If you’ve ever thought the problem with live music is that it happens too darn late at night, the city finally has you covered. The Economic Development Department and Visit Austin, until recently known as the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, are teaming up to bring a series of live music showcases to venues across the city – all during the day. It’s called the Daybird Local Music Series, and is scheduled for the next three Saturdays (June 10, 17 and 24) from 1-5 p.m. Upcoming acts include Sour Bridges, Ruby Jane, A. Sinclair and Suzanna Choffel. Find a full schedule of events and participating venues on the city’s website.

Yesterday’s news that the U.S. will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement prompted strong reactions from leaders across the world. Mayor Steve Adler made his thoughts on President Donald Trump’s decision known in a statement released that afternoon. In it, he reiterated his belief that cities can tackle climate change in the absence of federal leadership. “Austin will not stop fighting climate change,” he said. “Worldwide, cities will lead in achieving climate treaty goals because so much of what’s required happens at the local level. Regardless of what happens around us, we’re still Austin, Texas.”

Wednesday morning’s meeting of the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority Board of Directors featured a brief revival of gondola talk. Executive Director Mike Heiligenstein delivered a highly condensed wrap of a recent discussion he had with Travis County Commissioner Brigid Shea. That discussion came several weeks after a study co-sponsored by CTRMA on the Wire One proposal concluded that the idea in its current form is too short on necessary details. Heiligenstein said that at the end of his chat with Shea, he offered to meet with the man behind Wire One, Jared Ficklin. “Just to give him some context about how modeling could really help him refine that,” said Heiligenstein. Board Member David Armbrust, a Travis County appointee, added to the executive director’s short statement, telling his colleagues, “Commissioner Shea wants to apply this idea somewhere.”

The prolonged and winding journey of the city’s “agent of change” policy proposal took another turn Thursday with the online availability of the first publicly viewable ordinance draft language. The 21-page document is laden with references to other ordinances and city policy, so we haven’t had a chance to properly parse and digest exactly what it attempts to lay out in terms of alleviating tensions between live music venues and nearby development. Guess we know what to do with our weekend now before the next Cavs/Warriors game on Sunday night (because, priorities!). Staff from the Economic Development office had originally crafted the proposal with a very conspicuous exemption for hotels, which Mayor Steve Adler and a confederacy of live music venue owners pretty much gave a big “Nuh-uh” at a meeting earlier this week. The timing of the ordinance becoming available does raise some questions about its near-term future. Adler suggested staff might want to pump the brakes on a plan to have the issue in front of City Council on June 8, but it’s possible the version published online could sneak onto this week’s Council agenda. Where this all leads, we’ll find out next week, beginning with Monday’s meeting of the Music Commission.

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Austin’s central roadway is due for a transformation, and residents are wanted to help decide what the runway up to the state Capitol building will look like in the years to come. The Our Congress Avenue project is holding walkabout sessions today and Saturday, and seeking volunteers to help in the long-term effort, which is being led in part by the Downtown Austin Alliance. Today’s sessions run from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. starting from the Royal Blue Grocery and the Yeti flagship store, with a story tour from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Old Bakery and Emporium. The Saturday story tour starts at 10:30 a.m. from the Yeti store, with walkabouts from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The avenue is expected to change in the coming years as the city adjusts the availability of on-street parking to better reflect use patterns and demand as transit and automobile use changes. Sidewalk width, bike usage and streetscape designs are some of the components that will be discussed during the sessions.

Travis County and other local governments heaved a huge sigh of relief at the closure of the 85th Texas Legislature’s regular session on Monday. While lawmakers dealt a number of blows to progressive causes and local control, they never came to an agreement on new revenue caps that would harshly restrict the ability of local jurisdictions to raise their property taxes. In his final regular session report on Tuesday, Travis County Intergovernmental Relations Coordinator Deece Eckstein told the Commissioners Court that the Senate had passed a bill with the new caps in it, but that provision was pulled out by the House. Both chambers were then unable to work out a compromise and that bill died. “And with it died any opportunity for revenue caps during the regular session,” Eckstein said before noting that Gov. Greg Abbott is highly likely to call a special session in June and the threat of revenue caps could very well reappear. As for the rest of the county’s legislative agenda, Eckstein reported that Abbott has already signed one court-endorsed bill into law. Senate Bill 988 clarifies that county judges can video conference themselves remotely into Commissioners Court meetings. County Judge Sarah Eckhardt promised she would use the privilege judiciously. “We may use the technology, but it will only be in circumstances where we’re fully vetted,” said Eckhardt. Other county-supported bills, including one that creates a new civil district court and criminal district court in Travis County, are waiting for Abbott’s signature, Eckstein said.

