Off the Desk:

Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do beginning Oct. 16, the first day of early voting for the November 5 general election. Early voting ends Nov. 1. Call the county clerk, 473-9553, for info on polling places and times, or check the Chronicle election site, /, up as of this Friday, Oct. 11...

Kirk Watson made official Tuesday what everyone's been talking about for months -- his intent to wrestle councilmember Ronney Reynolds for the mayor's seat. Watson announced his candidacy in Wooldridge Park, across from the county courthouse where the mayoral wannabe has made a name for himself as a plaintiffs' attorney. Watson's supporters at his side Tuesday included an almost too-perfect smorgasbord of support from the likes of business, environmental, minority and gay communities, and neighborhood representatives. Heck, even some chieftains from Reynolds' old 'hood -- the Real Estate Council of Austin (RECA) -- were in the crowd. As for Reynolds' council seat, Becky Motal (the RECA candidate who lost to councilmember Jackie Goodman last spring) has her sights set on filling that vacancy. Maybe Motal shouldn't get her hopes up just yet, though. Word is that RECA may be looking to sink their money into someone "safer" than Motal this time around...-- A.S. Most of us know the high cost of automobile maintenance, but what's driving up those road costs? Transportation expert Todd Litman will discuss some of the environmental and social costs of road projects that are often ignored by planners and politicians. He'll speak at 10am Saturday, October 19 at the Old Quarry Branch of the Austin Public Library, 7051 Village Center Drive. Litman is director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Victoria, British Columbia. -- N.E.

Tri and Tri Again

Wipe away those Texas Triangle tears. Editor/publisher Kay Longcope and partner/general manager Barbara Wohlgemuth say they're not closing down the gay and lesbian weekly after all. It seems everyone's so fired up over the American Family Association taking credit for the paper's demise that they're refusing to let the Triangle go down in flames. Longcope said Wednesday that she has entered into initial discussions with a potential investor to infuse some capital into the operation. Meanwhile, the weekly will take a week off after putting this week's edition to bed, and will resume publishing Oct. 24. Still, local professionals and businesses continue their efforts to ensure a healthy lifespan for the paper. Attorney Suzanne Bryant will lead a community forum on the topic at 6:30pm Monday at the Cornerstone Gay and Lesbian Center, 1117 Red River. And S. Jae Arkeen, an Austin psychotherapist, is firming up plans for a fundraiser to be held later this month. Arkeen says local musicians, entertainers and restaurants wanting to assist in the benefit may call him at 478-1099... -- A.S.

ACC Up a Creek?

Austin Community College trustees are suffering one headache after another. First, a district court judge on Monday sided with the Save Our Springs Alliance (S.O.S.) in enjoining ACC from closing on the controversial Shadowridge property in southwest Austin. Now, the Southeast Corner Alliance of Neighborhoods (SCAN) is considering siding with S.O.S. as a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit -- but perhaps for different reasons.

While S.O.S. is suing ACC on grounds it violated open meetings laws when it voted to buy the property, the group's chief opposition to Shadowridge is based on environmental concerns. SCAN members, on the other hand, believe ACC is ignoring their pleas for a community college campus in their corner of the world. Said Bob Larson, a former councilmember and past SCAN president: "We feel an ACC campus should be located closer to the people who are more likely to go to a community college. But instead [the board] wants to serve the bedroom communities, mainly Circle C," Gary Bradley's mega-development near the Shadowridge tract.

Meanwhile, the injunction remains in effect until Judge Pete Lowry decides whether the board violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Still another prickly issue is before the board. ACC trustees Monday couldn't decide on a candidate to fill the board seat vacated by Pete Foster. The top two contenders -- Sharon Knotts Green, a Motorola executive, and Bill Spelman, an associate professor at the University of Texas -- drew four votes apiece. This is a serious deadlock here, as the candidates differ sharply on the Shadowridge acquisition; Spelman is against it while Green favors the site. The board will put the candidate issue to another vote Oct. 21. Until then, we can expect plenty of backroom negotiations with potential swing votes. Failing that, ACC may have to call for an election. -- A.S.

Reining in the Dough

"Not one city council candidate in the last election got that many votes," boasts Mike Blizzard in comparing the number of people who voted last spring to the number of people -- 29,000 -- who signed a petition in support of campaign finance reform in Austin. Blizzard, a leader of the local grassroots group, Austinites for a Little Less Corruption (formerly No More Corruption), turned the petition over to the city clerk's office in hopes of a Jan. 18 citywide referendum. The proposed initiative would limit contributions to candidates at $100 per individual donor. It would also seek to have candidates receive the majority of their donations from eligible voters living in Austin.

