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Brigid Shea Exploring Run for Mayor

Posted Tuesday, December 6, 2011 6pm
Brigid Shea Exploring Run for Mayor

Cites Differences in Vision and Leadership
But No Specifics While Mulling Her Candidacy

by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

Brigid SheaBrigid Shea served a tumultuous three years on the Austin City Council ending in June 1996, a period marked by Mayor Bruce Todd’s push to sell the city’s electric utility amid the nascent legislative restructuring of the electric industry in Texas and the birth of her first son, Eamon Brennan Umphress, on December 18, 1995, when Shea was 41.

Now Shea is considering challenging Mayor Lee Leffingwell, who announced his reelection bid November 16.

“I’m telling people this is a discussion worth having,” Shea told The Austin Bulldog. “The community is capable of having competing visions and that’s what I’m exploring.”

Leffingwell campaign spokesman Mark Littlefield said, “I think Brigid Shea’s been a stellar advocate and stakeholder and we look forward to hearing from her on the campaign trail.”

Shea declined to get into specifics about her differences with Mayor Leffingwell, saying, “I don’t want to get into the campaign until I've made a decision, but there’s a very sharp contrast in our leadership and vision.”

Shea filed a statement with the city clerk’s office late yesterday to appoint Danette Chimenti as her treasurer. Chimenti supported Kathie Tovo’s campaign that unseated Council Member Randi Shade this year, as well as the re-election campaign of Council Member Laura Morrison.

The Austin Chronicle posted a report online this afternoon about a poll conducted last night that included questions asking respondents to compare Shea, Leffingwell, and Council Members Bill Spelman and Sheryl Cole. The latter two were at one time considered possible mayoral candidates but they have since declined to run for mayor and are running for reelection.

Shea told The Austin Bulldog that she was “not confirming or denying” that she commissioned the poll.

Pollster Jeff Smith, owner of Opinion Analysts, said his company conducted the poll but he was not at liberty to disclose who paid for without permission, and he had not obtained it yet.

Shea’s treasurer, Chimenti, cofounded Logical Information Machines Inc., a company that grew out  of the Austin Technology Incubator initiative of the University of Texas. The company was to be sold to Morningstar Inc., a leading provider of independent investment research, for a reported $51.5 million, according to a PRNewswire report of December 11, 2009. At the time of the sale the company’s largest office was in Austin and employed about 80 people, the article stated, with locations in Austin, Houston, Chicago, New York and London.

Chimenti is past president of the Austin Neighborhoods Council and has served on the city’s Parks and Recreation Board. She is currently a member of the city’s Planning Commission, to which she was appointed by Council Member Bill Spelman in July 2009.

Shea, who turns 57 on January 9, won her political spurs as founding director of the Save Our Springs Coalition formed in 1991. The Coalition successfully petitioned to get the SOS Ordinance on the ballot and won voter approval in 1992 by a two-to-one margin.

During the run-up to the SOS Ordinance election in 1992 Shea often traded barbs with Freeport-McMoRan Inc. CEO Jim Bob Moffett, who was threatening to bankrupt the city with litigation of the SOS Ordinance passed.

She also crossed swords with Circle C developer Gary Bradley during the SOS Ordinance campaign. One memorable videotape of Shea and Bradley in a cramped radio studio showed an obviously angry Bradley trying to debate the proposed ordinance. The Austin American-Statesman published a lengthy feature article October 23 noting that Shea and Bradley had quit fighting, something emblematic of the maturing of both these individuals and the environmental movement.

Shea won her council seat in 1993 in a runoff election against incumbent Bob Larson, who had been part of the narrow 4-3 council majority that opposed the SOS Ordinance.

Lee LeffingwellMayor Leffingwell has environmental credentials, too, having served on the city’s environmental board for five years before being elected to the city council in 2005. He served as a council member till he was elected mayor in 2009.

But the mayor has angered many in the environmental community for pushing construction of half-billion-dollar Water Treatment Plant 4 that the SOS Alliance and others said was unnecessary, and for supporting the Formula One race track.

To see The Austin Bulldog’s background investigation on Leffingwell published December 2, click here.

Shea’s council term and later work

Background Investigation: Mayor Lee Leffingwell

Posted Friday, December 2, 2011 12:48pm
Updated Wednesday, March 14, 2012 at 10:45am to include military service records
Background Investigation: Mayor Lee Leffingwell

Here’s What the Public Records Say
About the City’s Highest Elected Official

by Rebecca LaFlure
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

Lee LeffingwellOn the morning of September 19, 2009, an Austin police officer pulled over Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell on a state highway and issued him a speeding ticket. Leffingwell later pled no contest, paid a $110 fee, and completed a driving safety course.

The traffic citation, listed on the city’s municipal court database, is indicative of Leffingwell’s otherwise squeaky-clean background—just one of many areas The Austin Bulldog researched as a part of a series of background investigations on the mayor and city council members.

