It’s only natural that when families grow, you need more space to live. However, when you live in a tiny 1945 bungalow like Craig Carter, and suddenly you have triplets, size becomes a serious issue seriously quick. Carter, who lives at 1402 Mohle Drive, presented his solution to the problem to the Historic Landmark Commission at its June 25 meeting. Instead of simply demolishing the historic home and replacing it with “a mildly modern ranch-house-style home,” he found an architect who is willing to adopt his old structure. Amanda Swetman, a project technician with Cornerstone Architects, said that she “absolutely loved” Carter’s house when the project came across her desk. Therefore, she said, “I asked Craig if he would allow us to relocate the house.” She even purchased a lot in the Montopolis neighborhood off East Riverside Drive in preparation for his consent. Swetman explained to the commission that by relocating the home they will “allow (the house) to revitalize another part of Austin without putting up new cookie-cutter homes.” Commissioner Kevin Koch commended this solution, although he said that in the new home design, “I don’t personally like the driveway or the parking garage parking on the street.” Nevertheless, the commission unanimously approved the plan to relocate the home and replace it with a new structure for the growing family.

A new political action committee has made its way onto the Austin stage. Austin for a Better Future PAC registered with the Office of the City Clerk on June 21, with conservative activist Bill Worsham as its campaign treasurer. Worsham, who ran unsuccessfully for the District 10 Council seat in 2014, and opposed a number of bond propositions, including rail and money for the downtown courthouse, did not return a call requesting comment. But his PAC is aligned with people who are opposing the proposal to allow Precourt Sports Ventures, owners of Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew SC, to lease McKalla Place from the city for $1 per year. We found a door hanger on a District 5 house alleging that the Austin City Council “wants to give away more than $1 billion.” PolitiFact Texas rates that claim as a falsehood of the Pants on Fire variety. Nevertheless, this bold assertion is evidently attracting some followers – the same people who don’t understand, for example, that the City Council could not in fact spend money on “improving Barton Hills Elementary School.” The Austin Monitor checked with Council Member Ann Kitchen’s office late Wednesday and learned that they had received eight to 10 calls, mostly negative, about the Precourt proposal. An aide to Council Member Pio Renteria said most of their constituents were emailing about the proposal and that they had received perhaps as many as 200 emails in the last few days.

Mayor Pro Tem Kathie Tovo says there has to be a better way for City Council offices to deal with the frequent open records requests they receive. Frequently, she said, the records requested are emails relating to a certain subject. State law, however, requires that email addresses in public records be redacted, meaning that her staff not only has to compile large numbers of emails, but go through each message and redact any email address. Tovo noted that state law does not require redacting phone numbers. Tovo said that a recent records request took up 60 hours of her staff’s time and likely took up an equivalent amount of time for other Council members’ staff, since the same request was made of each Council office and the great majority of the emails targeted by the request were emails that had been sent to every member. The current system, said Tovo, is duplicative and a major waste of taxpayer resources. She has therefore authored a resolution that asks city staff to develop a centralized public information request system that will deal with all open records requests to Council offices, potentially including dedicated full-time staff.

The Austin Parks Foundation has announced the recipients of its 2018 grants for improvements to Austin parks and pools. Five entities received grants, for a total of $172,000 in awarded funds: Mabson Fields, for bleacher replacement and shade structure; Patterson Park, for new playground equipment; Barrington School Park, to make improvements to make the schoolyard more accessible to neighborhood residents; Friends of Deep Eddy, for drilling a well for more water for the pool; and Murchison Pool, for a new playscape. “We are so excited to see the impact that these dynamic projects will have on the greater Austin area and, more specifically, their individual neighborhoods,” said Ladye Anne Wofford, chief mission officer at Austin Parks Foundation, in the foundation’s news release. “We’re grateful for these dedicated Adopt-A-Park leaders and their commitment to improving and maintaining these community assets.” The foundation also launched the Pomerleau Pocket Park Master Plan in coordination with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department as part of its new Park Design Services program. Visit www.austinparks.org for more information on other grants the foundation is currently accepting applications for, such as the Impact Grant and Fall Community Grants.

At the June 25 meeting of the Historic Landmark Commission, the commissioners voted to remove the 1922 home of William Disch, the ex-head coach for University of Texas baseball from 1911-1936, from the 3012 University Ave./101 W. 31st St. property in order to make way for new construction. Currently a multifamily housing unit that is considered affordable, the structure will be replaced with a newer, pricier living quarters. According to Cara Bertron from the Historic Preservation Office, the building does not meet the criteria for a historical landmark designation because it has been significantly altered since its original construction. “For historical association I think a case could be made … however, staff feels that Disch-Falk field is still existing and, even though it was built after his death, is much more strongly associated with his legacy,” Bertron said. Despite dissent from several members of the neighborhood and disappointment from commissioners to see such a home fade into memory, the commission unanimously approved the application to construct new residences on the property.