The proposed initiative was drafted jointly by the Center for New Democracy, a nationwide campaign reform advocacy group, and Priorities First!, which supports fiscal and political reform in the Austin area. In 1994, the national group successfully forced campaign finance reform laws in Massachusetts, Oregon, and Montana. Voters in November will be asked to decide similar referendums in Colorado, Arkansas, Maine, and California.

In Austin, some doubt remains whether the petition effort will be put before voters. It seems most of the signatures are without the signers' voter registration numbers -- info the city clerk's office says it can't do without. Asserting that this requirement "doubles the burden on petitioners" because people rarely have their voter registration numbers handy, Blizzard said his group will challenge the city to accept the petition as it stands. If the city decides to throw out the petition, Blizzard said, the American Civil Liberties Union has vowed to go to bat for the reform group in court. -- K.V.

Growing Pains

In the sixth grade, she was always so good and compliant. Now she's a sassy seventh grader and teachers are worried. They fear she'll be a troublemaker by the time she hits the eighth grade. What's going on? Nothing out of the ordinary. The girl is just looking for a method to negotiate school, that's all. How teachers and administrators respond to her outspokenness might depend on their own state of mind. That's according to Girls in the Middle: Working to Succeed in School, a new study commissioned by the Association of American University Women (AAUW).

"People's expectations of girls are too narrow," says Sukey Blanc, a co-author of the study. "This report broadens our view of how girls make their way through middle school. And the way adults respond to them can influence girls' success or failure."

Two previous watershed AAUW studies, How Schools Shortchange Girls in 1992 and Hostile Hallways in 1993, defined two major problems girls face in school: gender discrimination and sexual harassment. Building on the information contained in those well-publicized reports, researchers have now turned their sights on finding solutions. They studied the "culture" at six U.S. middle schools and concluded that girls may adopt one of three strategies in order to succeed in school.

According to the report, one way girls maintain a foothold is by speaking out. Depending on the campus atmosphere, adults may interpret this behavior either positively or negatively. Another way girls cope is by playing the part of "schoolgirl"; girls may genuinely feel comfortable being "good" students, or they may be masking resentment or aggression toward others. Finally, researchers detected that some girls will "cross borders," acting sometimes both literally and figuratively as translators between people. They also found that teachers' and administrators' own comfort with these behaviors varied greatly; one teacher might view a female student's outspokenness as refreshing, while another teacher would see it as "having an attitude."

Among the researchers' recommendations is that teachers should initiate discussion on gender issues in the classroom. Furthermore, "reform efforts must send an unambiguous message that gender equity is important to a school's mission," the report states.

The Austin Independent School District (AISD), while engaged in both middle school curriculum reform and diversity training for its staff, hasn't trumpeted any system-wide reform efforts that make gender equity a top priority. AISD director of curriculum Amanda Batson said she "definitely" looks forward to examining recommendations from Girls in the Middle. "We welcome any findings that will give us direction," she said. -- R.A.

The Ozone Report

As ozone days go, 1996 is stacking up to be one of Austin's best years in two decades. And that's something to write home about, considering 1995 was one of the worst years on record, according to local ozone historians. All told, only 10 "ozone action days" have been called so far this year, compared to 29 such days last year.

On the down side, Austin residents can't take credit for the good ozone news. It's not like we gave up our automobiles or anything. Instead, we have weather conditions to thank for the low ozone readings, says Nancy Ledbetter, senior planner for the Austin Transportation Study. If windy conditions prevail, as they have this year, ozone is dispersed and lower readings are registered, she says. Wind direction could be another factor. Austin received more wind from the relatively clean southern Gulf of Mexico this year, whereas we usually get the blow-off from the Houston freeway/oil refinery complex. By comparison, 1995 saw fewer windy days, a situation that tends to keep ozone closer to the urban areas where it is produced, pushing monitor readings upward.

Austin's Environmental and Conservation Services Department expects to complete a study this year that will tell us how much pollution is drifting our way from Houston. Austin officials would like to show that Houston's freeways are polluting Austin's air as much as our own local freeways. That study would come in handy should ozone standards undergo revisions next year, as rumor has it they will. If that's true, then some urban areas might be allowed to escape tighter federal controls on roadbuilding -- provided they can demonstrate that upwind sources are causing a significant part of their air pollution.

Elsewhere in Texas, ozone report cards have also been favorable this year. Houston-Galveston violated federal ozone standards on 27 days so far this year, down from 62 in 1995. Dallas-Ft. Worth logged 15 violations in 1995, but only four this year. The exception is San Antonio, which racked up its first two ozone violations this year. The Alamo City is the largest urban area in the country to still be in attainment for federal ozone standards, but two more violations will put them in the bad air club and call down the heavy -- and costly -- hand of the feds. -- N.E.