4 Democratic Clubs Endorse

by: Matt Glazer

Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 10:24 PM CDT

• Tim Mahoney was endorsed by CAPD, CAAAD, SAD, and TED for ACC
• Jerry Garcia was endorsed by CAPD and CAAAD for Austin Independent School District Board
• Lee Leffingwell was endorsed by CAPD, CAAAD, SAD, TED for re-election in City Council Place 1
• Jennifer Kim was endorsed by CAPD and CAAAD for Austin City Council Place 3
• Randi Shade was endorsed by SAD for Austin City Council Place 3
• Laura Morrison was endorsed by CAPD, CAAAD, and SAD for Austin City Council Place 4

This list represents all endorsements made tonight at the Democratic Club meetings and links to the website are provided if available.

A Democrat Shows His Colors

by: Robin Cravey

Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 02:15 PM CDT

Each candidate in this race has something unique to offer however, what they cannot offer is my consistency, passion, and knowledge.

First of all, I invite you to look at my voting record and compare it to the other candidates in this race.  Although city council elections are non-partisan, we all know that this is the year of the Democrat!  As a life long Democrat, I have taken the responsibility of voting in democratic primaries very seriously and have done so consistently for over 20 years. My opponents have voted in only one or two.  I'm not sure that either of them voted in the SOS election.

I am a member of the South Austin Democrats, Texas Environmental Democrats, and a sustaining member of the Travis County Democratic Party.  In 1988 and 2006, I was a state delegate to the Democratic party convention.

As Walt Whitman said about Manhattan,"This is the city, and I am one of its citizens." My love for the city of Austin is not a newfound love. When I came here in 1969 to attend UT, Austin was a green oasis flourishing in an era of profound change. It was a state capital and university town set at the geologic and climatic edge called the Balcones Fault. In 1970 I started publishing an environmental magazine which began my dedication to the city as a voice for the citizens of Austin and the environment. I took a degree in American Studies, drove a taxicab, and I wrote about the city as a journalist and a poet.

More traffic on the sidewalks and less traffic on the streets

by: Robin Cravey

Wed Mar 19, 2008 at 03:43 PM CDT

If the city is an organism, then it's transportation system is both the circulatory system and the skeleton.

Today we have an inefficient, costly, and unhealthy transit system. At many hours of the day, in many places, it grinds to a standstill as too many cars and trucks jam the streets and highways. Frustrated drivers sit idle, engines running, clocks ticking, with thoughts of jobs or families waiting for them. Around them a toxic cloud of exhaust forms, rolling across the surrounding cityscape and rising into the hazy sky. We can do better.

Focus transit on the human being

We can have an efficient, thrifty, and even pleasant transit system. The first step is to put the human being at the focus of transit. Walking is our natural and independent way to travel. And it's healthy.

People will walk if it's convenient, safe, and enjoyable. We must change our development patterns so that people can live, work, shop, and play all within a short walk. Where that is not possible, there must be convenient transit within a short walk. We must make walking safe and enjoyable by providing wide clear sidewalks (get the utility poles out!) and shade trees and a comfortable buffer against car traffic. Naturally, all this will be accessible to the disabled.

Bicycling is our most efficient form of wheeled travel. It's non-polluting and carbon-free. And it's good exercise. We can make Austin a genuine bicycle town by completing our network of bike lanes, building connecting bridges, and expanding bicycle parking facilities and requirements. In addition, we should speed up the maintenance of our streets to make them safer for bicyclists.
 

Proposal for affordable housing at Green Water Treatment Plant site

by: Robin Cravey

Tue Mar 11, 2008 at 00:37 PM CDT

It's time for a radical change of direction, starting with the Green Water Treatment Plant site. As we issue a request for proposals to have major developers tell us what to do with this property, let's remember something. This is the people's property. We know what the people need.

It's time for a change of direction in the way we are pursuing the provision of affordable housing. And it's time for a change in the way we are selling off our public property.

