Nina Hernandez

One of the options for expanding the Austin Convention Center would incorporate the old Palm School campus into the project. The convention center is 25 years old and has been in need of more square footage for some time. The Palm School was an elementary and high school from 1902 to 1980, and before that, […]

Today, City Council marks the 10-year anniversary of the Climate Protection Resolution, which solidified Austin’s commitment to fighting climate change. Since then, the city has reduced its municipal greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent. Austin Energy’s supply came from a measly 4 percent renewables. Currently that number is 31 percent, and it’s on the way […]

The city’s Parks and Recreation Department is already preparing for the summer swim season by hosting a lifeguard job fair today from 4-8 p.m. at the Virginia L. Brown Recreation Center, 7500 Blessing Ave. PARD’s Aquatic & Nature Based Programs Division has 650 lifeguard slots to fill each year, and Thursday’s hiring day is already […]

The city is working on a study to design routes for vehicles that transport nonradioactive hazardous materials across the state. Those materials can include substances like gasoline, chlorine and propane. Community members with opinions can attend an open house on Tuesday, Feb. 21, from 5-7 p.m. at the Terrazas Branch Public Library, 1105 E. Cesar […]

A local lobbying group called Texas Appleseed is conducting a survey on housing equity in Austin. Texas Appleseed calls itself a “public interest justice center” with a focus on criminal justice, the school-to-prison pipeline, fair financial services, disaster recovery and fair housing. According to the survey, the objective is to learn about Austinites’ “housing needs […]

The Austin Animal Center had a record-breaking month in January, saving the lives of 99.2 percent of dogs and 97 percent of cats that had entered the shelter. This news comes just a month before the city’s Animal Services Department celebrates the sixth-year anniversary of its no-kill policy. One thing that helps facilitate Austin’s no-kill […]

District 2 City Council Member Delia Garza will host a town hall on the city’s land use code rewrite on Wednesday, February 22, at the Learning and Research Center at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, 2800 Spirit of Texas Drive. Starting at 6:30 p.m., Garza will provide more information about CodeNEXT, give an update on Parks […]

The city welcomes the woman sometimes known as the “Priestess of Waste-free Living,” Bea Johnson, to discuss how her family dedicated themselves to a zero-waste lifestyle. Since 2008, her family’s philosophy has been refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and rot – and it paid off. Johnson reports that her four-person family generated a “mere pint of […]

In order to save wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity is gifting 10 U.S. cities 4,000 condoms each for Valentine’s Day this year. Austin infamously topped a Men’s Health Magazine list of the most “sex-obsessed” cities in America and will therefore receive a share of the 40,000 complimentary condoms from the Arizona-based organization. The center […]

Barton Springs Pool will be closed next week (Feb. 13-Feb. 20) so that crews can continue work on the Eliza Spring Daylighting Project. The project is an effort to improve the habitat for the Barton Springs and Austin Blind salamanders that live there. In order to fix a failing pipe in the north lawn, crews […]

The city of Austin will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony next Saturday, Feb. 18, to mark the Levander Loop site of the Texas Blind, Deaf and Orphan School for Colored Youth as historical. The school operated from the late 1880s until 1965, when it was combined with the Texas School for the Deaf, and the city […]

The Travis County Constable’s Office will host a press conference on Friday, Feb. 10, to kick off this year’s Great Texas Warrant Roundup. During the roundup, 300 jurisdictions across the state make a concentrated effort to serve traffic, parking, city ordinance, penal code and other, higher-charge warrants. Notices have already been sent out, and officials […]