The primary season is upon us, even if we don't have legislative maps or a primary date. That's not going to stop the eager Democratic activists of Travis County from kicking off the club endorsement season! Last night, the South Austin Democrats held their forum, and voted to endorse in several Travis County primary races.
The SAD endorsement is viewed as one of the more valuable ones to earn in Travis County, since the group has often mailed yellow postcards to Democratic voters who live south of Lady Bird Lake touting their chosen candidates. Here are the results, from their Facebook page.
2012 South Austin Democrats Endorsements
Tax Assessor Collector: Bruce Elfant
District Attorney: Rosemary Lehmberg
Sheriff: Greg Hamilton
167th District Judge: David Walberg
Commissioner Pct. 3: Karen Huber
Constable Pct. 3: Sally Hernandez
Constable Pct. 4: Maria Canchola
The 167th race initially went to a run-off between Wahlberg and Efrain de la Fuente, after no one failed to clear the 50% endorsement threshold in the first round of balloting. (Attorney Bryan Case is also in the race.) Wahlberg prevailed in the run-off.
SAD didn't endorse in the County Commissioner Precinct 1 or Constable Precinct 2 races, but to be fair, they are the South Austin Democrats, and those races are Northeast and Northwest, respectively.
Next up, the Austin Progressive Coalition will hold its endorsements a week from Saturday on February 18th. At that time Central Austin Democrats and the University Democrats will vote on the candidates of their choice. Any candidate who receives both endorsements gets the coveted APC endorsement. APC in turn will distribute thousands of fliers touting their endorsements to doors across Central Austin. This is widely considered to be one of the more valuable endorsements in the local election scene.
In other primary news, the San Antonio court moved up the date of the next hearing on redistricting/maps/primary dates from the 15th to the 14th. That's good news if you want to spend Valentine's day with your fellow redistricting litigants, I guess.
If you want see how tough things are getting for the children, parents, teachers and administrators who are all trying to make Texas schools work, I'd like to point you to one thing:
Last Thursday.
Or, more specifically, the schoolnews that bubbled up on Thursday. It was a harrowing day.
The bad news didn’t start last week, of course. It dates back in part to last year’s legislative session, when those in control of the state’s budget decided to slash about $4 billion – I say again, FOUR BILLION DOLLARS – from what local school districts were promised and needed to pay for increasing costs and numbers of students.
Now, $4,000,000,000 is a big number. It’s tough to get your arms around all of those zeros – particularly when legislating is all mixed up with politicking, and when ostensible leaders are running around the state and the country ignoring or denying the damage they’ve caused to our kids and Texas’ future.
The problems are huge, too. Hundreds of Texas school districts have sued the state in an effort to create a better and more fairly funded system. That in itself is extraordinary – those in control of the Capitol have so bungled their responsibilities to our kids that local school boards have been forced to bypass their representatives, senators, Governor and Lieutenant Governor and startasking judges to clean up the mess (more on this later).
Inevitably, the human costs of misplaced priorities were going to surface. A lot of them came up late last week.
Dallas: School closures
Let’s start off in Dallas, where Dallas ISD trustees voted Thursday to shutter 11 schools.
The decision was teed up by the legislature’s budget cut – Dallas ISD had already cut $76 million from the current budget, according to the Dallas Morning News, “largely by offering employees incentives to resign and increasing class sizes.”
But despite that fairly extreme action, the board still had to cut another $38 million for next year. And, as one trustee put it, either the 11 schools had to be closed, or 171 teachers would have had to be fired.
Heck of a choice for anyone who cares about helping kids learn.
You can read more about it in this article (subscription required) or get a blow-by-blow from this blog.
South Texas: No sports
Also on Thursday, the Texas Tribune brought word of the tiny Premont ISD in South Texas, a district of 570 students that was already struggling. Then those in control of the state’s purse strings yanked more than $400,000 out from under the district – which, as the article points out, was already among the most poorly funded districts in Texas.
So, again, faced with a handful of very painful options, the district went for a clearly radical approach that, it hopes, will nevertheless cause the least amount of damage – it put all sports programs on hold for a year.
In the article, some students raise the prospect of fleeing Premont for a district that continues to field teams. Others clearly worry about losing the activity that helped keep them out of trouble.
But most students and parents, it seems, are resigned to the decision. After all, given the circumstances, what else can the district do?
