{"conf": "austinmayor", "generated_at": "2026-04-26T08:00:02.954878Z", "threads": [{"num": 1, "subject": "say something nice about yourself - intros", "response_count": 2, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Feb 26, 2003 (00:31)", "body": "I'm Paul Terry Walhus and I started austinmayor.com. I'm working on -->the next generation of the site and one of the features we're testing -->now is something called \"Backtalk\" which Jan Wolter has installed. -->It's a promising new interface to our conferences but I haven't made up -->my mind about it yet. It's in beta on our system and this is one of -->two beta conferences, the other being the 'backtalk' conference itself."}, {"response": 2, "author": "politicobuster", "date": "Thu, Apr 17, 2003 (17:37)", "body": "My name is Linda Curtis. I'm a leading member of Independent Texans, which is not a party and is an affiliation of independent minded reform voters. Independents, now a 35% plurality of the electorate, are united in our concerns for cleaning up and opening up the political process and increasing voter participation. I felt forced to leave Austin (I now live in Bastrop) because, as a single working person, I couldn't afford to live in Austin anymore. I am urging IT members, and those we meet along the way to build something independent to take on the politicos who are destroying democracy in great places in Texas like Austin. I invite you to join Independent Texans, it's free, and you can participate from home. austinmayor conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 11, "subject": "cooking shows on tv", "response_count": 0, "posts": []}, {"num": 2, "subject": "Will Wynn", "response_count": 2, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Feb 26, 2003 (19:08)", "body": ""}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Mar 12, 2003 (07:34)", "body": "The Richard Florida keynote speech on Tuesday, March 11 at SXSW. Florida, author of the \"Rise of the Creative Class\" poses the challenge to cities to court the creative class of artists, writers, musicians. Cities high on the Bohemian Index, like Austin, tend to develop along economic lines. In the audience were Austin's former Mayor Kirk Watson (who I asked for an interview) and Austin's current Mayor Gus Garcia. This was followed by a panel with one of the members being Will Wynn, Austin's leading candidate to be the next Mayor. Clearly, Richard Florida was manifesting a mayoral love fest, judging by the approving nods and smiles from all three of the Mayors and Mayor candidate on hand. I got to ask Will Wynn and the rest of the panel three questions at the SXSW forum. I got the idea for the questions from a guy I talked to over fish and chips at BD Rileys sixth street pub. He worked for Austin Ventures as a telecom funding specialist. The questons 1. With the advent of \"fabless\" manufacturing and the rise of Chinese fabs the semiconductor industry may well be moving out of Austin in the next 5-10 years, can this be prevented? 2. What new industries can we stimulate in Austin in the event this does happen? 3. What can the city do to stimulate affordable, two way broadband to homes and businesses? What we have now is essentially one way downstream bandwidth you get with cable, but bandwidth where people can run their own webservers and truly have internet businesses. Will Wynn's responses: 1. He agreed that China was mounting a serious challenge. We should always try to leapfrog technology, and look in to other areas like cutting edge materials production and tools production. 2. He said he was a big proponent of the clean energy industry (eg. solar panel, wind turbine mfg, fuel cells). We should continue to fund research by the Environmental Research Dept at UT since it is \"the best on the planet\". And on the onsumer side, he said 7500 businesses belong to Austin green energy green choice programs and we have customer base to support R&D and manufacturing of clean energy. 3. On hte residential broadband issue, he said the city plays pretty small part in overall economic strategy and economic development of the community, ultimately it takes market demand. City should press for wireless zones, wireless access in city parks. Scott Aiges, City of New Orleans 1. He knew nothing about semiconductors 2. They are pushing in to biotech 3. The guy who is now mayor, oversaw installation of fiber optic network in New Orleans - broadband increasing Richard Florida passed on the question. Hans Veldhuizen, indictus.com He said that the city council of Amsterdam has legislated that every house in Amsterdam would have fiber within five years and is serving as a major driver for creative industry. He said, in a post panel interview