The City Auditor’s Integrity Unit continues to receive a wide variety of complaints about city officials, employees and contractors, but the first half of Fiscal Year 2016-17 showed a decline in allegations received compared to FY 2015-16. Nathan Wiebe, who leads the integrity unit, told the City Council Audit and Finance Committee Wednesday that his group received 112 complaints during the first half of FY 2016-17, compared to 142 complaints in the first half of FY 2015-16 and 164 complaints in the second half of FY 2015-16. He noted that the unit received an increased portion of its complaints through its anonymous hotline program, with 73 percent of complaints received coming through the hotline. Only 21 percent of complaints received were by direct contact and 6 percent were referrals from departments or audits, he said. Only 33 percent of the allegations received were within the integrity unit’s jurisdiction, Wiebe said. Roughly 46 percent of the allegations his unit could not address revolved around personnel issues, with another 46 percent related to what he called “operational issues” and 8 percent related to criminal matters, he said. The department completed 11 investigations in the first half of the fiscal year, and found sufficient evidence to indicate a violation had occurred in eight of those cases, he said.

Austin Energy is hoping to reduce energy costs and offer additional storage options for its commercial customers in a new partnership with Stem Inc., a technology company that works to improve ways in which energy is distributed and consumed. According to a press release, this is the first phase of Austin Energy’s efforts to reduce the cost of electricity to below $0.14/kWh, which is part of a larger grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Sustainable and Holistic Integration of Energy Storage and Solar PV program. Stem’s software-driven energy storage works by reducing energy costs during peak demand and providing partners, like Austin Energy, with real-time energy management and tools. The system is programmed to respond to spikes in electricity so the software can then use stored power to “automatically reduce demand charge costs without requiring operational changes or manual input from the host.” Jackie Sargent, Austin Energy general manager, is quoted in that same release, saying the partnership will help Austin Energy better understand the potential benefits of integrated distributed energy resources to help increase reliability and customer value.

As you all know by now, last week the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema provoked a very specific kind of outrage by offering a women-only showing of Wonder Woman at its theaters, and then expanding the number of showings in response to the frothy-mouthed cries of “misandry!” that met the promotion online. Yesterday, some wounded soul decided it was time to take his oppression to the top, and wrote Mayor Steve Adler about the situation. Though the screed against women and their nerve ended “Women do not want gender equality; they want more for women. Don’t bother to respond because I am sure your cowardice will generate nothing worth reading,” Adler responded, in an open letter, nonetheless. After expressing concern that the writer’s email had been hacked by “an unfortunate and unusually hostile individual,” Adler continued, “You and I are serious men of substance with little time for the delicate sensitivities displayed by the pitiful creature who maligned your good name and sterling character by writing that abysmal email. I trust the news that your email account has been hacked does not cause you undue alarm and wish you well in securing your account. And in the future, should your travels take you to Austin, please know that everyone is welcome here, even people like those who wrote that email whose views are an embarrassment to modernity, decency, and common sense.”

Summer is almost here! For a lot of Austinites, that means a return to swimming, but government officials want that return to be healthy. In that spirit, they are offering up tips for healthy swimming that is free of “recreational water illnesses” (known in the killjoy set as RWIs). According to a press release from Austin Public Health, “The germs that cause RWIs, such as cryptosporidiosis (also known as ‘crypto’), are spread when you swallow, breathe in the mists from, or have contact with contaminated water from pools, water parks, hot tubs, lakes, oceans and any other type of water used for recreation. The good news is that germs causing RWIs are killed by chlorine; however, chlorine doesn’t work right away and some organisms can live in the pool for days. … Even the best maintained pools can spread illness. Pool water is shared by every swimmer so to help stay healthy every time you swim, take an active role in stopping the spread of germs by following six steps for healthy swimming:

• Don’t swim when you have diarrhea. You can spread germs in the water and make other people sick.
• Don’t swallow the pool water. Avoid getting water in your mouth.
• Practice good hygiene. Shower with soap before swimming and wash your hands after using the toilet or changing diapers. Germs on your body end up in the water.
• Take your kids on bathroom breaks or check diapers often. Waiting to hear ‘I have to go’ may mean that it’s too late.
• Change diapers in a bathroom or a diaper-changing area and not at poolside. Germs can spread in and around the pool.
• Wash your child thoroughly (especially the rear end) with soap and water before swimming. Invisible amounts of fecal matter can end up in the pool.”

More information about disease-free swimming can be found on the CDC’s website.

Of the many ways University of Texas students give back, one of the gutsiest and most high-profile is the Texas 4000 bicycle relay, which has raised funds for cancer research for going on 14 years. This year 69 brave souls will make their way from Austin to Alaska in what is known as “the longest annual charity bike ride in the world.” The crew’s ceremonial send-off takes place on June 2 on the LBJ Library Lawn, where participants will hear a speech from the dean of the Cockrell School of Engineering. Riders choose one of three routes, eventually reuniting for the final 10-day leg of the trip to Anchorage. Learn more about the race, the cyclists and their stories on the Texas 4000 website.

There are, admittedly, a lot of public meetings going on as CodeNEXT makes it way from idea into code. This week, City Council officially joins the fray with a series of meetings dedicated solely to the rewrite of the Land Development Code. Today’s meeting will start at 1 p.m. and end at 3 p.m., with subsequent meetings planned for that same time on June 7, June 14 and June 21.