Austin Bergstrom International Airport was a busy place this week, trying to get everyone leaving town after the Formula 1 weekend on their planes and in the air. Monday’s crowd didn’t break last year’s record following the race, but more than 21,000 people managed to squeeze through the terminal on their way home. Those numbers will show up in ABIA’s monthly report in a few weeks, but passenger traffic data for September was also released this week, and the airport continues to grow. In September, passenger traffic was up 9 percent over the same period in 2013, making it 56 out the last 57 months that ABIA’s monthly passenger volume has increased. Airport officials recently announced that they plan to add seven gates to the east concourse by late 2017, with longer-range plans to build two new concourses that would add another 24 more gates.

City Council approved a few nominations to boards and commissions at Thursday’s meeting. Council Member Chris Riley nominated Craig Wright to the Building and Standards Commission, and Mayor Lee Leffingwell nominated Dr. Tyra Duncan-Hall, Edwina Carrington and Isaac Robinsons to the Housing Authority.

Council Member Bill Spelman had surgery to remove “a small growth” on his adrenal gland two weeks ago. In an email statement issued Wednesday, Spelman said that “the operation was successful, and after some follow up treatment for an infection, I am recovering at home.” Spelman had surgery in 2012 to remove a tumor from his pancreas. He said he is planning on making it to today’s Austin City Council meeting, but will play it by ear.

After several months of displaced meetings while City Hall was being renovated for the new, larger City Council, the Council chambers are once again open, and today’s meeting will be held there. We at the Austin Monitor are excited to see the changes, which should include a larger dais, more space for media and, hopefully, a more diffuse way of distributing cold air than the previous system. At Tuesday’s work session, Council Member Laura Morrison predicted that today’s meeting will “probably be pretty crazy.” It’s safe to assume that can be translated into “will be a super-long meeting.” Stay up-to-date through our Twitter accounts for real-time updates on when the excitement wears off.

Citing complaints by constituents and concerns by wildlife officials, Travis County Commissioners voted Tuesday to send a letter to the Austin City Council asking them to delay a vote today on proposed changes to the city’s coyote conflict management policy. After an extended process, a city working group proposed a set of changes to the policy  — based partly on Austin’s status as a “no kill” animal shelter city — that eliminates the option of using lethal force in most situations. The policy would also ban the use of all traps other than live-release box traps. It recommends “hazing” the animals through yelling and making noise to drive them out of neighborhoods. Wildlife officers told Commissioners that they believed the policy is dangerous, and that eliminating the option of killing rogue animals would simply embolden the most aggressive coyotes and make the situation more dangerous for homeowners and their pets. Commissioners approved a letter Tuesday asking the City Council to once again postpone action on the policy so that city and county officials could discuss it before moving forward. A vote on the policy is on today’s Council agenda.

With the Nov. 4 election in his rearview mirror, Council Member Mike Martinez wasted no time in returning to the campaign trail Wednesday. Martinez garnered 30 percent of Tuesday’s vote with attorney Steve Adler in the lead at 37 percent. Martinez issued a challenge to Adler via press release for three debates. Martinez said he wanted the debates to focus on affordability, transportation and the environment. While there has not been that much discussion of the environment during the campaign so far, every candidate has talked about affordability and transportation. Adler campaign manager Jim Wick told the Monitor, “We’ve had more than 40 debates and forums thus far, and fully anticipate participating in more. We’re happy to talk to the Martinez campaign about some sort of debate schedule.” So we hope you’re ready for more debates and forums, because the mayor’s race is just one of nine runoff elections at this point, and we’re pretty sure this is not the only race in which the candidates want to debate.

Civil engineer Blaine Stansberry has won a seat on the Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Conservation District board. Stansberry, a 40-year resident of Manchaca, won the Precinct 2 seat with 51.37 percent of the vote. Terry Newton, a professor at St. Edwards University, came in second with just shy of 26 percent of the vote and retired veterinarian Ronald Stried got about 23 percent. Stansberry founded a local engineering company in 2004, and through that has worked on a wide range of infrastructure, commercial, residential and public projects. She cited the main issues in the race as dealing with growth over the aquifer, the construction of State Highway 45 Southwest, and dealing with the drought. “Whether you are for or against the growth and construction in our area, the pressure to grow is here and we have to deal with it,” Stansberry told the Monitor via email. “Any projects built in our community should use the best development practices to ensure our drinking water stays clean and available.”

The Ethics Review Commission continues to stay busy, and recently reviewed ethics complaints against District 4 candidates Greg Casar and Monica Guzman. Only one charge against Casar was substantiated. Though the commission determined that his failure to disclose a donor’s occupation and employer was unintentional, they issued a Letter of Notification sanction to avoid a repeat of the situation. The claim that Casar failed to disclose a bundler was dismissed. Also dismissed were two charges against Guzman. One claimed that she had not entered into a voluntary campaign contract with the city by the deadline. The other alleged that Guzman had not been a resident of District 4 for the six-month period required by charter.

In Tuesday’s story about City of Austin temporary employees, we neglected to note that the average wage of a city temporary worker between 2012 and 2014 applied to workers making less than $11.50 an hour. In 2012, that figure represents 2,498 of 3,586 employees; in 2013, 2,744 of 3,947; and in 2014, 3,287 of 4,595.

The Austin American Statesman has rescinded its endorsement of candidate Laura Pressley in the race for the District 4 Council seat. The move came after media outlets such as the Austin Monitor, KUT Radio and the Austin Chronicle, among others, reported that prior to her current campaign for Council, Pressley has been out and about expressing views that many consider to be “on the fringe.” In the past, Pressley has campaigned against fluoride in Austin’s drinking water, concern over radiation from Austin Energy’s wireless “smart meters,” and belief in the notion that the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center were an “inside job” perpetrated by the federal government. Reporters’ questions about some of her more extreme views have been deflected, with Pressley chiding them for not sticking to queries on her current views on issues such as affordability, urban rail and homestead exemptions. It’s not unusual for politicians for reinvent themselves to run for office, but considering the fact that Pressley’s last Council run was only two years ago, it’s a little surprising that the reinvention held this long. Though the statement came after the close of early voting, Statesman Viewpoint’s editor Tara Trower Doolittle said they would not endorse any District 4 candidate in today’s election but would examine the candidates closely should there be a runoff.

Contributing to the rush of last-minute creative campaigning, District 10 candidate Robert Thomas recently sent out a letter to supporters of opponent Mandy Dealey. In the letter obtained by the Austin Monitor dated Oct. 29, Thomas writes, “Your contribution was to Mandy Dealey. My name is Robert Thomas, one of the candidates she is running against. I am writing to you because Mandy is using your money to run a vicious smear campaign against me. She is unfairly and wrongly misleading people, and maligning me.” The smear, Thomas’ three-page letter goes on to explain, is that he is a member of the Tea Party. He clarifies that he is not. In the letter, Thomas goes on to acknowledge that he may not be the candidate for Dealey supporters, saying, “This letter is not about trying to get you to vote for me, and there is a good chance I am not the candidate for you, but it is to set the record straight.” Thomas goes on to list the facts of the election, and concludes by asking contributors to consider their part in the election, and urges them to make their own decision.

While compiling the seemingly-endless list of campaign parties last night, one of the Monitor’s reporters was startled to hear a loud voice outside the window encouraging her to vote for District 3 candidate Susana Almanza. Since compiling the list of election night parties took several hours, it was reasonable to assume that it was an election-related hallucination, but further investigation (running outside) revealed that there was, in fact, a mid-sized sedan slowly driving down the street encouraging residents to vote via megaphone, and vote for Almanza. It’s a small world, after all.