The Houston Chronicle followed up over the weekend with a great column looking at funding inequities among Texas school districts. It showed that districts rated "exemplary" by the state receive over $1,000 more, per student, than those rated "academically unacceptable."
If you're looking at the students thatdistricts are working the hardest to teach – and the costs of meeting those kids' needs – the numbers are even more sobering. Just 17 percent of the kids in exemplary districts qualify for free-and-reduced lunch programs (based on federal poverty guidelines), the column said. In academically unacceptable districts, that figure's around 85 percent.
Keep those numbers in mind if someone – particularly someone who's part of the power structure at the Capitol – tries to lay the blame for these problems on Premont or other victims of the state's school finance system.
Texas: A broken system
That equity issue was the focus of an editorial by James "Kal" Kallison, the president of the Eanes ISD school board, that the Austin American-Statesman published on its website Thursday.
The editorial goes into some detail about the lawsuits I mentioned earlier that school districts are pursuing against the state. You should read the whole thing, which you can find here. This, to me, is the key passage:
“School districts represented in two of the lawsuits believe that ... the finance system still does not produce complete equity among districts. Regardless of the equity issue, most districts do agree that the current amount of revenue ... afforded to all districts in the state is simply not enough to provide for an adequate education of our children, as required by the Texas Constitution and defined in statute.”
Those questions – whether the school finance system is equitable, and whether it’s adequate to educate the children of Texas – are going to be litigated over many months, and it’ll probably be more than a year before the courts finally settle the issue.
But after a day like Thursday – after seeing so many of the issues that our schools have been left to deal with – does anyone believe that the state’s doing right by our schools and our kids?
Austin: The achievement gap
Finally, in Austin, business and civic leaders sat down at a summit on Thursday to talk over the state of early childhood education, particularly pre-kindergarten programs.
Of course, Pre-K has become one of the most important factors that educators look at in gauging how successful students will be. The numbers show that kids who show up to kindergarten with basic language, problem-solving and other skills are far more likely to pass achievement tests in later years – and far less likely to drop out of high school.
So what did those in control of the Capitol do with this inside knowledge about what works in education?
They ignored it. They eliminated a critical grant program and the $200 million it would have contributed tomake Pre-K programs stronger and more accessible across the state.
It was a devastating decision – and that devastation was front-and-center atthe business and civic leader summit Thursday. There, the United Way Capital Area discussed results of a report it produced as part of its "Success by 6"initiative.
The report found that for children as young as 3 – barely older than babies – an achievement gap already can be seen between kids from low-income families and students as a whole.
As the Statesman summarized, “Fifty-two percent of Central Texas children entering kindergarten are ready for school, according to the results. But in Dove Springs, Manor and Quail Creek [three generally low-income neighborhoods that were studied for the project], the proportion considered well-prepared for school ranged from 12 to 15 percent.”
It's a giant problem. All of these stories demonstrate giant problems. And the problems will only grow as this cruel budget and broken finance system settle over the parents, teachers and administrators who are trying to cope with it all.
So the worst thing about Thursday might not even be Thursday. It might be that there'll be more days like it.
Campaign season is underway! Even though we don't know for sure when our primary will be or what races will make it on to the ballot, that hasn't stopped the wheels from turning in several contested Democratic races here in Travis County. There are 10 contested primary elections within Travis County, for four countywide positions (District Attorney, Sheriff, Tax Assessor Collector, 167th District Judge) and several Constable and County Commissioner seats.
Today, the Austin Central Labor Council held their endorsement meeting, deciding on contested races on the ballot here in Travis County. Rick Cofer, Austin CLC COPE Chair, forwarded BOR their endorsements from today's meeting. I have added an (i) to indicate incumbents.
2012 CLC ENDORSEMENTS
Greg Hamilton (i) for Sheriff
Bruce Elfant for Tax Assessor-Collector*
Ron Davis (i) for County Commissioner, Precinct 1
Karen Huber (i) for County Commissioner, Precinct 3*
Danny Thomas (i) for Constable, Precinct 1*
Adan Ballesteros (i) for Constable, Precinct 2*
Sally Hernandez for Constable, Precinct 3*
Maria Canchola (i) for Constable, Precinct 4*
*Unanimous Endorsement
The CLC voted to make a Dual Endorsement of David Wahlberg and Efrain De La Fuente in the race for 167th District Judge.
The CLC voted to make No Endorsement in the race for Travis County District Attorney.
The CLC voted unanimously to endorse ALL unopposed Travis County Democratic Primary candidates.
