Austin Improv

Here are my endorsements for the City Council election, May 10th:

Place 1: Lee Leffingwell (http://www.voteleffingwell.com/)
Place 3: Randi Shade (http://www.randishade.com/)
Place 4: Cid Galindo (http://www.cidgalindo.com/index.asp)

Here’s why:
Place 1, is not much of a contest. Leffingwell is a well respected council member who has operated in a well-reasoned, if dispassionate, manner. He’s not much of a politician in that regard – and in a weird way, his lack of charisma or pandering is kind of refreshing. He’s the Council’s biggest parks and environmental advocate. Allen Demling, while a well meaning and intelligent candidate given his inexperience with Austin or in public service in general, just can’t be considered in the same light. I hope he stays involved in civic affaires and that we can vote for him in the future after he gets some more experience to prove himself. Jason Meeker is just an a-hole and not running a serious campaign. His ignorance of campaign law and his subsequent violations of it may also find him in deeper legal trouble.

Place 3 is a much tighter race with many forums and even the Austin Chronicle declining to make an endorsement. Incumbent Jennifer Kim has actually been involved in a lot of major efforts that connect to people, but she’s getting tarred for what is perceived as a capricious or aloof operating style. True to this critique, she requested an exception to the start time for our forum last night and showed up so late that she only got one question answered. Kim’s also seen as sponsoring what’s perceived as some frivolous efforts – she passed an ordinance to make sure dogs could accompany you to restaurants on outdoor patios, she also was the only backer of RG4N who’s Anti-Wal-Mart lawsuit had no chance of success but cost the city $750k to defend itself. That and the airport screening mess up last year for which she is probably best known. All this being said – she’s also the youngest council member (she was elected at age 32) and she was the first Asian American to sit there (she’s half Korean half Chinese and as military brat, she grew up all over the world). She has an incredibly impressive resume which includes a Masters in Public Policy from Princeton and her written responses to our questions (available soon on the DANA website) were pretty spot on. She’s also nice and even charismatic in person despite all of her characterizations in the press. It’s also important to note that Council Members sometimes grow into their jobs. Brewster McCracken made some really embarrassing gaffs in his first term, but has improved markedly since then.

Randi Shade is her opponent and is running a distinctly Austin campaign at least based on her slogans. She’s gotten a lot of support for a first time challenger and while she’s never been in an elected office to really see her voting record, she has served most of her life in the service of others. As an undergrad at UT she was student body president, after getting her MBA from Harvard she started her own internet company focused on charity. Sold it, joined the administration of Ann Richards to set up Americorps in Texas. She continued to serve in the same role under Governor Bush which demonstrates an ability to cross political lines to achieve success (a big part of her platform – being able to play well with others). In this campaign she’s shown a refreshing informaility and no-B.S. approach. She’s gotten the endorsement of the powerful Public Safety PACs and her other honors include the prestigious (to those who care) Austin Under 40 award. She’s also the only candidate to have filed an April Fool’s Press Release (Shade gives up Council race to join Roller Girls). She’d be the first (open) lesbian council member if you care about such things. She’s also Jewish and a single mom (again, if you care about such things). While she’s occasionally sounded more like a heckler than a candidate – her genuine openness about her positions and ability to cut through to the core of issues is a good predictor of success on the council.
Ken Weiss was a very nice guy when I met him last night and his wife was really sweet and reminds me of my sister-in-law. On the stand, however, he showed little understanding of the issues and it was unclear why he was even running. He lead off when listing his qualifications to be elected was ‘being married 5 years’.

Place 4 – As a disclaimer to my endorsement – I should point out that I’m not exactly impartial in this race. I have donated money (my first for a political candidate, subsequently followed by one for the Presidential Primaries) and volunteered time for the campaign of Cid Galindo. That being said – I would like to tell you a little bit more about the other candidates and why I (and the rest of my organization) came to that conclusion. In fact….I learned so much about how this city is run and how council elections are won in the last few months that I would like to share that with all of you. I think I’ll make it a second post, though….

