Council Member Pool speaks out on reason for recent trip before MLS Vote

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin City Council will try their hand, once again, at voting on the future of MLS in the city.

The council postponed last week's vote until Wednesday.

During this time, council member Leslie Pool traveled to Columbus, Ohio to see how losing their team would impact that city.

The meeting begins at 9 a.m., Wednesday. If all goes according to plan, the city will be voting on this issue at 11:30 in a special session. Whether it's yes or no, after being pushed back, many are hoping for an answer.

"Well there's more than 2 dozen amendments and questions. I have questions, I know my colleagues have questions. Those need to be answered," said Leslie Pool the Austin City Council member for District 7.

After the Austin City Council delayed the vote to possibly bring MLS to Austin, Pool took a surprising visit to Columbus, Ohio to meet with several groups and the city there to talk about the potential of losing a sports team.

“They've been in Columbus for 20 years so there's a really strong fabric up there, it's a part of people’s lives and they craft their lives and community around that and so I wanted to talk to the people,” said Pool.

Pool, whose district may house the new stadium said she also went there to see if any problems they have could also be issues here, like traffic.

"People going to the stadium sometimes are sitting in their car waiting to park for about 30 minutes and so they miss a third of the game and so it sounds like something that could very well happen here because right now there's just 50-foot-wide drive way," said Pool.

With a couple hours left until the supposed vote, we spoke with talk show host Jeff Ward at KLBJ.

“I think this is a healthy process, it really is because you could hear early on when he (owner of the Crew) was going to get the land for a dollar a lot of people reacted and said ‘wait a minute that doesn't seem quite right why in the world would we do that.’ The city council. I think have heard from them and I think it was the right thing to do amended hat came back and changed their position," said Ward. Whether it's yes or no, Ward said one thing is certain, time is running out. “I think if there is no vote tomorrow or if it's sort of more dragging of the feet, more ideas about train stations and stuff, you wouldn't blame MLS or you wouldn't blame the guy (owner of the Crew) for saying ok we're going to shop around now," said Ward.

Council member pool said she paid for that trip out of her own pocket. Right now, she is against the whole thing.

She tells us there are some things which might sway her vote.

They include building a train stop, having a shuttle drop off plan, and tackling the traffic issue.