I absolutely love Friday Night Lights. I have watched every episode twice, and I just finished watching the first season again on DVD (the one and only Christmas gift I bought myself). Every time I watch it, I think of home, and how great it is to see Austin spotlighted on national television.
Candidate Carole Keeton Strayhorn is blasting the City of Austin for not paying any of the money it offered the NBC show in a 2007 incentive deal.
The city had agreed to give NBC $40,000 a year for past and future seasons if it kept filming "Friday Night Lights" in Austin and met contract terms.
The show, now in its third season, has yet to see a dime.
City officials say NBC hasn't shown that it complied with key terms of the contract. But Strayhorn said the show, which chronicles folks in a football-centric Texas town, deserves to be paid because it achieved the purpose of the deal: pumping millions of dollars into the local economy and promoting Austin as a film-friendly city.
I should point out that the article states that both Brewster McCracken and Lee Leffingwell have every intention on handling the situation.
The question, then, is simple: Is this a real thing, or is Strayhorn just rambling?
I think: Strayhorn is just rambling.
First of all, achieving the "purpose of the deal" is not sufficient reason to pay anyone. If I'm hired to do contract work and I don't do it, then I haven't fulfilled my contract. That's pretty simple, and it says a lot about Strayhorn's non-existent business sense that she wants to hand out funds just because.
Secondly, the article goes into pretty solid detail (good reporting by Statesman reporter Sarah Coppola) about the circumstances. There are provisions in the contract that NBC has, apparently, not fulfilled. That includes provisions such as what percentage of the cast and crew are hired from Austin, and whether or not the show names Austin in its credits. But beyond that, the City of Austin has money set aside for the show already -- once there is confirmation that it's been paid. So clearly the City Council hasn't been ignoring the problem or they wouldn't have any money set aside.
Finally, there appears to be a little history of contract disputes with NBC and the state. A quick Google search brought me this article from August 2007 in TV Guide: "Friday Nights Location Crisis Averted"
It came thisclose to a move out of the Lone Star State for Year 2 of NBC's critical darling Friday Night Lights. "Texas didn't follow through on the rebates promised when we based the production in Austin," says Aimee Teegarden, who plays the coach's daughter Julie. "NBC said, 'We're going to move.' It was talks about money. Arizona and New Mexico were both anxious to have us and offered incentives, so I was expecting our show to leave Austin."
"Aimee's right," says executive producer Jason Katims. "We were scouting new location bases and were courted by the other states' film commissions, but the network and the appropriate people in Texas settled things. I can't provide specifics, but it worked out so we could remain in Austin."
So to recap:
You don't hand out contract money for "good intentions" if the provisions of the contract haven't been fulfilled
The city has money set aside for the show; clearly they're not ignoring the problem
There's some history to this; more than likely, a reality of dealing with a mega-company like NBC
Strayhorn would do better to set aside the fake outrage and focus on how she plans on doing anything of actual substance. Like writing her concession speech.
(As I have previously disclosed, I am a supporter of Lee Leffingwell.)
At Brewster McCracken's campaign kickoff yesterday, senior field strategist Temo Figueroa, who served as President Obama's national field director, layed out the McCracken campaign's path to victory.
For those of you who missed the kickoff, don't worry. I was watching the Rockets in Houston but still was able to see part of Figueroa's presentation by watching the Austin Chronicle's City Hall Hustle.
Figueroa said they were expecting a turnout of 60,000. That, he said, would be 13 percent of Austin voters.
Obviously Temo Figueroa knows a lot about this kind of stuff, but that turnout estimate initially struck me as low.
In Wynn's first race for Mayor, though he easily beat Max Nofziger and Marc Katz without a runoff, 59,929 people voted, for a turnout of 15 percent.
Given that there are three fairly well-known candidates running well-financed campaigns this year, I would think the turnout would be higher in 2009 than it was in 2006 or 2003.
Back in November when Carole Strayhorn said her goal was to get 100,000 to vote, I dug up the turnout numbers for the last two truly competitive Mayoral races in Austin to try to get a better idea of what kind of turnout we could expect.
In 1997, political newcomer Kirk Watson faced off against Council Member Ronney Reynolds. There was 17 percent turnout in this election.
In 1994, Bruce Todd, Daryl Slusher and James Cooley were in a very close three-way race that was destined to go to a runoff (sound familiar?). Over 85,000 people voted, giving the election a turnout of 26 percent.
If Austin had a 26 percent turnout this year, a whopping 161,092 people would vote.
Of course, a lot has changed in the last fifteen years and I am not expecting a turnout that astronomically high. For one, city campaign finance laws have significantly affected the amount of money city campaigns spend.
Figueroa and others who have pegged turnout at 60,000 could be exactly right.
But given that McCracken, Leffingwell, and Strayhorn are all going to run hard campaigns (as are Chris Riley and Perla Cavazos in Place 1), there is a chance turnout could go beyond most expectations.
Carole Keeton Strayhorn, the sixty-nine year old candidate for Mayor of Austin, currently has fewer supporters on Facebook than both Lee Leffingwell and Brewster McCracken.
