(Candidate Post: Robin Cravey is running for Austin City Council Place 4. - promoted by Karl-Thomas Musselman)
Dear friends,
How am I different from my opponents? As I've been campaigning around town, I'm often asked to distinguish myself from the two well-funded candidates for Place 4. Usually, I'm asked to do this in a minute or two. That's really not enough. This little essay may seem long, but there's a lot to tell, and I'm just scratching the surface.
I am the only environmentalist in the Place 4 race. Before I was 25, I had explored most of the ground the other candidates are now learning. In the 1970s I wrote about environmental issues in depth in ecology in texas, my environmental news magazine, and in the Texas Observer and other local periodicals. I helped start recycling in Austin as an early member of ecology action, and my wife and I have recycled consistently since the time when we had to load our recyclables into the trunk of a car and drive them to the recycling center.
I have worked to preserve our creeks since before SOS was conceived. I volunteered in the petition campaign for the Save Our Springs Coalition and worked as a law clerk at the SOS Legal Defense Fund. In law school, I served as a section editor for the Texas Environmental Law Journal. In my other community service work I have consistently advocated environmental protection. Two and a half years ago, when Barton Springs Pool was in deplorable condition, I served as founding president of Friends of Barton Springs Pool, which organized swimmers to volunteer to clean the pool, and persuaded the city council to budget over $6 million for short-term pool improvements and for writing a master plan for long term improvements. |
| Do not confuse environmentalism with nimbyism. I understand that preserving the environment means accepting changes in the built environment. For example, I know that stopping sprawl means accepting density within the city. I believe these changes can be good, if we act creatively.
I am the working class candidate. I was born and raised in a working class family. I drove a taxi in Austin for most of a decade! And while doing that, I learned to love the city, learned to know human nature, and learned some common sense. When I argue for the living wage or affordable housing, I am not making concessions out of noblesse oblige. I am arguing for justice for my people.
I have the broadest and deepest experience. No other candidate can match my record of commitment. Like one of my opponents, I have served on the Planning Commission, and like another opponent, I was a neighborhood leader, as president of the Zilker Neighborhood Association. But I'm also the only lawyer in the race. I'm the only candidate with city hall experience.
I didn't just decide five years ago to get involved in community service. I've been active here for almost 40 years. In the 1970s I participated in the Austin Tomorrow Plan, worked as an editorialist for The Daily Texan, wrote about issues for other local publications, and took an American Studies degree from UT. In the 1980s, I edited the Onion Creek Free Press (winning a Texas Press Association award for editorials), worked in the Central America Peace Initiative, volunteered in Max for Mayor and other campaigns, received a school board commendation for volunteering in the schools, managed a small printshop, owned and operated a desktop publishing business, and volunteered in the Travis County Democratic Party. In the 1990s I served on the Bergstrom Conversion Task Force, took a law degree at the UT School of Law, worked as an Austin City Council aide (where I worked on many environmental issues), launched my solo law practice, and served on the Austin Planning Commission (when it was a unified body).
As a city council aide I learned the city budget process from Betty Dunkerley when she was city finance director, learned how to track an agenda, write a resolution, and build a majority. I also helped to shepherd many initiatives through to adoption.
I have shown the most leadership. I have served as leader of a number of organizations over the years, usually moving them to new initiatives, and I created some organizations. I've mentioned ecology in texas, the environmental magazine I founded, edited, and published with a voluteer staff in the early 1970s. Later, I founded, edited, and published Tilted Planet Press, a literary publishing imprint that won the Austin Book Award for an anthology of fiction by Austin writers. Also in the 1980s, as president of the Zilker Elementary PTA, I initiated the creation of the Zilker Coffee House, an annual talent show that is still put on each spring. In the 1990s, as president of the Zilker Neighborhood Association, I organized the first neighborhood open house for businesses on South Lamar and Barton Springs Road. Earlier in this decade, as president of the Austin Bar Solo & Small Firm Section, I organized the section's first legal education seminar, which continues as an annual event. As founding president of Friends of Barton Springs Pool, I worked with other swimmers to create an entirely new organization, one with a positive message and goals, to be stewards and advocates for the pool.
My leadership style is inclusive but decisive. Running a meeting, I go around the table taking comments from every person, and then move to a decision. Leadership means listening, but it also means being willing to make the tough decisions without fudging. I believe in public participation and input, but I also believe that there is a time to make a decision and move to action.
I am best able to bring the community together. I'm afraid that either of my well-funded opponents would divide the community, but I can unite it. They each call on constituencies that are almost mutually exclusive. But most of the supporters of either of my opponents consider me a very good choice for Council. Consistently, my leadership is positive and creative.
I have the vision and the common sense the city needs. I'm a poet. My deep understanding of Austin comes from a lifetime of looking at the city with searching eyes. I look without blinking at the city as it is, and envision a course to the best future possible from where we are. I've spent a lifetime committed to bringing a new reality into being.
I am an optimist who would rather create positive new models than to obstruct change. Marcus Aurelius advises us to look with charity on the works of our contemporaries, and I do. I have seen people become burned out and cynical in the factional battles. My way is to build the future now through example and creativity.
Signed,
Robin Cravey |
