A message from our beloved mayor: Over the last several months, you may have heard talk about a proposed City plan for achieving improved energy efficiency in existing homes. Some have called it the "point of sale" ordinance, or even the "green home tax." There's been a lot of confusion and misunderstanding on this issue, so I want to try to set the record straight. I hope that you will take a moment to read this. ...

Mayor Will Wynn issued the following address to the estimated 400 press and party-affiliated people coming into town for tonight's festivities: "Tonight we're honored to witness a great contest of ideas -- truly, the democratic process at its best. When the debate is done, each of us will take time to reflect on the solemn decision that lies before us... Will it be Tex-Mex or BBQ?!!! As the Mayor of this great city, it is......

Photo by Phillyist's Matt Johnson, SkyscraperSunset.com, December 19, 2007. Phillyist explored an impending implosion and lived to tell the tale.Gothamist marveled at the city's new NYC-branded condom campaign - especially the use of a Toronto landmark in the advertising. (Also, fun fact: Gothamist turned five years old yesterday.)Tired of the worldwide Scientology protests? Torontoist totally isn't: they covered the big downtown protest the day it happened, and followed up with an examination of all......

Photo credits unknownPraising his commitment to an environmentally-conscious energy policy, Austin's green-friendly Mayor Will Wynn today officially endorsed Senator Barack Obama for president. "For too long, we've allowed old divisions to hold us back," Wynn said. "Recently I've had conversations about energy policy with presidential candidates from both parties, and I believe Senator Obama is the only person who can move us forward on this critical issue. "Barack Obama gets it. He offers a commitment......

What do you get when you recycle 80,000 pounds of aluminum cans, or approximately 2.7 million cans? Well, evidently $5,000 dollars and a national award for the City Recycling Challenge. Mayor Will Wynn accepted the Cans for Cash prize on behalf of the City of Austin at the recent U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Meeting taking place last week....

Image from Austin City Connection.According to the Statesman, our beloved mayor nearly pulled a Chuck Norris when a Monarch construction truck blocked traffic on West Fifth Street. Story is he got out of his car, walked to the construction site and ripped into the project superintendent. He later indicated that he was sorry if his vulgarity offended any construction workers. Many Statesman commenters noted that if the mayor thinks it is bad to get stuck......

Will Wynn renewed calls for an Austin streetcar at today's Downtown Austin Association Annual Luncheon. Moving forward would require two votes in the 2008 election - one to allow the project and another for bonds to finance it. The new plan would include connections to the airport (along Riverside), downtown, UT, the Triangle and Mueller. We are generally fans of mass transit, rail especially, and naive optimism is our default position, so a streetcar sounds......

Three UT students make national news for getting stuck in local cave. "Well, that's the last time I throw my son a birthday party," said Father. "I'm getting too old for this crap." Radiohead stands to make approximately $9.6 million from sales of their latest record, "In Rainbows." Ex-General who served in Iraq speaks out on the war: "There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight." Study:......

“Then wolves will live in peace with lambs. And leopards will lie down to rest with goats. Calves, lions and young bulls will eat together. And Reverends will profess their love for leather culture.” The above spin on a few verses from the Book of Isaiah pretty much sums up the Austin Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival’s stellar opening festivities. As expected, there was a strong sense of community that only increased throughout the......

ACL Previews Interview: Patterson Hood Del McCoury Band, Preservation Hall Jazz Band Jon Dee Graham, Kevin Devine, and Ike Reilly Assassination Beau Soleil & Will Hoges Rail Road Earth It's Official: Bob Dylan & His Band Set to Play Stubb's Aftershow So You Wanna See An ACL Taping Trent Summar, Steve Earle, & DeVotchKa Interview: Crowded House It's Official: Bob Dylan & His Band Set to Play Stubb's Aftershow Weekly Features The Accidental Gentrifist:......

The Austonian threw itself a ground breaking party this morning in the parking lot on the corner of 2nd and Congress, where the shiny building designed by Houston-based Zeigler Cooper Architects will one day stand. The festivities, complete with mimosas and mini-quiches, celebrated the future ‘landmark’, and featured a whole lot of loving between the City and Benchmark Development. Senator Kirk Watson and Mayor Will Wynn showed up, and praised Benchmark’s contributions to Austin’s......