The CLC voted to recommend to the State AFL-CIO COPE that the State COPE endorse Lloyd Doggett, Ciro Rodriguez and Dan Grant in their respective congressional districts under the current interim map ordered by the San Antonio three judge panel.
Thank you to all of the labor union members, candidates and staff that participated in today's candidate screening.
And as we've seen through the early stages of the primary, the District Attorney race had some action in the endorsement forum. To earn the CLC endorsement, a candidate must have two thirds of the votes present in favor of endorsing. Cofer said that initially the Amalgamated Transportation workers moved for a dual endorsement. Cofer made a substitute motion to endorse Rosemary Lehmberg. There was a 18-12 vote in favor of Lehmberg, not enough to meet the 2/3rds threshold. A vote on the original motion of a dual endorsement also failed. As a result, Jack Kirfman made a substitute motion for no endorsement in the DA's race, which passed.
Congratulations to all of the endorsed candidates!
On January 1, just a few hours after midnight, Austin school teacher and music mentor Esme Barrera was tragically murdered in her home just a few blocks north of the UT campus. That same night, another woman was attacked on the same street, and yet another woman was attacked in her home just a few blocks away. All incidents have taken place in the vicinity of 31st and Guadalupe.
Police are looking for a man in connection with all three incidents. The official police sketch is to the right. One of the female victims described the man as muscular, between the ages of 30 and 40, who was about 6-feet tall and was wearing a gray hooded jacket with a dark T-shirt and blue jeans. Please take a look and pass the sketch around.
There has been an outpouring of grief over the loss of Esme, age 29, who worked with special needs students at Casis Elementary and was a mentor at Austin's amazing Girls Rock Camp program, where young women and girls learn to be empowered, self-assured rocker grrls. She was a good friend to several of our readers, and it's an incomprehensible tragedy that this young woman, described as such a bright light and creative soul, would meet such a tragic end.
There are many benefit shows planned to help the Barrera family afford funeral costs. All look to be pretty awesome shows in honor of the late rock fan, so please consider checking them out.
With Friday's announcement that SCOTUS stayed the redistricting maps and will review the case, it looks like the primaries for Congress and both houses of the Legislature will move to the May primary run-off date, since the maps won't be set -- and filing may not be extended or resume -- in time to let candidates file for whatever districts we end up with.
From Michael Li's excellent Texas Redistricting blog, here's the election calendar as it looks for the early voting periods for the partisan primary, municipal elections, and partisan run-offs and simultaneous Congressional, legislative primaries. Read the full post here. I added a few additional dates in [brackets].
February 21-March 2: Early voting period (for now) for the March 6 primary.
March 6: Primary election day (for now).
March 6-11: The Democratic and Republican parties hold their precinct conventions to select delegates for senate district and county conventions.
March 24: Democratic and Republican parties hold their senate district and county conventions and select delegates by senate district for their state conventions.
April 7: Deadline for counties to send mail ballots for the May primary runoff to military and overseas voters.
[April 30-May 8: Early voting for Austin City Council elections. added by KH]
May 12: Municipal and local elections in many Texas jurisdictions.
May 14-18: Early voting for primary runoffs and congressional/legislative primaries. (The state has not suggested a period for early voting for legislative and congressional primaries, but the normal primary early voting period is 10 days, which would cause it to overlap with the May 12 municipal elections.)
May 22: Primary runoff election day in Texas. This is also the date the state has suggested for legislative and congressional primaries.
[June 11-June 19, 2012: Early Voting, Austin municipal run-off election, if needed added by KH]
[June 23, 2012: Election Day, Austin municipal run-off election, if needed added by KH]
[Late July or early August: Primary run-offs for congressional and/or legislative primaries, if needed. added by KH]
I'm posting this not only to update y'all on what's happening here, but also to remind everyone that the Austin City Council decided in a 4-3 vote to keep our municipal elections in May, rather than use the state-provided opportunity to move them to November 2012. Laura Morrison, Kathie Tovo, Sheryl Cole, and Bill Spelman were the four votes for May -- just want to make sure all y'alls' Google alerts on your own names catch this!
