Laid-Back with Leffingwell

The mood was happy but relaxed at City Council Member Lee Leffingwell's election night party at Zocalo in West Austin shortly after early voting returns showed the incumbent cruising to what one must assume will be an easy victory. As of this writing, Leffingwell leads the count at 67%, with challengers Jason Meeker at 22% and Allen Demling at 11%. (That's early voting, plus the first 26 of 206 boxes.)

"Any time you run for reelection, it's a referendum on the incumbent," Leffingwell said. "This shows that the people of Austin are satisfied with the job I've done." Leffingwell said he planned to continue on his agenda of the past three years, including mental health care and "the gorilla in the room, land use."

As for Meeker's challenge to his incumbency, he said "I tried not to respond to negative attacks."

Meeker, the former Responsible Growth for Northcross spokesman, speaking from the Mangia Pizza location off Far West, said "We're not ready to concede yet, because we're optimistic like that.

"We're very proud of the race we ran," Meeker said. "We were successful in pushing the debate and discussion with an incumbent that was very well financed, and despite negative press that we didn't deserve."