Another memorial has been placed for a fallen Austin Police Department officer. Officials with the Austin Police Officer Memorial Project placed a marker Friday for late APD Officer Leland Dale Anderson at the northeast corner of Congress Avenue and 8th Street, near where he died. Anderson was killed in the line of duty June 6, 1975, when a suspect he was attempting to arrest attacked and shot him with his own gun. The memorial project was created by Officer Jason Huskins in April 2008. The project consists of placing gray granite memorials at every location in Austin where an APD officer was killed in the line of duty. The memorials are 5 feet 4 inches tall, 20 inches wide and 6 inches thick. All memorials are being donated by Rockdale Memorials. Last week’s installation is the 17th marker placed as part of the project.

Next month, the city will take a closer look at its housing needs. To be exact, the city will dive into the 2014 Comprehensive Housing Market Study that was released this past summer. On Dec. 1 at 6 p.m., there will be a presentation at City Hall called “Austin’s Affordable Housing Needs and Impediments to Fair Housing Choice” that will address the market study and preliminary information about the impediments to fair housing in the city. At 8 p.m. the next night, Dec. 2, BBC Research & Consulting will go over the details of the study and overview of the report in a presentation and discussion titled, “Affordable Housing in Austin: Dig Deeper into the Data,” at LifeWorks, 835 N. Pleasant Valley Road. Both events are open to the public. The full study is available here.

In a story published Thursday in the Monitor, we wrote that Jeffrey Howard, the attorney for the Hideout Theatre, had notified a representative of the Aloft Austin & Element Hotel and the city by email that he would not oppose a code amendment to the Congress Avenue Overlay.  Howard contacted the Monitor Thursday to clarify that he told hotel representative Richard Suttle that he would not oppose the resolution initiating the Code Amendment or the postponement of the CURE zoning case. He said his client, the Hideout Theatre, has made no decision as to whether or not it will oppose or recommend changes to the actual code amendment as it goes through the city process.

Though there has been pointed criticism of (some of) their endorsements on the ANC message board, Thursday the Austin Neighborhoods Council stuck to their guns – and their endorsements –  and released a list of their endorsements for the is Dec. 16 runoff election. Their news release read: “BE IT ANNOUNCED THAT the Austin Neighborhoods Council Executive Committee reaffirms these endorsements, as previously endorsed by the Austin Neighborhoods Council General Membership in October 2014, for the Austin City Council runoff election: City Council District 1, Ora Houston; City Council District 4, Laura Pressley; City Council District 8, Ed Scruggs; and Mayor, Steve Adler.

Now that the herd has been thinned out from 78 candidates to a more manageable number, the Austin Area League of Women Voters plans a forum Nov. 21 for all eight of the Council and Mayoral runoffs. The forum will be held in the new City Council Chambers at City Hall and will run from 6 to 10 p.m. The questions, which will not be given to candidates ahead of time, will be developed by the League of Women Voters. The event is actually four forums, with Districts 4 and 7 set from 6 to 6:30 p.m.; Districts 6 and 10 from 6:45 to 7:15 p.m.; Districts 1 and 3 from 7:30 to 8 p.m.; District 9 from 8:15 to 8:45 p.m. and the Mayor candidates from 9 to 9:45 p.m.  The forums will be broadcast live on the city’s TV channel, ATXN-TV. It will be rebroadcast on the city channel and will be available for streaming on lwvaustin.org.

Staff told the Council Committee on Austin Energy Thursday that they are seeing an overall increase in compliance with the Energy Conservation Audit and Disclosure Ordinance. The ordinance, which Council passed in 2008 and the city put into effect in 20112009, requires that the owners of certain single-family, multifamily, commercial and municipal buildings participate in an energy efficiency audit process. The city then provides the owners with a breakdown of their energy usage as it compares to like buildings and encourages them to implement energy-saving measures. Austin Energy staff reported that, as of August, multifamily compliance is at 80 percent, residential compliance is at 52 percent, large commercial buildings are at 31 62 percent, mid-sized commercial are at 48 percent and smaller commercial are at 6231 percent. Vice President of Customer Energy Solutions Deborah Kimberly said that staff has been increasing outreach efforts and considering ways to make the process more convenient, with customer feedback. They plan to launch a more proactive audit process in 2015 that provides commercial customers with their usage information, rather than requiring customers to submit it themselves, and suggesting energy conservation strategies at the same time. “We anticipate that we’ll get a real uptick in results,” Kimberly said.

