Making growth pay for itself!

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Endorsements! A Little Pandering please.

ChangeAustin.org, formerly Stop Domain Subsidies (Prop 2) in last November’s election, proudly endorses:

Carole Keeton Strayhorn for Mayor
Perla Cavazos, Place 1
Mike Martinez, Place 2
Bill Spelman, Place 5
Sam Osemene, Place 6

Watch the Videos on our front page:
Brian Rodgers video on why Carole.
Carole Acceptance video.
Brian on Places 1, 2, 5 & 6.

ChangeAustin.org is working to reach 30,000 voters before the election in May, just a portion of the 123,209 voters who supported Prop 2, to get them to the polls. 

Help us get the word out — contribute whatever you like!  Since CA.org is a registered PAC, we can accept as little or as much as you like — just no corporate or labor money.

To Pander = To cater to the lower tastes and desires of others or exploit their weaknesses.

We’ve been told that some opposing candidate camps are explaining our endorsements as for those “willing to pander” to us.  Is that because they see open government, fiscal prudence, and putting an end to the gravy train for special interests as “lower tastes and desires” of the people of this City?

Mark your calendars!  Pre-early voting day Party!!!  
Saturday, April 25, 6 to 10 pm, Victory Grill – E. 11th St.
Live music but of course!

Volunteer from home or our office!  Call us or  right away!

Pass this email on and get involved y’all.

Vote, Vote, Vote!

VOTE VOTE VOTE!  Get your ballot here (members only) … to vote on our endorsements.
 
View videos of the candidates here!

Deadline is NEXT Tues., March 31st, midnight!

Rules:  IF YOU ARE A MEMBER OF CHANGEAUSTIN.ORG and, for some reason, did not receive a ballot, please send a message to us at  or call us right away!

Watch the Candidates on video here before you vote. 

Got questions?  Just ask.

Our Endorsement Process

ChangeAustin.org, formerly Stop Domain Subsidies (Prop 2) in last November’s election, just began a week long voting process for endorsements in the City Council and Mayoral election in May.  The process is being done online after members view videos of the candidates answering ChangeAustin.org questions crucial to the City moving forward during the economic downturn.  Those questions include transparency and open government concerns and the bill introduced by Senator Jeff Wentworth (SB 690) to help local developers to snuff out the citizen’s charter amendment process used to get Prop 2 on the ballot.

Watch the Candidates on video here and get ready for our endorsement on Thursday, April 2.

City Council & Mayoral Candidate Questionnaire

Below is the questionnaire we used at our recent Mayoral and City Council candidate forum on March 14 and with virtually all the candidates running for Austin Mayor (Buttross, Ingalls, Leffingwell, McCracken, and Strayhorn) and City Council Candidates (Cavazos, Code, Martinez, Osemene, Quintero, Riley and Spelman).  Thanks to all the candidates who subjected themselves to our questions!  Be sure to watch the videos here, then come back and post a comment about any of the candidates.  Be nice and direct please.

ChangeAustin.org Candidate Questionnaire

1.  RECA, the Real Estate Council of Austin – who fought against Proposition 2 last fall with $56,000 in contributions to Keep Austin’s Word – is now at the State Capitol pushing a bill with Senator Wentworth to double the signature requirement from 5% to 10% of the registered voters to put a proposition on the ballot to amend the city charter.   If SB 690 passes, the new figure of raw signatures needed for Austin would be over 56,000.  Because petitioning is not allowed at grocery stores, malls, shopping centers, post offices, or anywhere else people gather – except dog parks – this RECA effort will effectively kill citizen sponsored initiatives in Austin and in ALL 346 Texas Home Rule cities – a right that has been in place for decades. Only big money and corporations will then be able to afford the greater hurdle. 

a. Will you go on record opposing Senate Bill 690?

b. Will you also commit to lowering the Ordinance petition requirements for initiatives from 10% to 5% by placing a council sponsored charter amendment on the next permissible municipal election? 

2.  Citizens feel that major financial decisions are finalized in the back rooms of city hall and trotted out to the public only as a formality with little transparency and no meaningful public input.  Particularly disturbing was Council’s hurried unanimous decision last August to pass a no bid, 20 year, $2.3 billion contract to purchase electricity from a bio mass generating plant in Nacogdoches.  City staff said we must hurry and sign because the equipment prices were good only through August. BUY NOW BEFORE PRICES GO UP!  (…of course, a week later prices plummeted as the economy began to collapse…)

a. Will you commit to STOP doing NO-Bid deals?

b. Will you commit to giving the public all of the information at least 60 days before making a decision, and give us two public hearings prior to a vote?

3.  Developers build their developments and new subdivisions, take their profits, and leave Austin taxpayers the bill to pay for new roads, schools, utilities, and municipal facilities. New growth and development in Austin should pay its own way instead of shifting that burden to Austin’s taxpayers. Texas law allows cities to collect road impact fees from developers.  Ft. Worth collects a $2,000 road impact fee per new home while Austin collects nothing, leaving those costs to the rest of us.

Will you support the adoption of a road impact fees that represent the “full and fair” cost?

4. Dollar for dollar, locally owned business provide far more jobs, far more tax revenue, far more income and wealth effects, far more entrepreneurship and charitable contributions, a better boost for tourism and smart growth – and a whole mess of benefits that outside companies cannot begin to give.

Will you support an ordinance to require all bidders for city goods and services to quantify the locally owned or locally sourced material and labor components of their bids so that city staff can compare each bid’s true economic value to the community? 

5.  Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo signed on to the Major Cities Legislative Agenda which allows forced blood withdrawal for DWI suspects who refuse a breathalyzer,  and for DNA collection from ALL suspects arrested for Class B misdemeanor or higher – including possession of one joint.  Do you agree with Chief Acevedo’s plans for Austin or will you put a stop to this invasion of our bodies by government?

Additional Question

What is your point of view towards single member districts?

Valentine's Day Massacre of Backroom Dealmaking-Join Us Today!

Need another reason to show up today, Saturday, Feb. 14 for the Valentine’s Day Massacre of Backroom Dealmaking, 3-5 pm at Nuevo Leon (1501 E. 6th St), to hear Dr. Bill Spelman, City Council Place 5 candidate for Austin City Council? 

Let’s ask Bill:
1.    Why — just this Thursday– the City delayed a decision, until after the May election, to break its word (remember Keep Austin’s Word???) on a 10 year old agreement he helped carve between environmentalists and developers, to curb development over the aquifer?  
2.    Why do most candidates turn against the people once they take office? 
3.    What pressures keep officials from representing taxpayers & local businesses.
4.    What’s happens with Austin at 2 million people? Who pays???

Brian Rodgers, co-founder of ChangeAustin.org, will update us on his meeting with three Austin City Council members and members of the Chamber of Commerce to discuss a new transparency ordinance.  Remember the Chamber who helped line up that $400,000 deceptive ad buy to bury Prop 2 with “Keep Austin’s Word” bull?  

We’re getting set to mobilize 30,000 voters in May. 

Change begins at home.

 Join here so you can vote on our endorsements at our March 14th meeting.

Inauguration Day & President Obama

 

Scholz Beer Garten, Inauguration Day, watching 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