The place 4 race set up…
Ok – here we go. Basically there are two people in this town that know how to run a city council campaign. They are political consultants Mark Nathan and David Butts and they both have unbroken records of success since the local election laws were changed in the 90’s. To maintain that, they have a gentlemen’s non-compete agreement. They don’t sport candidates in each others’ places and they’ve occasionally worked together for a single candidate. They each have their networks of support and while neither is a particular idealogue, they have essentially been able to play king maker as a result. They choose the candidate rather than the candidate choosing the consultant. Both are advising Leffingwell, who doesn't really need the help. Then Mark Nathan is working Randi Shade’s campaign also and David Butts is advising Morrison.

Having one of these consultants’ networks working for you is extremely powerful because voter turnout in Austin is so low. It’s roughly 60k people and has been flat at that level for decades even as the city has grown. Why is that? Basically almost all the voters come from central neighborhoods surrounding downtown where population has been more or less stable. (Clarksville, Tarrytown, Travis Heights, Zilker, Bouldin Creek and to a lesser extent, Hyde Park and the immediate East Side). As such those neighborhood associations and their activists also wield a lot of sway as a voting bloc. That’s one unaffiliated source of power, but rarely much money.

Money in local elections is essential to get the message out especially since the local media does such a horrible job of covering them. If a rumor comes out against you – you’re sunk because you’ll never have a chance to retort. It’s also a tough hurdle since there are ~750k people in the incorporated city of Austin and to reach that many people you need to advertise. City Council campaigns can only raise $300 from each individual (up recently from $100). By comparison, Lloyd Doggett’s congressional district has roughly 650k people and he can raise $2,300 per individual, here and, of course, nationally. It’s extremely difficult to raise the local money needed to get your substantive messages out and to do any at all you need to build it on a lot of small donations from a wide base of support.

Individual contributions are difficult to assemble and the consultants rely on two major prizes of financial power in the race – the public safety unions (police, fire, EMS) and the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) (which doesn’t officially endorse candidates but makes their force known all the same).

There was an early surprise in this race – when the public safety unions bucked the system and endorsed Cid Galindo for place 4 (they fell in line for Leffingwell and Shade for place 1 and 3 accordingly). This was not supposed to happen and it gave the underdog new legitimacy. RECA is hedging their bets to some extent and the result is some very odd bedfellows. For example, Perry Lorenz, developer of the Spring Condominium project, is giving $300 to both Morrison and Galindo even though Morrison was the biggest opponent of his project and spoke out loudly against it. Without seeing specific records, it seems like the balance are betting on Galindo since he has now caught up and even surpassed Morrison in fundraising. She gave her campaign a loan to stay competitive, though (the many parallels to the democratic primary are purely coincidental).

Beyond consultants and money – the candidates have basically been doing a circuit of forums where they get to introduce themselves to the public and answer questions. There has been an explosion of these for every imaginable stakeholder or affinity group – I think about 40 so far. While local elections are officially non-partisan (there are no Democratic or Republican parties since the stereotypes in national politics aren’t really relevant at the local level) and since the central neighborhoods are all very democratic – most of the votes have been a question of what shade of blue are you. Of all the candidates, Cravey has the longest and most liberal record but he’s not getting a lot of the endorsements from democratic clubs. I don’t know if that’s the David Butts influence or not but it’s interesting to note since Morrison’s public life is a relatively recent phenomenon (her bio lists her first civic role as joining her neighborhood association board in 2004 which means I’ve technically been active longer). Also, not to bash Neighborhood Associations because I'm a part of one and I do think they're important, but it's not the same thing as being appointed to a commission and working for the entire city in some capacity. While she has been very active in that neighborhood asssociation and group since 2004, she’s also missed votes on watershed elections while living in Austin such as the Save Our Springs referendum or even the 2000 light rail referendum. Galindo, who’s officially an independent and who has voted for and contributed to both Democrats and Republicans, is winning very few of these purity tests. A recent poll showed that 50% of people who voted in past elections are undecided. Roughly 11% are planning on voting for Cravey, Galindo and Morrison with the rest being divided amongst the other candidates. The conventional wisdom is that with a wide open field, 6 candidates and no incumbent (Mayor Pro Tem Betty Dunkerly is retiring due to term limits), that it will be forced into a run off (where turn out is even lower).

