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Real Estate and the City Council in the News

By
Real Estate Agent with Goldwasser Real Estate

The Austin City Council election season is upon us.  With so much at stake for the Austin real estate community, it's worth taking a look at some recent relevant news items.

First up, the candidates forum hosted by the Real Estate Council of Austin and the Austin Chamber of Commerce on April 17th.  More than 500 people showed up to talk to the eleven candidates for places 1, 3, and 4.  Some of the candidates vying to replace Betty Dunkerley, stepping down because of term limits, gave their visions on solving the Austin traffic morass:

Candidate Laura Morrison said she believes Austinites are finally feeling the pain and she has some ideas on how to fix that.

"We can start working on flex time for city employees and start working with major employers to start staggering work hours four day work weeks," said Morrison.

Contender Sam Osemene said he would privatize public transportation.

"I would support privatizing part of capitol metro to get the private sector involved," said Osemene.

Candidate Robin Cravey said he wants to make the city of Austin more sustainable, saying he would focus transportation on walking, bicycles, motor bikes and public transit.

On a less cheerful note, candidate Randi Shade appears to have been caught in a little-as it were-"shady" dealings.  Apparently someone at Jennifer Kim's campaign noticed that Shade hadn't disclosed some "bundling" of campaign contributions.  Bundling occurs when a candidate raises more than $100 from more than four people in a single group, and the law requires that candidates report it.  Bundling laws make it harder for organizations to dump large amounts of money into a campaign while remaining under the radar.  A pressure group that gives $17,000 is a much higher-profile donor than seventeen individuals giving $1000 each-but when those seventeen individuals all work for the same group, the result is to hide the group's activity from publicity and oversight-and ultimately, the voters.  That can be particularly when the intent is to hide a donor who, while generous, might be a bit of a public-relations liability.

Which is more or less exactly what seems to have gone on in the Shade campaign:

[Jennifer Kim's spokesperson Elliot McFadden] says he identified "bundling" done by several developers, including the law firm behind the Wal-Mart at Northcross project.

McFadden says there are contributions from 11 out of 13 partners of Endeavor Real Estate; money from 17 out of 28 attorneys at Ambrust and Brown; and money from all four partners of Reagan Advertising -- totaling $16,500.

"If somebody who's pushed an unpopular project on our community is giving money to a particular candidate, I think the community has a right to know that," McFadden said.

Interestingly enough, some of those very same donors are on record as having contributed to Kim's campaign in 2005, and some say she solicited their support this year, as well.

"It's hypocritical. She asked for our support and when she found out she would not get it, she changed positions and we went from being great guys to being the bad guys," said Farmer, a toll road proponent who leads the Opportunity Austin program for the Chamber of Commerce."

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