Of course, that is hardly news. Actually, Strayhorn is making more progress online than you may think, although the gap between her and the two other candidates remains substantial. Their "grassroots twitter" moment aside, Strayhorn's campaign has begun to do a better job of reaching out to supporters online.
You also may recognize a few of the names of the people leading Strayhorn's efforts on Facebook.
Solomon has helped with the campaign's online outreach and sees it as a potential way to get students involved in the campaign.
"It's our goal to try and connect students to her campaign, and to help Carole shape her message in a way that reflects what the students need. Whether it be happy hours or forums, we're going to get as many young people as possible involved in her campaign," Solomon told BOR.
Ben Barnes, grandson of former Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, is also an administrator of Strayhorn's Facebook group.
Barnes seems to understand that more than ever online strategy will play a big role in the mayoral campaign.
"Obviously, online resources will play a more than substantial role in the race, and Carole needs a very active presence in this area to win," Barnes told BOR.
Barnes told BOR he got involved with Strayhorn's mayoral campaign after working with "Students for Strayhorn" in 2006. You may recall that the former Lt. Gov. and his wife Melanie contributed over $65,000 to Strayhorn's 2006 Gubernatorial campaign. As of December 31, neither Barnes had contributed to Strayhorn's mayoral bid.
Both Solomon and Barnes are students at UT Law School, where Strayhorn's father Page Keeton served as Dean for twenty-five years.
Say what you will about Strayhorn (and there is plenty to say), but it is good to see her campaign embracing tools like Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. Whether Austinites will embrace her campaign is another story.
Disclosure: I am supporting Lee Leffingwell for Mayor.
After using a similar design in campaigns for several statewide offices including Governor, her campaign for Mayor has adopted a logo that drops her famous "One Tough Grandma" slogan and her last name altogether.
Although she sued to try to get "Grandma" included with her name on the ballot in 2006, her mayoral campaign website makes, as far as I can find, not a single mention of "One Tough Grandma."
Dropping the last name(s) may be designed to distance Strayhorn from her past as a Republican statewide elected official. In a Democratic city that gave her less than fifteen percent of the vote when she ran for Governor, she must walk a thin line between touting her experience and avoiding her Republican past. Whether it will work, well, while I wouldn't bet on it, that still remains to be seen.
Today Leffingwell loaned his campaign $41,163 - a symbolic $1 larger than the amount Carole Keeton Strayhorn has raised in the past few months of her mayoral campaign.
Leffingwell didn't announce a mayoral bid sooner than this month to avoid triggering a costly special election to fill his Place 1 seat.
While he has not been running for Mayor, a group of community leaders have been securing support for Leffingwell's likely run. To date the "Draft Lee for Mayor" campaign has put together a list of over 300 supporters (my name is included, KT's is not) and raised approximately $1,500.
This officially opens up a race for Perla Cavazos, Rick Cofer, and Chris Riley in place 1.
For more information on fundraising including cash on hand numbers, money raised, and money spent for all filed candidates check out KT's analysis here.
So I've run through all the campaign finance reports for the reported candidates for office. Mike Levy, while much rumored, hasn't filed to run, and Oak Hill resident Sandy Baldrige is saying she wants to run against Bill Spelman, but no action to actually follow up those claims on the finance front. In any case, below are a couple of different measures of how you can compare the candidates. Incumbents running for re-election to their own offices are in bold.
Cash on Hand
The only thing order-wise that changes if you sort by total funds raised during the period is that incumbent Sheryl Cole moves from 4th to 2nd and incumbent Mike Martinez moves from 2nd to 4th.
Overall: I was mostly right in what I've said to friends that I doubted anyone would end up having more than $25,000. I was wrong about Carole Strayhorn but I didn't think she would end up deciding to run. And while Chris Riley didn't end up with more than $25,000 cash on hand, he did raise more than $25,000 so congrats to him.
Mayor: Overall, I'm a little surprised to see Brewster's fundraising more on par with that of the Place 1 candidates and lagging behind that of Carole. Of course, that could just be because his main fundraiser isn't until later this month, but still, it makes the argument against Leffingwell rather irrelevant (that his delay in getting in will put him far behind in the money race). The Draft Lee PAC certainly is not acting as a real shadow campaign in terms of fundraising, but remember, it cannot transfer funds to Lee's Mayoral account once he files so there is no use in building up tens of thousands of dollars on it that would have to be spent independently of the official campaign. Of course, I also think that Strayhorn and Levy could spent lots of money and get far fewer votes than McCracken and Leffingwell so it could just all be a wash. This report tells us very little in the Mayor's race.
Place 1: My ballpark guess in this race was that the fundraising order would be Riley, Cavazos, then Cofer with totals around $20k, $15k, and then $10k. Both Chris Riley and Rick Cofer exceeded those expectations by a reasonable amount and in the end, they indeed are separated by no more than $10,000. Cofer was the last candidate in this race to announce, and with only 2 weeks to fundraise with Christmas killing about a week of that, nearly tieing Cavazos is worthy of note. I should clarify this point as all 3 candidates filed in the 2nd week of December. What I was trying to get at was that Chris was actively exploring this race and making calls months before he filed (I got an early call when I was in the Strama office before the November election) and Perla was actively talking about it in November, whereas I know Cofer didn't make the decision to run until the first week of December, shortly before he filed because he texted me about it.
