Can Council members invite members of the public into an Austin City Council executive session? No they cannot. “That is not possible,” said Acting City Attorney Anne Morgan. “The executive session is to have an attorney-client conversation, and it’s privileged conversation. There are some rules that guide that.” That concise answer was spurred by a request from Council Member Don Zimmerman who was first rebuffed when he asked to have Austin Firefighters Association president Bob Nicks join the executive session. He got a similar response when he asked about the more general, hypothetical possibility of Council bringing “anybody of their own volition, or any experts they have.”

After hearing complaints about the late addition to today’s City Council agenda of his proposal to use private foundation money to hire additional staff, Mayor Steve Adler has decided to slow down. There were certainly rumblings around City Hall about insufficient time and consideration of the item, which authorizes the city manager to enter into an agreement with the Mayor’s Better Austin Foundation Inc. Council Member Don Zimmerman had even suggested that the proposal be sent to the new Council Audit and Finance Committee. The chair of that committee, Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo, told the Monitor, “I would definitely support, and I think there’s a lot of interest out there in the community to have more vetting of this.” However, she said she did not know whether her committee was the appropriate place for that discussion. “I am definitely hearing concerns from constituents that they want to be able to talk about it more,” Tovo said. One of those concerns, she said, is that the mayor would have a much larger staff than any of the 10 district Council members. So it was not surprising Wednesday afternoon to see that the mayor’s chief of staff, John Michael Cortez, had posted an item on the Council bulletin board noting that the mayor had pulled the item for discussion, adding, “And we hope to have a robust discussion and address all questions and concerns. After the discussion, the mayor intends to move to postpone action on the item to our next meeting, so that further discussion may be had.” Adler also sent a letter to his supporters last night, which said in part, “The Mayor’s Better Austin Foundation will vet and disclose all donors. No money will be accepted from lobbyists, individuals or entities with business in front of the council, or any group or individual that has been involved in legal action with the city. The Community Cabinet will be subject to all of the same laws and restrictions that regular high-level city staff must abide by, including filing financial disclosure and conflict of interest forms. It is of the utmost importance that this process is done ethically and with the highest level of transparency possible.”

When City Council Member Delia Garza proposed an amendment to the resolution seeking information on the impact of a 20 percent homestead exemption, she noted that more than half of Austin residents are renters, and she wants to know how that might affect people in each district. Housing Works Austin has crunched the numbers, and according to its data, 52 percent of the people in Garza’s district are homeowners. However, only 26.4 percent in Council Member Pio Renteria’s District 3 own their own homes. It appears that District 10 has the highest percentage of homeownership, at 57 percent. For the statistics of each district, see Housing Works analysis. Mayor Steve Adler, one of the chief proponents of the exemption, gave his take on the question of whether the rich or the poor would benefit more from such an exemption. He said he had many conversations during the campaign with people of average means. Those people did not care that the wealthy would get more benefit from the exemption, he said. They only cared that they would get some relief from their own tax burden. Adler noted that “70 percent of homeowners in this city own homes that are worth $400,000 or less” and only about 9,000 people own million-dollar homes. During the campaign, he said, there was a lot of discussion about whether a 20 percent exemption would be progressive or regressive. For Adler, there is no question that such an exemption is a progressive tool. “The way that tax policy people measure tax burden is the relative percentage of your income that you have to pay (in taxes). In this city, the bottom 20 percent of income folks pay four times the amount of their income on property taxes as those in the top 1 percent. So, the burden, what people are feeling is much more, it’s a much greater burden for low-income people than high-income people.” We can expect to hear arguments about this throughout the spring and into the summer.

Mayor Steve Adler has drafted a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department, asking it to weigh in on the potential environmental impact of building SH45 Southwest “now rather than later.” In a posting on the City Council message board, Adler’s chief of staff, John Michael Cortez, explained that he intended to send the letter today, and asked for input from Council members. The letter, which is available for viewing on the message board, is much like the one former County Judge Sam Biscoe sent out last year. In his letter, Adler writes, “Austin’s City Council must understand the costs of this project, both direct and indirect, which potentially jeopardize significant public investments in BCCP (Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan) land and may impact the BCCP permit itself.” At the time of publication, only two other Council members had responded online. Council Member Don Zimmerman said he had concerns, and asked that the letter be forwarded to the Open Space, Environment and Sustainability Committee for further review. (Zimmerman is a member of that committee.) Council Member Leslie Pool, who was recently appointed to the Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Committee Planning Organization Coordinating Committee, expressed her support for the letter.

City Council members continue to pave the way and establish what district representation will look like in the city. As part of that outreach, this Friday District 4 Council Member Greg Casar will be holding office hours from 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. at the Little Walnut Creek Branch Library. Over in District 10, Council Member Sheri Gallo’s office has gotten busy on outreach as well. In addition to her other city email address, Gallo has an email address for constituents to get in touch, which is District10@austintexas.gov. Gallo also encourages people to get in touch through her Twitter and Facebook accounts. In particular, she asks constituent HOAs and neighborhood associations to contact her office with info about upcoming meetings they will be holding so Gallo or one of her staff members can attend.