Their rationale for preserving a May election and its usual abysmal below-10% turnout at a cost of almost $2 million to the City of Austin taxpayers was in the name of "upholding the charter" -- even though SB 100, the State Law that prompted election calendar switches, specifically allowed Austin to move their election without violating the charter. So basically that rationale was false. But, whatever. They also said it should be up to the will of the voters, but grassroots genius Mike Blizzard found a little-known measure approved by the Austin voters decades ago that allows the City Council to move the election if necessary. But, again, whatever -- all of these facts are meaningless in the face of an effort to preserve a no-turnout electorate that guarantees their re-election.
At the time, Travis County Clerk Dana DeBeauvoir said that in her professional opinion, it was best to move the Austin municipal elections to November to save money in contracting fees and purchase of soon-to-be-obsolete voting machines. Now, thanks to Abbott, SCOTUS, and the redistricting lawsuits, it is exceedingly likely that we are going to have a primary run-off / Congressional and Legislative primary election that begins two days after the Austin City Council elections end.
And that's only if the state truncates the Early Voting period for the primary run-off and congressional/legislative primary -- if the state gives the voters the full 10 day period, there would be overlap in early voting for partisan races and the municipal election.
Hey, I'm just glad I'm not going to be running any vote-by-mail programs this cycle. Three to five rounds of applications and ballot chasing? YIKES.
During the debate about whether or not to move the Austin municipal elections, Bill Spelman specifically said that holding non-partisan municipal elections alongside partisan November elections would confuse the voters. Color me crazy, but I am pretty sure that the election calendar we're going to have now -- statewide and county primary, municipal election, statewide and county runoffs and Congressional and legislative primary -- is going to be much more confusing.
It's unclear right now how much more money this election calendar shift might cost Austin taxpayers. Partially that depends on the time frame set for early voting for the statewide/primary run-offs and congressional/legislative primary elections. We won't fully know until March 6 anyways, because if any primary races go to a recount that will put all of our county machines on "lockdown" so none can be used for the May municipals. That means Austin would have to buy even more voting machines. That costs money in an exceedingly tight budget cycle when Council is already struggling to keep our libraries, parks, and pools open.
Oh, and if any of the congressional or legislative primaries go to a run-off, or any of the Austin municipal elections go to a run-off, we'll vote for a potential fourth and fifth time.
Remind me again why it was such a bad idea for a majority of our Council to exercise leadership and save money, increase turnout, and simplify the election calendar?
Every Austin City Council member has pledged to move Austin beyond coal and phase out of the Fayette coal plant. Please thank the City Council members for their bold leadership in moving Austin towards a clean energy future.
In more good news, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) last week officially rejected a water permit for the White Stallion coal plant after over 2,000 of you sent comments and demanded that LCRA not give another drop of our water to dirty coal. This LCRA victory comes on the heels of San Antonio's recent decision to shut down their Dealy coal plant and invest in clean energy.
These are huge victories for our Texas grassroots movement!
Since the 2009 Austin Generation Task Force, our volunteers have been urging Austin City Council to move beyond coal. You collected petitions, attended leadership trainings, hosted house parties, made phone calls, flyered events, contacted City Hall, and now your efforts have paid off!
Austin joins cities across the country that have recognized coal's health effects and increasing costs are too risky to sustain. It's no longer a question of IF Austin will move beyond coal; it's now a question of WHEN.
Our next goal is to work with Austin Energy and the LCRA to develop an aggressive timeline to shut down Fayette by 2016. If we succeed, Austin will be the biggest city in the country to phase out of a municipally-owned coal plant. This is an opportunity for us to lead by example, and we look forward to the challenge of making Austin #1.
These victories show that when we work together, we can build a cleaner, smarter energy future for our community. Thanks for all your help to get us there!
Environmental activists scored major victories this week both locally, with Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell’s announcement that the City of Austin will sell its share in the Fayette Coal Power Plant in La Grange and move towards a coal free energy future, and nationally, with two major developements in the Keystone XL “tarsands” pipeline saga.
On Wednesday, Mayor Leffingwell pledged to join other major cities across the the country in moving Austin off of polluting coal fired energy production by selling Austin Energy’s share in the aging Fayette Coal Plant. The Fayette plant is a notorious polluter that, according to the Sierra Club, “produces approximately 307 pounds of mercury each year. Only one gram of mercury is needed to contaminate an entire 20 acre lake.” Austin has access to viable clean energy alternatives, such as wind power, and the Fayette plant’s inability to comply with upcoming federal emissions standards will see its operational costs “rise significantly over the next few decades.” As Cyrus Reed, Conservation Director for the Sierra Club Austin put it:
We congratulate Mayor Leffingwell on the renewal of his commitment to move Austin beyond coal. Today's announcement is consistent with a plan first crafted over a year ago and approved unanimously by City Council in February. Mayor Leffingwell called for a dialogue with the community, with Austin Energy, and with the LCRA. We welcome this dialogue, and as a first step, Sierra Club has developed a plan to phase out of the Fayette Coal Plant by 2016.
