A recent blog post at the Austin Chamber of Commerce website shares that due to constant growth in the industry, the number of technology jobs in the area has been steadily bouncing back to pre-recession levels. More than 138,500, or about 14.1 percent, of all jobs in Austin were in the tech industry in 2017, which is a slightly lower percentage than there were in 2007, but also double the national percentage. The tech sector had a jobs gain of 4.3 percent in 2017, which surpassed the 3.2 percent gain across all employment sectors. The number of tech firms has also grown significantly: Over the last five years, tech firms grew at 35.7 percent compared to 26 percent growth in all jobs. Tech employer firms in Austin make up 13.4 percent of total employers, and in fact make up a larger percentage of total firms than before the recession. Of these firms, the large majority are in nonmanufacturing industries. The average salary of an employee in high tech is $112,771, almost double the average annual salary of Austin residents, and it grew 6.2 percent in 2017. Tech jobs make up 26.6 percent of the Austin metro area’s total payroll. Check out the post for more details, statistics and charts.

In what was probably an inevitable step in the time of digital activism between those on both sides of Austin’s soccer stadium debate, a new Change.org petition invokes the city’s need for affordable housing as an “offside” of sorts (soccer pun!) against the stadium proposed for McKalla Place. The petition asks supporters to push for the 24-acre North Austin parcel to be used for “housing for low income families,” generally defined as being affordable for residents and households earning 60 percent or less of the area’s median family income. It also takes city leaders to task for exploring and starting to negotiate with owners of the Columbus Crew SC professional soccer team for a possible 20,000-seat stadium on the site, arguing that in recent years city staff had identified McKalla Place as a preferred location for a development that would include affordable housing. The petition was near its goal of 200 signatures as of this writing. City Council and soccer team owners Precourt Sports Ventures will spend much of June negotiating a possible agreement, with the team pushing for the deal to be complete or close to it before Council’s July recess.

The Travis County Commissioners Court, usually a reliable workhorse of a public body, is taking the next couple of weeks off. With County Judge Sarah Eckhardt out of town for some personal R&R, Commissioner Margaret Gómez will preside over a super-short meeting on Tuesday that features a mere 10 action items. That’s more action than we’ll see next Tuesday, when the court won’t bother to meet at all. In the meantime, have a heart for your favorite freelance journalists, who will still have deadlines to meet and content to create. Got story ideas? Let us know!

Addressing homeless needs, spreading the ideas of social-good efforts in Austin and improving access to mental health resources were some of the causes highlighted by nearly 200 members of the Austin tech community during a multiday hacking spree at St. Edward’s University. The winner of the latest ATX Hack for Change was Goodzilla, a team focused on creating digital kiosks that would let members of the local homeless population “reserve” a physical item they need and arrange a donation from a local business, or access a service they need as well. The “Most Austin” project was Good Emporium, which attempted to create a map of local social-good initiatives across the city. The “Most Hacked Forward” project was Alignment (the Mental Health Directory), which sought to fill in the persistent gaps in Google search for those seeking mental health assistance. The “Best Use of Data and Research” project was Alternative Mobility Support System, which wants to decrease automobile use by using artificial intelligence to improve safety for bikes and other nonmotorized transport. The “Most Sustainable” project was Ozone Heroes, which attempted to build an app that can minimize the impact of poor air quality for Central Texans.

Kelan Robinson started his city career in the office of Mayor Pro Tem Sheryl Cole and then joined the staff of Council Member Bill Spelman. After that, he worked for a while for Council Member Ann Kitchen before joining Michele Haussmann at her firm, Land Use Solutions. Then Robinson joined the law firm of Armbrust & Brown, working with Richard Suttle, as a land use specialist. Suttle is one of the lobbyists representing Precourt Sports Ventures, the owner of the Major League Soccer team Columbus Crew. Precourt, of course, is doing its best to relocate to Austin, as everybody knows. Robinson told the Austin Monitor on Monday that he believes they will make it here. In fact, Robinson has a brand-new business card showing that he is doing community affairs and special projects for the company.

Last week was a busy week in CodeNEXT. City Council met twice to hear public testimony on the Land Development Code rewrite, with a much larger turnout on Saturday, when a packed house convened to debate the pros and cons of the new code. This week, City Council starts its deliberations in earnest. A post from Mayor Steve Adler on the City Council Message Board lays out the ambitious plan for Tuesday – where discussion is expected to run from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Mayor Steve Adler hopes to “work collectively to find opportunities for consensus.” Meanwhile, in non-consensus news, as expected, the authors of the CodeNEXT petition have filed a lawsuit against the city over Council’s decision not to place the issue on the ballot. Nelson Linder, Susana Almanza, Jane Rivera, Ph.D., Gilbert Rivera, Michael Hebert, Jeff Jack, Mary Ingle and D. Lauren Ross, Ph.D., filed the suit on Friday. It can be read in its entirety here. The suit says that the petition, once validated, “triggered a ministerial duty on the City Council to take one of two steps: either adopt as law the petition initiative as written within 10 days or place the petition on the ballot for the next allowable election” and asks for a ruling on that matter. The plaintiffs have also asked for an expedited hearing in order for it to be considered in time to put the petition on the November ballot.

