Anonymous Robocalls Appear in Place 3 Race

Has it really come to this? (0.00 / 0)

I mean, come on. Let's have substantive debates on the issues, rather than "anonymous" misleading attacks.

As for the substance of it, I'm not sure if having the highest-paid public safety workers is a bad thing. When I lived in New York City, there was a serious problem in recruiting quality police officers due to the very low salary, which meant that they couldn't afford to live within any of the five boroughs. Austin has a higher cost of living than most of Texas, so it makes sense that all jobs would pay more, especially those who work in the public interest.

How does this wage index to the stardard "cost of living" here? Does it take into account overtime? I mean really, if we're going to be nickle-and-diming our public workers, maybe we can NOT start with the ones that put out our house fires and investigate our home break ins. Just sayin'.

And for what it's worth, I don't have a neighbor named Lisa either.

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by: kath25 @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 13:20:29 PM CDT

It's great (3.00 / 1)

to have highly-paid public safety workers because we can recruit the best and brightest and then hold them to a higher standard.  Austin has the highest paid police force by far in Texas.

Many in the city are concerned (The Statesman above all others, ironically), however, that the public safety budget threatens to eat up the entire general fund and crowd out other investment entirely.  The current contract specifies that police officers get whatever raise civilian workers get plus 2% .  So it's hard to give city workers raises when you then have to add on the extra cost for the police force (this was a concern with last year's civilian raises).  If you're familiar with the top 10% issue with the UT-Austin admissions process, a lot of the arguments are similar to the public safety budget arguments.

Some believe the concerns are overblown and mainly reflect anti-union sentiment by the Statesman (which isn't hard to spot by reading through their rag).  Fact is, we have a huge budget shortfall this year and salaries make up a large piece of it.

Talks are currently ongoing with the police union this week and last.  I haven't been following them that closely yet, but in the next few weeks the negotiations should hit the council and be reported widely.

My opinion is that we (correctly) pay our public safety officers a high salary, but we need to get a hold on the spending which means the next contract needs to be a bit less generous.  They'll still be the highest paid in the state.

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by: Kedron Touvell @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 13:36:45 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Negative Attacks (0.00 / 0)

These calls are vicious and have no place in the campaign but I have seen no evidence that attributes the calls to Jennifer's campaign.

Jennifer, Elliott and Matt are all intelligent campaigners.  In the numerous campaigns that I have volunteered for all three, they have never resorted to such tactics and I think they know that an amateur call like this would only backfire.

It is impossible (and more importantly, illegal) to control what a third party does with their money. I would be willing to bet that Randi wishes she could have stopped Rick Culleton from funding the terribly ineffective negative TV ads that are currently blasting Kim and Leffingwell.  I'm sure Jennifer feels the same about these calls.

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by: DukeBlueD @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 14:39:58 PM CDT

Sounds Familiar (0.00 / 0)

Sleazy, sleazy, sleazy.

Is there a comment from the Kim campaign on this?

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by: TeamTexas @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 16:10:58 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

Desperate campaigns call for desperate measures (3.00 / 1)

Kim is getting hammered left and right in the Statesman and Chronicle for her poor and unsubstantiated attacks.  If this can be linked back to her campaign, it's just one more example of how desperate she is to cling to her place on the dais.    

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by: mrexwilt @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 14:48:39 PM CDT

More than a dirty trick... (0.00 / 0)

It's against state law (Texas PUC Regulations).  Robo calls that fail to properly identify the caller within the first 30 seconds of the call are illegal.

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by: J. Crosby @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 15:46:31 PM CDT

But they are hard to trace... (0.00 / 0)

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by: TeamTexas @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 15:49:19 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

A little more info... (0.00 / 0)

I do know from what number the call came (800-441-0704), and as it turns out, that particular number has been used to make calls for Jennifer Kim's campaign before (some just during the past week).  Whether or not that was the case this time, I'm not going to say, but it certainly looks suspicious.

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by: snowed in @ Fri May 02, 2008 at 16:24:41 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

the content is exactly the same... (0.00 / 0)

the content is exactly the same as the negative mailer I got today. Clearly the campaign wrote the script and put this out.

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by: BeatrixKiddo @ Sun May 04, 2008 at 21:43:17 PM CDT