The city will conduct its annual Point in Time Count of those experiencing homelessness at the end of this month, and organizers are looking for volunteers to help. The count, which is held each year to gather information used in city policies and for federal Housing and Urban Development funding, will take place on the night of Jan. 26. No experience is necessary and volunteers receive orientation and training before they are assigned teams and locations. If you would like to be one of the more than 600 volunteers this year, sign up online or contact the organizing team at pointintime@austinecho.org.

The public comment period for the draft Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint Implementation Plan and its companion Atlas of Existing and Historical Conditions has been extended to Tuesday, Jan. 15. The Strategic Housing Blueprint was adopted by City Council in 2017 to address Austin’s growing population and the lack of affordable housing options. The overarching goal of the plan is to create 60,000 affordable housing units over 10 years for households earning less than $60,000 a year. Send your comments to the city’s Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department by email at NHCD@austintexas.gov or by mail at NHCD, P.O. Box 1088, Austin, Texas 78767.

Starting today, Jan. 7, the tennis courts, restrooms, play equipment and picnic areas at Little Stacy Neighborhood Park will close for renovations. Sunset Lane will remain open during construction. When renovations are completed, the woodsy six-acre park will sport new, ADA-compliant sidewalks; picnic tables and grills with concrete pads; a new basketball half-court; rain gardens and improved erosion control; new lighting fixtures; an upgraded restroom facility; and a hillside slide for the playground. The park is projected to reopen for public use in early summer 2019.

Happy Holidays, dear readers. To celebrate the season, the Austin Monitor will be taking time to reflect back on the past year and look ahead to the next, running our traditional end-of-year interviews in the meantime. We look forward to resuming regular content in the new year.

Many city departments and facilities are closing so staff members and workers can spend the holiday and New Year’s with their friends and families. City administrative offices will closed Dec. 24-25 and Jan. 1. There will be no city curbside trash pickup on Tuesday, Dec. 25; trash collection will “slide” one day, to take place the following day, Dec. 26. View the entire holiday trash and recycling pickup schedule here. Public libraries will be closed Sunday, Dec. 23, through Tuesday, Dec. 25, as well as New Year’s Day, Jan. 1. Recreation centers, museums, cultural centers and senior centers will be closed on Monday, Dec. 24, Tuesday, Dec. 25, and Tuesday, Jan. 1.

Austin Independent School District offices and schools will close Friday, Dec. 21, for winter break. Normal business hours will resume on Tuesday, Jan. 2, and classes start Monday, Jan. 7. (The exception is Ann Richards School, which welcomes students back on Thursday, Jan. 3.) View the AISD calendar of events here.

Barton Springs Pool will remain closed pending final test results, which will be received today. The pool was closed Wednesday, Dec. 19, due to “an unusual level of turbidity” in the water, the cause of which is not yet known. To accommodate early swimmers, Deep Eddy Pool will open at 6 a.m.

The city of Austin and the Austin-Pune Sister City Initiative celebrated the signing of a formal friendship agreement Monday at City Hall that puts the two municipalities on the path to becoming sister cities. The agreement, which took over a year to negotiate, was begun in 2017 by organizations in both Austin and Pune that identified cultural commonalities in each other’s cities as well as expansion opportunities in India for Austin-based businesses. Pune, which is three hours southeast of Mumbai, is home to India’s most educated population and shares many similarities with Austin, such as challenges with housing, transportation and water. The rapidly growing city is also a musical and high-tech hub. Delegations of Austinites and Puneites have already made several visits to each other’s cities and Austin Mayor Steve Adler has invited Pune Mayor Mukta Tilak to visit Austin to sign the Sister City agreement. Council Member Alison Alter, who visited Pune in September as part of the business delegation, said in a statement, “I am grateful I had the opportunity to be there at the start of what I think will be a long relationship. Pune shares Austin’s creativity, amazing energy, tech savvy, entrepreneurial spirit and concern for our environment. The potential connections span many industries, including health, film, fashion, gaming, and many more.”

Central Health has announced plans to use a combination of in-home care, temporary and permanent clinics to provide health care services to underserved communities in East Austin in 2019. In September the agency approved a 2019 budget that includes nearly $3.5 million for care services in Austin’s Colony/Hornsby Bend, Colony Park and Del Valle areas including Kellam Road and Creedmoor. Plans call for a mobile health clinic for Creedmoor operating two days a week beginning in late spring, a permanent health center on Kellam Road that will complete construction in early 2020, a move from increased in-home visits to a modular clinic next to a fire station for Hornsby Bend that will open in July, and a mobile clinic operating three days a week in Colony Park beginning in May. The agency also announced it has moved 228 recipients in its Medical Access Program to private insurance through Sendero Health Plans, the nonprofit health maintenance organization offered by Central Health.

St. David’s Foundation has awarded $18.1 million in grants to local nonprofits focusing on health care issues, the local aging population, health care education, reproductive health and active lifestyles. More than three dozen groups received grants in the latest rounds of giving. Among the top recipients were AGE of Central Texas, with a $4.2 million grant to expand programs in Round Rock and South Austin; Meals on Wheels Central Texas, with $1.9 million for meal programs and equipment; Women’s Health and Family Planning Association of Texas, with $900,000 for programs to reduce teen and unintended pregnancies; and Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas, with $835,000 to address health care disparities in Dove Springs. The grants were announced less than a week after the foundation released news that its CEO Earl Maxwell will retire at the end of this month. A national search for his replacement will take place in 2019.

Austin City Council held a meeting, took an important step and adjourned – all within three minutes on Wednesday. It was the special called meeting to canvass the results of the Dec. 11 runoff in which Natasha Harper-Madison, Pio Renteria and Paige Ellis were elected to serve as the Council members for Districts 1, 3 and 8, respectively. Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo chaired the meeting and Council members Ora Houston, Leslie Pool, Jimmy Flannigan, Delia Garza and Ann Kitchen attended. There was no discussion and a very small audience that included Tovo’s daughter. The term of office for each Council member begins Jan. 6, with the inauguration the following day.

Commissioners in Williamson County unanimously approved an incentives package Tuesday that will bring Apple Inc.’s new $1 billion campus to the Austin area. The Chapter 381 agreement calls for Apple to spend at least $400 million to purchase and develop land in Williamson County (the Robinson Ranch stretch that was a potential site for Amazon HQ2) over 15 years. The tax deal from Williamson County that removes 65 percent of its property tax levy will require Apple to create 4,000 full-time jobs over the course of the agreement, less than the 5,000 jobs that are initially expected at the campus. The company is also eligible for and is expected to receive $25 million from the Texas Enterprise Fund.