The city’s Animal Advisory Commission continues to duke it out over an approach to shelter overcrowding, with a proposal to expand contracts with Emancipet and Austin Humane Society forecasting more friction ahead. The proposal, put forth by the commission’s spay/neuter working group, calls to expand the nonprofits’ existing sterilization and vaccination programs to address growing […]
Kali Bramble
Posted inPublic Safety
Dark traffic signals lead to havoc, hazards across Austin
As thousands awaited relief from dayslong power outages this past weekend, motorists, cyclists and pedestrians encountered hazards of another sort, as hundreds of stoplights went offline across the city. Richard Mendoza, the interim director of the city’s Transportation Department, addressed the situation at a Tuesday press conference. “Approximately 40 percent of our traffic signals were […]
Posted inEnvironment
New City Council kicks off 2023 with UN biodiversity pledge
Austin’s brand-new City Council has officially begun legislating, kicking things off with an ambitious pledge to environmental stewardship. The resolution, sponsored by Council Member Leslie Pool, commits the city to adopt 23 targets established at the UN’s 15th Convention on Biological Diversity, which Pool attended late last year. The UN framework lists managed conservation and […]
Posted inRoads
City looks for silver lining in TxDOT’s I-35 expansion
With the Texas Department of Transportation circling in on finalized plans for Interstate 35, city staffers are racing to seize opportunity of a number of cap-and-stitch projects that could come to be a silver lining in the largely unpopular interstate expansion. In a biannual update Jan. 19, Corridor Program Office Director Mike Trimble caught City […]
Posted inRoads
‘Parking district’ proposal may solve South Congress parking woes
The dicey parking shuffle on South Congress is about to get a bit more predictable, thanks to the city’s Transportation Department. City Council’s Mobility Committee rang in 2023 with the welcome announcement that a new South Congress Parking & Transportation Management District, if approved, will bring an expanded paid parking program to the area in […]
Posted inPreservation
Travis Heights residents put up a fight to preserve century-old fourplex
The Historic Landmark Commission kicked off 2023 with a bang last Wednesday, with nearly a dozen Travis Heights residents taking the stand to oppose demolition of a century-old home on the corner of East Monroe Street and Newning Avenue. The house at 409 E. Monroe St., which has been a rental fourplex since the 1930s, […]
Posted inTravis County
Brigid Shea: Seeking local solutions for global problems
If you’d asked Brigid Shea 30 years ago where she’d be in 2022, the Travis County Commissioners Court likely wouldn’t have topped her list. Nevertheless, the outspoken environmentalist and former City Council member, who broke into the political scene co-founding the now-iconic Save Our Springs Alliance, has made herself a comfortable home there. “I had […]
Posted inCity Council
Before passing baton, Kitchen reflects on eight years in the housing trenches
In her eight years on Austin City Council, Ann Kitchen has navigated both the thrills and the growing pains of the second-fastest-growing city in the country. Kitchen has spent 2022 refining policies she hopes will continue to address Austin’s housing crisis well after her departure, when she’ll hand over the reins of District 5 to incoming […]
Posted inPlanning
Environmental Commission ponders new South Central PUD
Another South Central Waterfront planned unit development proposal has officially commenced, with real estate development attorney and City Council regular Richard Suttle stopping by the Environmental Commission last week for preliminary negotiations. If realized, the project will bulldoze the defunct Texas Department of Transportation headquarters at 200 E. Riverside to make way for two 410-foot […]
Posted inEnergy
Still more questions than answers approaching Austin Energy rate case vote
City Council appears far from resolved heading into today’s vote on Austin Energy base rates, leaving last Tuesday’s work session with the case’s biggest questions still unanswered. On the top of the list is the issue of revenue requirement, with many hesitant to approve the full $35.7 million Austin Energy claims it needs to recover […]
Posted inEnergy
Council weighs options for 2023 Austin Energy rates
With just a month before holiday break, City Council is fighting to resolve significant disagreements among stakeholders, outside counsel and Austin Energy on changes to utility base rates effective 2023. Council began this round of deliberations with the final recommendation of the Electric Utility Commission, which endorsed a number of approaches floated to tackle rate […]
Posted inEnergy
Austin Energy rate case participants band together behind alternative proposal
The race for City Council’s blessing on 2023 electric rates is heating up, as parties in the Austin Energy base rate review case announced their own counter-settlement to the utility’s proposed rate design. The independent consumer advocate, John Coffman, along with Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, NXP Semiconductors, Sierra Club, Public Citizen, Solar United Neighbors, Solar & […]