In any other election season a proposal to change Austin’s form of City government would likely gather the most attention. Not so this year as the tents of homeless people line Austin roadways, sidewalks and parks. This situation results from a City Council decision...
This story marks the Austin Independent’s final pre-early voting coverage of the strong mayor proposal. Early voting starts Monday April 19 and ends Tuesday April 27. Election day is Saturday May 1. To review, in earlier coverage we laid out the principle that...
Let’s take a quick beginning of the year look at the Austin City Council where the Council seems to have started the term by hoisting themselves on their own identity politics petard. The two new members, Vanessa Fuentes and Mackenzie Kelly, get sworn in Wednesday...
As previously reported incumbent Alison Alter won reelection in a contest against challenger Jennifer Virden while challenger Mackenzie Kelly ousted incumbent Jimmy Flannigan. Both races were close with Alter winning 51% of the vote in West Austin District 10 and...
Alison Alter maintained her lead throughout the night as did Mackenzie Kelly. The Austin Council will now feature two new members, Kelly in District 6 and Vanessa Fuentes in District 2. We’ll have more analysis in coming days.
In the Austin City Council races, District 10 incumbent Alison Alter has a narrow lead in the early vote: 51% to 49% for challenger Jennifer Virden. Jennifer Virden Meanwhile in District 6 in northwest Austin, incumbent Jimmy Flannigan trails challenger...
As the Austin Independent and several other local media outlets have reported, the two City Council runoffs are breaking down along partisan lines. In the latest from that front, a coalition of Young Republican groups is calling for a “Statewide Deployment” of...
The District 6 City Council race has taken a particularly ugly turn in recent weeks. That peaked in a Saturday November 21 altercation in northwest Austin after a Jimmy Flannigan campaign volunteer event at an Anderson Mill park. For the record, it was a volunteer...
It has been a few weeks since the City Council and rail elections, but the Independent has been busy covering other issues. So here we will give a quick review of the Council election results followed by a look at the two upcoming runoffs. We’ll discuss the rail...
In election contests between a Democrat and a Republican it is usually a given that the Democrat has the stronger social justice position. It is very arguable, however, which candidate in the District 6 City Council runoff occupies the social justice high ground when...
