Page 2 - Mason Ayer News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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 li...

Group pushes for ‘strong-mayor’ government system in Austin Group pushes for ‘strong-mayor’ government system in Austin The reform would eliminate the city manager job, a job that Marc Ott held for years in Austin. AUSTIN, Texas - A measure that could dramatically increase the power of the mayor could end up on the May ballot. Proponent group "Austinites for Progressive Reform" are pushing for a "strong-mayor" form of government and believe the move will create a much better democracy. Based on their website, lining up the mayoral election with the presidential, eliminatin...

On Monday, Jan. 11, Austinites for Progressive Reform submitted its petition, with 24,000 signatures, for a May election on four amendments to the Austin city charter – the biggest being a switch from council-manager government to the strong-mayor model used in many big U.S. cities, including Houston, but not in most Texas cities. City Clerk Janette Goodall will test a random sample of those signatures, as state law allows, to verify that APR met the 20,000-name threshold for the ballot. ( Save Austin Now failed this test when it submitted its petition to restore Austin's ban on public ...