Still/BloodsportAn automated message service operating as "your neighbor Lisa" began dialing local residents last week, questioning some campaign promises supposedly made by City Council Place 3 candidate Randi Shade. In the broadcast, Shade, who is running against incumbent Jennifer Kim and Ken Weiss, is accused of promising to raise the salaries of Austin police and firefighter higher-ups in exchange for their endorsements. Shade's campaign office responded almost immediately on Saturday morning, sending out an angry......

Editor's note: In hopes of getting a little more information on how the candidates in the May 10 Austin City Council election may respond to issues facing Austin, we sent out a few questions. Up next is Jennifer Kim, the incumbent running for Place 3 against Randi Shade and Kenneth Weiss. See all her responses after the jump....

Photo by gunnyrat on flickr The oil that spilled onto Sixth Street and into Waller Creek last week came from a 100-year-old underground tank. Jennifer Kim on the Northcross WalMart: "It's going to be a freaking disaster." Celebration Church in Georgetown has its own Starbucks and 5,000 attendees. Sayeth the pastor: "You can't do church without money." Wachovia Bank on Mesa Drive robbed this morning. Statewide public meetings on the Trans-Texas Corridor to begin tomorrow.......

Photo by pisti on stock.xchngAustin City Council will discuss a resolution today that calls for expanding services for the local homeless population. Councilmember Jennifer Kim, citing the need for a "comprehensive and compassionate" strategy in dealing with Austin's estimated 6,000 indigents, sponsored the proposal. From what we've seen, the measure mostly calls for re-prioritizing and increasing social services funding, providing more beds at local shelters, and collecting more data on the homeless. Critics of the......

CAMPO's voting on tolling existing roads tonight. . . they say they won't toll the parts of the roads built with tax money. Guess we'll see how that works after tonight's meeting. Looks like rough waters ahead for councilmember Jennifer Kim in the upcoming May election. Woman's body found on UT campus this morning. Tyrell Gatewood, suspended indefinitely from the Longhorns in September for possession, is once again in trouble for. . . possession.......

Old Pecan Street Festival, UT home game, Silicon Labs Marathon Relay, and Alzheimer’s Memory Walk are all in the downtown area this weekend. Watch for street closures! Sheryl Cole's Safe Surrender program will allow people with outstanding warrants to turn themselves in at area churches. APD is supporting Jennifer Kim's anti-panhandling ordinance; a public hearing on the ordinance is set for October 18. The US Supreme Court stopped the execution of Carlton Turner Jr., who......

Laurie Felker Jones, who serves as Field Director for NARAL Pro-Choice Texas and has worked on such political campaigns as Jennifer Kim's run for City Council, is included in The REAL Hot 100 for 2006. This list is the feminist answer to men's magazine's ranking of attractive women in pop culture (see Maxim). The REAL Hot 100 for this year includes three Austinites in all: Ms. Felker Jones, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon.net, and Emilia......

In a few hours, Austin City Councilmember, occasional tech evangelist, and aspiring blogger Jennifer Kim will unveil a new-ish version of her website (www.jenniferkiminaustin.com), which is to feature interactive/online chats, podcasts, blogs, surveys, and streaming video. We normally wouldn't care about a site redesign, but this example does serve to illustrate just how focused our city is on promoting MySpace cutting-edge, "wave of the future" (Kim's words) technology. Hell, you can now watch episodes of......

Back during SXSW, the City of Austin announced a new partnership with the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) and network powerhouse Cisco Systems to deliver what they call the Outdoor Wireless Mesh Project, which aims to set up an enormous blanket of free wireless internet access across Central and East Austin. The three stage deployment began in April with hotspots installed in the lower downtown area, connecting up to existing hubs at City......

Boy howdy, is it hot outside. Hot enough to melt the face off a snake! Hot! And, do you know what snake-face-melting heat goes well with? Alcohol! That's right! Drinking! We'd like to invite you to our third official happy hour, this Thursday at The Longbranch Inn on East 11th Street. We'll start showing up around 5, and we'll hang out until we can no longer see straight. Come on down and meet our......

Austinist didn't vote in the run-off elections this past weekend, owing to a problem with our voter registration. And by "problem", we mean we never sent one in. But we do send our huzzahs! to Jennifer Kim, who won the Place 3 spot over her opponent, Margot Clarke. It was an ugly, ugly campaign, with both sides accusing the other of stealing campaign posters and other dirty tricks. But compared to the egregious criminal......

Reader Brian writes: I'd like to ask about the runoff happening right now. Like, what are they running off? Tacos? And who are the people? And what do they stand for? Again, tacos? Ah, Brian is reminding us of the sad, sad voter turnout for the recent elections. Well, Austin, you can still get your two cents in. City Council elections require a 50% majority, and no one got it in Place 3. Hence......

Election results are in and Austin has let its true voice be heard. The overwhelming response to the polarizing and contentious debate over the smoking ban, three city council seats, education funding, and municipal elections was a resounding, "Meh, who cares?" According to the unofficial results released by Travis County, a whopping 14.29 percent of the electorate felt the urge to exercise their civic rights and participate in our little experiment called democracy. Just over......