If you're concerned with how your local city government officials get elected—and how any change in the election system might affect your interests—you will have numerous opportunities to hear a thorough airing of the issues.

Two propositions on the city’s November 6 ballot offer choices for getting away from the all-at-large system we've had since 1953, when the council had five places and the elected council members chose the mayor from among their ranks. The council was expanded to seven places beginning with the 1969 election but it wasn’t until 1971 that citizens could directly elect their mayor.

Today, there are some who advocate keeping the election system we’ve got. However, the two major factions striving for change both advocate a new system of electing council members.

How to change is where they differ.

When Austin voters go to the polls starting October 22 for the November 6 general election, they’ll be faced with a potentially bewildering 18 propositions on the City of Austin’s portion of the ballot.

And voters won’t see those propositions until they’ve finished wading through voting for federal, state and local candidates, and deciding whether to support Central Health’s proposed 5 cent tax hike to help fund a new medical school in Austin.

The Austin City Council and a number of citizens are really, really hoping voters don’t just vote a straight party ticket and go home. At stake are $385 million in seven bond propositions, 10 separate proposals to change the City Charter, and one proposition to allow emergency medical personnel to get the same civil service protections as police and firefighters.

Other down-ballot taxing jurisdictions on the ballot are also hoping to keep the voters attention long enough to mark the entire ballot, including Austin Independent School District, Austin Community College, and a bunch more.

In an effort to de-mystify the Austin portion of the ballot, The Austin Bulldog is providing the exact ballot language for each of the 10 propositions involving charter amendments and the emergency medical services proposition, and links to the ordinances that placed each of those on the ballot.

Austin City Manager Marc Ott will get a pay raise after all—if the City Council gives the city’s non-civil service employees a raise when a 2012-2013 budget is adopted next month.

 The Austin Bulldog reported August 16 that the City Council reviewed Ott’s performance in executive session that day and dismissed the item in open session when Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole said, “... we look forward to his continued service.”

Resolutions passed at yesterday’s council meeting state that the city manager, city auditor, and city clerk all will get whatever percentage pay raise is granted to the city’s rank-and-file.

The city manager has proposed a 3 percent pay increase for non-civil service employees.

It took the City of Austin 15 months to establish a formal procedure but, finally, the 368 members of the city’s 51 boards and commissions are going to be brought into the city’s e-mail system.

The action is needed to bring the city into compliance with the Texas Public Information Act by enabling the city to collect, assemble, and maintain e-mails about city business that board and commission members send or receive. This will allow the city to search the city’s server to find information responsive to public information requests and produce those records for inspection.

For many years the city’s website for each board and commission listed each member’s personal e-mail address.

“This is easily the most well thought-out policy addressing this issue, both from the private device/account and city server side, that I have seen,” said Joseph Larsen, special counsel to Sedgwick LLP. Larsen is an expert on open government laws and a volunteer attorney for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. “... overall I think this could serve as a template for policies for other City officers and employees and for other governmental bodies.”

This is the third and final phase of improving the city’s handling of electronic communications in response to our lawsuit, The Austin Bulldog v. Mayor Lee Leffingwell et al filed March 1, 2012, and the county attorney’s ongoing investigation of the City Council’s violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act that The Austin Bulldog exposed January 25, 2011.

City Council Member Chris Riley, an attorney, initially failed to comply with the Austin City Code by not fully reporting the financial activity of his domestic partner in his latest Statement of Financial Information.

The Austin Bulldog’s June 2, 2011, report covered similar discrepancies in Riley’s annual financial statements for 2009 and 2010.

Riley’s mid-year Statement of Financial Information covering the first six months of 2012, filed July 27, indicates that his domestic partner, Denise Brady, is an “attorney/state employee.” The report contains no other information as to Brady's specific employer, her income, investments, real property interests, debts, or boards of directors on which she may be serving, as required by City Code Sections 2-2-72(A) and 2-7-2(10).