with me, that he saw no reason why Austin couldn't do the same. It would transform the city in to a world leader in Internet technology. austinmayor conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 3, "subject": "Max Nofziger", "response_count": 3, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Mar 30, 2003 (10:06)", "body": "The idea that light rail pollutes (because you mean during its construction) will not be too convincing to many people, but your idea of keeping costs down will appeal to a lot of people. Your increase in buses is disheartening to us bikers, because the bus is dangerous to us. Even if we have bike lanes, buses have to cross them to deliver and pick up people. Have you looked into trolleys? They are not meant to go fast, unlike most light rail, Leisurely trolleys heading on their own tracks down the middle of streets would certainly make bikers happier. It seems to me I remember that setup in Portland, Oregon, and a lot of places in Europe have trolleys. I'm sending a copy of this to a knowledgeable transportation person. . One thing more. I couldn't quite understand your second point. People may wonder what the sales tax has to do with bus fares, but eliminating fares sounds reasonable,--unless buses become the new refuge for the homeless, which would be frowned upon. One thing is evident, you have given transportation a lot of thought. Meanwhile I thought this little bit of feedback might be a help Mary Lehmann"}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Sun, Jan 23, 2005 (08:26)", "body": "There's a complete election recap on http://austinmayor.com . Max came in a respectable 2nd and I haven't heard from him for a long time. I didn't even see him at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar this year. He ran a good campaign. But how can you go up against a guy named \"Will Wynn\". Will is doing an effective job as mayor and the City Council moved in to lavish new digs a bout a week ago. I'd like to find someone to upkeep the http://austinmayor.com site. Any volunteers?"}, {"response": 3, "author": "cfadm", "date": "Sun, Jul  2, 2006 (10:14)", "body": "It's just http://maxformayor.org now. The dot com expired. austinmayor conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 4, "subject": "Marc Katz", "response_count": 4, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Feb 27, 2003 (12:10)", "body": "Katz made an appearance on the Sam and Bob show this morning but I just missed it! I caught the tail end where he said he was having a big campaign launch party on March 7th at the One Pastrami Center aka 6th and Rio Grande. Wish I had caught his comments, I've been trying to tag him on the phone for 4 weeks."}, {"response": 2, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Feb 27, 2003 (12:17)", "body": "Katz made an appearance on the Sam and Bob show this morning but I just missed it! I caught the tail end where he said he was having a big campaign launch party on March 7th at the One Pastrami Center aka 6th and Rio Grande. Wish I had caught his comments, I've been trying to tag him on the phone for 4 weeks."}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Thu, Feb 27, 2003 (12:18)", "body": "Snooze = looze I guess!"}, {"response": 4, "author": "terry", "date": "Fri, Mar 28, 2003 (18:39)", "body": "The Katz campaign is stunned today at their failure to garner the endorsement of the Austin Gays and Lesbians, Katz made a soulful, impassioned appeal to the organization which left many wondering how the organization could have endorsed Will Wynn. Austinmayor has exclusive videos of the event and the appeals to organization made by both Will Wynn and Marc Katz. Watch the videos and judge for yourself, and let us know how you feel in our chat room and our newly revamped forums. We now have an entire austinmayor conference devoted to the Austin Mayor's race! When contact the Katz campaign said they were shocked at the failure to get the ALG endorsement but that they had another shot at it with the upcoming Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce Forum. Katz Says City Lobbyists Must Go! Says, as Mayor, he will put a stop to Million Dollar Lobby Spending Spree March 26, Austin, Texas--Mayoral Candidate and Restaurateur Marc Katz said today when elected he would put a stop to Austin's one million dollar paid lobbyist spending spree. Katz said that a time when the City of Austin faces a $77 million dollar budget shortfall, spending over a million dollars a year on high paid lobbyists was a luxury that city could no longer afford. \"At a time when Austin faces a huge budget crisis it just doesn't make sense to pay a group of lobbyists over a million dollars a year to represent