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City Hall

Council adopts new flood control resolution

In her first move on City Council, new member Vanessa Fuentes authored a resolution directing the city to provide an update on its flood resilience plans. “Often in my community it’s not a matter of if the next big flood…

Council plans hotel purchases for housing homeless, floats camping sites

At Monday’s work session, City Council members discussed purchasing two hotels in North Austin to secure more than 150 permanent supportive housing units for the homeless.  Mayor Steve Adler urged Council to act to remedy what he called an “emergency…

Council proposes focus on four encampments in HEAL resolution

The city will focus on four encampments as the first phase of a plan to reduce the growing homeless population by providing housing and support services. The resolution, called the HEAL (Housing-Focused Homeless Encampment Assistance Link) Initiative and slated for the Feb.…

Central Health operating revenues, expenses down

Over the past fiscal year, Central Health’s operating revenues – consisting of lease revenues from the Central Health Downtown Campus and the Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas – have dropped by 10 percent. Meanwhile, its nonoperating…

EDC creators explain priorities for creative space, affordable housing

Some of the main architects of the city’s fledgling Economic Development Corporation assured members of the local real estate and development community Wednesday that the entity was not created to interfere with or compete for private sector business deals. That…

Audit shows problems with city pagers

According to a report issued by the Office of the City Auditor, the city is not effectively managing many of the 1,600-plus pagers issued to city employees. The result, auditors say, is unnecessary spending and the possibility that the lack…

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Austin Animal Center’s December report looks bright

The Animal Advisory Commission convened on Jan. 11 to discuss, among other things, the accomplishments of the Austin Animal Center at the end of 2020. One recent highlight was the implementation of a new chatbot designed to field questions residents may…

Austin skyline with Zilker Park

Lodging industry slows push for hotel tax to fund housing, aid for homeless

Leaders of the city’s lodging industry have slowed their push to create a new tax on hotel stays that would indirectly free up money to fund services for the homeless. The Tourism Commission received an update at its Monday meeting…

front of City Hall

Groups ready to battle over strong mayor

The group Austinites for Progressive Reform, which wants to replace Austin’s council-manager form of government with a strong mayor form of governance, submitted 24,000 signatures to City Clerk Jannette Goodall on Monday in an effort to place four charter amendments on…

Postponement shows ZAP issues around receiving timely public comment

The Zoning and Platting Commission voted to postpone the only zoning discussion case of their first meeting of the year. The request was to grant Townhouse & Condominium Residence (SF-6) district zoning on 24.3 acres at 8201 Thaxton Road. But…

Mayor Steve Adler: Reflections on a challenging year

At the start of 2020, Mayor Steve Adler was thinking about how to convince his colleagues to pass a new Land Development Code and how to convince the public to vote for a $7 billion mass transit bond proposal in…

City Manager Spencer Cronk: Operating smoothly under extraordinary circumstances

As the person in charge of making sure things run smoothly at the city, City Manager Spencer Cronk has had a year that underscores his gratitude for the people he works with. Cronk attributes a lot of the city’s effectiveness…

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