The Austin City Council is considering whether to endorse the application of the Circuit of the Americas for funding from the Texas Major Event Trust Fund for the summer X Games this year and in 2016 and 2017. The Major Event Trust Fund applies local and state gains in sales and other taxes generated by […]
Jo Clifton
Jo Clifton is the Politics Editor for the Austin Monitor.
Posted inAustin, City Council
Renteria making changes to barbecue proposal
In response to owners of barbecue restaurants worried about their future in Austin, City Council Member Pio Renteria is making some changes to his resolution directing city staff to create rules to regulate smoke from commercial barbecue smokestacks. Originally, the resolution was written to require restaurants and mobile food vendors who use a wood or […]
Posted inWhispers
A few good women retire from city service
Mayor Steve Adler honored two retiring Municipal Court employees Thursday who between them have nearly 60 years of service to the city. Olga Delgado, who is retiring after 13 years of service at Brackenridge Hospital and nearly 20 years at Municipal Court, most recently served as administrative specialist to the Municipal Court judges, where she […]
Posted inDevelopment, Planning, Zoning
Council puts off vote on vacating right of way
City Council postponed action on vacating right of way on several streets in the Bouldin Creek neighborhood Thursday and sent questions about the development to Council Member Leslie Pool’s Open Space, Environment and Sustainability Committee. Pool had pulled the item from the consent agenda for discussion. It seemed at first that the item might go […]
Posted inAustin, City Council, Development, Land Development Code, Zoning
Adler promises to change building permit process
Speaking to a receptive audience at the Real Estate Council of Austin on Wednesday, Mayor Steve Adler said he and his colleagues intend to make sure that they fix problems in the city’s development and permitting process sooner rather than later. In response to the highly critical Zucker Report on the city’s slow, complicated and […]
Posted inWhispers
Austin Energy says reserve funds low
According to Austin Energy General Manager Larry Weis, the utility needs to add more than $165 million to its strategic reserves in order to meet the standards and policies set by City Council for the utility. Of three strategic reserve funds, only one, the Emergency Reserve, is on target. That fund contains about $90.74 million. […]
Posted inWhispers
Mayor hires Prince, Burton to staff
Using his own salary to fund the positions, Mayor Steve Adler has hired two temporary employees as policy advisers. Brandi Clark Burton and Kazique Prince had been working as volunteers for the mayor and officially became city employees last week. City spokesman Bryce Bencivengo said they each will be earning $31.25 per hour, which is $65,000 a […]
Posted inAustin, Development, Parks
No progress at committee on Decker Golf proposal
Those interested in progress on the proposed license agreement between the city and Decker Lake Golf LLC for the development and management of a world-class golf course at Walter E. Long Lake were probably disappointed in the outcome of Monday’s meeting of the City Council Committee on Economic Development. Committee Chair Ellen Troxclair told Economic […]
Posted inWhispers
Casar and Cooke: strange bedfellows
City Council Member Greg Casar, who seems unable to rid himself of his runoff opponent, Laura Pressley, announced last week that former Mayor Lee Cooke would be his campaign treasurer for a special officeholder account. As he explained to publisher Michael Kanin on the Monitor’s radio show, Pressley is currently suing him in an election […]
Posted inCity Hall, Energy
Austin Energy payments to city keep growing
Even though City Council froze the transfer from Austin Energy to the city’s general fund at $105 million in 2012, the amount the utility pays for support services has continued to grow. For the current fiscal year, the utility will fund more than $20 million for support services as well as to departments that may or […]
Posted inWhispers
Oops — Tovo cites wrong task force
With so many city boards, commissions, task forces and working groups it should come as no surprise that even someone as knowledgeable as Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo mixes up one task force with another occasionally. Last week, Tovo posted a request on the Council message board that the Council Austin Energy committee hear a […]
Posted inCity Council
Council sends cost overrun issues to committee
City Council members approved an additional expenditure last week of a little more than $91,000 for the construction contract for restoration of infrastructure along lower Shoal Creek to Lady Bird Lake. The total budget of that project was $1,217,366 to repair erosion along the shoreline of the peninsula, restore native plants and limestone boulders and […]