Yesterday, the city reached its new maximum number of permitted events for South by Southwest. The Austin Center for Events (ACE) made the decision as part of a new plan to reduce the number of temporary event permits issued during SXSW 2015 by 25 percent. Along with the announcement that the city would no longer be accepting Temporary Use Permits, Temporary Event Sound Permits, Temporary Change of Use Permits and Occupant Loads for Austin events planned for March 13-22, ACE also released some hard numbers. In 2014, the city approved 284 permits total — 107 Temporary Use Permits, 71 Temporary Change of Use Permits and 106 Music Permits. This year, the city has accepted applications for 246 permits. The biggest drop-off was in Temporary Use Permits, which were nearly halved — there are only 57 applications in, and those have yet to be approved.

For those who missed it, Mayor Steve Adler officially unveiled his proposed revamp of the Mayor’s Better Austin Foundation and increased staff for his office yesterday. All told, Adler proposes to have 22 positions — eight office staff members, eight cabinet members and six Austin Foundation members (board of trustees and staff). Both Adler’s wife, Diane Land, and City Council Member Ann Kitchen’s husband, Mark Yznaga, will be on the foundation staff. Despite the announcement, both changes will have to be approved by the full Council on Thursday. One item, which we have covered before, would allow Adler to expand his staff from five to eight by shifting his salary within his office. The other item, which is sponsored by Adler and co-sponsored by Council Members Sheri Gallo, Greg Casar and Leslie Pool, asks Council members to approve a measure that will allow donated staff to the foundation. The Monitor will keep you apprised of the changes, and Thursday’s discussion.

The City of Austin, in collaboration with the Capital Metro Transportation Authority, was selected to receive a technical assistance grant from the Environmental Protection Agency. According to a press release from the city, “The grant will support a workshop focused on bringing together City leaders, residents, business owners and stakeholders to discuss equitable solutions as part of the Burnet-Anderson Corridor planning process kicking off later this year. The project area is Burnet Road, a high-frequency transit corridor along the MetroRapid Route 803 from 45th Street to Highway 183 and Anderson Lane from MoPac to the MetroRail Red Line.” The press release notes that although the initial assistance will focus on the Burnet-Anderson Corridor, the strategies that result from that project will be used in future planning across the city.

It’s unclear whether this is a move to make the department more or less empathetic to traffic problems, but the Austin Transportation Department is moving from its current location at One Texas Center (just across the South First Street Bridge from City Hall) to 3701 Lake Austin Blvd. (which is in the LCRA building). The Office of the Director, Right of Way Management, Administration and Finance, Strategic Planning, Active Transportation, and Traffic Engineering will be moving to the new location. The Special Events division will remain at One Texas Center, and all other divisions and crews will remain in their current locations. As a result, walk-in permitting and traffic control plan review will be closed on Thursday, Feb. 26 and Friday, Feb. 27.

Friends and supporters of newly retired Mayor Lee Leffingwell will have an opportunity to help him recoup $90,000 he loaned his 2009 and 2012 campaigns. Leffingwell borrowed the money from his retirement fund but could not raise any money after winning the mayor’s race in 2012, under city campaign finance regulations. Attorney Jim Cousar, an expert on Austin campaign finance regulations, said,” Your reward for winning is you can’t pay your campaign debt for two or four years.” Attorney Tim Taylor and public affairs consultant Trey Salinas are throwing a party for Leffingwell at the Headliners Club at 5:30 p.m. on February 23. Taylor, who said Monday that he was collecting checks and making a list of sponsors for the event, said invitations would be going out soon. ” He was a great mayor,” Taylor said. “Lee sacrificed a lot to be Mayor and I don’t think his retirement fund should be part of that sacrifice,” he added. Taylor was among those hosting a party for Mayor pro tem Betty Dunkerley when she retired from the Council in 2008. Dunkerley also used her retirement money to finance her first campaign for elective office in 2002. Taylor said fundraisers would abide by the city’s campaign finance regulations by limiting donations to $350 per person or $700 per couple.

A group of downstream Lower Brazos River interests announced in a Monday press release that they formed the Lower Brazos River Coalition in mid-January. “Prolonged drought and rapid population growth in the Brazos River Basin have prompted grass-roots parties to form a coalition aimed at ensuring that lower basin interests are protected as competition for river water intensifies,” the release states. The coalition, it also says, includes “concerned individuals, organizations, municipalities, ranchers and farmers, environmentalists and conservationists, and businesses and industries, who are jointly responding to upstream efforts to limit water flowing downstream.” The Brazos River is the longest river in Texas and stretches from the Llano Estacado region, through Waco, and down to the Gulf of Mexico. The Brazos River Authority, created by the Texas Legislature in 1929, governs the Brazos River Basin.

Today, members of the Save Our Community Coalition and the Texas State Employees Union will join UT employees to lobby for public higher education at the Texas State Legislature. According to a press release on the topic, the group will address a range of issues, including “re-regulation of tuition, stopping privatization and downsizing of staff, and ensure that hardworking university employees receive a long-overdue pay raise.” It continues: “If the (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s) proposal passes, there would be an increase of 11.8 percent, or $516 million. At the same time, the cash infusion would translate into a $5,300 grant for each eligible student. An investment into higher education is a long-term investment for all Texans, by keeping higher education affordable and being able to attract and retain qualified staff to make our state more competitive and our economy stronger. We believe that money must be spent to maintain the culture of excellence and the quality of life for both students and staff at all Texas colleges and universities.”