The 1st City Council Debates are going to be held a 6pm Wednesday, March 2nd near Travis Country, off of Southwest Parkway at the Regent's School. (3rd street to the right from Southwest parkway, as you drive west from MOPAC)

I think this may be the ONLY debate held in south Austin. ACAC (ACTV) will be there to tape the entire debate for rebroadcast on a local cable channel !!

Two new council members will be elected (presumably Betty Dunkerley will be reelected), and it is very likely one of these new members will sit on other important boards such as CAMPO.

This will be a great opportunity to meet the candidates in person, listen to their ideas, and speak to them about our issues and concerns. Speaking to a candidate allows you to interact directly with them, asking them questions, and gauge their answers.

Let 's take the opportunity to tell them what is important to us!

WHAT: Oak Hill Association of Neighborhoods, representing Southwest Austin, to host an elected official meet and greet, followed by a City Council candidate forum.

WHEN: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2005

6p.m. ?– 6:45p.m. Reception- Meet and Greet your elected Officials (Gerald Daugherty and Jeff Wentworth have confirmed to be there), and talk one on one with the candidates.

7-9p.m. City Council Candidate Forum

WHERE: Regents School, 3230 Travis Country Circle, Austin, TX 78735. Parking available on premises.


Please forward to your neighbors, family, and friends. This is a very important event for Oak Hill, Circle C and the Southwest Austin community!


For a list of who has filed go to

http://www.CityofAustin.org/election


Remember, this is where you get to ask the tough questions and send a message to city Hall. 3 of these people will be sitting on the city council at the end of this year !!

City Council debates - report

Place 1
Lee Leffingwell
Casey Walker (No show)
Scott Williams (No show)
James Paine *
Andres Buchnell *
Steve Adams *

Place 3
Wes Benedict *
Margot Clarke
Mandy Dealey
Jennifer Kim
Gregg Knaupe (No Show - but his wife read a short statement and said he was to sick to attend)

Place 4
Betty Dunkerley
Jennifer Gale (no show)

The event was at the Regent's school, which is a private accademy on Foster Ranch Road (signal light between Travis Country and William Cannon) where they put on a first class debate that lasted about two hours, after an informal hour we got to talk to the candidates face to face!

ACAC (ACTV) did tape this debate, so look for it on cable TV in a couple of weeks.

The panelists offered up questions (some rather long ones, I might add) from 4 categories, all of which seemed to be un-avoidably related. They were about the Oak Hill and Southwest Austin, for the most part, on:

The local Ecconomy, Land Use, the Environment, and Transportation.

Note: Little was said about schools and only Betty really touched on city services (pubic parks, pools, buses, libraries, and Fire/EMS), saying we had recently received most of what we needed and that she wasn't aware of any reports of crime problems (that is, a need for more fire or police protection).

The panelist asking questions included Jeff Howard (attorney), George Coffer (Hill country conservancy, lawyer), Glen Gallwright (sp?), and Jim Knight (RECA).

I think that every candidate stated that they were against the current Toll road plans (tolling existing highways), although I don't recall Dunkerly or Leffingwell comment on that subject. For everyone else, though, it was the in their opening remarks and quickly worked it's way into questions about growth, change, and water conservation.


Charles Draper from Travis Country produced the debates. He is a past president of the Travis Country HOA.

Ian Crawford from KLBJ radio was the moderator. He reports on local and government issues in Austin.