Kathie Tovo, who served on City Council from 2012 to 2023, including four years as mayor pro tem, is running for mayor – and she’s not shy about explaining why she wants to replace Mayor Kirk Watson. At her campaign kickoff party Wednesday night at a crowded El Mercado Restaurant in South Austin, Tovo told […]
Kathie Tovo
First elected under the former at-large system of Austin City Council, Tovo currently represents District 9.
Posted inElections
Tovo announces run for mayor
Former City Council Member Kathie Tovo announced Thursday that she is running for mayor this year, a move that will inject a little adrenaline into the race featuring incumbent Mayor Kirk Watson. Tovo served as an at-large council member from 2011 to 2015 and as a representative of District 9 from 2015 to 2023. She […]
Posted inCity Council
Tovo considers changes and challenges after 11 years on Council
After more than a decade on Austin City Council, Kathie Tovo’s view on the nature of elected life is that plenty of day-one priorities and worries for new Council members are likely to remain top concerns for years to come. Take housing availability and homelessness, for example. Tovo thinks back to when these two hot-button […]
Posted inEnergy
Workers demand labor protections at Austin Energy base rate rally
It was an unusually lively morning outside Austin Energy Headquarters last Saturday, as a coalition of workers, environmentalists and community leaders gathered to air their grievances with the publicly owned utility. With a potential increase to residential rates on the horizon, the Texas Climate Jobs Action Fund led the diverse group of unions and civic […]
Posted inCity Council
Tovo ‘strongly considering’ a run for mayor in 2022
As Council Member Kathie Tovo enters her last year as District 9 representative, she sat down with the Austin Monitor to discuss what she hopes to accomplish in 2022, including a potential run for mayor and how she responded to the considerable challenges of 2021. While Tovo, who was first elected in 2011, said 2020 […]
Posted inCity Council
Kathie Tovo: A ‘completely unexpected’ year
For Kathie Tovo, who has been on Austin City Council since 2011, 2020 was a year like no other. Tovo told the Austin Monitor that she’s most proud of some of the work she did on the city’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. She pointed to a resolution to expand eligibility criteria for utility assistance shortly […]
Posted inCity Council
Council OKs Palm School, convention center ideas
In a stunning victory for Mayor Steve Adler and Council Member Kathie Tovo, the Austin City Council on Thursday unanimously approved a 27-page resolution directing city staff to gather all the information necessary to move forward with an extensive renovation and expansion of the convention center as well as preservation of an important part of […]
Posted inPlanning
City eyes Palm School, bigger convention center
City Council Member Kathie Tovo, with assistance from Mayor Steve Adler, has produced a 23-page resolution outlining Council’s desire to create a plan for the southeast part of downtown, including use of the Palm School for cultural programming and expansion of the city’s convention center. The resolution is set for consideration on Council’s May 23 […]
Posted inCity Council
Tovo to keep focus on housing, homelessness issues in 2019
Questions of where and how people live in Austin – specifically in District 9 – remained a front-of-mind issue for Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo in 2018. Whether she was on the City Council dais or involved in campaign events ahead of her successful re-election in November, Tovo said a combination of displacement, homelessness, affordability, […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Contact
H2Oh no… Like country rubes dazzled by the mystic arts of the boardwalk illusionist, sometimes we journalists are so awestruck by an apparent attempt at math that we lose all professional incredulity and report it with gushing deference. Such it was then that when Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea recently told a gaggle of reporters […]
Posted inAustin
Homelessness action report calls for doubling spending
If Austin wants to get serious about ending homelessness, it needs to spend about twice as much on the variety of programs that currently serve the more than 2,000 people living on the streets. That’s according to an action plan endorsed by the Membership Council of the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition, which is chaired by […]
Posted inCity Council
Tovo keeps chipping away
Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo came prepared with folders of articles for her look back on 2017. Immediately, she notes that this year’s progress looks a lot like last year’s, but there is a reason for that. Her focus has remained on the issues that are closest to her heart: housing and homelessness. “I’ve made […]