After an update on the recently launched curbside textile/housewares recycling program, some members of the Zero Waste Advisory Commission urged staff to include them in the creation of future recycling initiatives at their Feb. 8 meeting. During the director’s report, Interim Austin Resource Recovery Director Sam Angoori informed the commission about the public blowback to the city’s contracting Simple Recycling to operate the new program. During two stakeholder meetings since the start of the program last December, nonprofits like Goodwill and the Salvation Army claimed that the program has negatively impacted their donation volume. Commissioner Joshua Blaine said that this conflict may have been circumvented if ZWAC had been part of the program’s development. Even though it was conceived as part of the Zero Waste Strategic Plan, he said, it still should have come before the commission for review. “To me, that’s even more of a reason for something to come before us,” he said. “That’s something that the commission should be part of from the beginning.”

Barton Springs Pool will be closed next week (Feb. 13-Feb. 20) so that crews can continue work on the Eliza Spring Daylighting Project. The project is an effort to improve the habitat for the Barton Springs and Austin Blind salamanders that live there. In order to fix a failing pipe in the north lawn, crews need to drawn down the pool. Because this is Texas and swimming weather can strike without warning, Deep Eddy Pool will have extended hours on those days (6 a.m.-7:30 p.m. on weekdays, 6 a.m.-7 p.m. on weekends).

The Zoning and Platting Commission appointed new Commissioner Jim Duncan to the Small Area Planning Joint Committee, replacing former Commissioner Susan Harris. Vice Chair Gabriel Rojas, who serves on the joint committee along with Commissioner Jolene Kiolbassa, said he was hoping others would be interested so that his spot could also be filled. “I’m not long for this commission,” he said. Commissioner Ann Denkler expressed some interest, but when it came time to nominate someone, she nominated Duncan, seconded by Commissioner Dustin Breithaupt. Duncan said that he was interested, although he was reluctant because of his commitment as chair of the Citizen Advisory Group for CodeNEXT. “Small area planning, I think, is critical, and it’s going to be even more critical when we have CodeNEXT,” he said. “It’s that gray area between Imagine Austin and the code.” The commission voted unanimously to approve his nomination. Kiolbassa and Commissioner Betsy Greenberg were absent.

The city of Austin will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony next Saturday, Feb. 18, to mark the Levander Loop site of the Texas Blind, Deaf and Orphan School for Colored Youth as historical. The school operated from the late 1880s until 1965, when it was combined with the Texas School for the Deaf, and the city bought it in 2002 for redevelopment. The historical plaque ceremony begins at noon at the Betty Dunkerley Campus, 7201 Levander Loop. Take advantage of the free parking and light refreshments.

The Travis County Constable’s Office will host a press conference on Friday, Feb. 10, to kick off this year’s Great Texas Warrant Roundup. During the roundup, 300 jurisdictions across the state make a concentrated effort to serve traffic, parking, city ordinance, penal code and other, higher-charge warrants. Notices have already been sent out, and officials urge those with outstanding warrants to take this opportunity to resolve their fines. The press conference starts at 10 a.m. at the Precinct 1 Travis County Constable’s Office, 4717 Heflin Lane.

On Wednesday, Mayor Steve Adler and City Council members Ellen Troxclair, Ora Houston and Jimmy Flannigan announced plans to introduce a resolution aimed at reforming the city’s economic incentives. The resolution (embedded below) was formally introduced via a post by Adler on the city’s message board. “Our discussion of affordability challenges needs to address not only housing costs and property taxes, but also transportation, health care, and child care among many others. Importantly, this focus also needs to address income levels and access to economic opportunity for our residents. The Economic Incentives Reform resolution is one way to do this.” That message explained that the plan would better align the city’s economic incentive programs with goals of finding more middle-income jobs — “preferably located near the folks that most need those jobs and where we want growth to occur, as well as the access, training, and experience (including paid internships and apprenticeships) necessary for the folks that live here to get those jobs” — and furthering priority goals such as improving health and eliminating food deserts. The resolution also noted that the new policy should increase community benefits for the creative arts sector of the city and stress the development of “vibrant, mixed-use commercial corridors.”