ACL Previews Austinist Launches Dedicated ACL Page! Preview: Manchester Orchestra and Patterson Hood Preview: Ian Ball and the Little Ones Interview: Paolo Nutini ACL Band Clash, Round 2: The Killers Vs. Björk Weekly Features Tales Of Mere Existence Hots On #9: Sound Off New Release Tuesday: Frisell's Floratone The Argyle Academy New Movie Releases: The Invasion, Superbad, Death at a Funeral, and More Truesday: Friesday The Laurie Show News, Features, and More Travis County......

Mayor Will Wynn makes his debut as Elvis in tonight's performance of The King and I, produced by Forklift Danceworks. Details here. Photo reprinted with permission from Forklift Danceworks.......

Austin mayor Will Wynn appears in this month's Esquire magazine modeling a $2,500 Prada suit as part of a photo feature on the nation's mayors. Wynn tells the magazine that Austin's downtown building boom makes him feel like "Napoleon bulldozing medieval Paris." The biggest challenge of his job? Nope, not handing out money to iconic businesses, Wynn says it's "having to get used to, frankly, a lack of privacy." Screen capture from Esquire......

The poets have arrived! For the second year in a row, the National Poetry Slam will be held in our highly literate, most-educated city. This five-day competition showcases slam poets from around the U.S. and comes to a head in a fierce battle for team and individual top nods, held at the Paramount Theatre on August 10 and 11. Last year's finals sold out, so consider getting your tickets early! Opening ceremonies are this afternoon......

National Poetry Slam returns with a full schedule of stuff happening all over town this week, culminating in Friday and Saturday's final matches at the Paramount HBMG Foundation presents the 2007 ArtSpark Festival Visual Art Showcase at the Off Center Mayor Will Wynn and director Turk Pipkin screen "Nobelity" and "An Inconvenient Truth" at the Paramount Willie Nelson headlines the Austin Freedom Fest 2007, joined by the likes of Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling......

Forklift Danceworks marks the upcoming anniversary of Elvis’ death with an homage to the King that includes singing, dancing, and guest Elvis cameos from Jim Swift, Sara Hickman, John Kelso, and Mayor Will Wynn Austinist sponsors a big bash at Beauty Bar with the Turbonego cover band Apocalypse Dudes, DJ Jester the Filipino Fist, and Ernest Gonzales 1906 hosts the opening reception for "SeeSaw," their first-ever photography show, featuring landscapes, portraiture, digitally-manipulated images, and......

Mayor Will Wynn and writer/actor/director Turk Pipkin will tackle a hot topic (this one, not that one) this coming Monday as they host a special "Global Warming Q&A Session" between screenings of Pipkin's Nobelity and Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth at the Paramount Theatre. Mayor Wynn loves talkin' climate change (he's a key member of the U.S. Mayors Council on Climate Protection, and in January, he trained with Al Gore to deliver the slideshow Gore......

Town Lake will be officially renamed to "Lady Bird Lake" after the Austin City Council meets this morning. Sponsored by Mayor Will Wynn, the proposed ordinance comes in response to massive public requests that the City honor Lady Bird Johnson's legacy of environmental advocacy. "Numerous citizens have contacted my office suggesting ways that the City should honor her memory, including the most obvious of renaming Town Lake," wrote the Mayor in a statement issued after......

Yesterday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality - the state organization in charge of keeping our water, earth and air clean - granted a crucial air permit to Dallas-based energy corporation TXU for the purpose of building a lignite-fired power plant in Robertson County, about 100 miles northeast of Austin. Lignite, often referred to as "brown coal," is the lowest rank of coal and used almost exclusively as fuel for electric power generation. It's really......

Austin Mayor Will Wynn, long a proponent of green energy, has his sights set on an even bigger target: global warming. Back in February, Wynn unveiled the Austin Climate Protection Plan, whose ambitious goals are eliminating all carbon dioxide emissions from municipal activities by 2020 and running all City buildings and vehicles using renewable energy sources. "Austin has long been a national leader on energy efficiency, renewable power and innovative technologies," said Wynn earlier this......

