This month, Austin’s Conversation Corps is talking water. Specifically, the group is holding a series of public meetings about whether the city should make the Stage 2 Water Use Restrictions permanent. Those restrictions, which limit watering to one day per week, have been in place since 2011 due to the drought. The Austin Water utility has proposed making them permanent in order to encourage conservation. To gauge public sentiment, Conversation Corps is scheduling meetings around town. All are open to the public. A list of meetings, which will continue to be updated, is available online here.

Let’s say you love plants but are wildly allergic to local flora. Up until now, that probably made trips to the Zilker Botanical Garden a source of internal conflict. Luckily, the city has good news for you. As of now, the botanical gardens can be seen virtually, through a tour available on the garden’s website. The tour offers information about the gardens and their history, and it is available to all – not just the housebound.

Austin Independent School District has announced plans to display more than 1,500 works of student art in an exhibit launched in celebration of Youth Art Month. In addition to the various media on display as part of the exhibit – which will include paintings, drawings, print and mixed media, sculptures, collages, weaving, ceramics, photography, jewelry and electronic media – 10 billboards designed by Juan Salcedo, an 11th-grader at Travis Early College High School, will soon appear around town. T-shirts designed by Phoenix Tovar, a fifth-grade student at Govalle Elementary School, will also be available for purchase. The exhibit, which runs Jan. 31 through Feb. 16, will be located at the AISD Performing Arts Center, 1500 Barbara Jordan Blvd. It will be open to the public Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.

Despite an Austin Business Journal report that ignited a firestorm of speculation Tuesday afternoon, Mayor Steve Adler’s staff says that Adler has not announced plans to propose a bond referendum this year to add managed toll lanes to I-35. In a written statement sent to the Austin Monitor Tuesday evening, Jason Stanford, communications director for Adler’s office, clarified the remarks that Adler made at an Austin Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce luncheon earlier that day. “The Mayor has frequently said that we need to act seriously to improve and address mobility and he would not be surprised if, and he’d like to see, the City move forward in a joint effort with the rest of the Central Texas region to address congestion as well as other mobility projects around the city, and this could well lead to a November bond election. The Mayor also expressed, as he often does, his support for managed lanes to facilitate transit such as are being built on MoPac (Expressway).” Stanford also clarified comments Adler made about the idea of using tax increment financing to fund a light rail system in the city. “He also thinks and has often said that he can’t imagine mobility in Austin in 20 to 30 years, with a projected regional population in excess of 4 million residents, without some kind of rail component. He also expressed the view that, given the last election where rail was defeated, that any future rail project would need to be different and probably need to be smaller in scale, federal funding would constitute a greater part of the project cost, and where the resulting increase in value of the immediately surrounding property would shoulder a greater share of the project cost. He did not suggest that this would be part of any immediate plans, much less a specific bond election, and was only speculating about what the future may hold.”

City Manager Marc Ott has made it clear that he is not pleased with a recent Austin American-Statesman article about outgoing Austin Energy General Manager Larry Weis. In a memo addressed to Mayor Steve Adler and City Council, Ott said that he was “troubled by many of the things conveyed in the article” and took particular issue with the categorization of Council as “naive.” He wrote, “I completely disagree that the City Council is ‘naive’ about utility issues. This Council has gotten up to speed very quickly and has engaged in ‘utility issues’ on many fronts. Any newly elected official will spend time getting familiar with the organization, but painting you as ‘naive’ is a disservice.” In the memo, Ott apologized for that characterization of Council, and in reference to Weis’ interview with the Statesman, he explained, “I assure you that I did NOT endorse this public process and was only informed about it after it had occurred.”

