Central Texas Interfaith has scheduled two of a planned four accountability sessions with Austin City Council and mayoral candidates as well as county, state and federal office candidates for the surrounding areas. The Austin session will take place at 3 p.m. Sunday at University United Methodist Church, with a separate session for Hays County candidates taking place the same day. Central Texas Interfaith brings together more than 50 religious and civic organizations representing more than 15,000 voters and works to educate its members in churches, schools and in neighborhood gatherings, including 40 planned block walks leading up to the Nov. 6 election. The accountability sessions will focus on issues such as affordability, education, health care, infrastructure and immigration, which were identified as priorities through small “house meetings” with more than 5,000 residents in the areas served by the group.

Those looking forward to the Nov. 28 meeting of the Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee will have to endure one more week of anticipation. According to a post on the City Council Message Board, that meeting is being rescheduled due to a conflict with a joint City Council/Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority board meeting. The meeting will now (probably) be held on Dec. 6.

Word came down Friday afternoon from the main office of Major League Soccer that the Columbus Crew SC – the team whose possible relocation to Austin was used as a bargaining chip of sorts for the stadium deal City Council approved this summer – might not be headed for Austin after all. The matter has been thrown into question because a group of local Ohio investors appear close to a deal to buy that team from Precourt Sports Ventures and keep it there. Initial reports have it that Austin will still have a team owned by PSV playing in a new 20,000-seat stadium in 2021, but that team would be an expansion franchise rather than a relocated team. Representatives from PSV cautioned that the possible sale in Ohio is still not final, meaning there are more questions than answers concerning the move of a professional sports team to Austin, and the use of city land to make it happen.

The city’s Anti-Displacement Task Force has created some recommendations on how we can best address problems of displacement and gentrification in Austin. Now, it’s time for the community to provide feedback on the draft, at a meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 23, at 6 p.m., at Widen Elementary, 5605 Nuckols Crossing Road. Following the community input, the recommendations will be sent to City Council in November. The draft is organized around four key areas:

• Financing strategies;

• Opportunities to increase affordable housing for homeowners;

• Methods to increase affordable housing for renters;

• Ways to preserve small businesses and cultural assets.

It also draws from the People’s Plan, which recommends several displacement-combating strategies, as well as some policy recommendations from a gentrification study conducted by the University of Texas Center for Sustainable Development in the School of Architecture and the Entrepreneurship and Community Development Clinic of the School of Law. View the flyers for the free discussion in English and Spanish, or email NHCD@austintexas.gov for more information.

The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport’s economic impact to the area is up 212 percent from 2010, according to a new study. The study, conducted by the Austin Transportation Department, looked at airports all over Texas to examine their impact to city and state economies. In 2017, Austin’s airport contributed over $7.6 billion of economic activity in 2017 and supports over 74,000 jobs in the area. ABIA offers nonstop service to 83 destinations across North America and Europe, and passenger traffic through the airport increased 60 percent since 2010.

Texas Clean Water Action has joined the list of groups endorsing Mayor Steve Adler for re-election. In addition, the group has announced its endorsements in the other Council races: Vincent Harding in District 1, Susana Almanza in District 3, Ann Kitchen, who is running unopposed for re-election in District 5, Bobby Levinski in District 8 and Kathie Tovo in District 9. In addition, Clean Water Action has announced that it supports city of Austin bonds on the November 6 ballot and opposes Proposition K, which would require the city to do an audit of all departments. Supporters of Proposition K have not indicated what particular departments they are targeting, but some environmentalists have expressed concern that the audit is simply a mechanism to attempt to get the city to sell it its largest asset, Austin Energy. The Clean Water Action endorsements are similar to those of the Austin regional chapter of the Sierra Club. However, the Sierra Club did not endorse in the mayor’s race and took no position on Proposition K. Austin Environmental Democrats voted to oppose both Propositions J and K. That group also endorsed both Adler and former Council Member Laura Morrison in the mayor’s race. And in the battle between Council Member Pio Renteria and Almanza, that group also endorsed both candidates. The group could not decide between Levinski and Rich DePalma in District 8 and ended up endorsing neither. It seems likely that the District 8 contest will go to a runoff, so groups that failed to endorse this time around will have another chance.

