Naked City

If you've maxed out on your campaign giving to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, you can still help. Bush campaign finance chair Don Evans is soliciting contributions up to $5,000 per person to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund. Checks from corporations or foreign donors will not be accepted. "If you have friends that can help, please forward this message to them immediately," writes Evans in his solicitation...

The only local recount, requested by Judge Ernest Garcia, who lost by 809 votes to Democratic challenger Darlene Byrne, is not complete. "It's very unlikely that the outcome of that election will change," said Democratic Party pointman Mark Yznaga. "In the Republicans' biggest year, with the governor at the top of the ticket, Democrats won every local race except one judicial race and two constables," Yznaga said. "Ann Kitchen got 59%, Ronnie Earle got 54%, Margo Frasier got over 55%."...

Three Hyde Park Baptist Church representatives, including one of the most powerful attorneys in the city, go behind closed doors with five neighborhood leaders who have no legal representation. Hours later, they emerge, agreement in hand. Within days, the agreement is signed, sealed, and delivered to the Planning Commission, the final step before City Council approval.

Hyde Park? 1990? Think again -- this time it's Northwest Austin, 2000. Neighborhood leaders, who've worked for 31é2 years to reach a compromise regarding the church's development of 58 acres at the Quarries in Northwest Austin, are convinced they've gotten the best deal possible. But a larger group of neighbors -- including at least one former neighborhood leader -- say they were left out of the negotiation process and vociferously disagree.

Neighbors' comments at last Thursday's City Council meeting ranged from the polite to the incendiary. But the common theme was clear: neighborhood reps shouldn't have reached a binding agreement with the church, represented by Richard Suttle, without giving neighbors plenty of time to comment on the plan. But according to Five Neighborhoods rep Bobbi Henley, "We felt this was our last chance to make an agreement because Hyde Park was getting really annoyed ... If we'd added anything to the agreement, the church was going to say there was no agreement."

The plan was approved by Council last Thursday. So far, the city has given every indication that, as far as it's concerned, a deal, even a raw one, is a deal.

Additional reporting by Erica C. Barnett