen's reached a settlement defining the boundary lines of the property.

At work
Mary Arnold's 30 years of Austin activism on behalf of Austin included many battles.

In 1973 she played a key role to stop UT Regents from selling MUNY, the Lions Municipal Golf Course for development.

She was appointed to a citizens group in 1975 that wrote the Austin Tomorrow Plan of 1980, making recommedations for long-term growth policies.

Arnold served on Austin's Parks Board for six years (1978-1984) making forceful arguments against Municipal Utility Districts. She also shaped city tree preservation, landscape, and parkland ordinances.

In 1984 Arnold joined a lawsuit with Roberta Crenshaw and Susan Toomey Frost to challenge a development deal involving city parkland. The mayor, Ron Mullen, had a financial link to the deal. Mullen counter-sued the women, which contributed to him losing his re-election six months later.

Arnold served on the city Austin Planning Commission from 1984-1989 and rose to chair. She filled an unexpired term on city Water and Wastewater Commission. in 1989.

Arnold was among the 800 people who showed up at the 1990 hearing to oppose Freeport-McMoRan's proposed Barton Creek development which ended with the council rejecting the proposal. Arnold ran unsuccessfully against City Council member Ronney Reynolds in 1994.

From 1995 to 2000 Arnold remained remained active in progressive politics, opposing City Council votes on development deals, including the contoversial Gary Bradley agreement.

Arnold scored a victory in 2001 when the City Council rejected the proposed Lumbermen's development on Town Lake (Lady Bird Lake). She retired from SOS board the same year.

She continued her activism in 2002. She was involved in development negotiations with Stratus Properties (formerly Freeport-McMoRan) and also served as a appointee on a committee to examining the environmental impact of LCRA's water pipeline proposals.

temp refs
AUSTIN'S green GODMOTHER - Michael Barnes - Sunday August 8, 2021

Citizen Mary - 2002

At Work - April 5, 2002

There's Something About Mary - March 10, 2000

SOS Sues Over Stratus Plan

For decades, Arnold has sought dozens of ways to protect the golf course and other attendant parkland at MUNY.

Save Out Springs Alliance
she had an influential hand in crafting the Austin Tomorrow Plan, the city's much-beleaguered but still operable blueprint for long-term growth and planning. She also covered lots of ground on ordinances to secure the watershed ("They were a little bit watered down, but they made a difference"), along with tree preservation, parkland dedication, and landscape ordinances. In the early 1990s, Arnold worked with SOS Alliance leader Bill Bunch on the SOS water-quality ordinance, whose 1992 passage marked the crowning moment in Austin's environmental history.

vice chair of the Save Our Springs Alliance (SOSA) board of directors, Arnold has served on both the Parks Board and the Planning Commission, has run for City Council, and is a determined gadfly on issues such as preserving the Sand Beach Reserve tract from commercial development.

As a longtime fighter for Austin's right to self-determination, she has the clout and the institutional memory to take on the big issues of the day. The latest upset she's involved in is the city's contemplation of reaching an agreement with Bradley that would bring 3,076 acres of his prime aquifer land under the city's protection, albeit at development levels somewhat higher than the SOS ordinance would allow.

Personal life
She was born June 4, 1935, in Dallas, Texas. She attended the University of Texas at Austin and graduated in 1956.