Austin, Monitored: Ladies and gentlemen, we have an editor-in-chief

Melissa Barragán Taboada to lead new Austin newsroom

We are excited to announce that Melissa Barragán Taboada will be the inaugural editor-in-chief for our new, expanded local newsroom launching this fall. 

“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to help launch this newsroom and to be part of building a community-centered publication from the ground up,” Melissa said about her new role. “Austin is home — it’s where we raised our sons, built lasting roots, and where my heart has always been. I want to live and serve in the city I love.”

Data issues cause city to dismiss downtown shelters operator

From Chad Swiatecki:

The city will not renew its contract with Urban Alchemy to manage two key downtown homeless shelters following the discovery of improper data handling by the nonprofit’s staff. The Homeless Strategy Office confirmed the contract will end on Sept. 30 and that another service provider, Endeavors, will assume operations under an emergency contract.

According to a memo dated Sept. 15, the decision was made after Urban Alchemy staff were found to have “improperly, and without permission, misrepresented Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) exit dates and records.” Although the data was later corrected, the city characterized the breach as serious enough to warrant an immediate end to the relationship.

Planning Commission elects new officers (again)

The Planning Commission held officer elections during their September 9 meeting, choosing a new chair for the third time this year. Previous elections in April and, most recently, in August led to the brief, successive chair-ships of former Commissioner Awais Azhar and veteran Commissioner Greg Anderson. In this latest vote, Anderson handed over the job to erstwhile Vice Chair Alice Woods by voting “aye” along with the rest of the commission on a slate that also installed former Parliamentarian Casey Haney in Woods’ vacated role as vice chair and junior Commissioner Imad Ahmed to fill Haney’s vacated role as parliamentarian. Commissioner Felicity Maxwell will continue serving as secretary.

— Miles Wall

From the Urban Transportation Commission: Capital Metro’s ten-year plan

The Urban Transportation Commission heard several discussion items during their September 2 meeting, a few of them on topics that we think our dear readers may find interesting. Here’s a recap of one: a presentation from the Capitol Metro’s Lawrence Deeter on the agency’s Transit Plan 2035.

This is the latest iteration of the plan, which serves as a “vision” and a “roadmap” for the entire system and is generally updated every five years. Deeter described how the agency updates the plan through a multi-phase process that includes a comprehensive review of the available data and several rounds of community engagement, which he said has so far resulted in over 8,000 conversations with area residents and other stakeholders.

“We have lots of material to go over,” Deeter said.

The agency hopes to finish all of that “going over” during a development and adoption phase and plans to submit a final draft version for approval this fall. Themes of the recommendations likely to appear in the plan so far include “aligning (service) with travel patterns,” “preparing for high-capacity transit and Project Connect,” and “exploring regional expansion,” according to the presentation.

The presentation also offered some more detailed expectations, divided between the next five years and the next five-plus years. In the nearer-term, those include improvements like improved service for the 800 and 837 rapid bus routes as well as adding route 350 to the high-frequency network.

Expected near-term improvements for light rail include later service on weekdays, earlier service on Saturdays and increased hours of operation.

The longer-term outlook is more expansive, with multiple route changes, new rapid lines, more high-frequency lines, changes to pickup zones and more, built around the expected introduction of Project Connect’s light rail component, Austin Light Rail. Despite runaway costs, delays, lawsuits and a potentially hostile federal Department of Transportation the city seems set to move ahead with eventually building that train system.

Deeter noted that the plan would not effect any service changes by itself, and that actually implementing the expected measures would need to be accomplished individually. He also noted that another of the agency’s priorities for the next five years was “budgeting responsibly.”

“It is very important, when talking about these proposals, that everyone remembers where CapMetro’s funding comes from,” Deeter said. “We are sales tax funded, and sales tax has not grown as fast as it used to.”

Readers interested in the details of the (draft) plan can look to the landing page for the plan on the agency’s website, which includes links forFAQs and a “route matrix” listing every existing route and any changes being considered in the plan. We’ve gone ahead and added those links for you, but it’s still worth checking out the website!

— Miles Wall

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Elsewhere in the News

Travis County is raising taxes to help pay for flood relief. They have also signed off on Central Health’s plan for higher taxes. KUT has the story

The woman shot by Brandon Thompson during a confrontation with police near Zilker Park has died.

Community Impact explains a $12 million city plan to expand partnerships with higher education.

The paper also looks at the potential impact of the homeless services hub from Sunrise Church to East Oltorf.

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This newsletter has been corrected to clarify that the Broadmoor Stateion is not part of the future light rail project.

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