More here, more to come… On Friday, the Austin Monitor broke the story about a series of disturbing complaints at the city’s Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department. As astute readers might have guessed, we weren’t able to include all of the details that we read and anticipate writing about in the future. Not every […]
Reporters’ Notebook
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Kitten tsunami
Ignorance and arrogance… In her bid to stall the creation of the WildHorse Ranch public improvement district, City Council Member Ora Houston found support this weekend from none other than the Austin American-Statesman. The editorial board of the Lady Bird Lake real estate concern on Sunday published a piece accusing Travis County officials of “ignorance […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: TNC (and TNC-adjacent) battles continue
We’re here for your posts… If you checked out of the news over the weekend, the Austin Monitor has your back. Late Friday afternoon, the city’s Transportation Department attempted to enter the Matrix and track down the Facebook group for the listing service Arcade City. Unfortunately, it did so at the Capital Factory co-working space. It […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Can’t lose
Clear eyes, full hearts and… a sled… Mayor Steve Adler is hip with youth culture and he’s not afraid to show it. Last week, Hizzoner unleashed a small tweetstorm that focused on local music culture and also featured GIFs borrowed from every millennial’s favorite television series, Friday Night Lights. “Not only is music related to who […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s notebook: On sucking eggs
The etymology of egg-sucking… Trust us when we say that a lot of work goes on behind the scenes to bring our readers their daily Austin Monitor. And a lot of that work is done by our invaluable, East Coast-based proofreader, Tricia Olszewski, who, though a master of the English language, is occasionally baffled by […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: It’s about mobility, apparently
Pods, people… City Council’s ongoing discussion about potentially visiting upon voters this November a massive mobility bond has drawn from the woodwork advocates of just about every different mode of transportation. A public hearing during last Tuesday’s Mobility Committee meeting saw more than 30 different speakers attempting to impress upon Council members the need to […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Cactus Rose, mobility plans and… Benghazi?
Communicant bounced from “kangaroo court”…Something unusual happened at Travis County Commissioners Court last week. For the first time in months, the weekly segment of the agenda set aside for public communications was actually taken advantage of by residents with specific county-related concerns. The room was filled with palpable awe when, one after another, three separate […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: True Facts
Über Uber… Avid Whispers readers will note that, last week, we reported on an erroneous Uber claim that the Circuit of the Americas racetrack was outside of the Austin City Limits and drivers “could earn BIG” by driving people to and from the X Games. Of course, the city annexed the track in 2012, making […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Coming around
I told you so… City Council Member Don Zimmerman may not get his Council colleagues to embrace his libertarian beliefs, but he appears hopeful that there may be a day when they view city staff with as much suspicion as he does. On Thursday, Zimmerman posted a video excerpt of a recent meeting of the Council […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Chasing geese
Endless election… A quick survey of social media reveals that even more than a week after Prop 1’s landslide defeat, feelings are still a little tender over the fact that Uber and Lyft picked up their apps and left town. Mayor Steve Adler’s social media team, in violation of one of the oldest laws of the […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Hi. It’s the Monitor.
Colossal clash of titans on Twitter… Even as the entire city of Austin is deep into the febrile delirium of a bitterly contested election that will determine the fate of several lines of city code, one can usually rely on the sanguine shores of social media to provide reasoned, measured and mature discussion of local […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Could it be … Satan?
The devil is in the details… It may be a while before City Council members are willing to accept amendments offered to their resolutions by Council Member Don Zimmerman, no matter how inoffensive they appear at first glance. On Thursday, a discussion over a symbolic resolution to declare Austin a “compassionate community” was prolonged significantly […]