This week brought the depressing news that monarch butterflies are now an endangered species, with estimates that their population has declined between 22 percent and 72 percent over the past decade (depending on how it is measured). Those looking for a way to help are encouraged to add native, butterfly-friendly plants to their landscapes and native milkweed, which is crucial to the monarch life cycle. The butterflies lay their eggs on Texas milkweeds during their spring migration north. More information about milkweed cultivation in Central Texas can be found at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center’s Project Milkweed.

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes will host a District 2 meeting to discuss the upcoming adoption of the city budget tonight. The meeting, which is aimed at garnering feedback on budget priorities from constituents, will take place 6-7:30 p.m. at the Southeast Branch of the Austin Public Library. Spanish interpretation, food and drink will all be available to attendees, who can register here to RSVP.

In a letter to City Council from President Linda Jackson, Preservation Austin is urging Council to allocate $300,000 in order to fund the next phase of the city’s Equity-Based Historic Preservation Plan. The letter notes that the city has not had a new historic preservation plan in 40 years, and the “need for a strong, community-oriented vision for preservation in Austin has never been greater.” Underlining that point, Preservation Austin points to its own research that shows residential demolitions rose 130 percent between 2010 and the end of 2021, from 271 to 622 annual demolitions. “(W)e support the Plan’s new approach to preservation, one that reflects twenty-first century values while honoring diverse histories of our past, that encourages investment in historic resources both for their inherent value and because doing so aligns with broader goals of building a more affordable, equitable, and sustainable city,” writes Jackson. The city’s budget process is currently underway, with public meetings to be held on July 27 and Aug. 2, in addition to district-specific meetings in districts 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 and 10 before a budget adoption by City Council that is scheduled for Aug. 17. More information about the city’s budget process and how to weigh in can be found on the city’s website.

How dry is it? A July 20 update from the Barton Springs/Edwards Aquifer Conservation District reports that the Texas Hill Country has seen six inches less than the average yearly rainfall, with conditions expected to worsen. According to the update, water levels in the Edwards Aquifer began to decline mid-March, and the Trinity quickly followed, with declining levels starting in early April. Looking ahead, La Niña means we can expect continued high heat and low rainfall totals, and the district says that if drought conditions worsen, aquifers could drop below historic lows.

Monthly deviation from average and monthly total rainfall in BSEACD territory

Currently, the region is in Stage 2 Alarm Drought, and the district is encouraging continued conservation, with the understanding that they could enter Stage 3 Critical Drought if conditions continue to worsen. The district has also launched a drought information page that will be frequently updated.

During the recent July 4 holiday “season,” the Austin Police Department arrested 141 people for driving while intoxicated. The DWI Enforcement Initiative took place from June 24 until July 11 during an extended “no refusal period” that allowed police to apply blood search warrants to suspects that refuse to submit to blood or breath tests when asked. The initiative, which is invoked periodically throughout the year, is intended to enforce DWI laws.

Delivering on a promise to do more outreach on the topic, City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly will be holding a virtual community meeting today about the potential return of license plate readers. The city’s License Plate Reader Program was cut in 2020 as part of the process to “reimagine public safety.” Austin police say that the readers are invaluable to their operations and they would like to see them back. However, criminal justice reform leaders and privacy advocates have concerns about the way they are used and the data they collect. Those wishing to join the meeting, which will take place at 5:00 p.m., can access it at this link, using the password “COAapd” and the event number 2485 475 9492. Kelly and representatives from the Austin Police Department will be in attendance.

Kimberly Hawkins entered the City Council District 8 race with the filing of a campaign treasurer appointment on July 11. She was not required to file a campaign finance report last week because she joined the race after the filing deadline and she has chosen a modified reporting option by promising not to collect or spend more than $940. Hawkins told the Austin Monitor that the incumbent, Paige Ellis, has not been responsive to her constituents. She added that she and her friends are tired of watching “Austin being overrun with real estate development” and complained about the high cost of living in the city. Suzanne “Zena” Mitchell, who goes by Zena, is a recent addition to the District 9 list of candidates. She said her campaign “is about people over profits,” and that her major concern is that Austin is not affordable anymore. She lives in the Mueller neighborhood. Like Hawkins, Mitchell signed the pledge to collect and spend no more than $940 on her campaign.