For the past decade, the Council has moved to liquidate the wealth of city-owned property downtown and fronting Town Lake. And since 2000, it has dedicated 40% of the city tax revenue to be derived from those properties to a fund for affordable housing. This fund will be nice to have, but it's not enough. And it takes too long.

Imagining Calamity on the Firefighter Rideout

by: Robin Cravey

Thu Mar 06, 2008 at 07:28 PM CST

Post-Incident Review

I was a fly on the wall at a PIR, Post-Incident Review, for the recent housefire on Strawberry Cove in South Austin, when one firefighter was trapped, injured, rescued and sent to the hospital. The firefighter has since made a full recovery.

Two fire companies were dispatched to the fire. It appeared to be a small fire on the outside of the house, which they began to put out. Meanwhile, two firefighters entered the house for a routine check to make sure the fire had not reached inside. But when they reached the second floor and opened a way to the attic, the house filled with dense smoke and heat. That's when one firefighter had to be rescued.

Hot pursuit on the Austin Police ridealong

by: Robin Cravey

Tue Feb 12, 2008 at 00:49 PM CST

It was a Saturday in Austin. At four o'clock I parked my scooter in the lot at the police substation on Springdale. My contact was Officer Roque Martinez, nickname "Rocky." He was a rookie-less than two years on the force-and for the next six hours he was going to be my guide to the underside of the city.

First I had to go into the substation and sign a form. I did.

Rocky and I climbed into the patrol car and cruised over to Charlie sector, the East Side. Driving a taxi for Roy's in the seventies, I knew these streets and alleys like the back of my hand. I had carried groceries into every kitchen from the interstate to Pleasant Valley. And I had hauled drunks out of every one of the bars, too.

Routine calls

As we prowled, Rocky punched license plate numbers into the computer on his dash, looking for BOLOs, 'be-on-the-look-outs'.

Robin and Rocky

Our first call was to a house on Willow Street. A tattooed man, shirtless, had been reported arguing with someone. We found him, and his belligerent beer-drinking friend, on the sidewalk. Tattooed man was upset and shaky, his friend aggressive. Backup arrived. Rocky put tattooed man in an ambulance for treatment for drug reaction. Backup took belligerent friend downtown for public intoxication. Rocky and I headed to the substation, where he wrote a report and turned in evidence. It took a while.

The evening wore on. We answered a call to a fight with ten people involved, but by the time we arrived we found only a woman with high blood pressure and her rowdy friends. An ambulance arrived to treat her high blood pressure. She had a warrant, so once her treatment was done we took her downtown.

Night fell. We answered a call for illegal dumping in an alley, and listened to an elderly lady talk about her neighbors. We answered a call to a car stalled on the interstate, and gave assistance. We answered a call to a car illegally parked, but then the evening took an interesting turn.

Hot pursuit

On the radio, the dispatcher was broadcasting a pursuit. An attempted vehicle burglary had been seen at Dell Children's Hospital, and the burglars had fled in a black Ford Expedition, an officer following in an unmarked car. The Expedition was heading south on Airport, heading west on Manor, south on Stafford, west on 22nd, south on Chestnut. It seemed to be zigzagging toward us. Rocky drove north, moving to intercept.

The World is Changing

by: Robin Cravey

Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 09:48 AM CST

There's an article in the latest Scientific American that suggests that the Antarctic ice sheet could be unstable, threatening to raise sea level worldwide.

It has been known for a while that if the ice sheet melted, it would raise sea level by 200 feet or more. But scientists have predicted that it would take decades or centuries for all that ice to melt. Now, it seems that the ice could simply slide off.

• The land-based ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica hold enough water to raise global sea level by more than 200 feet.
• A complex "plumbing system" of rivers, lakes and meltwater lies under the ice sheets. That water "greases" the flow of vast streams of ice toward the ocean.
• For millennia, the out going discharge of ice has been balanced by incoming snowfall. But when warming air or surface meltwater further greases the flow or removes its natural impediments, huge quantities of ice lurch seaward.

