Clean Water Action/Texas Vote Environment Offer City Council Endorsements

Good Common Sense Shown by these Endorsements (0.00 / 0)

What caused the Austin Sierra Club to endorse Morrison? Was it a done by a select endorsement committee or a vote of it's general membership?

I found it odd that they passed over a true enviromentalist activist with a long track record to support an ANC president in Place 4, yet they supported Kim in Place 3 and no endorsed in Place 1. Just curious.

 

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by: ssuits @ Sat Apr 26, 2008 at 02:44:24 AM UTC

Sierra Club (0.00 / 0)

has a political committee that handles the endorsement.  Karin Ascot, Chris Lehman, Roy Whaley, Steve Beers are on it along with probably a few others.  Morrison was a viability play, although I know a lot of environmentalists who seem to think she'll be ok on council.

So far the environmental groups have endorsed:

Lee Leffingwell: TED, CWA/TVE
Jennifer Kim: Sierra Club, CWA/TVE
Laura Morrison: Sierra Club, CWA/TVE
Robin Cravey: CWA/TVE

I still think Laura's the front-runner, despite the poll.

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by: Kedron Touvell @ Sat Apr 26, 2008 at 06:31:51 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

<b>Sierra Club's endorsement rationale</b> (3.00 / 1)

First, everyone please note that the first post references Sierra Club -- not Clean Water/TVE -- which has a different set of endorsements.  Someone who forwarded this link to me evidently misunderstood & thought Sierra Club was part of the subject groups.  

As for what's behind our choices:

Robin Cravey in Place 3 race gave great answers to our Austin Sierra Club's candidate questionnaire. He also brings a great background to all of our local environmental issues.

However, the Club's generic guidance policy coming out of our national office governing all endorsements -- in federal, state, and local races -- is to balance policy "correctness" with electability.  This is, of course, a judgment call every bit as much as the issue suitability.

Robin had a late start, less money, and evidently less support than Morrison or Galindo from the other stakeholding groups and identified voting blocs that will help elect this next City Council.

Of course, this factor feeds on itself, with one group not endorsing thereby influencing the other groups' appraisals of viability, etc., etc.  We understand that, and appreciate that people evidently want our support and take our process seriously.  

Rest assured that Laura gave very good answers too and it was a close call on that dimension. But on electability, she was way ahead in the consensus view.

While of course this outcome means disappointment & possibly even some bitterness from candidates who didn't get the nod, each of the top three most viable candidates in this place gave some good effort and had very great merit in their quite thoughtful answers.

I would personally note that very few council candidates achieve office on their first try.  Even a well-funded candidate like Brewster McCracken took more than one run to get it. Maybe Robin needs to consider where he has fallen short this time, and make changes to his practice if he decides to run again after this election.  Of course, it will be easy if he wins and is running for re-election.  And it will be a new ball game also if he makes the run-off this time.

Our monthly newsletter speaks to the merits of Kim as an improving work in progress; and the reasons for our non-endorsement in Place 1.  

The incumbent in Place 1 has shown weaknesses in the areas of growth management and water quality protection.  On the positive side, the entire council, however, is marching forward in energy and climate policy and he is part of that trend.  

This produced the non-endorsement.  we look forward to working with whoever wins this seat to gain further improvements in local conservation policy.

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by: Steve B @ Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 01:59:50 AM UTC

Steve B (0.00 / 0)

First of all Robin Cravey is running in Place 4 not 3!

Second of all Jennifer Kim is running in Place 3 not place 1!

"Robin had a late start, less money, and evidnetly less support than Morrison or Galindo from the other stakeholding groups and identified voting blocs that will help elect this next City Council."

The statement above seems to imply that your group votes on according to which candidates have the most money.

My opinion is that it does not matter how much a candidate has in their campaign fund but if the candidate is going to do what is right for the citizens of Austin! If you saw the Mindy and Rosemary race then you would know that it is not all about money in the end to who wins the election!

Money, is nice but it does not make a wonderful council member who is going to do what is right for the citizens of Austin!

I support Ken Weiss for Place 3! He may not have a trillion dollars in his pocket but at least he knows right from wrong and will do what is right for the citizens of Austin!

Check Ken out on the website:

weissforplace3.com

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by: Purple Junkie @ Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 02:28:27 AM UTC

only 2 more weeks! (0.00 / 0)

And Kenneth Weiss and his merry band of spammers will be resigned to the dustbin of history!

