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- Parks Board recommends vendor for Zilker Café, while voicing concerns about lack of local presence
- City leaders evaluate surprising ideas for water conservation
- Audit: Economic official granted arts, music funding against city code
- Downtown Historic Resource Survey eyes seven new districts eligible for designation
- Office slowdown sparks new downtown housing ambitions
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City Hall
Commissioners Court fields next year's budget plan
On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court fielded a budget process explanation for the 2022 fiscal year from Travis Gatlin and Jessica Rio with the Planning and Budget Office. While the first revenue estimates from the adopted budget sat at…
Budget • By Seth Smalley • Jun 23, 2021
Council OKs new direction on convention center reconstruction
The city will move ahead with another attempt to remake the Austin Convention Center, following the decision in April to abandon a planned westward expansion and reconstruction that would have been completed in two phases. Earlier this month City Council…
Austin • By Chad Swiatecki • Jun 21, 2021
Herrington leaving his environmental post for new job in Virginia
After 25 years with the city of Austin, Environmental Officer Chris Herrington is retiring and taking a new leadership position in Fairfax, Va. Herrington, who’ll be moving east with his fiancée, Kimberly Horndeski, will serve as director of public works…
City Hall • By Amy Smith • Jun 21, 2021
Austin Animal Center continues to struggle with capacity
Earlier this week at the Animal Advisory Commission’s monthly meeting, commissioners discussed the reopening process of the Austin Animal Center as the risk of coronavirus continues to decline locally. In recent months, the shelter has been running out of kennel space for…
Austin • By Sean Saldaña • Jun 18, 2021
With Council approval, new EDC moves forward
City Council has approved the interlocal agreement that will allow the newly created Austin Economic Development Corporation to begin conducting its business, which will be focused around real estate projects addressing affordability and gentrification concerns. The unanimous vote last week…
Austin • By Chad Swiatecki • Jun 17, 2021
ZWAC looks to extend contract for encampment cleanups
Last week, the Zero Waste Advisory Commission voted unanimously to advance a contract extension with Relief Enterprise of Texas Inc., a contractor that has handled homeless encampment trash cleanup for the city around Interstate 35, U.S. Highway 183, Loop 1…
Austin • By Sean Saldaña • Jun 16, 2021
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Austin police officers clear homeless encampments around City Hall
Austin police officers on Monday cleared encampments around City Hall that were erected by people experiencing homelessness. The city said in a statement that officers were moving people from the corner of Guadalupe and Cesar Chavez streets for construction work. The…
Austin • By Andrew Weber, KUT • Jun 15, 2021
Complaint against Harper-Madison ruled out of ethics commission's jurisdiction
Ethics violations against Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison were found to be outside the purview of the city’s Ethics Review Commission last week, marking the second time in two months the commission has failed to move forward with a complaint…
City Hall • By Chad Swiatecki • Jun 15, 2021
Austin raises property tax exemption for homeowners to highest rate allowed
As the median price of a home in Austin surpassed half a million dollars this year, City Council members voted Thursday to tax a smaller amount of owners’ home values. City leaders doubled the current general homestead exemption of 10 percent, taking…
City Council • By Audrey McGlinchy, KUT • Jun 11, 2021
Local leaders see pandemic, winter storm as openings for economic opportunities
Local leaders say the past 15 months of Austin’s history have been a test for how the city can best serve the people and businesses that are most at risk as growth changes the economics and character of Central Texas.…
Austin • By Chad Swiatecki • Jun 11, 2021
Emergency funding for musicians, creatives waiting on Council, staff action
City staffers expect to have initial guidelines next month for how to spend money in the city’s Live Music Fund, part of a series of spending programs to aid local creatives in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. This week…
Austin • By Chad Swiatecki • Jun 10, 2021
City tax increase likely, but not 8 percent
Although City Council can raise the city’s tax rate by 8 percent under Gov. Greg Abbott’s disaster declaration related to Winter Storm Uri, Council members will have to carefully weigh how to spend any revenue collected on money generated above…