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On Wednesday, the city announced it had finally won a grant with the word “smart” in the title. This particular one is called the Smart Cities Council Challenge Grant, and it’s billed as a way the city can build a strategy that leverages the latest technology to solve its mobility problems. Austin is one of just five cities, along with Indianapolis, Miami, Orlando and Philadelphia, chosen by the Smart Cities Council, a network of businesses dedicated to cultivating livable, sustainable cities across the country. The grant comes with a “custom readiness workshop” that will help the city figure out how to solve mobility needs with an emphasis on underserved populations. “Winning the Smart Cities Council Challenge Grant puts us that much closer to creating a comprehensive strategy to use technology to benefit communities that are usually left behind,” Mayor Steve Adler said in a press release on Wednesday.

City Council Member Ellen Troxclair raised concerns about the consultant the city hired to assist in the implementation of the corridor plan that voters approved as part of the $720 million mobility bond. HNTB, the contractor that finished second in the bidding process, she noted, appeared to have more experience managing large programs, including multibillion-dollar infrastructure programs that involved “lots of moving parts,” whereas the experience cited for the firm that was awarded the contract, HDR Inc., largely related to individual projects. Staff told Troxclair that while the two bids she cited were both considered strong and their scores were close enough to prompt an interview process with the bidders, there were other important aspects that led to HDR having the higher score. Troxclair said she would look into the matter further and hinted that she might have more questions when the contract comes up for Council approval today.

After hours of debate on Tuesday, the Texas Senate moved forward on Senate Bill 4, which would punish communities like Travis County for their immigration policies. Gov. Greg Abbott put the issue on his list of emergency items for the session back in January after a skirmish with Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, who followed through on a campaign promise to limit cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. Having dispensed with more than three dozen amendments last night, the Senate is expected to take a final vote on the bill today.

The saga of the Palm School continues to slowly – very slowly – unfold. On Tuesday, the Travis County Commissioners Court heard an update on the property from Economic & Strategic Planning Director Mark Gilbert. Gilbert reminded the court that it had launched a committee in tandem with the city of Austin to explore potential preservation opportunities for the 19th-century building at E. Cesar Chavez Street and I-35. The structure is currently occupied by the county’s Health and Human Services and Veterans Services Department, but those workers are slated to move into a new building currently in the works on Airport Boulevard. Gilbert told the court that, as of last week, the county is searching for a qualified firm to conduct a full-blown historic structure report, “which will provide a depth of information that really informs all the possible recommendations, all the possible conclusions we can draw” regarding preservation opportunities. He suggested that once a firm is found, it can carry out its work throughout the rest of 2017 in order to provide information to the Palm School Committee to make a decision by the time the county pulls its workers out of the building in 2019.

The suspense is nearing its end! Next week, the Travis County Commissioners Court will discuss potential proposals to “leverage” 308 Guadalupe St., the highly coveted downtown parking lot that came within a few thousand votes of being a new civil and family courts complex. To set the stage, staff presented to the court on Tuesday what County Judge Sarah Eckhardt called a “larger overview of our court capacity needs” both now and in the future. The briefing was a rehash of details that have been bedeviling the county for years: an aging, overcrowded civil courthouse, demand for both new criminal judges and civil judges, a growing population and an incredibly valuable piece of downtown land that voters indicated would be better off in private hands. Eckhardt pointed out that the county bought 308 Guadalupe St. in 2010 when the economy was still gasping from the Great Recession and that the land has only gotten more valuable since then. “So we did not lose money for the Travis County taxpayer. In fact, curiously, we have made money through the holding of this property,” Eckhardt said. The discussion of that property won’t be the only major step forward this month in the county’s quest for a new civil courthouse. On Feb. 21, the court will also discuss options for properties that could be the next potential site of the project.

City Council Member Pio Renteria announced to his colleagues during a Tuesday work session that he will push for the Plaza Saltillo project to be capped at a height of 78 feet on first reading, rather than the 125 feet recommended by staff. That is the minimum height that the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority has said it needs to be able to pay project workers a liveable wage, he explained. That announcement caught Council Member Delia Garza by surprise. Garza, who sits on the Capital Metro board of directors, said that the transit agency would be passing up on additional rental revenue by imposing a stricter height limit, therefore reducing the office space. Renteria responded that the additional revenue would only amount to $4 million over 40 years.