If you're going to nitpick someone elses typos, at least don't make a mistake in reading comprehension while you're doing it.

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by: Kedron Touvell @ Sun Apr 27, 2008 at 19:15:03 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

correcting corrections (0.00 / 0)

Yes, you are correct that Place 4 is the Cravey-Galindo- Morrison race, the open seat currently held by Betty Dunkerley.

Also, that Kim vs Shade (and somebody else) is place 3.

My reference to "Place 1" does not need correction, b/c it does in fact referring to that seat, held by the incumbent councilmember Leffingwell running for re-election against challengers Duemling and Meeker.

The complaint about endorsements "only" being about money is not accurate.  I invite you to re-read the post & research the Sierra Club guidelines for endorsing candidates.

We make no apologies about balancing effectiveness w/ purity.

The shrillness of attacks against anyone who questions development elsewhere on this site belies the posters' alleged concerns with minimizing "sprawl."  

Austin Sierra Club has been active in the promotion of smart growth and new urbanism before these policy directions even took the stage in City races.  Our then-chair Dick Kallerman was writing editorials for our newsletter favoring a "compact city" as far back as 1993.  

However, we see now that merely promoting license for anything-goes development in the inner city does NOT by itself automatically produce a less land-consumptive and resource-intensive pattern of development.

For instance, a recent poll of downtown residents showed that 70 percent didn't work downtown.  That means they are driving more likely than not in their commute. Plus, this is not housing priced for the working middle class masses, who are being forced to locate in places like Georgetown or Kyle to be able to afford to live here.

Likewise, dense development over the aquifer isn't "smart," although it may be "new urban."  Still less is a Wal-Mart on Anderson Lane either "smart growth" or "new urban."  It is auto-dependent development and NOT preferable to something mixed residential and commercial.

I think people are laboring to find contradictions in Sierra Club positions that aren't there; sour grapes b/c they don't agree w/ the positions.

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by: Steve B @ Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 18:17:26 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

I'm a Sierra Club life member (0.00 / 0)

and that's all a load of nonsense.

1. Even if every single residence downtown is only for millionaires, you still get less sprawl overall.

2. Even if every single resident of downtown commutes to the suburbs, you still get a more efficient use of our roadway space, and more possibility for transit use. (I reverse-commuted to various suburban jobs on downtown-oriented express buses for years).

3. The Wal-Mart at Anderson Lane is far better for the environment than what was there before, and far better for the environment than the same store built out on 620. In this case, you're being misled by Sierra Club officers who happen to live nearby and just don't like Wal-Mart.

The Sierra Club nationally has been struggling for years between "no-growthers" and "smart-growthers"; the former represented by attempts to more strictly enforce immigration law, for instance. No matter which side of that dispute you fall on, it's clear that Austin doesn't have a border patrol, so it's either "dumb growth" or "smart growth" - "no growth" isn't even an option.

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by: m1ek @ Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 19:49:07 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

straw man arguments (0.00 / 0)

You do a great job arguing against what I didn't say.

"all a load of nonsense."  Pretty sweeping condemnation.

what was actually said was "anything-goes development in the inner city does NOT by itself automatically produce a less land-consumptive and resource-intensive pattern of development."  Pretty hard to argue with as stated.

That's rather mild and heavily qualified dissent against City policy.  We're simply saying let's measure the outcomes against the goals we are trying to achieve -- in order to make the policies we consistently advocate for live up to their promises.  

Trust me, the Club continues to promote anti-sprawl policies for all levels of govt. however we are not willing to see a good concept twisted and prostituted into rationalizing more of the same developer "business as usual."  

These concepts have proven to be rather protean in their actual elaboration.  An apartment complex 30 miles from a city center in an environmentally sensitive area gets labeled "new urban."  a big box store surrounded by a large parking lot in a downtown area is labeled "smart infill."  Any crappy tract home subdivision with front porches or gas lights is called "traditional neighborhood design."  

I suspect this whole field of trendy justifying rhetoric has just become the latest developer rationalizations du jour for sprawl business as usual.  Such corruption of language is producing an unfortunate backlash against a worthy set of ideas.  We feel like we are trying to wrestle back smart growth from the hands of hijackers.

If we are really serious about curbing sprawl then we need to do more than simply grant indiscriminate approval to every developer plan proposed, on the grounds that it is more intense or dense than something else somewhere else might hypothetically have been.  

1. "Even if every single residence downtown is only for millionaires, you still get less sprawl overall."

