Charlotte Moore

The Austin Water Utility could lose more than $300,000 in revenue due to special reclaimed water rates proposed for the city’s parks system for the next fiscal year. The utility presented its final proposed rates for FY2014 to the budget committee of the city’s Water and Wastewater Commission Monday night. Overall, the average customer can […]

Thanks in part to a planned University of Texas medical school and teaching hospital, Travis County Central Health officials say they will need nearly $34 million more in FY2014 than was allotted in their FY2013 budget. The money would come from a tax increase approved in November 2012. In the first of what will be […]

Travis County Commissioners are set today to continue consideration of proposed salaries for classified county employees and set a date for a public hearing. The commissioners themselves are also up for a salary bump. If the increases are approved, retiring County Judge Sam Biscoe would receive $118,373 annually. That figure represents a nearly $3,500 yearly […]

Parks officials Wednesday evening hosted a group of roughly fifty people for a tour of proposed changes to a dog park along Lady Bird Lake. Though the city is receiving a large to donation to help complete the work, and the effort should improve safety in the area, not everyone is happy with the project. […]

A Northeast Austin neighborhood development project more than 10 years in the making is well underway now that City Council has awarded the contract to a nationally-recognized consultant with expertise in sustainable master planning. On Thursday, City Council unanimously authorized a partnership agreement with Chicago-based Farr Associates to devise the master plan for a mixed-income, […]

Layoffs are likely for the 31 employees of Travis County’s Public Integrity Unit, which operates out of the District Attorney’s office. That is, unless a resolution currently before the current Special Session of the Texas Legislature is approved, Travis County Commissioners decide to fund the unit out of their budget, or someone comes up with […]

After months of fiery and impassioned debate about the city-owned lot at 64 Rainey Street, the fight flared up again online over the weekend. It appears a group of developers could end up owning the land on which they plan to build a 31-story skyscraper, which is troubling to some Mexican-Americans. The Mexican American Cultural […]

City Council approval of a plan to turn the two-mile stretch of Waller Creek into a nature-lover’s utopia was delayed for a time Thursday by a belaboring of the legalese of the multi-phased project. Council Members Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo both had an 11th-hour barrage of questions regarding the design documentation. The joint development […]

It’s possible some Austin golfers will be paying more in greens fees as the Austin Water Utility prepares to raise the rates for the use of the city’s reclaimed water. The Reclaimed Water Program runs miles of recycled wastewater through a network of purple pipes buried underground. The water is not for human consumption; it […]

In two weeks, Travis County taxpayers could find out if they’ll end up footing the bill for high-dollar, white-collar crime investigations in Texas. Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg appeared before the Travis County Commissioner’s Court Tuesday to lay out the duties and discuss alternative methods for funding her office’s Public Integrity Unit in response […]

On Tuesday, Travis County Commissioners unanimously agreed that road work on Hamilton Pool Road, previously put on hold, should finally get underway. Steven Manilla of Travis County’s Transportation and Natural Resources Department asked commissioners to allow his department to proceed with a 2005 bond program project to complete the design and construction documents for safety […]

Austin leaders want to give one of the city’s underperforming assets – Waller Creek – an extreme makeover. But it’s going to take cooperation from private landowners, and maybe some action from our men and women in blue, to make the concept a reality. The joint development agreement between the Waller Creek Conservancy, the City […]