Elizabeth Pagano

The city of Austin is very close to picking a new director for the Watershed Protection Department and everyone is invited to meet the finalists for the job at two public forums. The first forum will be held Sept. 19 at 6 p.m. at Town Lake Center, 721 Barton Springs Road, and the second on […]

Among the 300 homes planned for the next expansion of the Community First! Village for those previously experiencing homelessness will be six units made by Austin-based, 3D-printed home builders Icon Technology. The tech startup also “printed” a new 500-square-foot welcome center for the Northeast Austin village that uses tiny homes to provide residences for the […]

Though passage of the city budget generally means higher costs for most Austinites (about $115 annually this time around), the Austin Water Utility would like to remind residents that they are not part of those increased costs. City Council voted to maintain a reduced water rate, introduced in 2018, which was a 4.8 percent rate […]

This week, City Council will pass a budget that will top $4 billion. In order to do so, Council members have scheduled three meetings. They could pass the budget today, at the first of those scheduled meetings. If that doesn’t happen, they have the option of continuing their discussion on Wednesday and Thursday. Of course, […]

If you missed your chance to be a part of Thursday’s shot clock stakeholder meeting, fear not. The city of Austin and Travis County will be holding another meeting to accommodate overflow. The municipalities are holding stakeholder meetings to accommodate lightning-fast changes to local development codes in compliance with the recently passed House Bill 3167, […]

The city continued its hiring streak yesterday with the announcement that Kimberly McNeeley will be the director of the Parks and Recreation Department. McNeeley has been serving as director on an interim basis, and will begin her new non-interim duties on Sept. 1. She rose through the ranks from lifeguard to management, becoming an assistant […]

The Fair Play Austin political action committee announced Monday that it would not be supporting Proposition A as it is written. The PAC, which was funded by Bobby Epstein, the chairman of Circuit of the Americas, circulated a petition calling for voter approval of the McKalla Place deal. City Council approved the ballot language for that […]

Testing has shown “increasing levels of neurotoxins in algae at a greater number of locations,” according to a city press release issued Wednesday. Samples taken Monday at Auditorium Shores, Red Bud Isle and below the Butler Hike and Bike Trail pedestrian bridge at Barton Creek contained greater amounts of neurotoxins than were present in previous […]

Reaffirming its “commitment to sustainability,” Austin-Bergstrom International Airport – now super-officially known as AUS – announced the purchase of 999 metric tons of carbon offsets Wednesday. According to a press release about the purchase, that “equates to about one third of the airport’s total carbon footprint for the year. According to the program, that’s roughly […]

City officials continued to urge caution Wednesday, warning dog owners away from Lady Bird Lake as they await tests to determine whether algae blooms in the lake are producing neurotoxins. Assistant City Manager Rey Arellano told reporters gathered at an afternoon press conference that the city had taken the precaution of closing Red Bud Isle […]