City Council Member Don Zimmerman may once again face the wrath of the Ethics Review Commission for violating a campaign finance ordinance that he believes is not legal. The outspoken conservative possibly broke city campaign rules, the commission decided Wednesday, when he failed to include the following disclaimer on a mailer he sent to voters […]
Don Zimmerman
Former Austin City Council Member for District 6 (2014-2016)
Posted inCity Council
City commissions move closer to gender balance
In Austin’s first election featuring geographic, single-member districts, voters sent seven women and four men (including the mayor) to the new 10-1 City Council, making the capital of Texas the first major U.S. city governed by a majority-female elected body. The new Council has also come closer to achieving gender parity on citizen commissions, the […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Same as it ever was
Remember your dais voice… City Council members and city management are increasingly pushing back on Council Member Don Zimmerman’s tirades against city staff. It started at a Council budget work session Wednesday, when the cantankerous conservative expressed outrage that a staff presentation on the city’s future financial situation was based on the assumption that city […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Zimmerman and more Zimmerman
The dull bits cut out… After the frenetic fun of the It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World-style campaign season of 2014, it’s forgivable to survey 2016 and presume that electoral politics in Austin have gone into extended hibernation. Luckily, for those who thirst for drama, one young gun in West Austin is tossing his […]
Posted inCity Council
Council to consider videoconferencing for public testimony
In a quest to simplify the lives of constituents while easing some downtown traffic, City Council Member Don Zimmerman has proposed testing out videoconferencing for citizens communication during Council meetings. “I have a lot of constituents complaining about parking problems and just the delays trying to get down to testify,” said Zimmerman, who represents District […]
Posted inElections
City wins lawsuit despite appearance of loss
On Wednesday, Federal Judge Lee Yeakel invalidated the city of Austin’s prohibition on collecting campaign funds outside the six months prior to a City Council election. However, the city’s outside counsel on the matter, Renea Hicks, says the city won on the most important issue in the suit filed by Council Member Don Zimmerman. “There’s […]
Posted inCourts
Judge strikes down two Austin campaign finance rules
A federal district court ruled late Wednesday that two rules governing how candidates for Austin office handle campaign funds violate the First Amendment. The ruling came after Council member Don Zimmerman filed a lawsuit challenging the city’s campaign finance rules last year. In a release from his lawyer, Zimmerman said, “We are examining our further […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Coming around
I told you so… City Council Member Don Zimmerman may not get his Council colleagues to embrace his libertarian beliefs, but he appears hopeful that there may be a day when they view city staff with as much suspicion as he does. On Thursday, Zimmerman posted a video excerpt of a recent meeting of the Council […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Hi. It’s the Monitor.
Colossal clash of titans on Twitter… Even as the entire city of Austin is deep into the febrile delirium of a bitterly contested election that will determine the fate of several lines of city code, one can usually rely on the sanguine shores of social media to provide reasoned, measured and mature discussion of local […]
Posted inWater
Zimmerman proposes funding for climate change skeptics
City Council Member Don Zimmerman, a self-described advocate for taxpayers, is not proposing that the city nix spending $116,000 to assess the impact of climate change on local water systems. But he is unhappy that all of the money in the proposed 36-month contract would go to ATMOS Research & Consulting, a firm led by […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Could it be … Satan?
The devil is in the details… It may be a while before City Council members are willing to accept amendments offered to their resolutions by Council Member Don Zimmerman, no matter how inoffensive they appear at first glance. On Thursday, a discussion over a symbolic resolution to declare Austin a “compassionate community” was prolonged significantly […]
Posted inTipSheets
Reporter’s Notebook: Music and moments of vindication
Which genre do you live in?… In case you missed it, the city’s district music summits kicked off this weekend with the punk/alternative summit in District 2. Even if you didn’t go, there are nine summits left to catch, each of which offers a genre’d opportunity to weigh in on the Austin Music and Creative […]