Austin Monitor

Following the filing of a complaint against him and his former campaign treasurer Wednesday, Place 1 candidate Jason Meeker went on the offensive against both the person who filed the complaint—former political consultant Mike Blizzard—and against his opponent incumbent Council Member Lee Leffingwell.   Blizzard, president of Blizco Productions, filed a multi-pronged complaint yesterday against […]

City Chief of Staff Kristen Vassallo submitted her resignation to City Manager Marc Ott Tuesday, the first of former City Manager Toby Futrell’s top-level staff to step down since Futrell’s stepped down two months ago.   Vassallo’s departure is effective May 2. She said the best part of the job was “being a part of […]

A former political consultant who has experience with state and local campaign finance laws has filed a complaint with the Texas Ethics Commission against the former treasurer of the Jason Meeker Campaign and against the campaign itself for allegedly violating various sections of the Texas Election Code.   Mike Blizzard, president of Blizco Productions, filed […]

Candidates for Place 1 on the Austin City Council squared off recently over the need for Water Treatment Plant 4. Incumbent Lee Leffingwell and challenger Jason Meeker both addressed the city’s water conservation efforts during a forum held at Scholz’s by Democracy for Austin.   Meeker argued that the city’s conservation program was insufficient. While […]

Council Member Brewster McCracken predicted Monday that city management would enact a hiring freeze in order to deal with a downturn in the city’s sales tax collections.   The State of Texas told Austin last week that revenues are down for the month of February—one-half of one percent—according to Leslie Browder, the city’s chief financial […]

Candidates for Austin City Council outlined their goals for funding human services in next year’s budget during a candidate forum this week sponsored by the Austin Area Human Services Association. The group, which is made of numerous non-profit agencies, asked the candidates to consider a ten percent funding increase for social-service contracts next year along […]

The Austin City Council has approved leasing 10 acres of land to Mobile Loaves and Fishes for a mobile home park for the non-profit group to place individuals who are homeless. However, neighbors of the city-owned tract were not too happy to have 175 new neighbors who were formerly homeless.   Mobile Loaves and Fishes […]

Place 1 City Council challenger Jason Meeker attacked incumbent Council Member Lee Leffingwell Tuesday for accepting campaign contributions from attorneys with the Armbrust & Brown firm, which represented Lincoln Properties in the lawsuit filed by Responsible Growth for Northcross against Lincoln and the City of Austin last year.   RG4N was trying to stop Wal-Mart […]

First Assistant DA Rosemary Lehmberg sailed to a convincing victory in the race to be Travis County’s next District Attorney. She received 65 percent of the vote in the Democratic Party’s primary runoff, compared to fellow prosecutor Mindy Montford’s 35 percent.   Turnout in the race was down dramatically from March 4, with only 5 […]

Members of the Public Safety Task Force received a presentation on Monday on the recent audit of the city’s public safety departments. That audit has previously been presented to the Council’s Audit and Finance Committee. Task Force members used the briefing by City Auditor Stephen Morgan and members of MGT of America to ask several […]

While the District Attorney’s race drew an impressive turnout of more than 140,000 voters in the March Democratic Party primaries, it appears the runoff between Mindy Montford and Rosemary Lehmberg is drawing much less interest. Final early voting totals from the Travis County Clerk’s Office show slightly more than 11,500 people casting ballots during early […]

City Council candidates in all three races turned out last Thursday to give their positions on transportation issues that face Austin and the surrounding area.  The forum, sponsored by the Austin Alliance for Public Transportation and the Austin Area Regional Transit Group, posed a number of questions on transit policies.   In Place 3, challengers […]