SDS Jumps the Gun

Brian Rodgers and some of his 500 business supporters (Photo by Richard Whittaker)

Election day isn't until Nov. 4, but it seems some people need to check their calendars.

Stop Domain Subsidies head honcho Brian Rodgers has released a press blast complaining that today the city pays the first part of the agreed incentive cash to Simon Group for the Domain. "Obviously, the City of Austin is attempting to subvert the will of the voters by moving forward by cutting a check before the election,” said Prop. 2 head honcho Rodgers (so, nothing to do with the fact that the money has already been appropriated and therefore, according to the deal that Rodgers famously got the city to renegoiate with developers Endeavor, is supposed to be paid. Or that Rodgers said, during our endorsement meeting with him over a month ago, it was going to happen anyway. So why the shock now?)

What makes this peculiar is that, on Oct. 7, Rodgers sent out an email saying that, "City Hall should get out of the way and let the voters – who are united on this – show them who's the boss." Oddly, Rodgers doesn't seem to be bothered to wait for the election to make his proclamations, and seems to want council to act like he's won already.

It probably doesn't help him that, even after over a year of heavy wooing of the press, SDS has failed to win a single major local media endorsement. Hey, does that mean the Chronicle has to split that bribe money we've been accused of taking?

How badly have they failed to convince the local press?

Calling it "awful in every respect," The Austin-American Statesman recommended that "[v]oters should soundly reject this bit of mischief." They go so far as to describe it as a "personal vendetta" rather than a real policy step.

Meanwhile, the Daily Texan editorial board wrote that while it can "sympathize with the pro-Prop 2 rationale and intentions on a superficial level, we think that it is an unnecessary overreaction."