The rise in sea level that could occur if the ice sheets slide into the sea would create the greatest refugee migration in history. It would make the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina look like a picnic. This is a worldwide emergency, and we in Austin must spare no effort to reduce our impact on the climate.

(crossposted at www.robincravey.com)

Forty years ago...

by: Robin Cravey

Mon Jan 21, 2008 at 01:33 PM CST

It may seem indelicate for me to say that, but it's important to remember the turmoil of those times.   My family had lived in northeast Houston all my school life, but then in 66 or 67 black people started moving into the neighborhood. There were kids I had known all my life who started going out at night in gangs, looking for black kids to beat up.  I was disgusted with them.  And one night when I was walking down a neighborhood street, a gang of black kids jumped out of the back of a pickup and beat me up.  I was disgusted with them, too.  Some black kids harassed my sister.  My parents were scared, and they moved us to southwest Houston.

So I was at a new school, M.B. Lamar.  I was a working class kid going to school with the River Oaks kids, some of the most privileged kids in Texas.  I didn't fit in very well.

Even so, I had hope.  Our country was changing.  It was changing in blood and flame, but it was changing.  We were going to eliminate racism and poverty.  Then the irrational spoke.

The irrational had spoken before, in Dallas in 1963.  In November 1963, I was a Boy Scout, one of a handful chosen to be part of the honor guard for President John Kennedy on his visit to Houston.  Something came up, and President Kennedy couldn't come, but Mayor Cutrer was there.  The next day the President was struck down.  But Lyndon Johnson became president, and he went to work to eliminate racism and poverty.  But for some reason, people rioted anyway.  And then the war in Vietnam swallowed everything else.

But in 1968 there was new hope.  Martin Luther King was speaking out for justice, and Bobby Kennedy was speaking out for fairness, and Bobby was running for president.  Then the irrational spoke.

Campaign Finance Reform

by: Robin Cravey

Thu Jan 17, 2008 at 05:02 PM CST

Weird campaign finance

Filing my first campaign finance report is a little weird, since I have what seems to me to be a lot of money to report. It's even more weird, since I favor public financing of election campaigns. And it's yet more weird because it's so hard to figure out the campaign finance laws.

I'm running a grassroots campaign, and I've been really overwhelmed by the many friends and even strangers who have been willing to contribute $10, $100, or even $300 to my campaign. It's an expression of trust that I take very seriously. I'm determined to use that money to deliver a clear message of positive change to the city.

I've always believed that public financing of election campaigns is the way to improve the integrity of politics. It's not that money corrupts all politicians: it just corrupts those subject to temptation, or those without well-developed ethical judgment. Also, it creates the appearance of corruption, which reduces citizens' faith in democracy. Ronnie Earle talked about that just the other night. I was at the Travis County Democratic Party dinner, and Ronnie was giving a valedictory address on his years as district attorney. During that time, he has prosecuted a lot of politicians for public corruption. The best antidote for public corruption, Ronnie declared, is public financing of campaigns.

An Austin politician is subject to a bewildering thicket of campaign regulations. I'm not even going to talk about state law, which is true to our wild west traditions. Just in Austin we have an ordinance and two charter amendments. I probably don't need to point out that these provisions contradict each other. What may surprise the average citizen is that the city administration refuses to give candidates any guidance about how to follow them. Their guidance is: hire a lawyer.

Austin City Council Place 4 Race Kicks Off

by: Karl-Thomas Musselman

Thu Nov 15, 2007 at 00:43 AM CST

Following longtime Austinite Robin Cravey's kickoff Wednesday night for retiring Councilwoman Betty Dunkerley's Place 4 seat, fellow candidate Laura Morrison will be returning there tonight at 5:30-7:30 to start her own campaign for the same seat.

While I'm not taking sides in this race (nor others for that matter since I'm working for a candidate of my own), having been at Austin area events and club meetings for the good part of a week, it's quite clear that at least two of the three city council seats are already geared up. I encourage you all to visit Robin Cravey or Laura Morrison's websites in the meantime. After all, City Council elections are only 6 months away!