In an effort to educate Austin residents about their elected officials in the months leading to the May 2012 election, The Austin Bulldog searched public databases, filed open records requests, and scanned news archives to uncover business, real estate and court documents, voting records and criminal history.

The results will be published individually for each officeholder with the goal of making these documents easily accessible to the public.

The Austin Bulldog’s investigation into Mayor Leffingwell, who announced his bid for re-election November 16, confirmed much of what has already been reported about the retired pilot and long-time Austin resident. Not surprisingly, Travis County voting records show he is a loyal Democrat, having voted in Democratic primaries dating back to 1992.

Leffingwell has no searchable criminal or bankruptcy history in Texas and does not owe overdue property taxes in Travis County. Based on searches of Travis County and district court records, he has only been sued in his capacity as a city official.

Our research found a complaint was filed with the Texas Ethics Commission alleging that Leffingwell violated the Texas election code by accepting corporate contributions and failing to properly report political contributions and expenditures in multiple campaign finance reports.

A July 4 article in the Austin American-Statesman said six Houston-area Tea Party members filed the complaints against Leffingwell and each council member after the Austin council decided to end city business with Arizona, in protest of the state’s controversial immigration law.

The commission cleared the mayor of many of the allegations August 11, but determined Leffingwell did not sufficiently disclose the names of two contributors donating a total of $700 to his May 2009 campaign. He also failed to disclose in other documents the full names of 11 supporters who donated $1,570 as well as the payee for $16,000 worth of campaign expenses. The commission ordered Leffingwell, who has filed corrected reports, to pay a $500 civil penalty.

Strong financials bode ill for challengers

Appraisal District To End Records Suppression

The Board of Directors of the Travis Central Appraisal District last night picked a new chief appraiser and adopted a new policy to end the longstanding practice of suppressing public records in TCAD’s online searchable appraisal roll for anyone who asked.

Appraisal Records Hidden From Public View

Nearly 1,400 records of properties located in Travis County have been purged from the website for owners who do not qualify for confidentiality. While the numbers of records being suppressed now make up only a tiny fraction of the records maintained by the agency, the numbers would no doubt be far higher if more property owners were aware of this option.

Council Sets Charter Election Date

Posted Thursday, November 3, 2011 1:40pm
Council Confirms November 2012
Election Date for Charter Amendments


Resolution Ensures Citizens Initiative
Won’t Force May 2012 Charter Election


by Ken Martin
© The Austin Bulldog 2011

Laura Morrison“It’s a kumbaya moment to celebrate,” Council Member Laura Morrison told The Austin Bulldog shortly before a press conference this morning at City Hall. “Usually we just talk about things we disagree on.”

Morrison, Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole, and Council Member Mike Martinez sponsored a council resolution on today’s agenda to confirm that the council intends to hold an election to amend the Austin City Charter in November 2012.

That assurance was sought by Austinites for Geographic Representation, which since late February has been building a broad citizens coalition to initiate a petition drive for a charter change that would establish a nonpartisan Independent Citizen Redistricting Commission that would draw 10 council districts that the Austin City Council would have no choice but to adopt. The group’s plan calls for only the mayor to continue being elected at-large. The petition drive launched with a rally October 22 that drew about a hundred people.

Striking an agreement on the charter election date was essential. If the petition drive were to trigger a May 2012 charter election, the City Council would have been forced to either put its own charter amendments on the May ballot, or be frozen out for two years if the citizens initiative got voter approval. Article XI, Section 5 of the Texas Constitution states that “no city charter shall be altered, amended or repealed oftener than every two years.”

The press conference was attended by Morrison and Cole, as well as NAACP Austin President Nelson Linder and Austinites for Geographic Representation members Roger Borgelt, Charlie Jackson, and Daniel Llanes.

Sheryl ColeIn separately answering The Austin Bulldog’s question, both Morrison and Cole said that sponsoring the resolution for a November 2012 charter election was designed to reassure the citizens group and should not be viewed as an endorsement of the plan being pushed by Austinites for Geographic Representation. “I’m waiting to see what the Charter Revision Committee recommends,” Cole said.

NAACP Austin President Linder, a member of the 2012 Charter Revision Committee that is studying what form of geographic representation to recommend to the City Council, told The Austin Bulldog he favors the citizens initiative. “I think it’s the best plan out there,” he said.

The need for geographic representationwas laid bare by maps constructed by The Austin Bulldog and published August 4 that pinpoint the residential location of every mayor and council member elected over the last four decades.The unalterable fact that emerges is that large parts of Austin are not represented—or are grossly underrepresented—because of the at-large system of elections established by the Austin City Charter.

Seven charter recommendations, so far

Investigative Reports

For more than a decade the Bulldog has published hard-hitting, in-depth investigative reports that have shaped civic discourse and public policy, resulted in criminal prosecutions, and enlightened voters about candidates' records. Here are a few samples of our work:

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