No offense LCB
Posted on 03/28/2002 1:43:25 PM PST by log_cabin_gop_boy
Two more Austin City Council candidates slid into the May 4 election Wednesday, but their campaign trail may run through a courthouse.
City term limit rules forced Council Members Daryl Slusher and Jackie Goodman to file signatures from 18,263 registered voters in Austin to make the ballot. City Clerk Shirley Brown said Wednesday morning that Slusher had the signatures of roughly 19,705 Austin voters.
Wednesday night, Goodman's total stood at about 18,448 signatures, 1 percent more than was needed, city officials said.
Brown had said Tuesday that Council Member Beverly Griffith could run for re-election. Griffith, who also was facing term limits, collected signatures from more than 20,000 Austin registered voters but lost another 5,150 signatures in the verification of her petition. Slusher and Goodman each lost about 4,800 signatures in the verification process.
The city checked one-quarter of the signatures on each of the petitions, then projected totals after statistically reviewing each sample. Slusher and Griffith have a margin of error of about 500 votes. Even at the lower end of their respective margins, both would be over the 18,263-signature benchmark.
C'Anne Daugherty, a statistician reviewing the petitions, said she used a narrower, less sure statistical method to check Goodman's sample -- one that does not offer a margin of error. While the city was 99.98 percent confident that its projection on Slusher's signatures was accurate, the confidence level for Goodman's signatures was only 93 percent.
The 185-signature margin between Goodman's total and her goal makes her petition even more vulnerable to a legal challenge, said Austin American-Statesman statistical consultant Robert Cushing.
"It's a whopping big sample, but when you have something like this riding on it, it's still not an exact count," Cushing said.
But Goodman said the test shows she earned a spot on the ballot, albeit narrowly.
"They've done it very scientifically and very rigorously," she said. "There is a bottom line here, and I'm over that."
Slusher already has been sued by his opponent Kirk Mitchell, who said the incumbent would not have cleared the standard if a political group had not been allowed to contribute about 1,800 signatures.
The group, headed by former Mayor Bruce Todd, paid petition circulators about $1 per signature, and Mitchell said its work constitutes a $2,000 donation. Mitchell alleges that the group violated city contribution limits, and he wants the signatures thrown out and Slusher blocked from running for re-election.
Goodman has not been sued, though she also received 1,800 signatures from Todd's group. Linda Curtis, one of her opponents, has said she wants to verify Goodman's count herself and see how successful Mitchell's case is.
Curtis said Wednesday night that the city should keep counting Goodman's signatures until there is a more definitive total.
Slusher said many of Todd's signatures were collected by volunteers, not paid petition circulators.
Allowing the volunteers' work and throwing out the rest, Slusher said, would still put him past the 18,243 mark.
"I think the plan here, at least of Kirk Mitchell, is to distract voters," Slusher said.
sscheibal@statesman.com; 445-3819
Doesn't surprise me, sounds like something tea-sips would do.
No offense LCB
Here's the background. The City Council, which staggers six at-large council seats, passed a term limits law that gave elected officials an out - if they could get a certain percentage of voters to sign petitions saying they still wanted the term-limited councilmember to stay in office, they could override the term-limit.
Lo and behold, all three councilmembers to be term-limited got petition drives started in mere weeks and amassed the necessary signatures. Probably all the same names too.
In Austin, there are three types of local politicians - liberal, uberliberal and total whacko (including cross-dressers, mafia hitmen, folks who had their homes condemned by the city and your more conventional nutjobs). They are as crooked as all getout.
The liberal powerbrokers divvy up the spots and control everything. If you don't have their blessing, you don't have a chance.
This was proven in court back in the 1980s where the local NAACP led a fight to force the city to adopt eight single-member-district councilmembers rather than the six at-large spots in existence. This was despite the fact that, since the early 1970's, one black and one Hispanic (roughly 16.6% voting strength each) has been on the council, even though their racial voting blocks make up roughly 10 and 13 percent of the city population (those percentages are surely higher now, especially Hispanics).
The eight new districts would gerrymander a "black" district and a "brown" district with a watered-down 12.5% voting stregth each in the disguise of "fairness".
So the NAACP was trying to persuade a federal judge to give them LESS voting strength because of perceived racial grievances. What grievances, you ask? That the powerbrokers (all liberals, mind you) had pre-determined which blacks and which Hispanics would win. This meant the NAACP was accusing Austin's liberal elites of being racist!
Well, even the federal bench couldn't endorse this lunacy and threw out the suit while practically every other Southern city with a fair amount of blacks was forced to switch from at-large councils to single-member district councils.
Today's city government is run by environazis and assorted theives. Your tax dollars pay for abortions. Your tax dollars pay to erect environmentally-sensitive impact zones and mandatory recycling. Your tax dollars pay to declare ozone action alerts and water conservation activities in the summer.
It's a nice place to live in spite of them, particularly as neighboring cities have sprung up so you can enjoy Austin without having to actually live in it. Neighboring Williamson County is one of the most conservative in the state. Wonder why? It's where all the sane people go to live.
I have to agree. I wish I'd known about Williamson when we were house-hunting! I lived in Oak Hill (Travis Cty) for 4 years and couldn't believe all the "Green Thumbs" coming to my door on a daily basis... asking me to sign petitions to up my taxes, cut my water supply, save the salamanders (those little suckers RULED my back yard!) and various other enviro antics. I breathed a sigh of relief when I moved back to my property in E. Texas. That PC crowd just wore me out. For the past 20 yrs, I've loved doing long weekend trips to the Hill Country... but living there was a conservative's worst nightmare. :)
Hadn't really been there since....................................until last week.
Ya know what struck me most on this trip? How much Austin has been "California-ized" (note: I've also lived nearly a dozen years in California, although I'm now in N. Carolina; I'm entitled to say what I wish about the Golden State). Formerly rowdy, really cool haunts are now....................um.............."proper". NO smoking anywhere. Spots that used to be alive are now sterile, boring, bland, and............dead. The Oasis used to be a jumping, loud hangout for partyers out on the decks overlooking Lake Travis. Hoppin'. Lots of smoke (but hell, it was outside, so who cared???), lots of booze and beer, loud tables-full of revelers. Now? Again, "proper". Fancy, expensive menu. Quiet. Don't smoke except over "here". BOOOOOOOOORING, if still a beautiful view. Chuy's? Sit in a crowded, smoke-free bar while waiting to sit in questionable environs to eat sub-standard Tex-Mex fare.
......and on and on and on. Austin lost its heart. It's gone totally P.C. Used to be a let-your-hair-down, devil-may-care town of blues, rock-'n'-roll, and booze. Now? It's the sushi and bottled water crowd.
Depressing. DAMN those who screwed up my favorite town that I've ever lived in...........and I've lived all OVER this country over the last 46+ years.
Native Texans are a minority in the city. I wouldn't be surprised in the least if there were more native Californians' now.
I lived in the city for 8yrs then moved out to Lakeway which is great. But wanted to build my own house so I moved across the lake to Lago Vista. Keep an apartment in the city for those nights I don't feel like making the 40 mile trip back home.
And with out a doubt, Austin is the capital of PC. It's sickening.
BTW, is there anyone running for City Council who is worth voting for????
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