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Candidates in Districts 1 and 8 working hard

In City Council District 8 and District 1, incumbents Ellen Troxclair and Ora Houston are retiring. In each case, the current council member has announced her endorsement of a candidate to take her seat in January. However, that has not…

Austin reconsiders homelessness ordinances as Houston laws are challenged in court

It’s a new fiscal year for the city of Austin, and one of the myriad items on City Council agendas over the next year will be an overhaul of ordinances relating to homelessness. That won’t be easy, as federal courts…

County dedicates $3M to permanent supportive housing

The Travis County Commissioners Court voted Tuesday morning to dedicate $3 million to permanent supportive housing for repeat users of the criminal justice and health care systems. The county’s $3 million, comprising $600,000 annually over five years, is roughly a…

EMS truck

Low morale in Austin’s public safety departments requires attention

The Public Safety Commission heard a variety of concerns at its Oct. 1 meeting in regards to the chronic low morale that public safety officers are experiencing within their respective departments. “It is pretty unanimous the officers are really getting…

Austin City Hall front

Adler, Tovo top list of endorsed candidates

Since the race began, it has looked like Mayor Steve Adler would have an easier path to victory than his major opponent, former Council Member Laura Morrison. His incumbency and better name ID are factors, and another is his personal…

Barton Springs

Swimming in Austin just became more expensive. Here are some other new city fees.

Every Oct. 1, the city of Austin welcomes a new budget – and with it, new city fees. These can be anything from public library fines to what it costs to adopt a dog from the city shelter. Here’s a…

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Schneider building in 2005

Temporary art project for Schneider Store building met with tepid enthusiasm

The J.P. Schneider Store building is the new target of an art installation called Inside Out/Vote intended to encourage voter participation and registration through reimagining civic engagement and unleashing the voice of America’s youth through art. Brought to the Sept.…

Solar panels

Austin Energy proposes local solar farm

In spite of the tremendous appetite for renewable energy in Austin, the city doesn’t offer many opportunities to build the kind of large-scale wind and solar farms necessary to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. “It’s an issue of land,” explained…

Austin City Hall front

ANC releases Council scorecard

Last week, the Austin Neighborhoods Council voted to endorse the group’s former president, Laura Morrison, for mayor. They also endorsed another former ANC activist, Kathie Tovo, the incumbent in District 9 who serves as mayor pro tem. In addition, ANC…

performance at church of the friendly ghost

With cuts reduced, arts groups push city to reshape future funding

The city’s Arts Commission has asked City Council to allocate more than $1 million in extra money to arts organizations recently informed they were facing sharp cuts in their funding from the city’s Cultural Arts Division. At last Monday’s special…

Reporter's Notebook: Places and names

What do you say... The Austin street with the most confounding, or at least distinctively quirky, pronunciation could be headed for a name change. A public hearing scheduled for Thursday’s City Council meeting will focus on a request to rename…

Petitioners seek public vote on city's soccer stadium deal

The activist group that worked to derail the city’s CodeNEXT land use code update has set its sights on preventing the construction of a 20,000-seat soccer stadium in North Austin. IndyAustin has started gathering signatures on petitions that would call…