City Council met in work session Monday and will hold its regular Council meeting on Wednesday instead of Thursday this week. A city spokesperson told the Austin Monitor that Mayor Steve Adler and City Clerk Jannette Goodall had conflicting events on Thursday. Council will meet in a joint session with the Travis County Commissioners Court today at 9 a.m. to hear a briefing on efforts to fight the Covid-19 virus. Then they will meet at 10 a.m. Thursday to talk about numerous items, many of which relate to finding housing for the city’s homeless population or awarding grants and contracts in response to the economic crisis brought on by the pandemic. One item on Monday’s agenda that the mayor summarily postponed to Wednesday was electing a new mayor pro tem. Council Member Greg Casar announced his interest first, followed by Council Member Alison Alter and finally Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison. Council Member Paige Ellis argued that a woman should have the job, and Casar said he would support a woman from the Eastern Crescent. The Monitor has heard that Harper-Madison and Alter are working out a resolution so their colleagues will not have to choose between them. On Monday, District 6 Council Member Mackenzie Kelly, like her predecessors in that seat, had a lot of questions about the purchase of a property at 10811 Pecan Park Blvd. that the city intends to use for housing previously homeless people. It seems likely the item will be postponed to the Feb. 4 agenda.

The first eight members of the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission, which is tasked with redrawing the boundaries of the 10 City Council districts for the 2022 election, have been selected by City Auditor Corrie Stokes via a random drawing. The eight members are Prabhu Kannan, Brigham Morris, Errol Hardin, Eugene Schneider, Erin Dempsey, Luis Gonzalez, Dr. Sterling Lands and Hoang Le. Now that the first eight members are seated, those members will conduct a process to select the remaining six members of the commission for a total of 14 members. Stokes said in a news release about the selection, “I’d like to thank all applicants for both the panel and the commission. Active citizenry is one of the things that makes Austin a great place to live and I appreciate the time and effort everyone took to apply to both of these important city bodies.”

As part of Austin’s LGBTQIA+ Quality of Life Study, the city has launched a community survey to “help inform the city and its LGBTQ Quality of Life Advisory Commission about the quality of life of Austin’s LGBTQIA+ communities.” The survey is designed to “provide a better understanding of the community’s strengths and diversity, as well as more effectively advocate for its specific needs” as well as “serve as a historical snapshot of the LGBTQIA+ community in Austin, a population with no official historical documentation among city archives to date.” The anonymous survey takes about 25-30 minutes to complete and runs through April 30. Take the survey at shoutoutaustin.org.

The Austin Transportation Department is set to begin work this month on interim improvements to the Longhorn Dam bridge. The construction, taking place on South Pleasant Valley Road (Cesar Chavez Street to Elmont Drive), will “reconfigure the street space over the bridge to a single northbound traffic lane and two southbound lanes between the south Krieg Field entrance and Canterbury Street, with multiple new dedicated left turn lanes.” According to the department’s announcement, “The changes will provide better separation between people driving and people walking and riding bikes on South Pleasant Valley Road” and will “provide significant near-term safety benefits as substantial design work begins on the new ‘wishbone’ bicycle and pedestrian bridge over Lady Bird Lake.” To find out more details about the project, view a map of the project design.

Cyclists and pedestrians will be happy to hear that the Cherrywood Neighborhood Bikeways project, which is designed to connect the All Ages and Abilities Bicycle Network between Interstate 35, Airport Boulevard and East 38th ½ Street, is moving forward. According to Austin Transportation, the design includes “new pavement markings (‘sharrows’) to alert people driving to expect people bicycling, improvements for crossing I-35 near Wilshire Boulevard by foot and by bike, new wayfinding signs to guide people bicycling, speed reduction devices, and new rain gardens.” The project will begin this spring and will be completed in phases.

The city is conducting geotechnical studies as part of its preliminary report for the Redbud Trail Bridge roadway and bridge project. According to the city, “The work will provide important design information for future bridge foundations.” During the study, lanes will be closed near the Redbud Trail Bridge for three weeks, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. on weekdays. (Red Bud Isle Park will still be accessible.) The road closure will occur in three phases: Lane closures from Lake Austin Boulevard to Red Bud Isle Park, Jan. 25-29; westbound lane closure from Red Bud Isle to Stratford Lane, Feb. 1-5; and shoulder closure and lane shift near Stratford Lane, Feb. 8-11. Find more details at the project website.