No, you don't get less sprawl overall--you just get a different geographic sorting of economically segregated classes.  Instead of rich living outside and poor inside, it's the opposite.  The City takes up the same spatial extent, maybe even bigger.

2.  "you still get a more efficient use of our roadway space, and more possibility for transit use."

More efficient use of road space is an empirical question. It can't be resolved by recourse to idealized abstract models. What do the facts say? I don't think we have the data to actually prove anything.  As for "possibility", why not actual transit construction?

I didn't say it was of no value that people were living downtown, simply that the policy is likely to be underperforming as far as reducing driving and sprawl overall.  Would you NOT say it would be better that more of the people who live there also work there?

3. Wal-Mart on anderson -- better than an abandoned mall "for the environment"?  Not sure--what aspect of the environment?  If it has to be retail, why not revitalize an existing structure rather than build a entirely new one? Wouldn't that be better for resource use?

But the choice wasn't REALLY between the dead mall and the commercially live option of a wal-mart...it was between the w-m and an alternative living option, namely what I said: "something mixed residential and commercial."  In that case, I have no doubt which option was more "new urban," "smart," "pedestrian friendly," and "transit oriented."  

We are not doing right by that site, and the Council could have taken RG4N at face value that they would accept a mixed-use project,  and then worked with Lincoln to help them get their value out of a more socially constructive project. That would have required Council leadership.

There's a precedent w/ the Triangle, which originally was similar situation: NIMBY's opposing a single-use retail project. Triangle was steered by an activist council into becoming today's mixed apartment/retail project, with the neighborhood's support, not b/c it gave them all they wanted, but b/c it was better than what was originally proposed.  

There was no zoning power over Triangle either, b/c it was state-owned by the Gen'l Land Office.  What was different in the two cases was the Council of that time saw the possible compromise for dense mixed use and actively jumped in to advocate for it. This one just ducked the issue.

Finally, the national struggle over alleged "no-growthers" in the Sierra Club.  Are you sure you're a Club member?  

Then you should know that anti-immigration groups w/ a xenophobic pitch have masqueraded as environmentalists in order to run candidates and take over the Club Executive Committee for their nativist agenda. They are not anti-growth, not even anti-population growth, but rather against dark-skinned foreigners coming over the border.

Yet, they've been outed, been resisted and have made no actual headway in electing any of their stealth candidates to our board.  

Sierrans know the population problem is global, and there is a solid member awareness that it can't be solved at the border. they know the problem is too many people consuming too many nonrenewable resources and creating too much pollution. It's not the color, nationality, or language of those persons.  

Seems like you are only reading what our detractors say about us, rather than your own Club newsletters and the magazine.

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by: Steve B @ Tue Apr 29, 2008 at 09:26:09 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

You couldn't be more wrong (0.00 / 0)

I'm not able to spend half an hour responding to that treatise, but just taking the three points:

1. Yes, Virginia, rich people IN HIGH RISES, even if nothing else changes, results in less sprawl - because the high rises replaced parking lots. The rich people would have been in low-density suburban sprawl otherwise. The middle-income people in medium-density suburban sprawl would have been out there regardless - since the existing development wasn't some sort of middle-income high-rise.

2. Again, even the worst case scenario is better than current conditions. Use of both halves of the roadway for commuting is better than heavy use of one half and light use of the other; and you can obtain significant transit ridership too - which you can't get from the suburb-to-suburb commute.

3. You couldn't be more wrong here - none of the neighbors really supported RG4N's vision, as you can see by their actions before and after the case (attempting to opt-out of VMU on the entire stretch of Burnet Road, for instance). And anyways, the city HAD to grant the site plan, by law; you should probably at this point stop listening to RG4N and ANA for legal advice given that they lost their case twice, and ANA just got saddled with Lincoln's legal bills to boot.

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by: m1ek @ Tue Apr 29, 2008 at 13:39:40 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Morrison's record: dirty air; dirty water (0.00 / 0)

I can't believe people still fall for this nonsense about her being an acceptable candidate environmentally speaking. Her opposition to any and all density will inevitably result in more housing units and more VMT out over the aquifer than will the policies of her opponents (people have to live somewhere; and if the Old Money in Central Austin doesn't let them live dense in the core, they're going to live out in the 'burbs and drive ten times as much).

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by: m1ek @ Mon Apr 28, 2008 at 14:37:32 PM UTC