The Austin Outdoor Wireless Mesh Project, which previously covered a large section of the downtown area, was today extended to an enormous part of East Austin. The new coverage area runs from I-35 to a few blocks west of Pedernales St, and from Town Lake to East 7th St. A separate pocket of coverage also exists in the East 11th Street Revitalization Area, near the Longbranch Inn. “The expansion of the Austin Outdoor Wireless Mesh......

Our Craigslist Missed Connections guru is taking a break this week, but one of our readers was kind enough to pass along this, uhh, little treasure. Let's just say this isn't the first time we've come across an anonymous admirer fawning over the Mayor of Rock and Roll: Mayor Will Wynn and the Gold-digging Hoochie Mamas - w4m - 33 Reply to: pers-322663324@craigslist.org Date: 2007-05-01, 8:54PM CDT Mayor Will Wynn, you are hot. Really, what......

TUESDAY [17] party • Red Bull Music Academy Info Session, hosted by Prince Klassen, featuring SuperContinent at Beauty Bar (Click to RSVP) books • Mark Regnerus presents Forbidden Fruit at Intellectual Property (5:00pm) books • Mayor's Book Club Author Event with Mayor Will Wynn and Stephanie Elizondo Griest at Mercury Hall (6:00pm) books • Darryl Wimberley presents The King of Colored Town at BookPeople (7:00pm) comedy • Comedians Nathan Timmel, Normal Wilkerson, Robb Loving......

Last year, Microsoft came to central Texas looking for a spot to build a new $550 million data center. Austin lost out to San Antonio mostly because the City of San Antonio offered the company a better break on electricity rates for the new project. Since then, Mayor Will Wynn and the Austin City Council have been pursuing a new proposal to cut electric rates for certain types of large high-tech companies in order to......

After vehemently encouraging Austinites to indulge in the splendor of live musical entertainment, Mayor Will Wynn's charisma is now focused on more literary pursuits. Wednesday, March 28th, at 7pm marks the official start of the annual Mayor's Book Club. For the sixth installment of the book club Mayor Wynn has chosen Stephanie Elizondo Griest's Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana. To get readers in the mood, the City of Austin is......

Austinist and Gothamist's second annual SXSW day party (co-hosted this year with Gorilla Vs Bear) was a resounding success, drawing a capacity crowd by the early afternoon. Austin Mayor Will Wynn made a surprise visit during Earl Greyhound's set, articulating the importance of cornerstone venues like The Mohawk on our city's live music scene and suggesting that Austin musicians need better access to healthcare. His speech garnered tremendous applause from the audience, which consisted......

Rain or shine, our day party is definitely happening today, over at the Mohawk. We're also pleased to announce that Austin Mayor Will Wynn will be delivering a brief welcome address at approximately 1:30pm. Flyer by Justin Cox. Austinist, Gothamist, and Gorilla Vs Bear Proudly Present Gonna Gonna Get, Get Down! 2 Inside (11:50am) The Shivers (12:35pm) Tom Brosseau (1:20pm) Sparrow House (2:05pm) Teitur (2:50pm) Peter and the Wolf (3:35pm) Stars of Track and Field......

Mikail Davenport cycles towards Kingsville, Texas during the 2005 Capitol Ride. Photo by John Cates. This Sunday, Mikail Davenport, a 58-year old native Texan, will set out for the ride of his life, cycling over 900 miles across our state. In a month. Without using his legs. Davenport contracted polio at age two, and in his early teens underwent a long series of reconstructive surgeries. The same debilitating muscular disease that afflicted Franklin D.......

The marathon that has been renamed more times than Austin has been called the “Live Music Capital of the World” will kick off with a 7AM start time. Founded in 1992, the Austin Marathon and Half Marathon (this year called the AT&T Marathon) is expected to draw 11,000 runners, 30,000 spectators and is the 15th largest marathon in the U.S. One of the more well-known runners (no, it isn't Lance) will be our own mayor......