On Tuesday, Judge Tim Sulak ruled to deny a temporary injunction that would have put Austin’s new paid sick days ordinance on hold. Several organizations, including the Texas Association of Business, the National Federation of Independent Business and the American Staffing Association, filed suit against the city on the grounds that the paid sick leave ordinance violates the Texas Constitution. Though the court case will continue in district court, the law is scheduled go into effect Oct. 1 for large businesses. Challenges during the next state legislative session are expected. City Council approved the ordinance earlier this year in a vote of 9-2 with Council members Ora Houston and Ellen Troxclair voting in opposition.

Julio Gonzalez Altamirano, a technology consultant who describes himself as “an active citizen” and writes about the city, transportation and the need for improvements, discovered Monday that someone was impersonating him. The person or persons behind a set of fake emails to the mayor and City Council remains unknown, but he or they were obviously trying to sway Council against voting for a deal with Precourt Sports Ventures, the group hoping to bring Major League Soccer to Austin. Gonzalez, a former board member of the Austin Monitor’s parent company, Capital of Texas Media Foundation, tweeted on Monday:

Hello @mls2atx. I want to make you aware of some sketchy activity being done in your name that you should help stop. Apparently, someone impersonating me blasted this to all Council Members & their aides. I was asked to confirm that I sent the mail. I clarified it was fraudulent. pic.twitter.com/FaJuxPy6GH

— Julio Gonzalez (@juliogatx) June 25, 2018

When asked how he learned about the fraudulent emails, Gonzalez said it was an astute observer in Council Member Greg Casar’s office. He explained, “I was their appointee to the City Manager Search Advisory Task Force, and they have a good sense of my personal email, how I write my name (no hyphen), and writing style.” Mark Littlefield, one of the consultants working to bring the Columbus Crew SC to Austin, said they had done a good job of weeding out some fake supporters and people from Columbus who might be trying to sabotage the deal but they do not know who was behind the impersonation. For his part, Gonzalez told us via text, “I love football soccer. I am most certainly a fan of both the men and women’s game. Having an MLS team would bring me great joy. In public social media I’ve indicated that the 1st PSV proposal is not yet a ‘good’ deal. But I think one is possible. I have not reviewed the new proposal and rendering at this point. I am writing a detailed analysis on the deal, now that I’ve been dragged into this.” That’s probably not what the tricksters were looking for.

Travis County is officially entering negotiations with an anonymous property owner to acquire a new site for a brand-new civil courthouse. At the end of Tuesday’s regular voting session, the Commissioners Court unanimously approved a resolution approving the terms of the negotiations with the “preferred seller.” What the terms are and who the preferred seller is remain a mystery thanks to the fact that the discussion of the item took place entirely in executive session. After the meeting, county staff told the Austin Monitor that, best-case scenario, the talks could be over in “a couple of weeks.”

Central Texas governments could get more than $24 million to spend on new vehicles if the Travis County Commissioners Court gets its way. On Tuesday, the court voted unanimously to send a letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality asking for a cut of the massive payout offered by Volkswagen to settle a lawsuit brought by the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of California. The suit alleged that Volkswagen installed software in its vehicles to cheat on emissions tests. Gov. Greg Abbott appointed the TCEQ to handle Texas’ $209 million slice of the settlement. The court’s letter says that because 11.6 percent of VW owners live in Travis, Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays and Williamson counties, the Austin metro area should receive 11.6 percent of the money. Furthermore, the letter proposes that that money should be spent on fleet vehicles for local governments. Before voting on whether to send the letter, Commissioner Gerald Daugherty expressed reservation. “I just don’t want to send it and see it get put in the trash can,” he said, adding that he would prefer to do some in-person lobbying of TCEQ officials. Staff explained that TCEQ’s final plan for distributing the money won’t be ready until the late fall following two to three months of public outreach, a timeline that County Judge Sarah Eckhardt said was wide enough to accommodate both the letter and face-to-face discussions. “There’s no harm in sending this thing along given the fact that we’ve got more time than what I thought,” a mollified Daugherty said.

