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TipSheet: Austin City Council, the lowdown

Monday, August 31, 2015 by Elizabeth Pagano

This week, the Austin City Council will focus its meeting energies on a day-long budget work session on Tuesday. According to Mayor Steve Adler’s remarks Thursday, it will be at this meeting that Council will winnow down the 119 items on its “budget concept menu” in preparation for passing a budget next week.

The Austin Monitor is prepared for a long meeting, given the length of Thursday’s more abstract discussion of the concept menu.

Other than that, Council has only one committee meeting this week.

Council Mobility Committee

Wednesday, Sept. 2
Agenda here.

5. Staff briefing and discussion on ground transportation providers, including transportation network companies.

Monitor’s Take: More talk about transportation companies like Uber and Lyft. At the last Mobility Committee meeting, committee members asked for more accountability from the committee and scheduled today’s public hearing.

6. Transportation fatalities and safety initiative briefing by the City staff and Vision Zero Task Force chair.

Monitor’s Take: This year has seen a sharp increase in road fatalities. Vision Zero is a multinational road safety project that hopes to reduce fatalities and serious injuries to zero. Given Austin’s current situation, it should be an interesting conversation.

8. Google briefing and discussion on status of Google self-driving car project in Austin.

Monitor’s Take: Over the weekend, Google announced that it will be expanding its self-driving car program in Austin. The project has received lots of press, but as we reported back in July when the project was launched, there are still some policy details to be worked out.

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Key Players & Topics In This Article

Austin City Council: The Austin City Council is the body with legislative purview over the City of Austin. It offers policy direction, while the office of the City Manager implements administrative actions based on those policies. Until 2015, the body contained seven members, including the city's Mayor, all elected at-large. In 2012, City of Austin residents voted to change that system and as of 2015, 10 members of the Council are elected based on geographic districts. The Mayor continues to be elected at-large.

Austin City Council Mobility Committee: A City Council committee that reviews matters related to all modes of transportation.

budget: Income and expenditure for a set period of time.

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