Since the zebra mussels arrived last year, they have been spreading at an alarming rate throughout our waters, and a local group dedicated to educating the community about protecting the Colorado River wants to make sure everyone is aware of the problem. “Over Memorial Day weekend, people were talking about the ‘Zebra Mussel explosion’ in Lake Travis and Lake Austin, and even the scientists are impressed with how fast these things are spreading,” said Colorado River Alliance Executive Director R. Brent Lyles in a press release. “Invasive Zebra Mussels will cause tens of millions of dollars in damage in the coming years. They reproduce so quickly that they clog up water pipes and damage boats, and we need to be prepared to see ecological damage in the Colorado River as well.” The alliance’s Barstow Speakers Series luncheon this month, hosted by the Austin Board of Realtors on Friday, June 15, will provide an introduction to the species and explain the danger it poses to the local ecosystem, what boat owners and lakefront-property owners should know about the situation, and what monitoring and mediation tools are being created to address the problem. Speaking at the event are three top experts in the field:

• Monica McGarrity, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s aquatic invasive species team leader
• Stephen Davis, a biologist with the Lower Colorado River Authority who is tasked with monitoring mussels in the Colorado River basin
• John Higley, CEO and principal scientist at Environmental Quality Operations, a tech startup that is developing technologies to help the situation

Tickets to “Zebra Mussels in the Texas Colorado River: Status, Threats and Potential Solutions,” which are $40 and include lunch, can be purchased at the Colorado River Alliance website.

This past weekend the Sabine Street Project, which the city promises will “create a festival street atmosphere” and give priority to pedestrians and cyclists, got the party started with a lane reduction. Right now a portion of Sabine Street between Fourth and Fifth streets has been reduced to a single travel lane. Work is expected to continue until this fall, and more information about the project is available online here.

Not only does the Austin Public Library have a bunch of kids’ programming planned for the summer, there’s a lot available for adults as well. You can get a professional headshot, take a yoga class or make new friends at events like PRIDE Prom and Harry Potter’s 21st Birthday celebration. View the full calendar here. For more information call 512-974-7400, talk to a librarian or visit www.austinsummerreading.org.

After overseeing more than 60 hours of deliberation on CodeNEXT, Planning Commission Chair Stephen Oliver is stepping down from the panel next month. While he was lauded by his colleagues for his management of a complicated, contentious process, Oliver was also the target of anti-CodeNEXT activists, who accused him of having a conflict of interest as a result of the work his architecture firm does for bars and breweries. In March, four attorneys associated with anti-CodeNEXT efforts sent a letter asking the Travis County attorney to investigate Oliver for violating state conflict of interest law. Lewis told the Austin Monitor on Wednesday that the complaint still stands and will not be withdrawn as a result of Oliver leaving the commission. “If he violated the law, it doesn’t matter if he steps down months later,” he said. Oliver made a point during the recent CodeNEXT amendment process of abstaining from votes relating to bar regulation.

On June 7, the city will hold a public workshop aimed at getting public comments on the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport 2040 Master Plan. The plan will address increased passenger traffic, which is expected to double in the next 20 years, at the airport. ABIA staff, consultants, planners and engineers will be on hand at the workshop to answer questions and take comments on ideas for new terminal spaces, ways to relieve congestion and the potential of “future runway opportunities,” according to a press release from the city. The workshop, which will be an open house, will take place on Thursday, June 7, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 2716 Spirit of Texas Drive – Room #174A.

Austin Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar Photovoltaics, a solar energy generation and storage project that has garnered a fair amount of national attention, is edging toward its final testing phase that is set to begin in October. Even as it is reaching the light at the end of the tunnel, the project, also known as Austin SHINES, was recently given the green light to integrate a new experimental form of solar energy storage: electric vehicles. At the May 23 meeting of the Austin Energy Electric Utility Oversight Committee, Austin Energy Vice President Dan Smith told committee members: “We just got approval to add a vehicle to grid into this program.” The idea, Smith explained, is to use electric vehicles like portable battery packs that can be used as storage devices until they are plugged into the system.

Austin Energy’s ambitious SHINES project cost $11.5 million, but Smith noted that nearly half of that bill was footed by grants; out of all recipients, Austin Energy received the largest grant amount awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy last year for this initiative. Furthermore, unlike other solar battery projects in the nation, Smith said, “there are really none that are cross-cutting the use cases between commercial, (city utilities) and residential.” According to him, once SHINES is fully operational, the project will generate enough energy to catapult Austin one-third of the way to its 10-megawatt goal of renewable energy as stated in the Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan passed by City Council. The success, he noted, will then allow the Austin utility to “use this to form our future road map.”