Travis County Commissioners Court heard an uplifting report about nearly 19,000 acres of land in rural North Texas that the county has owned since before statehood. In 1839, the Republic of Texas granted Travis County three leagues of land in Throckmorton County. Later, Travis added another league to the spread, bringing the total to 18,820 acres. The land is managed by an outfit called Spade Ranches, which channels revenue back to Central Texas coffers through grazing and hunting fees as well as a small number of oil wells. All of the money ends up in the Permanent School Fund, where it is then disbursed to school districts within the county. On Tuesday, Madelena Johnson, county director of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, told the court that her trip to the ranch in November convinced her that the property is in good shape. Johnson credited heavy rains throughout 2015 with providing ideal grazing conditions. “As we were touring, I just wanted to make sure we didn’t get stuck, because there was a lot of water,” said Johnson. “But the gentleman assured me he knew exactly what he was doing, and we never got stuck. So that was good.”

Beginning later this month, the city of Austin will start issuing citations to pet owners who allow their dogs to roam free at Auditorium and Vic Mathias Shores outside of the new off-leash park, a 4.5-acre parcel of land created as part of the recent redevelopment of Auditorium Shores. According to an announcement from the Parks and Recreation Department, dog owners wishing to avoid a citation should stick to the “western end of Auditorium Shores,” where the new off-leash area provides three areas of access to the water and features a walking trail, open green spaces, drinking fountains and a dog shower. Thanks to the redevelopment, some areas of Auditorium Shores that were formerly designated as off-leash are now designated as on-leash. Although that change began officially in September, park users were given a four-month grace period to adjust to the changes. That grace period ends Monday, Jan. 25, at which time violators may be fined up to $500.

Over the holidays, the Austin Animal Center saw an unusually high number of senior dogs. According to a press release, the shelter now has 40 senior dogs up for adoption and is seeking temporary fosters until that number can be reduced. Any resident interested in fostering can visit the shelter between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Deputy Chief Animal Services Officer Kristen Auerbach said that her department prioritizes adoptions of senior dogs. “The shelter environment can be particularly difficult for older dogs,” said Auerbach. “Most older dogs that end up homeless are here through no fault of their own. … These are loving, family pets that have no idea why they’re here, and many of them are sad, scared and confused.” To help with adoptions, Classic Canines of Austin offers incentives that include fee waivers, pet supplies and medical services. In addition, the group will hold an adoption event on Sunday, Jan. 10, from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m., at the Austin Animal Center.

As a service to the curious, the city of Austin has released a presentation on the current state of the city’s urban trails. That presentation, which we have embedded below, includes the past year’s accomplishments, projects in progress and what lies ahead for Austin’s urban trails.

Download (PDF, 4.15MB)

This week, the Parks and Recreation Department will host the second in a series of stakeholder meetings regarding the proposed Alliance Children’s Garden in Butler Park. The family-friendly event, which will be co-hosted by the Dougherty Arts Center and design consultant TBG Partners, will feature kid-focused activities and a performance for children as well as light refreshments. The design team will provide a conceptual review of the project, and participants will get the chance to discuss feedback thus far collected in the stakeholder process. The meeting will be held on Thursday, Jan. 7, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m., at the Palmer Events Center, 900 Barton Springs Road, in the upstairs meeting room. Anyone wishing to weigh in on the project may also fill out the online survey.

The Parks and Recreation Department will be holding a public meeting later this month regarding much-needed improvements to the Govalle Pool in East Austin. An assessment in 2014 determined that the 60-year-old neighborhood pool was in “critical” condition, meaning that it has “the potential to functionally fail within the next five swim seasons,” according to the city’s announcement about the meeting. Design consultants from landscape architecture firm Asakura Robinson will be on hand at the event to give a presentation on design constraints as well as improvement options, which could include the addition of gender-specific restrooms, a lap pool, an activity pool for young children, deck space, shade structures and public art, according to the announcement. The meeting will be held on Thursday, Jan. 28, 6:30 to 8 p.m., at Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center, 2608 Gonzales St.

Though City Council won’t meet again until the end of this month, as the Austin Monitor and others have reported, the debate about transportation network companies has continued, unabated by any holiday schedule. Over the weekend, the heated rhetoric continued, with the appearance of a questionably named “Rides Not Rape” Twitter account pushing a petition that supports the fingerprinting of TNC drivers in the city. The anonymous account had 19 followers at the time of publication and, according to a screen shot taken shortly after its creation, the first two followers were accounts run by Council Member Delia Garza of District 2.