I do have a couple of concerns with the announcement that I will look into further in the coming days. The first is that the electric grid in Texas is run by Ercot (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas) an organization that was first created in 1941 to help industrial production along the Gulf coast. Under deregulation, Ercot is the sole authority to determine how power flows across the “nodal system” that exists in Texas, for, unlike the other large regional power grids in the US and Canada, Ercot is contained within the borders of Texas and therefore not subject to Federal interstate commerce regulations. In Texas, if a plant near Dallas has excess capacity, and Waco experiences a power surge, then Ercot determines how much power moves between the two cities. Even though Austin would sell its share in the Fayette plant, it is not clear whether the city would have a say on which plants were providing power generation to Austin Energy customers. For more on Ercot, read this extensive PDF. Also, LCRA (the Lower Colorado River Authority) has stated that they are “proud” of the Fayette plant and have "no plans to close [the plant] and will not support any plan to shut down the plant."
It is also significant that Leffingwell made his announcement at press conference kicking off his re-election campaign. When Randi Shade lost her seat to Kathie Tovo in June, Leffingwell lost a strong pro-business ally, and needed support from the generally left leaning council for his big pet project, a $500 million water treatment plant. It is critically important for Leffingwell to hear from his constituents just how important Austin’s clean energy future is.
Please contact the Mayor and tell him that you support his decision and want to see Austin powered by clean technologies. You can easily write him here, or you can attend the Sierra Club’s Town Hall meeting:
Sunday, December 4, 2011
TSEU Office at 1700 South 1st Street, Austin, Texas
3:00-5:00 PM
Nationally, the Keystone XL pipeline that would bring dirty, “tarsands” bitumen from Alberta, Canada to Houston and Port Arthur hit two major obstacles this week. First, President Obama decided to delay a decision about the pipeline for up to 18 months as the State Department re-evaluates the enivronmental impact of the pipeline route which would take it through at least seven states and over several critical aquifers including the vast Ogalalla Aquifer in the Sand Hills region of Nebraska and the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Texas. Any spill in these areas would be a disaster for millions of farmers, ranchers, and would pollute municipal water systems. The initial State Department environmental impact statement was written by a paid contractor of Transcanada, the very company that is trying to build the pipeline. An independent EIS drafted by professionals who are not employed by Transcanada will show how dangerous this pipeline really is. The administration’s own Environmental Protection Agency has already issued two statements condeming the pipeline, but under an obscure Johnson administration executive order from 1968, they do not have jurisdiction over pipelines that cross international borders.
Obama’s decision is definitely about the 2012 presidential election. In 2008, Obama ran a progressive campaign, pledging to provide good governance, end the wars, fix the economy, provide health care, and protect the environment. The results of his first term have been suspect, at best, on all of these issues, and he needs the support of his progressive base to win his re-election. As Ian Davis, of the Sierra Club, put it, “if he caves on [the pipeline] he will lose his volunteer base,” because this is “a litmus test issue for young people.” In practice, this delay enables anti-pipeline advocates to increase pressure on the administration from multiple angles, and hopefully make it politically unfeasible for the pipeline to be built. In Texas, this pressure comes in the form of 391 commissions. These 391’s are “super governments” formed when any number of mayors or city councils vote to form one and are able to “join and cooperate to improve the health, safety, and general welfare of their residents.” 391’s were instrumental in defeating Rick Perry’s hated Trans Texas Corridor, and are the basis for pipeline opposition in Texas.
Nebraska, which had been the center of anti-pipeline activism, scored its own big victory against the pipeline this week when Transcanada announced it would reroute the pipeline around the state. The initial route passed through the sensitive Sand Hills region, the primary recharge zone for the vast Ogalalla Aquifer that provides water to a huge area in multiple states across the southern great plains. In some ways, the success in rerouting the pipeline away from Nebraska will make it more difficult for activists in other states (given the strong, bipartisan opposition to the pipeline in the state); however, the mounting costs associated with the delays will eventually force Transcanada to find an alternative route, or non at all. The company’s stock as already fallen 9.1% since October 4, and the delays are projected to cost them up to $1 million per day.
