Mayor Will Wynn Live: Global Warming Presentation Sunday, Jun 10 at Alamo Drafthouse Downtown 4:00 and 7:00pm
The debate is over. Climate change is happening now. We're causing it. And if we don't fix it, the results will be catastrophic. "It's a global problem, but it's a local problem too. And our responses have to be both global and local," Mayor Will Wynn said back in February, when he announced the Austin Climate Protection Plan. "Austin has long been a national leader on energy efficiency, renewable power and innovative technologies. Now we need to push those efforts to the next level." This June, while your A/C is cranked high, don't turn on your oven (or microwave, if you cook like our bachelor Mayor does). Let the Alamo do the cooking (and the beer-pouring) and join us for this dramatic presentation.
In January Mayor Wynn trained with Al Gore to give the slideshow the former Vice President made famous in his Academy Award winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth." Mayor Wynn has adapted that presentation and will tell us how Austin is leading the way in confronting the climate crisis.
Mayor Wynn would like to encourage you all to familiarize yourselves with all sides of the issues and when you come to the presentation please bring a skeptic - if you know one.
The Mayor's presentation will be free. However, we are expecting a huge demand for this timely presentation so if you wish to reserve a seat you may purchase a $5 food and beverage voucher to be used on the night of the show. All other seats will be first come/first served.
Yesterday, Austin Mayor Will Wynn announced a bold plan known as the Climate Protection Plan. Austin is already one of the leaders in reducing carbon, this new plan will further cement that note in history. The plan will bring carbon emission to nearly zero by 2020.
The Climate Protection Plan will:
Make all city facilities, fleets and operations totally carbon-neutral by 2020.
Implement aggressive utility greenhouse-gas-reduction plans through dramatic increases in conservation, efficiency and renewable programs.
Require carbon neutrality on any new power-generation capacity and shut down existing utility facilities that emit greenhouse gas.
Make Austin building codes for residential and commercial properties the most energy efficient in the nation.
Develop a comprehensive plan for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions from sources in the community.
Provide mechanisms for all businesses and individuals to reduce their carbon footprint to zero.
Well, we know that former Mayor Bruce Todd probably isn't happy that the League of Bicycling Voters ran over his attempt to get the current Austin City Council to approve his citywide all ages Mandatory Helmet Law.
The former mayor had 17 supporters—mostly medical professionals and others who had suffered brain injuries--at the hearing to speak in favor of the law, though none, apparently, had ridden to the meeting on a bicycle. Only one person raised their hand when a speaker asked the packed audience if there were any bicyclists supporting the law.
Almost all of the LOBV supporters rode their bikes to the meeting and about 200 signed up in opposition to the law, with more than two dozen speakers.
Although the council couldn’t take formal action on the proposed law at a Thursday public hearing—due to an agenda error and disagreement over whether any action was allowed—a majority of council members expressed opposition to the idea. "If this law isn’t dead, it’s getting its last rights," said Rob D’Amico, spokesperson for the League of Bicycling Voters (LOBV), the organization fighting the helmet law.
Due to the way it was placed on the agenda and the fact that no action was taken last Thursday at the public hearing, the issue hangs in limbo for now. It would have to be placed back on the city agenda which would seem to take 3 members support.
While Dunkerly would probably be game (Martinez is on the opposite end of the spectrum), it's doubtful that McCracken and Wynn would both join her a second time around now to place the issue back into play. If 4 votes aren't there in the end to pass a new ordinance, some members may not bother to vote to bring up what became a bigger political hot-potato than expected.
Of course, that also puts into limbo any action that could be taken regarding a proposed 18 month study on biking safety in Austin (which would be a positive step) or other measures that could increase real public safety and education but one step at a time I suppose.
And just as an aside, someone pointed out that Mayor Wynn's "fitness" page on the city website has a picture of bicyclists- sans helmets.
Polls will be open 7am - 7pm. If you need to find your polling location (which you must to in order to vote today) click here to match up your precinct with where to vote.
Election Results tonight will come in online here. Travis County election is managing the results for a whopping 32 juristictions, including for some juristictions extending into Williamson county. They will be partitioned into 3 categories available online here.
You may wish to review the Burnt Orange Endorsements for City Offices as well as AISD & ACC races. To recap...
Mayor: Will Wynn City Council Place 2: Mike Martinez City Council Place 5: Brewster McCracken City Council Place 6: Sheryl Cole
AISD Place 7: Robert Schneider AISD Place 8: Annette LoVoi AISD Place 9: Karen Dulaney Smith ACC Board Place 8: James McGuffee ACC Place 9: Ana Mejia-Dietche
All of Austin's Democratic Club endorsements are listed in the extended entry. Various election night victory parties are listed here in the BOR events calendar.
