Josh Rosenblatt

This past Saturday morning, Mayor Lee Leffingwell grabbed a pair of ceremonial scissors and officially opened Austin’s brand-new animal shelter. The moment came fewer than 48 hours after city staff and animal rescue group Austin Pets Alive came to an agreement for a partnership to maintain the old Town Lake Animal Center site as a […]

Council will be considering amendments to the city’s anti-lobbying ordinance today but it remains to be seen if new language staff has written to accommodate the Ethics Review Commission’s concerns will solve the problems some Council members have with the ordinance. At Tuesday’s Council work session, Council Member Laura Morrison wanted to make sure the […]

With the finish line of Austin’s nearly four-year Downtown Plan development process in sight, Council members are still scrambling to address the issue of density management in a way that both encourages downtown development and ensures affordable housing. At Tuesday’s work session, Council members discussed compromise measures that might at long last solve the CURE/Density […]

How much authority does City Council have over citizens’ participation in Austin’s legislative process? That’s the question Council members began to tackle at Tuesday’s work session, engaging in an hour-long debate in an attempt to figure out how best to balance the need for efficiency and the need for democracy at meetings.   Responding to […]

Social service contracting in Austin is turning out to be a messy business. This week, City Auditor Kenneth Mory’s staff informed the Council Audit and Finance Committee that the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department has not been adequately monitoring social service agencies to ensure compliance with the terms and conditions of their contracts […]

City Council is one step away from amending the city’s Anti-Lobbying Ordinance to make competitive processes for social service funding exempt from the law. However, several Council members remain unconvinced those changes will do enough to silence the complaints that arose during the recent social service contract bidding process. If last Tuesday’s Council work session […]

More than six months after opening the door to debate over the issue of fluoridation of the city’s water supply, the Council Public Health and Human Services Committee continues to deal with the fallout of that decision. For an hour and a half on Wednesday, opponents of water fluoridation spoke passionately in support of a […]

The state’s current drought could have long-lasting and far-reaching effects on Austin’s environment and economy, not to mention nearby agricultural production, if it continues for much longer. At the City Council work session yesterday, Austin Water Utility Director Greg Meszaros presented a grim portrait of current water conditions and the outlines of a plan to […]

Members of the Urban Transportation Commission have thrown their support behind a pilot program to bring electric low-speed vehicles (ELSV) to downtown. If Council approves a measure amending city regulations to allow for the operation of such vehicles on second and third reading this Thursday, the program could be up and running by early January.   […]

Two years after Capital Metro discontinued free Dillo service downtown, City Council approved two measures at their Thursday meeting to fill in service gaps along or near two former Dillo routes with low-speed electric vehicles. The first measure amends city code to establish regulations of the operation of electric vehicles for hire, and the second […]

The contentious debate over whether or not to move elections from May to November next year won’t be resolved before Friday, when Council will hold a special called meeting to give the item a third and final reading. Council was scheduled to consider the move on second reading at their work session yesterday, but a […]

Last Friday the City Council’s Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to divvy up more than $360,000 in unallocated social service funding to four social service agencies — Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, Austin Community College Teacher TRAC, the Austin Children’s Shelter, and Capital IDEA.   If Council approves the committee’s recommendation on Thursday, […]