We took our 2026 candidate criteria and went down the list. Here is Zo Qadri's record against that standard, and where Katie Kam stands instead.
Katie Kam
For Austin City Council, District 9
Endorsed
vs
Zo Qadri
Incumbent
Zo's failed record
Most challengers promise to scrutinize City Hall. Katie Kam has already done it from the inside. Seven years as a City of Austin planner, a PhD in civil engineering, a stint teaching science in Austin ISD, and an Assistant Director of Public Works running a $200 million budget for a neighboring city. She has also spent years on the other side of the table from developers, in her own engineering practice, negotiating changes to the plans they file. When the council moved to build a convention center its own residents did not want, she went out and collected more than 4,000 signatures against it herself. Zo Qadri voted for that project, and for the 20 percent tax increase, and for the Dog's Head agreement he later tried to walk back. District 9 does not have to guess what Katie Kam would do with the budget. She has spent a career reading them.
In her own words
We need transparency and accountability, not assumptions.
The convention center belongs to Austin, not to conventions
"I will take action to repurpose the $5.6 billion convention center project into a downtown cultural district that supports Austin arts, music, and culture."
Zo's failed record
Voted for the convention center expansion, a project 76 percent of Austin voters oppose in a Public Policy Polling survey of 586 voters. It sits in his own district. When 21,000 Austinites signed the petition to put it to a vote, City Hall threw the petition out, and is fighting its own residents in court.
She did not sign the petition. She carried it. In her own words: "I personally collected more than 4,000 petition signatures to stop the new convention center." She argues hotel occupancy tax revenue should fund Austin's music, arts, and culture instead, notes the site occupies six downtown blocks kept off the property tax rolls, and points out the city's existing venues can host 600,000 attendees at once against the new hall's projected 731,000 in a year.
Do the public's business in public, and respect the taxpayer
"I will not vote in a closed meeting (executive session)."
Zo's failed record
He sits on the council that approved a roughly $1 billion gas plant behind closed doors and then refused to release the votes. Ask him how he voted; the record cannot tell you. He voted with the 10-to-1 majority to trigger the 20 percent Prop Q tax increase that voters crushed, 63 to 37. And in the middle of a budget crisis, he authored the $104 million I-35 cap-and-stitch outlay, the first bill of a billion-dollar wish.
She voted against Prop Q, the same 20 percent increase he voted to put on the ballot, and she backs Proposition I, the charter amendment requiring a city audit within a year, at least once every five years, and before any tax rate election. Her read on why the budget got this way is blunt: waste, mismanagement, inefficiency and poor prioritization, "which occurs when Council does not engage in enough questioning and oversight."
"I will oppose the current Dog's Head Development Agreement TIRZ, and I will not support similar agreements unfairly weighted toward business interests."
Zo's failed record
For it before he was against it. On May 21, Qadri voted yes on the unanimous 45-year Dog's Head development agreement, which hands the developer broad latitude over 2,600 acres, data centers included. He flipped to a no on the July 23 financing only after residents packed City Hall and the pressure became unbearable. The 45-year agreement he approved is still binding.
Katie would not have needed two months and a packed City Hall to get there. Dog's Head is the deal her stated rule excludes: "I am opposed to economic incentives to corporations, data centers, and companies making lethal weapons." A 45-year tax increment financing district for a development that permits data centers is that incentive, at the largest scale Austin has approved. Her alternative is to attract employers with an affordable quality of life rather than with public money.
"I will not take campaign funds, during or after my race, from developers active in Austin, corporations, or billionaires, and I will not be influenced by corporate or real-estate-funded PACs."
Zo's failed record
His own filings tell the story: $444,240 raised since 2021, and real estate is his largest identifiable industry at $94,644, more than double any other. Half his money, $228,050, arrived in max-out checks. His two biggest private giving blocs are Austin's principal land-use law firm ($9,100 from 24 employees) and Endeavor Real Estate Group ($8,433 from 24 employees), the developer behind the Dog's Head deal he voted to advance.
Only 13.5 percent of his money comes from inside the district he represents.
Source: analysis of all 16 campaign finance reports Qadri filed with the Austin City Clerk, 2021 to 2026, reconciled to the cent. Full breakdown on the District 9 record page.
Katie's answer
Katie has raised $18,600 this cycle against Qadri's $270,000, and holds $7,300 in the bank against his $152,000. Austin caps what any one person can give at roughly $450, so a war chest that size is built by stacking max-out checks, and Qadri's largest stack is real estate. Katie's entire campaign is smaller than the real estate money inside his.
There is no bloc behind her to answer to, and no donor list to protect by voting the wrong way.
Sources: Austin Politics Newsletter, District 9 fundraising totals; Qadri's campaign finance reports on file with the Office of the Austin City Clerk.
Our criteria
Neighborhoods, not a developer rubber stamp
"Neighborhood residents and their associations should have a strong role in decisions that affect them. Developers should not have the right to decide how a neighborhood grows without community input."
Zo's failed record
Of 238 developer rezoning cases that came before the council from January 2023 through May 2024, a council majority rejected exactly one. Qadri personally dissented twice. He also voted yes on HOME Phase 1, the citywide rezoning that passed 9 to 2 after thirteen hours of resident testimony.
She has done this work from the other side of the table: "I have years of experience negotiating with developers to modify their development plans so that they better fit within the community's goals." She calls for co-creating the city through inclusive public engagement and for holding development to design standards that build a sense of place.
"I will evaluate the tax impact of Project Connect, I am willing to reduce its funding if necessary, and I will work to ensure Austin has a transit system that benefits the whole city, not just some areas."
Zo's failed record
Voters approved a permanent tax increase in 2020 for a citywide system. The light rail bill has since grown from $5.8 billion to $8.2 billion while the track shrank to 9.8 miles, with no airport connection, no downtown tunnel, and no trains before 2033. That is almost $840 million per mile. Qadri has defended staying the course, and bus riders in the district have seen routes cut while they wait.
A transportation engineer by trade and an everyday cyclist, she wants roads designed under the safe systems approach so the design prevents crashes rather than relying on driver behavior, and she has advocated in Central Texas plans for low-speed modes such as neighborhood electric vehicles that add capacity to roads the city already owns. Her framing is cost first: high transportation costs are a burden on households.
Austin's budget grew into a crisis on his watch, and the council's answer was to ask voters for 20 percent more. Voters said no, 63 to 37. The questioning and oversight that would have caught the waste earlier did not happen.
She has a record of doing it, not a promise to try. As Assistant Director of Public Works for the City of Pflugerville she managed a $200 million budget and saved the city millions by cutting unnecessary consulting costs and improving process and design. Before that she spent seven years as a City of Austin planner, served as liaison to the Planning Commission's Codes and Ordinances Committee, and started the city's first parking benefit district, which routes parking meter revenue into neighborhood improvements.
Zo Qadri's record is drawn from public council votes, campaign finance filings, and published reporting, each linked above. Katie Kam's positions are quoted from her own campaign platform at katiekamforaustin.com, which we have not edited or paraphrased where quotation marks appear. Characterizations of the record reflect Austin United PAC's assessment.
District 9 has two good options and one bad one
Katie Kam and Rich Heyman come at the job differently, and we stand behind both. Read the case for Rich, then decide.