our city before the Texas Legislature,\" Katz said. Katz said instead of paid lobbyists, Austin's Mayor and City Council should take their concerns directly to legislators and state officials. \"Instead of paying dozens of lobbyists hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to talk to legislators on behalf of the Mayor and City Council, perhaps the taxpayers would be better served by having the Mayor and City Council speak for themselves,\" Katz said. Katz said with Austin as the State's Capital, it should be easy for Austin's elected officials to represent the city's interests before the legislature. He said that one of the reasons the City has not had a cordial relationship with the legislature in the past is because Austin elected leaders have chosen to leave selling the city's interests to others. \"If I am elected Mayor, I plan to be at the State Capitol letting our State Legislators know that I will work closely with them to insure that Austin's interests are well known and acted favorably upon,\" said Katz. \"Instead of passing resolutions about the war in Iraq, perhaps city leaders should change their focus from international relations to improving city/state relations right here at home,\" Katz added. Katz said that he would direct the estimated one million dollars in annual savings which would come from ending the practice of hiring lobbyists to hiring more police officers and fire fighters. \"Instead of more hired guns, I think we need to hire more men and women to carry guns and protect our citizens and our quality of life,\" Katz concluded. Independent Texans forum The Independent Texans forum pitted Brad Meltzer, Marc Katz, and Max Nofziger against each other in a civilized, well mannered debate. The bombshell comment came afterward, when Linda Curtis, chair of the Independent Texans, aimed her heavy artillery at the Mayor's race. Full coverage on her outrageous comments in the Indy page on this website. Full coverage of the Mayor's Forum at this Indy page as well. Friday March 21 - The first ever online mayor candidate forum will be held on Monday March 31 from 6 till 10 am. Candidates and voters will meet and get instructions at http://austinmayor.com/forum on how to proceed\ufffd At the online forum, all candidates are invited to be there for a four hour question and answer forum, all the voters and interested citizens are invited to be there also. They will be able to pose questions to each other. They will be able to answer questions from citizens.\ufffd\ufffd So, please, if you're a candidate or voter or someone interested, please meet us Monday, March 31st from 6 till 10 am at http://austinmayor.com/forum and be prepared to answer some very detailed and in depth questions about your vision, as a Mayor's candidate, for the future of Austin, Texas. This is a historic event in the civic life of Austin, Texas.\ufffd\ufffd The Good Life magazine, a free publication available all around Austin, has published an excellent guide to the candidates in the Mayor's race. Pick up a copy. Highly recommended! austinmayor conference Main Menu"}]}, {"num": 5, "subject": "Brad Meltzer", "response_count": 0, "posts": []}, {"num": 6, "subject": "Jennifer Gale", "response_count": 0, "posts": []}, {"num": 7, "subject": "Leslie Cochran", "response_count": 0, "posts": []}, {"num": 8, "subject": "Why the Statesman is saying now \"it's a horse race\"", "response_count": 0, "posts": []}, {"num": 9, "subject": "Austin smoking ordinance", "response_count": 4, "posts": [{"response": 1, "author": "terry", "date": "Tue, May  6, 2003 (09:28)", "body": "This is about choice and business owners right to choose what they do with their business. They can choose to have a smoking (under the current somewhat strict ordinance) or nonsmoking ordinance. Right now, we have a 4-3 vote for the ordinance. Going in to Thursdays vote. A bunch of folks are meeting at Councilman Darryl Slusher's office at 5:00 pm tonight at Colorado and 8th to express their views on this issue. Bob Cole, KVET morning talk show host, will be there."}, {"response": 2, "author": "stacey", "date": "Tue, Jul 15, 2003 (23:55)", "body": "Hot topic in the Denver area as well... Boulder has sucessfully implemented a smoking ban in all facilities but things aren't going so well here..."}, {"response": 3, "author": "terry", "date": "Wed, Jul 16, 2003 (09:40)", "body": "They're backing down already on the Austin ban since Will Wynn got in to office. He's asked for a postponement so they can reconsider and possibly put a revote to the McCrackin Council."}, {"response": 4, "author": "admin", "date": "Thu, Feb 12, 2004 (14:21)", "body": "Anyone know the status of this? austinmayor conference Main Menu"}]}]}