Mayoral candidate Mike Martinez attacked his opponent, Steve Adler, on Wednesday by accusing him of working for Koch Industries, a company owned by a pair of well-known and unpopular Republicans, David and Charles Koch. The Koch brothers are infamous for funding “dark money” attacks on Democrats, helping Republicans and denying climate change. Adler responded that Martinez’s allegations were “false, desperate and disappointing.” Adler said his law partner, Michael Barron, did some work for Koch Industries during the late 1970s or early 1980s. However, Adler did not join the firm until 1983 and says he has done no work for that company. Additionally, Adler said, “In fact, as recently as last month, my firm represented an Austin family against Koch Pipeline. I have represented hundreds of landowners against oil and gas pipeline companies.” To support his accusation, Martinez pointed to a website that listed various clients of the law firm, which included Koch Industries. Adler said in October his firm became aware of the site and had the list removed with a notation that it had not been updated since the 1990s. A list of clients on the law firm’s site includes: Advanced Micro Devices, Covert Buick, Endeavor Real Estate Group, H E B Grocery Company, McDonald’s Corporation, Simon Property Group and Taco Bell.

A flurry of Citizens Communications about the Lightsey 2 development in South Austin hit their mark at the specially called Planning Commission meeting Wednesday night. Commissioners Stephen Oliver and Nuria Zaragoza, who both voted in favor of the preliminary plan during the first go-round, indicated their wish to have the plan return on the next agenda. The request to rescind was based on the fact that a permit was expired, information that was not presented at the previous meeting. At the next meeting, set for Nov. 25, six commissioners will have to vote to rescind in order for the previous decision to be reversed. The Monitor will have a full story on Friday.

Speaking of South Lamar, one of the most contentious areas of development in the city recently has been the South Lamar area. Residents — and the South Lamar Mitigation Study — worry that the rush of development without proper infrastructure has led to flooding and traffic problems. Next month, the city will host an open house to address the traffic portion of those issues, as part of its South Lamar Boulevard Transportation Corridor Study, which is expected to be completed in August 2015. The open house will take place Dec. 10 from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. for businesses and from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. for the public at the Zilker Elementary School Cafeteria, 1900 Bluebonnet Lane.

Today, the Downtown Austin Alliance, Austin Parks Foundation and Parks and Recreation Department will present a revamped park next to the Congress Avenue Old Bakery Emporium. According to a statement from the Parks Department, DAA and APF each contributed $26,000 to the effort, and the Austin Parks and Recreation Department contributed staff and labor in kind. “With limited funding and extensive needs all over Austin, partnerships such as this are becoming more and more important,” said Colin Wallis, executive director of the Austin Parks Foundation. A “celebratory welcoming” of the new park will take place from 11 a.m. to noon today.

Capital Metro Area Planning Organization Executive Director Ashby Johnson told board members Monday night that he appointed Phillip Tindall as assistant director of the planning organization. Tindall served as the director of a Metropolitan Planning Organization in Florida and most recently worked with Austin Resource Recovery. “He comes to us with a lot of great experience, and I am really looking forward to Phillip getting started,” Johnson said.

A curious reader asked the Austin Monitor what District 3 candidate Sabino ‘Pio’ Renteria meant when he said in his campaign finance report that he had paid the City of Austin $125 for “advertising,” without further explanation. We asked, and Renteria said advertising was the only category he could think of for the permit fee he paid the city for eight days of driving a sound truck around his district. While Renteria seems to be having a good time running for City Council, when the Monitor asked him about the expenditure, he had a complaint. Basically, Renteria said, it is difficult for the average person to navigate the contribution and expenditure reports that candidates are required to file. “It seems like they want you to be a lawyer or hire a consultant, and I’m a grass-roots candidate,” he said, not one who can afford to hire someone else to fill out the reports. “People are so picky, and they are trying to distract you from what you’re trying to accomplish.” Alfred Stanley, who has raised money and advised candidates for years about how to fill out such forms, said he thought that Renteria’s failure to describe the fee was innocuous. “In the old days, I could call the Texas Ethics Commission and they would explain it to me,” he said. “But four or five years ago, they started taking the position that they couldn’t tell you,” because if they told you the wrong thing, they might be liable. Stanley said the city has taken the same position. That leaves candidates who cannot afford legal counsel or consultants on their own, and that should not be the case, he said. Still, Renteria said he is excited about the race, which pits him against his sister, Susana Almanza, in the Dec. 16 runoff. Renteria raised $5,734 and loaned his campaign $1,000. He spent $4,865 and came in second. Almanza reported that she raised $20,765 and spent $15,242.