Photo by John Anderson The upcoming May 1 special election provides Austinites with an opportunity to fundamentally change the structure of city government. To some, these changes are revolutionary advances toward a more robust local democracy; to others, they threaten to cause a catastrophic collapse of Austin's current progressive consensus. Either way, a very big deal. Five of the eight city propositions on the May 1 ballot – Propositions D through H – are charter amendments that began life last July in the mind of Andrew Allison, a local entrepreneur with previous lives as an attorney and political speechwriter. That was at the peak of public outcry against Austin police Chief Brian Manley for (among a slew of other missteps) the Austin Police Department's gross mishandling of the May 31 Black Lives Matter protests against police brutality, sparked by the killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and, a month earlier, Mike Ramos here in Austin.