Will Candidates Fight the Good Fight?

Austin Interfaith, the local branch of the Industrial Areas Foundation, will again hold an “accountability session” wherein it asks candidates for Austin City Council and for the Austin Community College and Austin Independent School District boards to commit to its agenda of fighting poverty and building up the middle class. The forum will be held Sunday, April 20, 7pm, at St. Ignatius Martyr Parish, 2309 Euclid (near South Congress and Oltorf). The accountability session differs from other candidate forums in that, rather than listening to the candidates, Interfaith expects the candidates to listen to it – leaders of the group lay out their programs and then ask candidates to give a “yes” or “no” commitment to getting onboard. (However, the group does not make endorsements.) “Austin’s middle class is shrinking,” says Russ Louch of St. Albert the Great Catholic church, a member institution. “This is unacceptable in a county with the highest level of property wealth in the state and whose median income is higher than the national average.”

This article appears in April 18 • 2008.

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