Troxclair digs into water crisis

Council Member Ellen Troxclair is moving forward with a resolution intended to launch an “open dialogue” with city staff about the recent water crisis, according to a post on the City Council Message Board. On Thursday, Troxclair wrote:

As our community finds itself in the midst of a declared disaster with respect to the state of our public water utility, I would first like to thank: the people of Austin for remaining calm and understanding throughout these past four days, and for making the necessary sacrifices to conserve water and helping to get us back on track to normalcy; our Austin Water staff who’ve been working around the clock on to get clean drinking water back to our residents and businesses; our City Manager for his handling of this unprecedented water service disruption, as well as all of our Emergency Operations Command partners.

While it is essential that we first get through this crisis, looking forward, I believe that the public deserves and would greatly benefit from an open dialogue with City and Water Management, examining what led to our present situation, what went right, what went wrong, and what we can do to be better prepared in the future. It’s important that we, as Austin’s elected officials, demonstrate leadership in working toward ensuring we never find ourselves in this situation again.

Troxclair aims to have the a resolution addressing the issue on next week’s Nov. 1 agenda, and Council Member Alison Alter has said she will co-sponsor the item.