Austin nonprofit Southwest Key, which this summer earned a boycott from the local activist group Frente de Liberación Inmigrante, has pledged to hire an outside entity to review its practices in response to a New York Times investigative article revealing possibly troubling financial and other practices by the group that operates shelters for migrant children. Founder and CEO Juan Sanchez told the Austin American-Statesman that his organization’s board of directors would seek outside legal counsel to review practices and concerns raised by the Times. Southwest Key, which is based in Austin and operates shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, became caught up this summer in the national debate over the separation of immigrant families attempting to cross the U.S./Mexico border.

An innovative partnership consisting of Dell Medical School, CommUnityCare Health Centers and Travis County’s Integral Care is preparing to launch a mobile unit with the goal of bringing quality health care services to people experiencing homelessness. The mobile, multidisciplinary team will provide both primary care and mental health services, including substance abuse treatment, and will offer services such as housing assistance and social programs enrollment by coordinating with local organizations such as the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition. “Our goal is to fill gaps in care by leveraging the existing strengths and infrastructure of the three collaborating organizations in a whole new way,” said project director Dr. Tim Mercer. Instead of the burden being on the patient to find care, the mobile model allows the team to bring medical care to people where they are. “We can meet with clients on the street, a park bench, under a bridge – wherever we need to be to serve them best,” said team member Dr. Audrey Kuang.

Information junkies: If you’ve never looked at the city’s open data portal, we’re about to give you an early Christmas present. The open data portal is a veritable smorgasbord of data: charts and maps, datasets on transportation and mobility, public health, housing, neighborhood planning, public safety, and much, much more. Looking for a lost pet? View a map of all dogs and cats who are currently listed as “found” in Austin Animal Center’s database. Going out to eat? Check out the health inspection score for your favorite restaurant. You can also submit a public records request or see how the city is doing with its sustainability goals. Now the city is conducting a brief, online survey to find out who’s using the portal, what their favorite sections are and how to make the site even more accessible. Take part in the survey here.

Members of the Council Audit and Finance Committee are scheduled to hear a scathing draft report from the city auditor’s office this afternoon about the home repair program administered by the Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department. Auditors found that between fiscal years 2015 and 2017, the department’s home repair programs ended each year with about $6 million in unspent funds. Over the same three years, auditors found, the department “frequently missed performance goals related to the number of homes repaired,” with most participants waiting for more than a year before their homes were repaired. As the Austin Monitor has previously reported, many participants in the program were not satisfied with the quality of the repairs made to their homes. One or more of those dissatisfied citizens plans to testify during today’s meeting. Several of those homeowners are still struggling in the wake of botched home repairs, according to an attorney who is helping them on a pro bono basis.

More transportation changes are coming to downtown, according to a press release this week from the city’s Transportation Department. This time, the changes come in the form of transit improvements to West Fifth Street, which include a bike lane between West Lynn and Baylor streets and priority bus and bike signals at Baylor. The press release explains, “By repurposing the existing far right-hand bicycle lane to a shared transit and bicycle priority lane, the City of Austin will achieve greater system efficiency and support multimodal transportation choices without reducing capacity on the remaining three vehicle lanes.” The project will be tackled in two phases, with construction beginning this week, with an aim toward completion in January. Phase one involves “dedicating a 14-foot-wide lane along Fifth Street, between West Lynn and Baylor streets, exclusively for transit vehicles, bicycles and right-turning vehicles; re-striping the existing travel lanes from 11 feet wide to 10 feet wide; installing priority transit and bicycle signals at the intersection of Fifth and Baylor streets, allowing buses and bicycles to be queued out of the lane ahead of the general purpose lanes; and installing static signage demarcating the new lane as a transit- and bicycle-only lane.” The second phase is planned to begin in spring 2019, “further clarifying the shared transit and bicycle lane using red markings and replacing the static signs with dynamic message signs to alert travelers of mobility changes.”

The cat may have been let out of the bag early, due to a convergence of Lime reprimands, a swift-moving city process (?) and time to kill on Twitter, but now it’s official: Lyft is entering the scooter population of Austin. A press release from the company explains that Austin is the fifth market in which the company will be offering scooters, under a one-year pilot program using the existing Lyft app. According to the release, Lyft is working with the city “to place docks for riders to park their scooters on streets in areas where there is high demand and near transit stations.” Lyft representative Mike Kilpatrick explained further, “Lyft views the successful integration of scooters in Austin as part of a bigger movement to design cities for people, not just cars. Lyft looks forward to working in coordination with the city and other stakeholders on this issue into the future.” Lyft joins Bird, GOAT, Jump, Lime and Spin (which has just one scooter) in Austin’s scooter landscape.

City Council is seeking qualified applicants to fill openings on Central Health’s nine-member Board of Managers. Candidates should have a background in finance or accounting and a desire to serve the community by helping uninsured and low-income residents of Travis County obtain access to quality health care. Prior experience serving on boards or in positions of senior management is desirable, as is demonstrated leadership experience and knowledge of the health safety net. The term of service will run from January 2019 to December 2022. The deadline to apply is Friday, Jan. 4, at 5 p.m. Candidates are encouraged to apply online and submit a resume and a statement of intent explaining their desire to serve on the health board to cityclerkopencallapps@austintexas.gov. Successful appointees will be required to complete a financial disclosure form. For more information, contact Stephanie Hall at 512-974-2499.

Austin’s Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department is hosting a meeting for affordable housing developers who participate in either the Rental Housing Development Assistance Program or Home Ownership Development Assistance. As a result of a prior review process with area developers, the department has streamlined the application process and established a standardized review procedure for the city’s housing development assistance programs. The purpose of the meeting is to explain the newly revised application and review processes. The meeting will be held on Monday, Dec. 17, at 9 a.m. in the Street-Jones Building, 1000 E. 11th St., Room 400-A. For more information, contact James May at 512-974-3192 or by email at james.may@austintexas.gov.

Travis County Parks staff and local fire personnel are set to converge on Pace Bend Park this week to conduct multiple prescribed burns in select areas of the popular park. The strategically planned burns will help to reduce fire danger and improve the health of the ecosystem by eliminating dead vegetation and invasive plants. The burns will take place between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. and will be completed in about three to five hours. The park will remain open during this time though some areas will be off-limits to visitors.

As everyone reading this probably knows, runoff elections are a much different animal than November elections. To wit: The totals so far for this year’s runoff are much different than last month’s election. Granted, there are only runoffs in AISD and City Council Districts 1, 3 and 8, but as of Saturday night, only 3,867 ballots had been cast, representing just 0.58 percent of registered voters. The more robust general election for Nov. 6 had garnered 114,352 votes over the same early-voting time period.

Following District 8 candidate Frank Ward’s announcement that he had won endorsements from two public safety organizations, the Austin Police Association and the Austin Firefighters Association, his opponent, Paige Ellis, announced her own list of public safety endorsements. On Friday, the Ellis campaign announced that Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez and the Austin-Travis County EMS Employees Association as well as Precinct 3 Constable Stacy Suits were supporting Ellis. Ward is the Republican in the race, and has the endorsement of the Travis County Republican Party, while Ellis is a Democrat endorsed by her party as well as numerous local Democratic organizations and unions. Outgoing Council Member Ellen Troxclair, a Republican, has endorsed Ward. Mayor Steve Adler and Council members Greg Casar, Delia Garza and Ann Kitchen, all Democrats, have endorsed Ellis. Early voting continues through Friday for the Dec. 11 runoff election.