Though there’s technically a week left in their summer hiatus, City Council will convene Thursday for a special called meeting that is centered on the city’s reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. On the City Council agenda is the GRACE Act, which establishes the city will not fund tracking or reporting abortions or reproductive health care, including criminal investigation and enforcement of abortion laws. The proposed resolution also declares the city will not “(p)rovide information to any other governmental body or agency about any abortion, miscarriage, or other reproductive healthcare act, unless such information is provided to defend the patient’s right to abortion care or the healthcare provider’s right to provide that care.” In line with that resolution, Council will also consider a separate resolution that looks at the city’s abilities to sponsor public education about birth control and provide low-cost birth control options for employees. Council will vote on another resolution that looks into the feasibility of providing city employees “access to reproductive health care services that were previously available to them but no longer lawfully available in the state of Texas as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in the case involving abortion rights.” Online registration to speak at the meeting opens at 10:00 a.m. today, and closes at noon on Wednesday. In-person registration to speak runs from noon on Wednesday until 9:15 a.m. on the day of the meeting in the City Hall atrium.

The Austin Transit Partnership is currently looking to fill a vacancy on its board. Specifically, the board is looking for an expert in “community planning or sustainability” to help guide the Project Connect transit overhaul and to serve as board liaison to the Planning, Sustainability, Equity and DBE Advisory Committee (PSEC). According to the group’s bylaws, applicants should have:

• At least 10 years of experience in urban planning, community planning, equitable transit-oriented development (ETOD), sustainability and/or environmental planning;
• Experience with community engagement with preferably three to five years of specific experience; and
• Community expert members of the ATP board must be a resident of Austin.

With that in mind, the nominating committee also considers diversity and “an applicant’s ability to consider wholly Project Connect’s benefits and potential impacts, particularly on vulnerable communities aimed to be served by transit” when evaluating those who do not meet the above criteria. More information about the position and the application process can be found here.

Today is the first campaign finance reporting deadline for candidates running to serve on Austin City Council. On Thursday, mayoral candidate Kirk Watson was ready with the announcement that his campaign had raised a record-breaking $995,000 since declaring his intention to run in late February. The record was previously held by Mayor Steve Adler’s 2014 campaign, which raised an unprecedented total of about $366,000 during the first reporting period. (Adler’s 2014 campaign went on to raise more than $1.5 million.) Meanwhile, conservative challenger Jennifer Virden reported raising $84,506.54 since the start of this year and loaning her campaign $300,000. As of Thursday night, no other mayoral candidates had filed their paperwork on the city website. On Monday, we’ll break down the money raised in the races for mayor and districts 1, 3, 5, 8 and 9.

The latest census of the city’s music industry and ecosystem opened today and will gather input from musicians and others involved in live and recorded music until Aug. 15. The Greater Austin Area Music Census, at austinmusiccensus.org, will be used to help make policy decisions related to affordability and other issues affecting the industry. The initial version of the census released in 2014 found that a large number of local musicians and creatives earn less than poverty-level income from their performances and recording activities. In the years since, local leaders have crafted programs to try to improve musicians’ earning power and quality of life. More than 50 community organizations connected to music and the arts have agreed to help publicize and gather input on the 2022 census, with the goal of gathering more than the roughly 4,000 responses received in the previous iteration.

It’s official: Monkeypox has now progressed to community spread. That sounds pretty bad, but all it really means is that the virus “is moving at such a rate that the source cannot be identified to a single individual or population,” says Austin Public Health. There are six confirmed and seven presumptive cases of monkeypox in Austin-Travis County and the health agency is working hard to get the word out in an effort to educate the public on the steps people can take to protect themselves. Chief among those steps is avoiding skin-to-skin contact with strangers. County Health Authority Dr. Desmar Walkes notes that the practices we’ve learned from Covid-19 will also come in handy to avoid contracting monkeypox: “Try to reduce close, intimate interactions with those whose health history you’re unaware of,” she said. “Use hand sanitizer, and wear masks when in close quarters with others who have symptoms.” The latest local news on monkeypox is updated online every Thursday.