After opening last August, Austin’s first sobering center is finally receiving its inaugural statistics. According to Jasper Brown, the EMS assistant chief, 90 percent of clientele are first-time users of a sobering center and most are brought in for overconsumption of alcohol. The average overnight resident is a 34-year-old male who was brought in by law enforcement for public intoxication. While Brown says he has not yet seen the facility at full capacity, he noted that staff is gearing up for South by Southwest, which is scheduled to begin next week. Commissioner Rebecca Bernhardt asked, “Is there any ongoing calculation on about how much it is saving?” Although there are no final calculations, Brown said he believes there have been meaningful savings in hospital and jail costs as well as officer time since the facility opened. Those numbers are coming through, he said. Commissioner Ed Scruggs noted that 40 percent of those who arrive in the sobering center say they will be walking home after they are released. “That just seems like an astounding number of people,” he said. While there are no requirements to prove one’s method of travel after release, Brown assured the commissioner that regardless of how people get home, they are only released from the center when they are sober enough to legally be on the streets. Of course, a visit to the center does not result in a criminal record, something the commissioners once again applauded. There are also no limit to the number of times an individual can visit the sobering center.

The Austin Chamber of Commerce has selected Jeff Thomas, senior vice president and general manager of HEB Central Texas Region, to receive the Bobby Jenkins Philanthropic Leadership Award and keynote the seventh annual Austin Gives Generous Business Awards luncheon. The chamber also announced the finalists for its Generous Business Awards, which honor businesses that have pledged 1 percent of pre-tax earnings, products or volunteer time to the community. In a press release, the chamber’s Beth Krueger said, “Austin Gives looks to honor all of the job creators and employers that make giving back to the community a part of their business model. Each year special recognition is given to those businesses that are giving back in meaningful and impactful ways. We receive a multitude of deserving nominees and are confident Austin will once again bring forth the best stories of how businesses are making a difference through their philanthropy.” Buy tickets or tables for the Generous Business Awards luncheon, held at the Austin Hilton on April 12, from 11 a.m.-1 p.m., here.

For all of those who are anxiously awaiting the rewrite of the Land Development Code, it might be a while. At Tuesday’s work session, City Manager Spencer Cronk told Council that staffers would produce a memo on the code rewrite before the next work session, probably within the next two weeks. The next work session is not until March 26 because of SXSW and spring break. Cronk warned Council members that they would not receive a detailed map of how staff, Council and the public will work together to craft the new code. But they will have to do some work before he can give them the road map they’re looking for. “I can’t put forward a broader process until I have some policy guidance from this Council,” Cronk said. He wants Council to make decisions about various key policy areas such as parking, compatibility, density, “and even the scope of the revisions, so I will tee up some of those key questions. They should be relatively straightforward so both the Council and the community can understand them and then really be asking for the policy guidance before anything further is released to the public.” Council Member Kathie Tovo told Cronk she thought a simple up-or-down vote on the items he listed would be difficult. She said she hoped the process would give Council, boards and commissions a chance to explore those issues before they launch into another code revision. However, Council Member Jimmy Flannigan is not looking forward to spending a lot of time on the details. “We’ve got to not throw away all the work that we’ve done,” with all the meetings held in various parts of the city. “I don’t know that repeating all the same conversations, where the meetings are the same and the comments are the same,” would be helpful, he said. “We can say up front without having to dive so deep into a specific property or a specific policy or one page out of a 1,000-page document,” this is what Council wants “and these are the types of policies that we are ready to move forward on. So I’m incredibly excited and grateful, city manager, to hear that this memo is going to be coming out and I’m excited to dive into this and get things moving.”

It’s National School Breakfast Week, and the Austin Independent School District wants to make sure every kid starts the day with a healthy meal. New data suggests that making school breakfast available after the bell ensures that more kids will actually eat a nutritious breakfast. So the school district will be offering free breakfasts – served in the classroom – to over 25,000 students daily. The menus at Austin school cafeterias feature many items cooked from scratch such as organic granola and breakfast pastries, and at least three times a week, locally baked bread and tortillas and fresh fruit. Anneliese Tanner, AISD executive director of nutrition, said in the press release, “A healthy breakfast is a great way to ensure students are getting the best education they can. National School Breakfast Week is the perfect time for us to further educate parents and students about the benefits, like higher test scores and better attendance records, of good nutrition.”

Many local faith-based entities are observing the national week of prayer for healing AIDS that is taking place around the country this week. The Health Equity Unit of Austin Public Health is sponsoring the 19th annual citywide worship service on Thursday, March 7, in observance of the week of prayer, with activities aimed at promoting greater awareness of AIDS/HIV and other health concerns, particularly among people of color, who have been afflicted by chronic illnesses such as HIV at an alarming rate. The week’s activities are focused on decreasing the impact of these illnesses in the community by mobilizing faith communities to take an even greater role in implementing AIDS education and services. Free HIV/STI testing, blood sugar and blood pressure monitoring, and eye exams will be offered, and a slate of health and medical service providers in the community will be in attendance. The reception is at 6 p.m. and the worship service is at 7 p.m. at Freedom Home Baptist Church, 3405 Oak Springs Road. Additionally there will be a daily noon prayer service Monday-Friday, March 4-8, at Greater Love Baptist Church at 6601 Manor Road.