Does this report create a frontrunner? I don't know. Last year, in the open Place 4 race, the first report went Morrison, Galindo, Cravey with $21k, $14k, and $12k. Randi Shade led incumbent Jennifer Kim $69k to $44k. Of course all of those were running earlier and in this period, the fundraising period was truncated by a presidential election, late filing, and a bad economy (even though the max contribution limit has increased from $300 to $350).
But if convention wisdom must be set, than I figure it's Cofer and Cavazos competing more with each other to secure a spot in a runoff with Chris Riley.
Place 5: This is all about Bill Spelman. Which is pretty easy to say since there is no sign of his "declared" regional opponent as of yet from Oak Hill. A lot of the same caveats apply as in the Place 5 race (Bill filed with about 3 weeks to fundraise) and it's a hard sell to get people to give you money when (at the time) there was no opponent. So this could end up like the Leffingwell-Meeker race in 2008. Lots of bluster from the 2nd tier candidate, but probably not a whole lot of electoral action with a healthy win.
Other Places: Mike Martinez doesn't have a declared opponent. Sam Osemene is running against Sheryl (he ran for Place 4 against Morrison/Galindo/Cravey last year) but he hasn't filed any report as he appointed his treasurer in January; but if he runs like last time, he won't be a factor other than a repository of votes for people who don't want to vote for Sheryl.
Here are some other interesting breakdowns.
Disclosure: I am listed as having donated $300 of in-kind website development services to the Spelman campaign.
The Austin Chronicle was on hand for Carole Strayhorn's announcement yesterday. Strayhorn was short on details and facts, but big on grandstanding. Take a look for yourself.
(Wells Dunbar has made it clear he will be the go to source for City Council coverage. That's just good for Austin)
I attended Carole Keeton Strayhorn's Austin Mayoral Campaign Kickoff. The press conference was held at 10:30am today (Mon., Jan. 12th, 2009, at abusiness in North Austin "BancVue".
She attracted a ton of media.
The room the picked was full. At least 100 people.
One of her early lines from her speech was "this was not a journey I thought I'd ever take"...she got some laughs from that.
There was not a lot of diversity, mostly middle aged suits. But there was a fair share of male and female. I'd expert Carole to win a fair amount of women voters.
Here are additional notes/thoughts from the press conf.:
- Her campaign literature given to me says that she's a "trailblazer"..full of firsts, 1st woman pres of Austin School Board, 1st female Mayor of Austin...
- She's only using her 1st name "Carole" on her literature/bumper stickers. I assume to help minimize the confusion from her 5 last names.
- She used the color blue for her campaign literature. Interesting. I asked her at the end of her press conference if she considers herself a "Progressive", but didn't really answer my questions and gave a canned response about "being for the people of Austin, a leader".
- She launched at a 4 1/2 year old North Austin business called BancVue. BancVue brands as "providing services to small community banks so that they can take on the the mega banks". So it's clear to me Carole will go after the small businesses and try to brand as "small/local business person" respectively.
- She made a comment that "BankVue did not receive any subsidies".. And had some laughs/claps in response. I recall her son, Brad, attending and supporting the "Stop Domain Subsidies" (Proposition 2 in last election) press conferences, so I'd expect Carole to try to claim she's the "small/local business candidate".
- She had an assortment of supporters. I assume, based on her supporters, this is where she'll be getting her money from:
- Real Estate
- Small Business/big business/all business
- Hi-Tech
- Lawyers (folks from UT Law were on her supporter's list, and her son Brad is an attorney)
- Possibly from Education. I'm told she helped found ACC, and one of her supporters listed ACC in her intro
- Capital/finance groups/folks associated to these orgs
The issues/what she'll run on, based her preso, might be:
- Budget, Fiscal Responsibility
- Accountability
- Transportation/Infrastructure
- Law Enforcement
- She's a "leader", leadership
- Energized
- Helping to "get the vote out" (Carole said she had a 35% voter turnout during her term, compared to 11% election turnout 3 years ago).
During the huddled press conference, she commented about Austin being "$137M over budget". This was not clear, but it appears Carole is calling this a $137M shortfall because of unmet "expected" sales revenue received compared to their budget?? I need clarification on this. I'd like to ask her what services she expects to cut from that $137M.
My guess is Carole will also try to leverage her experience with her original work on the Austin Tommorrow Comprehensive Plan, which was a major effort in the 70's, and will likely be a campaign issue this season.
Please comment on anything else y'all feel is critical for this race.
As we do for every council race, we expect to air all of the Mayoral interviews and Austin City Council candidates on 91.7FM KOOP Radio between now and the May election. Airing on our show "A Neighborly conversation, 12:00noon on Wednesdays. Stay tuned.