After years of discussions, the Water Forward Task Force has completed its final draft of Austin’s Integrated Water Plan. Now on its fifth draft, the plan has received the blessing of multiple bodies, the latest of which was the Water and Wastewater Commission, which recommended it unanimously at their October 10 meeting. The plan will be presented to City Council in the upcoming weeks in hopes of receiving approval. “We do plan to begin immediately upon adoption,” Teresa Lutes, a managing engineer with Austin Water, told the commission. She explained that although Austin Water is ready to take action on all the recommendations in the plan, “we plan to do that in a thoughtful, deliberate way.” Commission Chair William Moriarty, who also sits on the task force that created this plan, noted that even if the plan passes Council, it will not permanently remain in its current state. He explained that the task force will transform from a planning body into an implementation task force that will meet quarterly. Likewise, the Water Forward plan will be updated every five years to allow it to be evolutionary rather than stagnant. Commissioner Nhat Ho said that now that the high-level plan has been ironed out, it’s time to look at the recommendations from a more granular level. “There is definitely concern in the community saying, ‘How much is this going to cost me?’” he said. According to Lutes, as each recommendation prepares for implementation, equity will be taken into account and there will be plenty of opportunities for public input. Knowing that Austin Water plans to vet each portion of the plan with the community going forward as they work to provide a secure future for the city’s water, Commissioner Mickey Fishbeck Maia said, “It just gives me a sense of security to just know it’s being taken care of.”

Were you expecting a City Council meeting today? Well, you were right … in only the most technical sense. Today Council members (maybe a quorum!) will meet for “Council Cleans Barton Springs Pool Day,” which promises pool cleaning and updates to projects for Austin’s favorite swimming hole. According to a press release from the city, “Following remarks, Friends of Barton Springs Pool will conduct a tour of the Pool that includes the Historic Bathhouse, the Upstream Dam, a tour of invasive plants, new tree plantings, the reintroduction of aquatic plants, and the recently completed Eliza Daylighting project.” The fun starts at 9 a.m.

The Pan American Neighborhood Park playground is getting new equipment, and the city would like Austin’s input. To that end, the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and Austin Parks Foundation will be holding an open house community meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 16, from 5 until 7 p.m. at the Oswald A.B. Cantu/Pan American Recreation Center (2100 E. Third St.). The playground rehabilitation project was made possible with funding from Austin City Limits Music Festival and Austin Parks Foundation.

Austin’s largest bicycle advocacy organization has weighed in on the 2018 City Council election with a list of endorsements. Bike Austin made its selections largely based on the answers the candidates gave to a questionnaire the group sent out that asked for candidate opinions on a number of bike-related issues. More information and contest-specific comments, as well as candidates responses to the questionnaires, can be found here. The group endorses the following:

• Mayor: Steve Adler
• District 1: Natasha Harper-Madison
• District 3: Pio Renteria
• District 5: Ann Kitchen
• District 8: Rich DePalma and Bobby Levinski
• District 9: Danielle Skidmore

“The Bike Austin Board of Directors is pleased to endorse this slate of candidates for Mayor and City Council,” said Bike Austin President Hill Abell in a press release. “Our chosen incumbents, Mayor Adler and Council Members Kitchen and Renteria, have already demonstrated their commitment to supporting the implementation of a city wide system of safe cycling facilities. The new candidates we’ve chosen have clearly stated their pledge to continue that work once they are elected to Council, and they’ve shared great ideas on how they will help us continue to create a city that supports human scaled mobility opportunities for every Austinite. Please join us in supporting these candidates with your vote on election day.”

This whisper has been changed to accurately reflect the information available on the Bike Austin website.

The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport just received a hefty grant from the federal government to the tune of $12.7 million. The money from the Federal Aviation Administration “includes $10.1 million in discretionary funds to be used for the final phase of expanding the paved aircraft area around the terminal by 48 acres and enlarging existing taxilanes on the apron around the terminal. This will better accommodate larger and more aircraft at Austin’s airport. … The aircraft apron expansion is a vital part of Austin’s airport expansion projects underway to keep up with current growth, prepare for future passenger increases, accommodate larger jets and expand air service for Austin. A related expansion underway will add nine new gates to the airport terminal. The expanded facility will increase the capacity of Austin’s airport to 15 million passengers annually,” according to the news release. Last year, over 13 million passengers traveled through Austin’s airport, which was designed to accommodate only 11 million passengers. “These grants will help Austin better serve the flying public, which will strengthen the economy and create jobs in this community,” said U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine L. Chao in the release.

Today, Oct. 10, KUT, the Austin Monitor, Glasshouse Policy, Austin Tech Alliance and A Functional Democracy will be hosting the District 8 candidate forum at 7 p.m. at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Auditorium (4801 La Crosse Ave.). If you have time before the forum, be sure to join us for the pre-forum happy hour with the Austin Young Chamber, where we will be collecting audience questions. Admission is free and open to the public, with more information about the event and tickets available online here. See you there!