These are our 2006 endorsements.Click here for our current 2009 endorsements.
Halfway through Early Voting for municipal elections here in Travis County, I've finally gotten around to getting things together for some BOR endorsements. So we'll start with the big races and then hit the Propositions and ACC/AISD candidates after that in separate posts. Keep in mind that these are all fairly low turnout (and low interest) elections and I only received input from 2 other writers for endorsements. Let's get started.
This is easy. While Austin's Mayor may have been elected in a whirlwind of moderation and mediocrity three years ago, there is a certain charm about him that has shown through in past couple of years. A hard worker, believer in downtown density (of which I'm a big fan since I'll probably live there soon enough), and tireless promoter for the City of Austin, its industries, and its people, Wynn should not only be re-elected, but fully deserves a second term. And considering his competition this year, there is no question in our eyes that Wynn has earned our endorsement and votes. We want Wynn, again.
If you feel that you want to keep Austin weird, you could always vote for perennial candidate Jennifer Gale. We understand. But please don't vote for outgoing councilman and candidate Danny Thomas, as we're not even sure if he knows why he's running. Austin doesn't need to be that weird.
While more contentious earlier in the race, this one has become clearer to us as time has gone on. Martinez, after winning most every local endorsement, recently picked up the Statesman and Chronicle nods. A native of East Austin and president of the Austin Firefighters Association, Martinez led the successful public campaign to win collective bargaining rights for Austin firefighters which we also supported.
This is not to say that his opponent Eliza May is unqualified- far from it. She has received support from the West Austin groups as well as the local Spanish papers and would certainly be an active voice on the council. But we feel that Martinez has proven leadership skills and will not back down for his community on the council while being the most able to work to bind people east and west of I-35. Libertarian Wes Benedict is also running.
The endorsement for incumbent McCracken is not as enthusiastic as for incumbent Wynn but the two are similar in style, ideology, and we won't be surprised when McCracken announces for Mayor in 3 years. His opposition is mostly token, but certain interests have spurred them into the race, partly on the issue of Tolls. While we're no fan of them, what we find even more annoying is it used as a single issue interest group. In fact, I find it as the singlemostannoying one in Austin. (I have to laugh that their only acceptable single issue option in the Mayor's race is Jennifer Gale, ha!)
Cole, like Martinez, is the frontrunner for their respective places for City Council. If elected, she would be the first African American female ever to serve on the Austin Council. Endorsed by the Chronicle (the Statesman endorsed Darrell Pierce), Cole has racked up most all the local endorsements, save the few that DeWayne Lofton has picked up. Each of the three candidates is worthy of a seat on the council in their own right, but Austin's "gentleman's agreement" to reserve one black and one Hispanic seat in order to keep free of federal Voting Rights Act interference has also more or less made these 'reservations' caps as well.
As the seat considered to be the most likely to go to a runoff if one should, the real battle will be between Lofton and Pierce to claim the 2nd spot. Personally, I voted for Pierce, but an argument has been made for Lofton in the journals.
City to launch free Wi-Fi downtown AAS Article
The City of Austin plans to create a high-speed wireless network that will deliver free broadband Internet access to parts of downtown Austin, East Austin and Zilker Park.
The city is partnering with Cisco Systems Inc., the largest maker of computer networking equipment, and the World Congress of Information Technology on the project. Cisco will donate nearly $700,000 worth of wireless-networking equipment for the new network to the group hosting WCIT, an international gathering of technology leaders in Austin in early May.
A short Press Release clip for this one. I'll say right now that I support the mayor's re-election, certainly against Councilman Danny Thomas (if he files like planned) and anyone else that gets in the race including Leslie.
Austin Mayor Will Wynn filed for re-election today when he gave over 450 petition signatures to Rosemary Ybarra in the City Clerk's office. Wynn's campaign has 1007 individual small contributors as of today, totaling $91,240.
"We've been going strong," said Mayor Wynn, "and we don't plan to slow down any time soon. No one has raised this much from this many donors this early in a city campaign since the '97 ordinance, and I'm just so proud that my vision for the city is supported enthusiastically by so many. I'm proud to run again for Mayor of the greatest city, in the greatest state, in the greatest county in the world, Austin, TX."
Today was the first day for candidates to file for the May election, and filing will remain open until March 13th.
Today is Election Day in Travis County! 