The next installment of the Wild Neighbors Speaker Series will explore the “amazing and unusual organisms that live in the dark, underground waters of the Lone Star State with special attention to new discoveries and groundwater ecology in the greater Austin area.” Tiny, mysterious, unknown creatures living in the deepest, darkest depths? We are here for it! The speaker, Dr. Benjamin Hutchins, a researcher and educator in the Edwards Aquifer Research and Data Center at Texas State University, focuses his work “on the distribution of groundwater species in Texas and patterns of biodiversity in subterranean habitats.” Friday, Feb. 17, noon-1 p.m. Register for the webinar here.

In the interest of improving your commute and getting your morning off to a good start, commuters passing through the Downtown Transit Station this morning will be offered free breakfast tacos, courtesy of Capital Metro, Downtown Austin, Movability, and GetThereATX. Staffers from these organizations will be on hand to answer questions and offer tools aimed at making everyone’s commute that much better. Thursday, Feb. 16, 6:30-9:30 a.m., Downtown Station.

Shoal Creek Conservancy and Jose M. Guerrero, former assistant director of the city’s Watershed Protection Department, are leading a very special bus tour of the Shoal Creek watershed. The tour will stop at Duncan Neighborhood Park, Great Northern Dog Park, Beverly S. Sheffield Northwest District Park, Jefferson Street, and the West 12th Street Bridge. Topics to be discussed include the “history of the Memorial Day flooding of 1981 along Shoal Creek, strategies that have helped mitigate flooding of our urban creeks both before and after the 1981 flood, and how water moves through developed watersheds.” Wear comfortable walking shoes and dress for the weather. Read more about this event here and register here. Saturday, Feb. 25, 8:30-11 a.m.

This whisper has been updated to correct Guerrero’s title.

Austin Public Works’ Urban Trails Program has issued an all points invitation to celebrate the opening of a new Northern Walnut Creek Trail section. On Saturday, March 4, it will be feted with live music from Ashton “Infinity Jones” Deary, food, a youth bicycle ride, a guided nature walk and a ribbon cutting. In addition, there are a number of It’s My Park Day volunteer activities available. With the trail extension, the Northern Walnut Creek Trail is now 4.4 miles – from Balcones District Park to Oakbrook Drive. Eventually, the trail will connect to the southern section of the trail to make up a 19-mile system. More information about the trail festivities can be found here.

By all accounts, 2022 was a rollicking, record-breaking year for Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. According to the airport’s year-end review, AUS “experienced an unprecedented growth of passenger volumes as demand for air travel rose far beyond the airport’s busiest passenger activity volumes seen in 2019, before disruptions caused by Covid-19.” The review goes on to say that passenger volume for December 2022 “was the highest December on record with 1,717,601 passengers flying during the month, up 7.63 percent compared to December 2021.” As for the busiest month of last year? That would be the merry month of May, “which welcomed 2,021,747 passengers in a single month and the total passenger count for 2022 was 21,089,289 passengers, up 55.40 percent from 2021, officially making 2022 the airport’s busiest year ever.”

City Council will convene once again Wednesday for a special called meeting intended to tie up the loose ends from its previous meeting – City Manger Spencer Cronk’s employment and a proposal to approve a one-year police contract. The meeting, which is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Feb. 15, will take the place of the now-canceled Audit and Finance Committee meeting. Last week, Council opted to postpone a request to negotiate a one-year contract between the city and the police department in lieu of a four-year contract that has been in negotiation for the past year. The one-year contract is intended to serve as a stopgap that will not override the oversight questions that will be put before voters in May, among other things. Discussion about the contract on Thursday laid bare tensions between Council members and the city manager, who is expected to be fired in a vote at Wednesday’s meeting. Anyone wishing to speak on either topic can do so online before Tuesday at noon or at City Hall until 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday.