Ok – the next post will be about the candidates. This is taking longer to explain than I thought.

Place 4 – the other candidates

Let me get the three less credible candidates out of the way first:

Sam Osemene – If you have a Ron Paul bumper sticker on your car, this is your candidate. He’s the only conservative running in any of the places. He’s extremely gregarious and very well spoken with a penchant for quoting founding fathers. That being said, his one-size-fits-all response of less government didn’t begin to approach the problems facing the city. He also stopped short of saying laws requiring zoning should be repealed which would be anathema to libertarian purists.
Ken Vasseau – He’s running for the sole reason of raising his professional profile. After complaining loudly during this season that other forums hadn’t invited him, I gave him what amounts to a softball question asking how he would change the elections process if elected (i.e. talk about campaign finance restrictions or Single-Member Districts) and his only response (said in his thick Texas drawl) was that ‘these questions are hard’. Not sure what kind of strategy it is to raise one’s profile as clueless.
Jennifer Gale – It wouldn’t be Austin if we didn’t have at least one transgendered candidate running. The 11 time candidate has been more genial than shrill this season and told our forum last night that she would like to make it illegal to build buildings higher than four stories. Her first priority would be healthcare ‘because I want all of you to live to 100 or even 200 years!’. The un-employed ex-marine always manages to keep the debate interesting (she lead the Real Estate Council in a sing a long) and it was actually kind of nice to see the other candidates play along so well. While she once got frighteningly close to getting elected to the board of AISD, she’s not really a credible candidate.

Now for the other credible candidates:

Robin Cravey – poet, lawyer, environmentalist, long-time Austinite and one time planning commission and neighborhood leader. He’s a classic Austin type and I really like him but given his competition, I can’t vote for him. While he has a lot of good and varied experience he strangely emphasizes the 10 years he worked as a cab driver. He’s been president of The Friends of Barton Springs, got his law degree when he was in his 40’s and served different state and city officials including city budget guru, Betty Dunkerly, whom he is trying to replace. In short – he’s a good candidate with a good resume and a long record of service to the city. That being said, his written responses to our questions awkwardly quote Marcus Auerelius, his campaign flyer is a cartoon strip and his positions aren’t terribly progressive (he seemed opposed to additional density downtown and he refers to Austin's best days as behind us). Under questioning he had good intent but his proposed policy mechanisms didn’t seem well thought out for someone with Planning Commision experience.

Laura Morrison – She has a degree in Math from U.C. Berkley and Disaster Management from University of North Carolina (she’s the only major candidate in all three races to not have at least one degree from UT – not that that matters at all, I just thought it was an interesting pattern). She was a defense contractor consultant for most of her career. She is best known to the public as the head of the Austin Neighborhoods Council (ANC) which purports to speak for all neighborhoods whether they’re members or not. In truth, that organization is run by a couple of those close in neighborhoods mentioned and it has pursued a steady string of NIMBY (not in my back yard) policies. The Austin Chronicle endorsed her which really surprises me – especially since they describe her as someone who can bridge together different sides. I have seen no evidence of this at all. The ANC repeatedly ignored the pro-density downtown neighborhood (East of Lamar) in favor of the anti-density West Austin neighborhood (West of Lamar) where she lives, even when projects, such as Spring are in the downtown borders. All rules are thrown out when it’s their back yard in question. She purports to want to help Austin-unique businesses but opposed granting the Mean Eyed Cat’s pretty low-grade zoning request to continue operation (they had mistakenly been operating illegally for that location). She polarized the city for backing the McMansion ordinance – which doesn’t affect me and I can see both sides of the argument (loss of neighborhood character vs. pro-sprawl). My issue with her on that is that it’s hypocritical to support that while living in a $1.2M converted fourplex that skirts the same ordinance. She argues for managed growth but doesn’t have a plan or a record of supporting anything close to that. She has opposed projects in the central business district where density is most appropriate which means Austin’s inevitable population growth is left to sprawl outwards or into the last remaining greenfield over the Aquifers. In short – her positions are myopic and, at best, they’re good only for a very select group of neighborhoods that make up her constituency.

