Inauguration Day & President Obama
Listening to President Obama’s speech today, I was pleased by its elegance and prose, but my favorite line was just this one:
“Those of us who manage the public’s dollars will be held to account — to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day — because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.”
It was a simple statement that economic reform and recovery are intimately tied to open government and transparency. This, to me, is what this organization — ChangeAustin.org — is and must be about at the local level.
Some of us were at Scholz Beer Garten on Monday to watch the inauguration on their big screen TV’s. It was packed! We passed out hundreds of “Change Begins at Home” fliers and were met with agreement.
If you’re reading this blog and want to get involved in the local “change movement”, you came to the right place. Make sure you sign up at our Take Action page. We’re setting up teams right now, so you can get in on the ground floor of our Community Organizing, Blogging, Research, Speakers, Administration and Business Organizing efforts.
We failed to make it to the “Y’all’s Ball”, which was sold out! So some of us are talking about our own after-the-inaugural dance. Interested? Call me at 383-8484. Linda Curtis
Beating Grandma aka Carole Strayhorn
Beating Grandma
It’s not nice to beat up on Grandma. That said, if the other Mayoral candidates want to beat her — have at it. The “it” are the issues in this race. What are the issues? So far as ChangeAusitn.org is concerned, the issues loosely fit under the heading of “populism”, uniting people from all political persuasions like:
1. Transparency and greater public oversight of decisions with far reaching fiscal implications.
2. Championing locally owned businesses and fighting to keep our dollars from leaving the community.
3. Requiring that development growth pays for itself and make those who benefit bear the costs.
4. Developing a publicly supported plan for our region’s transportation needs.
5. Protecting the rights of citizens to petition city government, guaranteed by our City Charter and state constitution.
ChangeAustin.org grew out of the effort to pass Prop 2 last November, to stop the Domain luxury shopping mall subsidies and others like it. Though we lost by only 4 percentage points, we have begun to build a significant movement to “change” Austin politics in, we hope, a positive way.
Will we have a fair election in May? Will the press (including the blogging community) deal with the issues — the actual record of all the candidates, including Strayhorn’s — in an objective manner? Or will they attempt to demonize the candidates who have had a mixed relationship to the Democratic Party? We’re not talking bad about Democratic voters here — we’re talking about party insiders and partisanship at its worst.
Prop 2’s proponents (aka Stop Domain Subsidies) have been “burned” by the Democratic Party operatives who worked behind the scenes to ditch Prop 2, while the rank-and-file Precinct Leaders overwhelmingly supported and endorsed Prop 2. (You can read the details under our “Who Killed Prop 2” section.) What’s more, Mayor Will Wynn appeared in non-stop ads against Prop 2 paid for by Simon Malls who owns the Domain.
While the press beats up on Carole Strayhorn (and, God knows, Carole’s got her short-comings – which have nothing to do with her height, thank you very much!), where was their outrage about the Mayor’s behavior?
Beat Grandma fair and square. Her record is fair game. Her height, number of husbands, and her party status (or now lack thereof) isn’t. That’s the new Austin way.
Note: In the interests of full disclosure, one of our founders, Linda Curtis, worked on the Strayhorn for Governor campaign in 2006.
Recent Videos
