Josh Rosenblatt

When dozens of representatives and supporters of nonprofit animal-rescue group Austin Pets Alive! showed up at City Hall yesterday, they were merely hoping Council would approve their request to move their operations into the old Town Lake Animal Center (TLAC) for a little more than a year. What they got instead was an agreement by […]

It was three years ago that Budget Director Ed van Eenoo sat before City Council and broke the bad news that the city was looking at a $30 million deficit that only long-term, sustainable corrections could hope to address. Today, after instituting those corrections and weathering the worst recession the country has seen since the […]

Just over a week after Austin Police Officer Eric Copeland shot and killed Ahmede Jabbar Bradley, an African-American man, during a traffic stop, mayoral challengers Brigid Shea and Clay Dafoe pointed to the incident as proof that there need to be fundamental changes in the way the Austin Police Department and the city as a […]

Candidates for City Council turned in their campaign finance reports from the first three months of 2012 yesterday, and if it’s true that the best way to determine who’s going to win a political contest is to count the money, then Place 5 is definitely shaping up to be a two-man race. Council Member Bill […]

City Council approved on first reading Thursday the rezoning of a property on far north Burnet Road that will turn what is essentially a large parking lot and a single discount clothing store into the first multifamily residential complex the area has seen in a decade. The property owners, Alliance Realty Partners, are actually requesting […]

Members of the Tejano Democrats are so disenchanted with Place 5 City Council Member Bill Spelman and his position on the 10-1 single-member district plan, apparently, that the group came within a single vote last night of taking the rather curious political step of endorsing a candidate who has voted more often in Republican primaries […]

Council Member Bill Spelman is pushing for a fast-tracked charter revision plan that would mean Council elections, and possibly a new approach to city elections in general, happening by November 2013. At their work session yesterday, Council members threw their support behind a plan that would get a citizen’s advisory redistricting commission working on the […]

Monday’s Texans for Accountable Government City Council candidate forum – the group’s first – was a spirited affair, if ultimately unfriendly for the two incumbents brave enough to attend. Their bravery of Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole and Council Member Bill Spelman in the face of overwhelming audience displeasure may not have been enough to […]

Less than a week after Council voted to approve a three-year depository services contract with JP Morgan Chase, much to the disappointment of the Occupy Austin movement, Council members up for re-election have been busy defending their votes at candidate forums. Under the terms of the new contract, which was presented to Council three weeks […]

Saturday was a good day for Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Council Member Mike Martinez as they won endorsements from both the Central Austin Democrats and University Democrats at a forum held on the University of Texas campus. That means the Austin Progressive Coalition will work for Leffingwell and Martinez, leaving flyers on voters’ doors in […]

As expected, the City Council approved an economic development agreement with Apple Inc. yesterday that will set in motion the computer giant’s investment of more than $282 million to build 1 million square feet of new office space in North Austin. Under the terms of the agreement, Apple will create at least 3,635 jobs in […]

At Tuesday’s Council work session, Council members, city staff, and outside counsel started the heavy lifting on several proposals that would radically change the way the city is governed and how it holds elections. Though no votes were taken or decisions made, it was clear that any hopes of having these changes in place by […]