A coalition of groups favoring City Council’s decision to reallocate money from the Austin Police Department budget is gathering signatures on a petition to show support for actions such as delaying police cadet classes and eliminating vacant police officer positions. The coalition, operating under the name Austin Is Safer When, is also planning to oppose reinstatement of the ordinance prohibiting camping in public places. Chas Moore of the Austin Justice Coalition told the Austin Monitor the coalition plans to campaign against the Save Austin Now effort. Save Austin Now turned in more than 20,000 signatures to City Clerk Jannette Goodall this week to place the issue on the May ballot. Groups opposing that effort include the Texas Fair Defense Project, Austin Justice Coalition, Just Liberty, Texas Appleseed, the Survivor Justice Project, the Workers Defense Project and Measure, working under the auspices of the Action Network to defend decisions made by Council last summer under the umbrella of Reimagining Public Safety. According to the Austin Is Safer When website, “I know that Austin is already one of the safest cities in America, but #AustinIsSaferWhen we respect all our communities and address each crisis with an appropriate solution. I know that, despite persistent misinformation, Austin didn’t cut $150 million from the budget or layoff officers. The Austin City Council launched a #ReimagineATX public safety process and took a good first step by moving $21 million from the police budget to fund alternative first responders and services for people in need. If city officials hold to their commitments, #ReimagineATX will make us even safer with each step forward.”

This Saturday, Austin will be one step closer to its new City Council districts. This is the first time the city’s districts have been changed since they were established by the 2012 City Charter amendment that created single-member districts. City Auditor Corrie Stokes will conduct a random drawing to select the first eight members of the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission. Stokes will be selecting from a pool of 60 determined by a (‘nother randomly selected) three-member Applicant Review Panel. The remaining six members of the redistricting commission will be selected by the eight commissioners established Saturday. A list of the possible members, the demographic breakdown of applicants and all sorts of other information can be found at redistrictatx.org. Saturday’s drawing can be viewed on ATXN or Facebook Live.

The saga of the Morrow Pork Chop has officially come to an end. On Thursday, the city demolished the chop, which has stood in the way of traffic from east of Lamar on Morrow for three decades and was a source of neighborhood tension almost as long. Originally, the traffic-calming device was installed during construction of U.S. Highway 183 to deter people from cutting through the neighborhood in an effort to avoid the construction. When it remained in place, however, some saw it as physical confirmation of the economic segregation between neighborhoods. This reading was particularly apt in that, while the pork chop prevented traffic coming from the east, it did not similarly impede traffic from the west. A press release from District 4 Council Member Greg Casar celebrated the demise of the chop. “It’s time that our city be connected from east to west,” said Casar. “This barrier has served as a symbol of a more segregated past. Even though this is just a piece of concrete, demolishing it sends a message that Austin can be committed to being more inclusive moving forward.”

Farewell, @MorrowPorkChop! pic.twitter.com/cl0CxU37f0

— Gregorio Casar (@GregCasar) January 21, 2021

The City Council Audit and Finance Committee decided at Wednesday’s meeting not to recommend a name change for the city’s Airport Advisory Commission on the recommendation of city staffers. The commission had asked to change the group’s name to Austin Airport Advisory Board, but City Clerk Jannette Goodall told committee members that changing the name in a multitude of city documents would be a considerable amount of work and she could not recommend it. She did, however, recommend some other changes to the ordinance governing the commission’s duties. Commission Chair Eugene Sepulveda appeared before the committee at its virtual meeting to explain the request. He said when commissioners attend national meetings of airport advisory boards, people who serve in that capacity from other cities question whether Austin’s airport commissioners are actually peers. Council Member Kathie Tovo said she didn’t know commissioners were attending such meetings and listed a number of other cities that have airport advisory commissions, including San Francisco. Sepulveda later told the Austin Monitor that the important part of the commission’s request was for changes in the bylaws because the group is operating on outdated language. “What we most wanted to do was update and have Council consensus about what we see as our jobs,” he said. Council Member Alison Alter, who chairs the committee, said Austin uses the word “board” to describe sovereign bodies, such as the Board of Adjustment, and said she would oppose changing the name. The committee voted unanimously to send the requests to the full Council without a recommendation.

Austin Public Health’s Covid-19 surveillance dashboard has been modified to display daily updates on the number of patients admitted to the alternate care site established at the Austin Convention Center. According to a news release from APH, “Patients currently admitted to the ACS are also included in the total number hospitalized and the daily number of admissions. Similar to patients admitted to the ICU and those on a ventilator, ACS patients will be a subset of the total population that is hospitalized. Patients arriving at the ACS will be counted as discharged from a hospital, which will have little impact on our daily admission numbers.” The ACS is intended for Covid-19 patients who require a “lower level of care.” Very sick patients are still being cared for at area hospitals. The dashboard is updated each day at 6 p.m.

The Parks and Recreation Department is starting the next phase of the expansion plan for the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center. The funding includes “general renovations to the existing building, as well as building out the original crescent design to provide additional amenities. Phase 2 also addresses numerous site improvements, most notably the Gran Entrada, which provides a park-like entry from Rainey Street to the ESB-MACC.” The project team is reaching out to the community in a bid for feedback “to identify the most pressing needs that can be achieved with the available funds.” Leave your two cents on the SpeakUp Austin ESB-MACC page through Feb. 7. Check out the project website for more details about the makeover and the design process.