Voice in the Wilderness

The run off election for Austin City Council, Place 3 seat between Margot Clarke and Jennifer Kim is slated for this Saturday, June 11.

Mr. Levy rails against the failings of the current local pols in maintaining basic services, mistimed traffic lights, under funded police/fire/EMS, and city’s current high debt among other foibles. Furthermore, Mr. Levy rightly ascertains the source of these problems:

“A deficit in intelligent and rational leadership has been the primary reason for our problems. Too many of our elected officials have had an almost philosophic comfort level with mediocrity, and an apparent fear of excellence.”

He then turns his verbal cannonade on Ms. Clarke:

“Ms. Clarke has reportedly stated that she is committed to not another new road in Austin, saying ‘we need to do everything it takes to get people out of their cars’

“Ms. Clarke will serve as a behind-the-scenes obstructionist who will be the sand in the gears of local government with a Pavlovian propensity to support even the most absurd requests from noisy fringe groups whom she would see as her political allies.”

“Ms. Clarke will try to raise the level of sheer goofiness in Austin city government to even higher levels”

Like Mr. Levy, I am against Ms. Clarke. But I am also for Jennifer Kim:

• Kim has put forth the money, time, and energy to start and run a small business; Clarke’s closest brush with private sector is briefly working as a software developer for IBM before diving into all sorts of liberal activist misadventures, like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club.
• As a small business proprietor, Kim is exposed to the reality of competition and the economic environment. When governments at all levels create economically inhibitive laws and regulations, she feels it. Ms. Clarke’s experience is championing regulation, not entrepreneurship or economic development. Austin City Council has enough regulatory bureaucrats on it already. It needs more economic development chops and Kim is the best candidate available who can provide that.
• On toll roads, Kim is more pragmatic, Clarke is more dogmatic. Clarke’s recent sign advertising posits her as stringently anti-toll road. Kim’s advertisements says she is against tolling existing roads, which implies she may be open to tolls on new roads. I hold that tolls will probably be part of Austin’s future mobility solution in some form or fashion, in spite of the obvious shortcomings of the current toll plan. I think being open-minded about mobility solutions will ultimately yield a better local transportation solution.

For me, the deciding factors are evident in the Statesman write-ups for each candidate. According to the Statesman write up on Ms. Kim:

“Born in Los Angeles, Kim and her family moved quite a bit because her father worked for the U.S. Defense Department. She lived in Japan, Korea, Arizona and Germany before landing in Houston as a teenager when her parents separated. Moving so often ripened her curiosity and independence, she said. “

“She majored in political science at Texas A&M University then risked giving up a graduate school scholarship to work as a legislative aide for state Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo.…”

“After tackling Princeton's grueling public policy graduate program, Kim watched her peers lunge for Wall Street jobs, but she wanted a quieter life. She returned to Austin to work for the U.S. Economic Development Administration.…”

“In 2003 Kim wanted to try running a business and bought a Computer Moms franchise; her five employees help small companies fix computer glitches.”

Ms. Kim has worked her way up through the echelons of society and has a proven intellect. Working for Sen. Zaffirini means Kim is probably liberal. Yet, the fact that she has started and maintained a small business should make her sympathetic the struggles facing entrepreneurs and business owners. I hope she will factor this experience into her policy decisions.

The Statesman’s write up on Ms. Clarke says:

“Her family came to Austin in 1955 and took up residence atop a hill near RM 2222, where Clarke's mother, Custis Wright, still lives. Clarke, 51, recalls that as a child she would look westward from her home and see no roads, no houses, nothing but rolling, unadulterated Hill Country. That was back when going to St. Stephen's Episcopal School every morning was a half-hour drive into the country.

During the summer evenings Anderson spent at the Wright home, she said, Custis would hold court in the kitchen to discuss books, politics and philosophy. Clarke's stepfather, Charles Alan Wright, was a prominent University of Texas law professor and constitutional scholar who ingrained in his children the importance of political participation and integrity, Clarke said.”

Having been born of privilege in that toney, Hill Country mansion, it is clear that Ms. Clarke’s Little Lord Fauntleroy upbringing has permeated her political outlook.

The lion’s share of Ms. Clarke’s experience, and all of her recent experience, are purely of the liberal public policy persuasion. I’m not saying this is all bad (well, Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club are bad), but it does have an insulating effect on one’s political sensibilities. Predictably, Ms. Clarke’s campaign web page features a bevy of hard left environmental, gay/lesbian, feminist, and union endorsements.

Furthermore, as the Austin Review recently observed, Ms. Clarke may not be too familiar with the notion of private property rights. Her risky “community land trust” scheme, which involves using local tax money to buy tracts of land for low-income housing, is pure socialism. She was also for the abominable smoking ban, which passed in the city’s recent general election.

Just as she looked down from that law professor’s mansion atop a West Austin hill, it is clear that Ms. Clarke would perpetually look down on the common folk of Austin if given the chance ply her elite, radical politics at Austin City Hall.

Austin has had enough misrule by the old-money, liberal aristocracy. Voice in the Wilderness endorses Jennifer Kim for the Austin City Council, Place 3 seat.

Early voting goes through Tuesday, June 7. Click here to see early voting days/times/places. Click here for election day voting times/places.

Permalink posted by Travis Fell @ 12:04 AM