Josh Rosenblatt

Campaign finance reports filed Tuesday by candidates and prospective candidates in the upcoming City Council elections reports show a considerable disparity between the campaign war chests of the four incumbents in the race and their actual and prospective challengers. Much of that difference can be traced to the contributions obtained by so-called “bundlers,” several of […]

Council Members Laura Morrison and Kathie Tovo had a heated debate with Council Member Bill Spelman at Tuesday’s Council work session over his resolution that would suspend the code amendment process to change regulation of short-term rental properties. Opponents of the measure claim that such a delay could do harm to the city’s central neighborhoods. […]

This week, In Fact Daily is running its annual Year in Review, examining the issues and events that shaped Austin politics in 2011. Through Friday, we present a series of articles examining those issues through the eyes of the people who shaped policy in 2011. — Ask Council Member Bill Spelman and he’ll tell you […]

Austin took important steps in 2011 toward becoming what Council Member Mike Martinez calls “a big, major metropolitan city with big, major metropolitan issues to deal with.” Those issues, he told In Fact Daily, touch on every aspect of the city’s political and social life, from economics and affordable housing to election turnouts and animal […]

Longtime owners of property in the Montopolis neighborhood saw their plans to donate some of their family’s land to the City of Austin hit a snag at the Dec. 8 Council meeting. The property, which is located on Bastrop Highway South, abuts the Burditt Prairie Cemetery, a historic African-American cemetery dating back to the 1850s, […]

Following a debate that divided both Austin’s City Council and several of its most prominent labor advocacy groups, Council voted 5-2 Thursday to approve an economic development agreement with Detroit-based auto parts manufacturer U.S. Farathane Corporation. Under the terms of the agreement, Farathane will receive $213,000 in incentives in exchange for creating approximately 228 full-time […]

Political gadfly Laura Pressley has announced that she is running for City Council. A longtime anti-fluoridation activist and member of the Texans for Accountable Government steering committee, Pressley told In Fact Daily that she is running because the current City Council has not made Austinites their top priority. As a consequence, she said, citizens’ individual […]

Several weeks after City Council began discussing the possibility of changing the way citizen involvement in Council meetings is regulated, members Laura Morrison and Bill Spelman have come up with a draft version of a resolution that would “clarify and augment” Council procedures. The resolution, Morrison told her colleagues at Tuesday’s work session, would strike […]

On Wednesday, Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole put to rest any further rumors that she might be running for the mayor’s job, kicking off her re-election campaign in East Austin. Cole joined her three fellow Council members up for re-election in May – Mayor Lee Leffingwell and members Bill Spelman, and Mike Martinez, all of […]

The City Council’s Public Health and Human Services Committee struck a blow for science at its meeting last week, throwing its unanimous support behind a staff recommendation not to include a warning on city utility bills about the alleged dangers of water fluoridation. Fluoride Free Austin, a local advocacy group, brought the resolution to include […]

Last week, the Historic Landmark Commission voted to recommend landmark status for a house on East 9th Street despite damage the building sustained in a fire and a lingering mystery as to when it was originally built.    As Historic Preservation Officer Steve Sadowsky told the commission, “The house represents a phase in Austin history […]

It’s official: Council Member Mike Martinez will be running for a third term on the Austin City Council. Martinez announced his decision during a short ceremony yesterday at the Saltillo Plaza Red Line station on his beloved eastside. Flanked by several former and current members of the Austin Fire Department, with whom he served for […]