And lastly… the candidate I’m supporting….

Place 4 – Cid Galindo
I’ve known Cid for seven years. We joined the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association (DANA) on the same day. Back then it was a group of about 6 guys who pontificated on downtown. Membership was $10 for a year, pay you if you like. He had just sold his education software business and had a lot of free time so he offered to be president. He basically built an organization from the ground up – put together our bylaws, built our membership, managed our finances and turned us from a reactive group (that commented on developments requiring variances) to one that is proactive (making our neighborhood better). He made it what it is today which is a $60k/yr organization with ~900 members and growing. We’re politically relevant, organizationally efficient and active both in volunteering at Caritas and fundraising for the Austin Children's Museum, Austin Parks Foundation and Town Lake Trail Foundation. It has a lot to do with Cid’s own personal executive skills and powerful charisma. He left the organization in good hands and then moved on to the board of Caritas and the City’s Planning Commission as well as roles with the Downtown Austin Alliance, Envision Central Texas and the Congress for New Urbanism. Somewhere in there he also managed to play a small Spanish-speaking part in the film “The Alamoâ€

and you thought this was an improv forum...

Thanks, Michael!

Really great stuff, Michael. Thanks for laying it out so well. You've really helped me as I've been looking at candidates!

I support Jennifer Kim for Place 3. She took a courageous stand on the CAMPO board by voting against new toll roads when politically there was a lot of pressure to support them (Mayor Wynn, Senator Watson, etc.) She was also very helpful to a group I was working with in Oak Hill to try to oppose a massive highway expansion and toll road for 2 miles, which makes no sense.

She is endorsed by the Sierra Club and Austin Progressives. I don't know who is really behind Randi Shade but am suspicious that it is some big developers, at least in part, because of Kim's stance against the Wal-mart, which again was a courageous stand in my view, whether or not you agree with it.

I think Michael's arguments against her are not too strong.

Susan P

spantell wrote: I think Michael's arguments against her are not too strong.

Susan P

I didn't make a very strong argument against her because I'm actually quite fine with Jennifer Kim. I think that both her and Ms. Shade are very qualified and could be happy with both. It's not necessarily about choosing a good or bad candidate for that race but a good or better candidate.

I respect your views but continue to see the RG4N lawsuit as frivolous. I'm no Wal-Mart lover by a long shot, but the grounds of that argument against the city were very flawed which is why it's been dismissed, I believe, three times now.

Again - I respect your views - and encourage folks to vote - for these candidates or whomever - but please do vote.

2 out of 3 down (Leffingwell and Shade won by landslides). alas - another month of this crap for the one campaign I'm actually working on (place 4 - Galindo) which goes to a run off. We've run a good campaign so far, with our heads held high. We knew we were the underdog from the start so the election results weren't a surprise. We have until June 14th to get the message out there and capture the unaffiliated, but still die-hard voters that might vote in a one-off run-off in a one-off election to begin with.

My experience on Saturday, election day, was actually really positive (most, if not all of the campaign volunteers from different, even opposing candidates, getting along). I met a real slice of Austin standing outside of a polling location all day and I have to say, it restored some of my positive attitude about this city that I may of lost in the cynicism leading up to this election.

If you were one of the few people who voted - thank you.

Mike