Michael Kanin

Council Member Randi Shade publicly challenged Kathie Tovo, one of her opponents in the race for the Place 3 seat, on Tuesday afternoon over Tovo’s signing of the city’s fair campaign pledge. “According to your expense report, you took advantage of the loophole in the so-called ‘fair campaign law’ and violated (its) limits just 72 […]

Preliminary results from an Austin Energy study have revealed a startling gap between the base rate that the utility charges and the costs it incurs providing the services included in that amount.   Austin Energy General Manager Larry Weis told the City Council yesterday the utility would need to charge $33.01 a month for customer […]

The long-standing question of who will handle the City of Austin’s single-stream residential recycling program has been 60 percent answered.   The City Council voted unanimously on Thursday to award at least that portion of the program to Balcones Recycling. They gave city staff and Balcones’ competitor Texas Disposal Systems (TDS) another week to work […]

A flurry of action over the past few days appears to have improved the chances that the City Council will decide to contract with both Balcones Recycling and Texas Disposal Systems, the firms they originally said they wanted to participate in Austin’s residential single-stream recycling program. Still, another delay in the City Council vote, which […]

The Capitol Area Council of Governments (CAPCOG) may have dodged a bullet when state Rep. Paul Workman (R-Austin) offered an amendment to the state budget bill replacing funding for area 911 call centers. That funding had been cut from the upcoming Texas budget. Now, however, more drastic reductions could be on the way.   According […]

A divided Travis County Commissioners Court decided Tuesday to move forward with two solicitations designed to get external input on a new civil and family courthouse complex. The first call will go out as a request for information about public-private partnerships, a method that the court will examine as an option for courthouse construction. The […]

The Solid Waste Advisory Commission has recommended that the Austin City Council find a way to split the city’s single stream residential recycling contract between Balcones Recycling and Texas Disposal Systems. Its suggestion, which the Council can choose to ignore when it considers the matter on Thursday, is contingent on the Solid Waste Services Department’s […]

What started as a fairly bland presentation of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority’s fiscal year 2011 report turned quickly into a discussion of regional transportation options last week at the Travis County Commissioners Court.   CTRMA Executive Director Mike Heiligenstein reported that the Manor Expressway effort – an east-reaching, tolled stretch of US 290 that will […]

The Travis County Commissioners’ Court spent nearly four hours listening to testimony about a proposal to cut county tax benefits associated with historic zoning on Thursday. The room, initially standing-room only, produced mostly historic property owners concerned about what the loss of their abatements might mean both personally and for the region as a whole. […]

The Travis County Commissioners’ Court got a rare bit of (relatively) good budget news at its meeting on Tuesday. According to staff, the latest version of the Texas House’s budget bill would save the county roughly $2 million over a previous edition of the legislation. However, that figure still leaves county officials to deal with […]

A split has emerged on the Travis County Commissioners Court about how to proceed with the initial stages of construction for the future Travis Civil and Family Courthouse.   Two commissioners – Pct. 3’s Karen Huber and Pct. 4’s Margaret Gomez – are concerned about proceeding too quickly with the project. Their worries stem from […]

The Travis County Commissioners Court appears poised to take some kind of action over the issue of floating habitable structures on Lake Travis. Though the Lower Colorado River Authority has already voted to place a moratorium on such buildings along the highland lakes, the court seems ready to do something more permanent.   “If these […]