When the Planning Commission meets tonight, it will be under a new chair. Commissioner James Shieh will be at the helm after a recent vote at the commission. In an uncharacteristically close vote, commissioners Patricia Seeger, Tom Nuckols, Trinity White, Karen McGraw, Todd Shaw, Stephen Oliver and Shieh cast votes for the new chair. Commissioners Fayez Kazi, Angela De Hoyos Hart, Jeffrey Thompson, Greg Anderson and James Schissler voted to have Kazi in the role of chair. After Kazi was nominated by Anderson, Shaw nominated Shieh, saying, “I think under the scrutiny we are having with the public … I think we need someone who is a little bit more centrist and really able to look at the broad spectrum of opinions and guide us through some very complicated issues. Shaw said that while Kazi “has what it takes” to run a meeting effectively, he pushed for the election of Shieh in the interest of “balanced perspective.” Shieh will replace Oliver, who is stepping down from the commission entirely. Oliver’s service was commemorated at the end of the meeting with a plaque that reads “World’s Best Chair” and includes a tribute to “visionary leadership, dedication and guidance.” It continues, “You brought balance, strength, patience and understanding to one of the most challenging situations the commission has encountered. We would follow you into the flames all over again.”

With the city possibly on the verge of negotiations with Precourt Sports Ventures on a deal to use city-owned property to build a stadium to become the new home of the Columbus Crew soccer team, an Ohio court has ruled a lawsuit seeking to head off the relocation can proceed. Ohio’s 10th District Court of Appeals ruled on Thursday that the state’s lawsuit against PSV is valid, meaning the case remains on hold until mid-August to give the city of Columbus an opportunity to purchase the team. The timing plays into the interpretation of the state’s “Modell Law,” which requires that sports franchises using public facilities give six months’ notice of their intent to leave the state and requires an opportunity for municipalities or private interests to buy the team. PSV has argued the six-month clock began ticking in October when owner Anthony Precourt announced his intention to move the team if a new downtown stadium was constructed, but Columbus officials claim he was vague in giving notice and, as such, the notice period is still in effect. One of two soccer-related agenda items at Thursday’s City Council meeting would instruct the city manager to begin negotiations with PSV on a deal that would see a 20,000-seat stadium constructed on 24 acres of city property near the Domain under a $1-per-year lease. Another agenda item would open the parcel up to a full request for proposal process, with at least two development teams interested in buying the property for mixed-use projects.

District 8 Council Member Ellen Troxclair testified Monday as one of plaintiff’s main witnesses against the Austin ordinance requiring local businesses to provide paid sick leave for their employees. Troxclair, along with Council Member Ora Houston, voted against adoption of the ordinance in February. In April, several business organizations, including the Texas Association of Business, the National Federation of Independent Business and the American Staffing Association, filed suit against the city, claiming that the paid sick leave ordinance violates the Texas Constitution. Others who opposed the ordinance when it came up for hearing included the Austin Chamber of Commerce and the Austin Independent Business Alliance. Those supporting the ordinance included various labor groups, including the Workers Defense Project. A number of groups are also organizing to get similar ordinances passed in Dallas and San Antonio. Those include Faith in Texas, Move San Antonio, Planned Parenthood Texas Votes, Texas Civil Rights Project, Texas Freedom Network Education Fund, Texas Future Project and the Texas Organizing Project. The ordinance goes into effect on Oct. 1, 2018, for larger businesses and Oct. 1, 2020, for smaller businesses. If the city wins the lawsuit, it seems likely that opponents will ask the Texas Legislature to overturn it. Troxclair released the following statement after her testimony: “Anyone who followed the development of this extreme and sweeping paid sick leave mandate knows that it was adopted without regard for the partnerships between workers and employers, and lacked respect for the many valid opposing views. After speaking to several business owners small and large from across the city, I found the majority of them already provided some form of paid sick leave, or even more flexible paid time off. Not only does the mandate come with new financial and administrative burdens for every business no matter their size but it could hinder businesses potential for expansion and growth. The Council did not allow enough time for the community to have input and grasp the impact such an ordinance would have on the local economy.” One of her opponents in the November election, Bobby Levinski, released a statement attacking Troxclair and saying that the plaintiffs were receiving legal assistance from the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation. He said, “The Austin City Council passed the paid sick leave ordinance to ensure that, among other concerns, working mothers and fathers would have the ability to take care of their sick children. Her opposition to this basic human necessity was already apathetic at best; working with the TPPF to overturn the ordinance by far crosses the line.” Troxclair is the only Republican in the race. She faces three Democrats in her bid for re-election: Rich DePalma, Paige Ellis and Levinski.