Thank you Carole for running.  Had you not, Lee and Brewster would not have been forced to explain their votes on the outrageous no bid $2.3 billion biomass deal, show serious support for local businesses or acknowledge the need for a more open City Hall.

Thank you to all our friends who worked on this campaign.  A very special thanks are due to Chuck Young (who came to us from the Ron Paul movement), longtime Libertarian Wes Benedict, Democratic activist Kathleen Green, Republican activist Dan McDonald, our data base guru Chris Hauboltd and the many Carole supporters from across Austin’s political spectrum.

We all knew that Leffingwell was likely to win this race.  We wish him and the new Council well.  His increasing commitment to locally owned business in the final weeks of the campaign was encouraging, and we know there remains much to be done.  

Thank you to Perla Cavazos & Sam Osemene for taking forward our cause.  Congrats to the winners we supported – Martinez and Spellman.  Congrats to Chris Riley & Sheryl Cole.  We look forward to working with you all.

We will be watching and participating!  (The Statesman piece yesterday made clear that Brewster will have to drop out or lose the runoff, but we’ll leave that decision to him and his supporters.)

We would be remiss if we didn’t thank the Austin Chronicle who has taken to repeatedly attacking us in their pages and not printing our responses.  Below is a letter to the editor that they failed to print last week from our own Brian Rodgers.  

PS Contrary to what you’re reading in the Chronicle, three of the founders of ChangeAustin.org (Brian Rodgers, Linda Curtis and Albert Marino) are not Libertarians.  We are all longtime independent minded progressives.  Brian and Linda supported President Obama, much to the consternation of our libertarian friends.

LOSERS and WINNERS UNITE! It’s better to be attacked than to be ignored.

Dear Editor:

Wells Dunbar’s May 1st Hustle wrongly claims Carole Strayhorn as the mayor who “bought Austin into that mother of all boondoggles, the South Texas Nuclear Project”. But it was Austin voters who approved the STNP in 1973 during Mayor Roy Butler’s term and Austin voters who approved the issuance of additional nuke bonds in 1979 during Carole’s term. 

Dunbar belittles ChangeAustin’s struggle against RECA and the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce at the Texas legislature to keep petition signature requirements accessible, not just for Austinites, but for all 346 Home Rule Texas cities who enjoy that same right to petition their government that Dunbar dismisses. Dunbar’s fictional account of a Capitol rally and his no-nothing accounting that “the bill has already died an ignominious death in committee” lays bare reckless reporting and lazy sourcing reminiscent of the fictional Baltimore Sun character Scott Templeton on HBO’s ‘The Wire’ who concocted news stories and faked phones messages because he was too lazy and dim to do the serious work of investigation. 

Perhaps most pathetically, Dunbar characterizes Texans for Accountable Government (TAG) as a “faux” organization despite TAG’s raucous and righteous fight against Police Chief Acevedo’s Orwellian plan to collect and compile DNA from anyone arrested for a Class B misdemeanor or higher – such crimes as obstructing a sidewalk or stealing $1 worth of cable TV. TAG sponsored the overflow public forum on forced blood withdrawal by Austin police held on March 30th at City Hall and attended by over 200 civil rights advocates.

At ChangeAustin, we’re tackling serious issues affecting all citizens, and our members believe Carole is the best pick for mayor to address them. Calling our group ‘increasingly loony-libertarian’ is a feeble hustle exposed by Dunbar’s faux and flimsy reporting.
  

Brian Rodgers, ChangeAustin.org