During Monday night’s meeting of the Board of Adjustment, board members voted unanimously to re-elect their current roster of officers. “I’d like make a motion to re-elect the suckers – I mean the fine ladies and gentlemen – that are presently serving for another term,” joked Board Member Bryan King. That means William Burkhardt will continue as chair of the board, and Melissa Hawthorne will continue as vice chair. “You do a fine job, William, I hope you would continue on and have really good health and attendance, as always,” said Hawthorne. “Likewise,” said Burkhardt. “We’ll keep slugging away then.”

Those who want to weigh in on the upcoming city budget priorities the new-fashioned way have only a few days left to do so. This year’s official online budget simulator stops accepting public feedback on July 15 – with that information headed to City Council in August. So head on over to the Austin Budget Simulator, if you are so inclined.

Attorney Catherine Mauzy announced her candidacy for 459th District Judge Monday with a lengthy and impressive list of supporters, including local elected officials, former officials and community activists. Mauzy is a well-known local Democrat who is board-certified in family law. The bench that she is campaigning for is a new one created for Travis County in the last legislative session. That court is expected to focus on family law matters. Mauzy touts almost 30 years’ experience as a trial lawyer and 20 years as a board-certified attorney in family law. In a press release, Mauzy promised to bring “progressive values and almost 30 years of experience to the bench as your judge.” Among those supporting Mauzy are Council members Greg Casar and Leslie Pool, Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez and state Reps. Gina Hinojosa and Eddie Rodriguez. Mauzy’s list of community activist supporters includes more than 250 names.

A familiar face at City Hall is getting an official place there. Mandy De Mayo, who currently serves as the executive director of HousingWorks Austin, is headed to work for the city as the community development administrator in the Neighborhood Housing and Community Development Department. De Mayo told the Austin Monitor that she was originally forwarding the job posting to others, as a stakeholder, and then she read through the job description. “I just thought, my God, this describes me personally. I was not looking for a job. This was kind of a surprise,” she said. In her new position, De Mayo will be tackling affordable housing from a new angle – managing some city programs as well as building and strengthening community partnerships. “It kind of builds on a lot of the work I’ve already done at HousingWorks,” she said. “I’m in the same field. I’m in a new capacity, but I imagine that I’m going to be working with all of the same partners I’ve been working with before. … The work will continue.” De Mayo starts her new position at the end of August – giving HousingWorks plenty of time to manage the transition and find a new executive director.

This morning, Austin Energy is bringing together more than 130 of its nonprofit partners for its Affordable Energy Policy Summit. Those nonprofits will learn how to help connect low-income Austin Energy customers with the City of Austin Customer Assistance Program. On the agenda are program benefits, residential rates, navigating the collections process and bill options. “The City of Austin relies on collaboration with social service agencies to help us do the most good with the $18 million that is available to help low-income residents, the medically vulnerable and other groups,” Kerry Overton, the utility’s deputy general manager, said in a Monday press release. The summit runs from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. at the AT&T Executive Education Conference Center, 1900 University Ave. Learn more about the city’s Customer Assistance Program here.

Paul Burt, the Pine Forest resident who filed suit against the city of Bastrop on two separate occasions alleging that the City Council violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when it voted to cancel a contract between the city and developer Robert Leffingwell, has dropped all claims against the city. The city has also dropped its counterclaims against Burt. Judge Carson Campbell, who presided over a lawsuit between Leffingwell’s development group and the city, county and school district, signed the order dismissing both Burt’s claims and the city’s counterclaims last week. However, Burt emailed a statement to the Austin Monitor indicating that he still believes that Bastrop, and particularly former Council Member Willie DeLaRosa, “flagrantly violated the Open Meetings Act by discussing and acting on the subject of the Pine Forest Investment Group contract without listing that subject on its meeting agenda,” in 2013. DeLaRosa lost his bid for mayor in the May 6 election, two days after Burt’s lawsuit was featured in a story in the Bastrop Advertiser. City attorney David Bragg accused Burt of filing the suit in order to hurt DeLaRosa’s chances of being elected. Bragg claimed in a court filing that Burt had violated an injunction related to the Leffingwell lawsuit, which is currently on appeal. According to Burt, “With my agreement, my attorneys approached the Bastrop City Attorney with a proposal that I drop my Open Meetings lawsuit if the city would drop its claim that I had violated the injunction. My attorneys warned the City Attorney that if he rejected this offer, we would proceed with,” an anti-SLAPP motion. The term refers to a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Burt pointed out that the Pine Forest Investment Group has included an open meetings issue in its recently filed appeal brief, so the issue is not dead.