Mayor Kirk Watson certainly knows how to start a meeting. In addition to being on time, he has provided flowers for all of his colleagues on the dais. Kate Alexander, Watson’s communications chief, says he pays for the touch of brightness personally and that the flowers come from Central Market.

This is never welcome news for aqua-maniacs, but Barton Springs Pool will be closed for its annual almost-spring cleaning from Feb. 25 to March 10. Springwoods Pool is also due for some routine maintenance, which will close that pool for just two days, Feb. 21-22. To immerse yourself in other year-round pools in the meantime, visit AustinTexas.gov/pools. In other watery news, the city’s Aquatic Division is super-serious about recruiting lifeguards and is holding a hiring event at Fiesta Gardens at 2101 Jesse E. Segovia St. on Sunday, Feb. 26, 5-8 p.m. Prospective lifeguards will be able to fill out an application on-site and get signed up for lifeguard training. Applicants should bring their photo ID and Social Security cards to the event.

We certainly hope this is old news by the time it reaches you: Austin Energy has completed restoring power to almost all of the remaining customers who were still waiting for the lights to come back on after the recent ice storm. According to a news release from the city utility, “More than 99.9% of customers have power. Austin Energy is working directly with a small number of customers who remain without power because of damage on customer-owned equipment that needs a licensed electrician to repair.” If you are among that 0.1% of customers without power, find an update here or call 512-322-9100 to get an estimate on reconnection. Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sargent said, “We know the storm’s aftermath has been difficult for customers, and we are grateful for the resilience of our community. We are also thankful to the hundreds of mutual aid crew members, working side by side with our field teams, as part of the largest restoration operation in Austin Energy’s history.”

City Council passed two ordinances Feb. 9 aimed at helping the community make needed storm repairs safely and quickly. Both ordinances waive permitting and development fees and some permitting requirements for repairs to single- and multifamily homes damaged during the ice storm between Jan. 31 and Feb. 2. The first ordinance “waives permitting and development fees for structural repairs and tree removal associated with the winter storm. The waiver applies to plan reviews, inspections, demolitions and variances, but not to re-inspections when repairs do not comply with Code requirements and fail initial inspections.” The second ordinance “allows the building official to exempt some electrical work from permit requirements, extends the deadline for some permit applications, and waives a city of Austin registration requirement for electricians who are licensed to work in Texas.” Find more details here.

On Thursday, citizens making public information requests were notified that the city of Austin had asked the Texas attorney general’s office “to suspend certain deadlines under the Texas Public Information Act for seven calendar days. This notice and the suspension will allow city departments involved in the response to last week’s winter weather to have time to respond to public information requests received during that time.” The provision allowing the city to submit what is called a “catastrophe notice” allows the city to suspend parts of the Public Information Act to give it extra time to respond to public information requests. “Any pending public information requests that have been received will be paused for seven calendar days and new public information requests that are received over the next seven calendar days will be deemed received on February 13, 2023.” However, departments not affected by the winter storm “should continue to respond to public information requests under normal procedures,” the city said. The Texas Legislature approved changes to the law in 2019 in response to Hurricane Harvey. The city did not provide a list of departments impacted by the recent storm, but it undoubtedly includes Austin Energy, Austin Travis County EMS, the Austin Fire Department, and the Parks and Recreation Department. An Austin Monitor reporter who made a PIR on Jan. 27 was told she would receive a response by March 6.

Sales tax collections for Austin are up 9.77 percent for the year, according to data released Wednesday by Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar. So far, the city has collected more than $61.5 million in sales tax money. Capital Metro’s tax revenues have increased by close to 9 percent, giving the transit agency $67.4 million for the year to date. Round Rock’s tax collections are up nearly 7 percent for the year, but jumped a hefty 11.82 percent in the most recent report. Overall, Hegar’s press release said state sales tax revenue totaled $4.11 billion in January, 6.6 percent more than in January 2022. The majority of January sales tax revenue is based on sales made in December and remitted to the agency in January.