Elizabeth Pagano

The Austin Monitor/Glasshouse Policy, Austin Tech Alliance and Leadership Austin will be hosting a Texas state legislative session wrap-up this evening and we hope that you will join us. Austin City Council Member Jimmy Flannigan will address city-related legislation; Edna Ramón Butts, director of intergovernmental relations and policy oversight at Austin Independent School District, will […]

Changes may be on the way for what is now being called the “opening moment” of City Council meetings. Council has always taken an ecumenical approach to the invocation that opens each of its regular meetings. The period has, in years past, been open to all of the city’s religious organizations (including the Satanic Temple, […]

On Thursday, Austin City Council did away with a number of ordinances that had the effect of criminalizing homelessness in the city. Though the crowd at the Council meeting was largely in support of that move, people remained divided on social media yesterday, with Gov. Greg Abbott leading the charge against the new status quo […]

Mayor Steve Adler has joined a national campaign to prevent suicides among veterans, with a consortium of local agencies taking part. Sly Majid, the city’s chief service officer, is leading the effort to review the city’s approach to suicide prevention and working to develop an action plan with partner groups to fill in gaps in […]

At long, long last, ground has officially been broken for the Travis County Civil and Family Courts facility. The current Heman Marion Sweatt Travis County Courthouse was built in 1931, has not been renovated for 50 years, and among other things, lacks dedicated, secured waiting spaces for crime victims and families and jury facilities. Planning […]

The city of Bastrop announced Tuesday that a draft land use code is now available for public review and comment. A Planning and Zoning meeting will launch the public review process today at Bastrop City Hall, starting at 6 p.m. In stark contrast to Austin’s own code rewrite, Bastrop’s code rewrite was launched in August […]

Hill Country Conservancy and REI will be celebrating the grand opening of the Violet Crown Trail’s Slaughter Trailhead this upcoming Saturday. Significantly, the new trailhead represents the completion of Phase One of the Trail, which has been in the works since 2006 and under construction since 2014. Once finished, the 30-mile trail will stretch from […]

The Texas Senate adjourned sine die Monday, officially concluding the 2019 Texas legislative session and leaving the rest of us to catch up on the fallout. The Texas Tribune has compiled a list of bills and their fates here. And the Monitor will continue to monitor the impact those bills will have on the city.

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority celebrated the pending completion of the State Highway 45 SW toll road Saturday. The road – a 3.6 mile stretch connecting MoPac Expressway to FM 1626 – is expected to open on Saturday, June 1. Covering environmentally sensitive terrain, it has been a source of debate for years. A […]