To date, eight cases of measles have been reported in Texas and there have been serious outbreaks in Oregon, Washington and New York. While no confirmed measles cases have been reported in Austin or Travis County in over 10 years, Austin Public Health is monitoring the situation closely and preparing in case measles does spread to Travis County. Measles is a dangerous and highly contagious virus that is spread through the air when an infected person coughs or sneezes. APH’s memo warns that measles “is so contagious that if one person has it, nine out of 10 people of all ages around that person will also become infected if they are not protected.” According to the memo, APH is “ready to address any measles cases that our community may encounter and will keep you updated” in the form of a public website packed with information that will soon be launched.

The grand citywide experiment that is South by Southwest gets a little trickier this year with the wrinkle that the University of Texas and local school districts will not hold their spring breaks concurrently with the festival. With that in mind and anticipating downtown traffic tangles aplenty, the city, the police department, UT, and a variety of other local bodies of prominence are pushing for Austinites to do anything they can to reduce single-passenger car travel from March 8-17. At a public information event held Wednesday morning, officials encouraged locals to work remotely instead of driving downtown, use B-cycle services and pedicabs whenever possible, and use ride-sharing services with pickups and drop-offs in designated areas. A map of road closures and areas favorable for transit alternatives is available at the City Stage website, where visitors can also learn about Capital Metro’s extended service hours during what in cityspeak is known as “spring festival season.”

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The Center for Biological Diversity and the Save Our Springs Alliance are suing the Texas Department of Transportation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, claiming the MoPac Intersections Project threatens the Austin blind salamander and the Barton Springs salamander, both endangered species. According to a press release from the Center for Biological Diversity, “The conservation groups recently learned that the MoPac Intersections Project has exposed at least 21 underground caves, sink holes and other karst features that provide habitat for the endangered salamanders. There is a high risk that construction will pollute the two species’ habitat by introducing silt and pollutants to the subsurface. The project is being built across the environmentally sensitive Barton Springs Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone in southwest Austin.” The notice of the intent to sue, filed yesterday, is embedded below. Construction on the project started in January 2018.

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The Asian American Resource Center is seeking artists for its 2020 exhibit season. Both emerging and established artists of all disciplines are encouraged to apply. AARC aims to showcase the work of Asian American Pacific Islander artists who celebrate their community and their heritage through their artwork. The multiple exhibit spaces include a ballroom, a lobby, display cases, and exhibit halls with a view of the garden. The deadline to submit is April 28. There is no fee to submit an exhibit proposal. For submission instructions and information, visit aarc.submittable.com.

In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, the Nature Conservancy’s Texas chapter and Texas A&M University recently released a study that offers a new model for flood reduction – an innovative approach already being implemented in Austin’s Williamson Creek Central Greenway. Called “clustered buyouts,” the idea is to encourage voluntary buyouts of flood-prone properties within cities through lump property acquisition. Pam Kearfott of the Watershed Protection Department told the Austin Monitor that in the 13 years she has been working for the city, flood-reduction buyout programs have always been conducted in this manner. However, the buyout in the Williamson Creek Central Greenway has been coordinated directly with the land management office and the Nature Conservancy to create a community-led “visioning plan” for the buyout area that will include usable greenbelt space while developing a safely floodable plane. Lily Verdone, one of the lead researchers on the study and the director of Freshwater and Marine Programs for the Nature Conservancy Texas, explained that this link has allowed the Conservancy to observe the effects of clustered buyouts in a local setting. Kearfott told the Monitor that before any buyouts occur, the watershed department works to mitigate flooding issues through structural engineering like widening creek beds or creating detention ponds. However, there are cases when Mother Nature is stronger, at which point, like the new study shows, “maybe it’s better to take the houses away from the water.”

Time is running out for the Indigent Legal Services work group to obtain a Texas Indigent Defense Commission grant this year. In order to take full advantage of the available funding to be used for a public defender office, the group would need to submit its letter of intent to apply for the grant by March 11. To be considered, however, the letter needs signatures of Travis County criminal court judges and the approval of the Commissioners Court. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the judges will be willing to sign the letter at this point, unless the ILS group can create a compelling outline of how it will use the funds. The group has been working steadily to develop its plan since late December but has not had time to spell out the details yet. County Judge Sarah Eckhardt told the court last week that it should be possible to move forward even if the county did not receive the grant money this year, but the consequences of that situation were unclear. Roger Jefferies of Justice Planning clarified Tuesday that the result could mean less money available for the project. Unless the county submits an application this year, Jefferies said TIDC has indicated some of that money will probably go toward formula grants to be distributed across the state. Eckhardt said the county is “tap dancing as fast as we can” trying to develop the letter of intent to get the approval of all necessary parties. The ILS group needs to get the signatures before the court’s March 5 voting session for final approval.

Austin residents will have access to a broad range of online learning modules intended to improve community health, thanks to a new partnership between the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas and the medical education platform OnlineMedEd. The Discovering Value-Based Health Care modules were developed by medical school faculty and students and are organized around the concept of value-cased care, or health care geared toward positive patient outcomes instead of charging for total services and procedures provided to a patient. The new model is expected to help lower health care costs by eliminating wasteful and unnecessary procedures, but has not been widely adopted by established internal medicine programs across the country. The medical school’s Texas Health CoLab innovation hub took the lead in creating and deploying the modules for wide public consumption.