Yesterday, the city of Dallas announced it would join San Antonio, Austin and the other plaintiffs in their “sanctuary cities” lawsuit against the state of Texas. Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings made the pledge in the afternoon, saying in a statement, “(Senate Bill 4) is unconstitutional and would infringe upon the city’s ability to protect public safety.” Austin City Council Member Greg Casar, who was arrested during a protest of the bill, thanked Dallas for joining the cause. The same afternoon Austin Mayor Steve Adler tweeted that the case would begin with a preliminary injunction hearing on June 26.

Although most people left Tuesday’s work session under the impression that City Council Member Delia Garza was attending to Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority business, she was, in fact, in Washington, D.C. Garza is at our nation’s capital on city business, representing the city of Austin in the 2017-2018 class of the Equitable Economic Development Fellowship. It’s the second year of the fellowship for Austin, which is run by the National League of Cities, PolicyLink and the Urban Land Institute in an effort to help cities balance growth with things like inclusivity, equitable access and transparency.

The state’s municipal development on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard will need to find a new anchor tenant. That’s because legislation to create a long-proposed museum showcasing the history of Texas music failed to gain passage in the Texas Legislature this session. For a while the matter led in part by Austin Sen. Kirk Watson seemed to be on a glide path toward passage from both houses. The legislation would have created the foundation needed to raise funds for the multi-floor museum and helped to give it an eventual home in the $550 million two-building complex that will be constructed next to the Bullock Texas State History Museum and across from the Blanton Museum of Art. The measure was ultimately done in by objections from a network of smaller, regional music museums from around the state, who refused to collaborate on the project and argued that an official state museum would likely put them out of business. That means the effort gets shelved again until 2019, unless it somehow makes its way onto the docket of an already loaded special legislative session.

As we noted on Wednesday, Rosewood Pool has unfortunately closed due to an “unexpected maintenance issue.” Yesterday afternoon, the Parks and Recreation Department elaborated on the extent of the problem. Essentially, paint on the bottom of the pool is mixing with the water and making it hard for city lifeguards to see. Since the community has to wait for the pool to reopen on Saturday, June 17, the department decided to open the Dottie Jordan Pool, 2803 Loyola Lane, earlier than it originally planned. And, though Dottie Jordan is normally closed on Wednesdays, it will be open on June 14 to compensate for the Rosewood closure. Find pool hours and more on the city’s website.

The public will soon get a chance to meet and question the finalists looking to become the new head of the city’s Music and Entertainment Division. At Monday’s meeting of the Music Commission, Alex Lopez, deputy director of the Economic Development Department, which oversees the music office, said the application process closed as of the Memorial Day weekend and that city staff is working to have possibly three finalists selected to attend the commission’s July 10 meeting. Lopez said because of the highly public nature of the position she wants to see how the candidates interact with the commissioners and the public in an open setting. Details are still being worked out for commissioners and the public to give feedback after the session, which is expected to last an hour. The position has been effectively open since mid-February when Don Pitts, the previous program manager, resigned amid accusations that he twice failed to report a former employee who fraudulently received $2,500 from the city in an attempt to recoup travel expenses from a “zero cost” trip to Europe for city business. Since Pitts’ departure Lopez has assumed most of the duties of the position, which is expected to focus on ways to strengthen the city’s music industry beyond its live music and festival business.

City Council will hold a public hearing at Thursday’s meeting on the contentious issue of adoption of a new plumbing code. However, because Council members Ann Kitchen and Delia Garza will be participating in a Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority workshop in Minneapolis on Thursday, Council Member Leslie Pool asked Mayor Steve Adler at Tuesday’s work session if they could hold the hearing but postpone the vote. The mayor seemed to be amenable to that idea. City staff and members of the home building community are requesting that Council adopt the International Residential Codes. Members of the Mechanical, Plumbing and Solar Board disagree. They recommended that Council adopt the Uniform Plumbing Code instead. Emily Blair, the chief executive officer for the Home Builders Association of Greater Austin, noted in a letter to Council that, “Austin is the only remaining market in Texas still using the Uniform Plumbing Code and its continued adoption is no longer in the public interest. This antiquated code gives one stakeholder,” by which she means plumbers, “an underserved financial edge while working to the detriment of builders, owners, renters, municipal inspectors, and affordability and water conservation advocates.” The association estimates that use of the Uniform Plumbing Code adds between $500 and $1,000 per house. Glen Coleman, representing the Home Builders, told the Austin Monitor he expects numerous plumbers to show up to testify in favor of the uniform code. The Zucker report recommended adoption of the international code and staff argues that code better fits the Imagine Austin priorities of water conservation and greater affordability.