I will continue the discussion next week on both issues, and provide more ways to help get Austin off of dirty coal, and keep the US free of dirty Canadian tarsands oil.
(Impressive organizing efforts from Sierra Club's push to get Austin to divest from coal-based electricity. - promoted by Katherine Haenschen)
We're making great progress moving Austin Beyond Coal.
In just two months, we've signed up 24 house party hosts and gathered more than 1,000 petition signatures demanding Austin Energy phase out of our city-owned Fayette coal paltn. We're well on track to meet our goal of 5,000 signatures by Earth Day 2012.
These efforts are getting noticed. Last week, Mayor Lee Leffingwell told the Community Impact Newspaper that he's "willing to entertain the option" of moving beyond coal.
Now we need to keep the momentum going...
We need as many people as possible to attend our Beyond Coal Town Hall on December 4th and show the decision makers that our grassroots movement is growing bigger every day. We'll also be presenting new policy research that shows the Fayette coal plant can be phased out in a cost-effective way, protecting Austin Energy rate payers from the rising costs of coal.
What: Beyond Coal Town Hall
When: Sunday, December 4th, 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Where: Texas State Employee's Union Office, 1700 South 1st Street, Austin, TX 78704
RSVP:Click here to RSVP
This campaign is important because Fayette pollutes our air and wastes 5 billion gallons of water every year. But if we phase Austin out of coal, this will set an example for the rest of the country. Austin could become the biggest city in the country to divest from a municipally owned coal plant.
Let's work together to make Austin a leader of the 21st century clean energy economy!
The Statesman's review of the Austin economic climate is a much-needed profile and (to some extent) evaluation of the city's economy. There are four areas where the Statesman's coverage could improve.
1. Don't forget about sub-group income levels. Not everybody is 'OK'.
I often refer to the above chart as the most important overlooked chart in Austin policy and politics. Focusing on the city's overall economic situation and rendering an 'OK' evaluation based simply on unemployment relative to other municipalities obscures the significant pain being experienced by sub-groups. Moreover, making it simply a question of unemployment rates also obscures the decline in wages.
2. Discuss policy choices. Policy nihilism conceals the possibility of making unemployment lower sooner.
The coverage did not delve into policy options to reduce unemployment through municipal action. There are many potential policy choices from the left and right (e.g. have local public sector adopt a German kurzarbeit scheme, ease development regulations, undertake more capital projects and accelerate existing projects, etc.). The absence of a policy discussion might leave readers with an impression that the conventional wisdom dictates there's nothing that can be done or worth discussing to ameliorate local unemployment in the short-term.
3. Focus on the value added (or destroyed) by policy makers on top of the City's economic fundamentals.
The Statesman's article implies that there are certain aspects of the local economy - the location of the state public sector as well as the presence of technology companies - that help Austin outperform other communities. However, looking at relative levels can be misleading. As I have argued in the past, it's better to focus on communities that share a narrow band of characteristics that make them quite similar to Austin. So, other state capitals with tech hubs in the Southwest would be more appropriate than nebulous comparisons to other cities.
Visually, the newspaper could do a set of simple scatter plot visualizations to give readers a sense of how Austin performs given certain underlying characteristics. Said visualization approach replicates a multivariate analysis in a user-friendly way.
My concern is that readers will walk away thinking that the existing policy mix is value-creating when a more statistically-sound evaluation might reveal that we are actually wasting the underlying trove of economic advantages we possess.
4. There is no forecast or 'threat' assessment.
Toward its conclusion, the piece indicates that Austin has a positive 'reputation' that allows talent to be attracted. In my estimation, I believe this has to do with people thinking of Austin as a place with interesting cultural amenities, housing affordability relative to the coasts, quality public spaces, and dense urban land use. The article does not consider whether this important asset is likely to remain given the city's existing land use decisions. The article does discuss the potential downside of public sector layoffs, but in general, it did not ask whether the underlying mix of industries and policies are best moving forward.
I sincerely hope that the Statesman's journalists will consider some of these suggestions as they continue with their important series.
On Sunday, thousands of people in Austin will get together & walk a 5K for a good cause. They will have raised money, or just registered to walk, to care for people in Austin living with HIV & AIDS. I'm still looking for more donations - will, right up to the very last minute - and you can give here at my AIDS Walk page.
Come woth me below the fold & I'll tell you what the donations do & there is (of course) a U2 video.
