FAN Hosts Austin's First All-Online City Council Candidate Forums

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For Immediate Release:

FAN Hosts Austin’s First All-Online City Council Candidate Forums

AUSTIN, TEXAS (2016-09-22) - For the first time ever, Austin City Council candidates from each contested district will participate in a series of Q&A forums held completely online and accessible to all.

Friends of Austin Neighborhoods (FAN) has arranged for candidates across each of the five contested districts to engage the community on the popular site Reddit.com with its AMA (Ask Me Anything) style of interviews. Using Reddit’s comment system, neighbors throughout the city will submit questions to the candidates, similar to a press conference. Each forum will last one hour, but ongoing audience comments are allowed for post-debate commentary and analysis.

Candidates will use their discretion to select which questions to answer, but participants can vote on any question or answer in the forum as a way to provide instant feedback on which issues are most important to them. Each forum will be publicly viewable in perpetuity (as long as Reddit.com keeps the content available), and commenting is closed after six months.

By holding the forums online, FAN aims to include more voices in the dialog about policies affecting the neighborhoods that compose our city. Media participation is welcome.

Over the next two weeks, City Council candidates will be taking part in their respective one-hour AMAs on these dates and times:

District 7 (Pool, Gauldin) - Friday, Sep 23rd from 2 pm - 3 pm
District 6 (Flannigan) - Tuesday, Sep 27th from 2 pm - 3 pm
District 2 (Ramos, Faulkner, Garza) - Friday, Sep 30th from 12 pm - 1 pm
District 4 (Herrin, Camacho, Casar) - Wednesday, Oct 5th from 2 pm - 3 pm
District 10 (Gallo, Walker, Virden, Alter) - Monday, Oct 10th from 2 pm - 3 pm

As each forum begins, the public can follow this link to reach the discussion on Reddit: http://www.atxfriends.org/redditama. To RSVP and get more information about each forum, visit the FAN Facebook events page at https://www.facebook.com/atxfan/events.

Friends of Austin Neighborhoods (FAN) is a coalition of neighborhood associations and neighborhood residents reclaiming the word “neighborhood” to include the full diversity of voices.

CONTACT: Roger L. Cauvin (Secretary) | roger@cauvin.org | (512) 327-3097

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The first forum, for District 7, is today! Tune in and ask your questions on Reddit at 2 pm. Use this link when the time comes: http://www.atxfriends.org/redditama.

Unfortunately, Leslie Pool has withdrawn from participating in this forum, citing a late City Council meeting last night and other obligations. However, @NatalieGauldin will answer your questions in the forum today. Looking forward to “seeing” everyone there!

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Did anyone notice the link in the email is http://www.atxfriends.com/redditama instead of http://www.atxfriends.org/redditama which means some folks weren’t able to get to the right website?

Carl Webb
North Lamar Neighborhood Association
District #4

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Bah, thanks for catching that @carlwebb. I’m updating it now.

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For a recap on all of these AMA forums and even some links to in-person forums held by other organizations around town, please check the FAN blog post here:

FAN Also submitted our own questionnaire to each of the candidates, and their answers can be found here:

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