City Council is again taking aim at the current city ordinance that sets a curfew for Austin’s kids. Currently, minors can carry a Class C misdemeanor, the lowest-level criminal offense, on their record if they break the city’s curfew, which prohibits them from being outside from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. Most Council members are hoping to decriminalize the offense and prevent youth from entering the criminal justice pipeline. Council must either renew or change the 1990 ordinance on Thursday before it expires on June 18. Interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said 2,123 curfew citations were issued over the last three fiscal periods, with only 85 percent being a first-time offense and 85 minors convicted. Council Member Ora Houston said youth who have been expelled or are not in school are more likely to stay out and break the curfew, and intervention programs to educate both parents and children are better than throwing them into the system.

On Saturday, Austin’s Parks and Recreation Department is asking the public to weigh in on the Aquatic Master Plan development update, which has been in the works since 2013. Saturday’s meeting will take place at 10 a.m. at the A.B. Cantu Pan-American Recreation Center. A second meeting on the plan will take place on June 13 at 6:30 p.m. at the Spicewood Springs Library. With swimming season finally upon us, the timing couldn’t be better. On the other hand, the timing couldn’t have been worse for an “unexpected maintenance issue” involving paint that has forced Rosewood Pool to close. The pool is expected to reopen on Saturday, June 17.

Yesterday the American Civil Liberties Union took the next step in the fight against Texas’ Senate Bill 4, known as the “sanctuary cities” law. The ACLU, along with its Texas chapter, announced it filed a motion to block “the anti-immigrant and anti-law enforcement” law before it goes into effect this fall. The motion asks the federal district court in San Antonio to make a decision on whether or not the law is constitutional, as part of the larger effort by the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens, city of El Cenizo and others to halt a law they say will breed mistrust between immigrant communities and police. Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who provoked a swift response from state lawmakers earlier this year when she limited compliance with federal immigration detainers, has already said the county will enforce the new rules as soon as they are the law of the land. “Not only will SB 4 lead to wholesale racial profiling, it is so vaguely written that local officials and law enforcement agencies are essentially left to guess whether their policies and practices would violate the law,” said ACLU of Texas staff attorney Edgar Saldivar. “We’re proud to lead the charge on this important next step in the legal battle to keep this calamitous legislation from taking effect on September 1.”

It appears City Council will get to vote on the much-debated “agent of change” policy this month, though the Austin Music Commission flirted with the idea Monday of calling for a delay on the matter. The thinking in possibly delaying the vote came about because of letters from a pair of local music stakeholder groups – Austin Music People and the Music Venue Alliance – voicing strong objections to the final 21-page ordinance language that appeared on June 1 and is substantially different than the four-page proposal document that had been the basis for much of the public discussion and debate on the issue. Some commission members advocated for strengthening protections for live music venues by including language requiring soundproofing measures for new hotels and residential developments built near existing venues. City staff from the mayor’s office and Economic Development Department said such measures were voted down by Council in 2013, and that delaying the June 15 vote would make it hard to get the proposal back on Council’s agenda in the midst of work on the city budget and CodeNEXT matters this fall. In the end, the commission voted 6-0 to request a summit with city staff, the mayor’s office and venue owners before this Friday, so the ordinance could be reviewed and possibly given an OK by those parties to proceed to the Council agenda, the deadline for which is this Friday.

Next week, the Austin Monitor, Glasshouse Policy, Imagine Austin and TransitCenter will join forces to talk transportation. The event will feature a panel, moderated by our very own Caleb Pritchard, featuring Mayor Steve Adler, Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority President and CEO Linda Watson, City Council Member Delia Garza, and representatives from TransitCenter – a national foundation dedicated to improving urban mobility. The topics of the day? Public transit changes that are working, or not working, in cities across the country and how Capital Metro and the city can work together to improve mobility. The panel will take place on June 14 at 7 p.m. at the Capital Factory. Free tickets, and RSVP, available online here.

Yesterday, in these very whispers, the Austin Monitor reported that this Wednesday will be chock full of CodeNEXT. That is true, but not quite as we originally reported. City Council’s specially called CodeNEXT meeting will convene at 1 p.m., not 9 a.m. The morning discussion about CodeNEXT will actually take place today, as the first portion of the City Council work session. Council is scheduled to talk Land Development Code rewrite until 10:30 a.m. today.