Michael Kanin

Four Austin Water Utility division managers have been demoted because they failed to pass a state test required to hold their positions. AWU Director Greg Meszaros announced the demotions in an email to all utility employees on Tuesday.   The four workers – Lonnie Turner, Marco Salinas, John Muraida, and Nowell Mojica – had been […]

Activist John Bush has started an anonymous-contributor fundraising effort to finance political signs denigrating City Council Place 3 incumbent Randi Shade. Bush, who is executive director of Texans for Accountable Government, insists that, because members of the group behind the potential signs are acting as individuals they are not subject to Texas campaign finance laws […]

After two weeks of forums, the candidates for the Place 3 seat on the Austin City Council have certainly honed their campaign rhetoric, a fact on display at the League of Women Voters debate last Friday.   The candidates – incumbent Randi Shade, former Planning Commission Member Kathie Tovo, former Council Member Max Nofziger, and […]

Council Member Bill Spelman raised concerns at Thursday’s Council meeting about the pending economic development agreement between the city and online auction site eBay.   Austin’s Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services Office predicts that the deal will net the city $3.1 million in direct commerce over 10 years. That figure includes the projected costs of […]

Council members delayed a vote Thursday on changes to the city’s Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure ordinance. The move came as Mayor Lee Leffingwell called for “further analysis” of a set of recommendations made by the Austin Apartment Association.   New language in the city code would extend the audits – which are designed to […]

On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court approved a set of construction permits for a Lakeway-area marina. The move came with some hesitation on the part of the court, which lamented its inability to dictate land use in its jurisdiction.   Pct. 2 Commissioner Sarah Eckhardt offered a familiar refrain. “We don’t have the authority […]

Officials with the city’s three public safety entities are concerned that cuts at the federal level may impact their ability to collect grant money for fiscal year 2012. Austin’s Police, Fire, and EMS departments talked about those issues before the city’s Public Safety Commission last month.   That discussion continued at this week’s meeting. There, […]

The deliberations of Travis County’s Local Tax Policy Working Group have produced a series of recommendations that, if enacted, would change the way the county issues tax exemptions for historic properties. Their suggestions include a call for a $75,000 across the board historic tax exemption for 2011, a 10-year limit to the length of time […]

Bob Gedert, the director of the City of Austin’s Solid Waste Services Department, has told members of the Austin City Council that the overall costs of its residential single stream recycling program “will not be completely offset by the revenue we get from the material.”    That statement came as part of a memo sent […]

Texas Disposal Systems continues to challenge the validity of the City of Austin’s conclusions about the costs of two potential versions of a contract to handle the city’s single stream residential recycling. The firm’s latest concerns stem from the commodities market calculations that staff used to determine both the pricing of both TDS and its […]

Austin Police, along with other local and federal agencies, announced the arrest of some 30 suspected gang members Thursday following a yearlong investigation into their activities in Central Texas. Many of them are suspected to have links to drug gangs from Mexico. There are outstanding warrants for nine additional suspects.   Police officials say they […]

Austin Police Monitor Margo Frasier thinks that the Austin Police Department could do a better job of identifying problematic behavior in its officers. The head of the police officers’ union agrees.   In the closing section of her department’s most recent update, Frasier’s team calls for the implementation of a systematic analysis broadly termed by […]