Supporters of the effort to preserve the historic Montopolis Negro School in Southeast Austin hope to tap into some of Austin’s Hotel Occupancy Tax to fund renovations to the property. In an email to community leaders aligned with the school issue, local historian Fred McGhee said the push by Travis County commissioners to receive funding from a proposed two-percentage-point increase in the hotel tax could possibly be used for the preservation efforts. The property has come under dispute since it was purchased by local developer Austin Stowell, who has obtained a demolition permit to tear down the school structure that has a significant role in local African-American history. Plans have called for everything from single-family homes to commercial development in its place, but Stowell has recently said he would rehabilitate the school structure as part of a mixed-use project. McGhee also told supporters that a resolution of support for the preservation effort is expected to be introduced at Tuesday’s Travis County Commissioners Court meeting.

All Austinites with opinions about parking and events (which is approximately all of them) have a formal opportunity ahead. In response to Parkland Events Task Force recommendations approved by City Council, the Austin Transportation Department is looking for public input for a draft event parking program. The first open house will take place this Thursday from 5 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Austin Energy Town Lake Center Assembly Room. Thursday’s meeting will be an informal, drop-in affair focusing on Zilker, Barton Hills and Bouldin Creek neighborhoods. According to a June 30 memo from Austin Transportation Department Director Robert Spillar, the department will finalize a plan and head back to Council for approval following the open house. After that, the city may turn its eye to other neighborhoods for similar work – Festival Beach, Deep Eddy and East Austin were name-checked in the memo (though we aren’t clear on how “East Austin” is a neighborhood). Those looking for more information on parking can head on over to the city’s website as well.

This weekend, the Public Works Department began bus lane repairs on the Drag. The repairs are expected to be completed next month, with the majority of the work taking place between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. What to expect from the construction work? Well, the usual: traffic delays, detours, some driveway closures, uneven pavement and noise. As a reminder, this section of repairs on Guadalupe Street between Martin Luther King Jr Boulevard and 29th Street is part of a larger effort to improve conditions on Guadalupe Street, Lavaca Street and North Lamar Boulevard. And that larger effort follows a bang-up job of reporting by our own Caleb Pritchard.

On Thursday the Austin Tech Alliance urged its members and other area tech workers to sign a letter opposing the Texas State Legislature’s much-debated “bathroom bill.” Senate Bill 6 would prohibit people from using certain gender-specific public bathrooms that don’t match with the gender designated on their birth certificate. The letter is addressed to Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas House of Representatives Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick – the last of whom has been the legislation’s main proponent – and says the law would be discriminatory and “make it more difficult for us to attract the very best talent to Texas, and that, in turn, will impact our ability to innovate and succeed.” SB 6 failed to pass during the Lege’s regular session and is one of many pieces of legislation added to a loaded special session slated to open July 18.

Soon some drivers in Austin will be able to fill ’er up inside Travis County’s massive parking garage at 800 Lavaca St. The Travis County Commissioners Court gave the green light on Thursday for Austin Energy to install an electric vehicle charging station on the ground level inside the garage at no cost to the county. Facilities Management Director Roger El Khoury told the court that equipment, installation and maintenance will all be covered by the utility. The county will only be on the hook if it decides to remove the station within five years. After that, the cost of taking it away or moving it inside the garage will fall back on Austin Energy. The utility will also reimburse the county for the power needed to operate the station, while drivers will pay for all electricity they put into their vehicles. The station will be open to drivers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A single charge could take as long as 20 minutes and El Khoury stressed that signs will be posted warning drivers their cars will be towed if left plugged in for more than 30 minutes. The court voted 4-0 to approve the station, with Commissioner Gerald Daugherty absent.

The Travis County Commissioners Court on Thursday appointed a temporary replacement for outgoing Chief Information Officer Tanya Acevedo. The court voted 4-0, with Commissioner Gerald Daugherty absent, to promote John Stark to the interim CIO position. Stark has been with the county for more than eight years. He told the Austin Monitor that he actually came along around the same time Acevedo did. Of his predecessor’s tenure, Stark told the court, “I’ve been amazed by the camaraderie and expertise of our department. One thing I’ve been impressed with is that we’ve never lost our drive to continue to move forward. In a shockingly short period of time we were able to transform ourselves into what I would characterize as a true world-class organization.” Stark also said he will apply for the permanent position, which the court could fill as soon as September. Acevedo’s resignation is effective July 15 but comes as no surprise. She told the Monitor last November that she planned to eventually follow her husband, former Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo and now top cop in Houston, to the Bayou City as soon as she wrapped up several projects and their young son finished the school year. Acevedo was not available for comment on Thursday, but she will be fêted by the court at its Tuesday voting session.