City of Austin Council Message Board

CM Colleagues, We offer this amended resolution based on the Nov 3rd (2015) election results: REVISED DRAFT Ver. 2 (Post Bond Election) RESOLUTION WHEREAS, the people of Austin and Travis County have expressed concern about the high cost of living in this region; and WHEREAS, the voters of Travis Co...

Dear Mayor,

This seems extraordinary, but I would request to see the Agenda items with some backup before offering an opinion on whether I would support such a Sunday meeting.

Regards,
Don

In answer to the city attorney letter stating, in part: "...charges for service rendered cannot be reduced or changed in the absence of demonstrated factual or procedural error in a given case", I wish to concur in general with this opinion. Currently we cannot tell the difference between ...

Apologies for only seeing this posting just now - it's a great question, but based on what I heard yesterday, I would say the answer to the question is no. Moreover, we were told that thousands of requests (over 90%) of investigated accounts have been closed with no adjustments to bills. Around 200 ...

UPDATE: Important message from city legal staff: Councilmembers – Before tomorrow’s meeting of the Public Utility Committee, I’d like to address an issue raised by the draft resolution concerning high water bills that CM Zimmerman has posted on the message board for discussion. I’ve discussed this w...

Dear CM Colleagues,

To give us a chance of enforcing the additional STR Ordinances, while also recognizing our constituents' complaints that we were not enforcing existing ordinances, please reconsider this concept of a dedicated task force for enforcing STR and public disturbance ordinances.

CM Colleagues, We continue to get calls on dramatic increases in measured water usage. In last months PUC meeting, Austin Water made it clear they did NOT wish "profit" from the extraordinarily high water bills. While we continue investigating the root cause of the problem, we propose this...

CM Colleagues, I'm offering this draft resolution for discussion. --- WHEREAS, the “Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Planning Organization Coordinating Committee—Citizens Advisory Committee” is an important panel having significant influence in policy decisions made by the City of Austin, by Travis...

CM Pool,

I would love to see a technical briefing on this interesting subject as a precursor to a policy deliberation on the matter. I concur that the one big downside is high initial cost.

Mr. Mayor, I recommend altering the second point as follows: 2. Recommend protocol for how CITY STAFF MEMBERS testify or interact with other governmental bodies in their official capacity as STAFF members. In the 2015 session for example, the city police chief Art Acevedo was very public in testifyi...

Possible issues to be considered relative to “body cameras” on Austin Police Officers Dear Council Members: On Monday, September 28, 2015, the Public Safety Committee will be discussing Police Body Cameras; since the Council funded this issue in the FY 2015-16 City Budget. Below are some policy ques...

Fellow CM Colleagues, Below is a link to a file we prepared with help from a local downtown investor/developer which compares the downtown courthouse to a downtown residential condo, such as the newly proposed Independent Condo Tower. The downtown courthouse property, because of its prime location -...

Dear Council Members: We've heard much testimony and we've spent many hours debating complex new ordinances that, IMHO, do not address the core problem of public disturbances which have increased owing to conflicting STR ordinances. In advance of the next round of discussions, I submit this draft: P...

CM Colleagues, I intend to move postponement of item #22 from the 17-Sep-2015 meeting regarding the $860,000 for state government lobbying. As the only former Texas State Representative on the Council, I believe CM Kitchen should draft policy guidelines which limit and focus any lobbying efforts to ...

Thank you CM Troxclair.

One quick clarification, the subject should have been "Relocate proposed Travis County courthouse to east Austin", the previous subject was in error.

Council Members: I have collaborated with CM Houston on this Resolution I'd like you all to consider; we're asking Audit and Finance Committee to Review on Sept. 23rd. ---- WHEREAS, the people of Austin and Travis County have expressed concern about the high cost of living in this region; and WHEREA...

Dear CM Colleagues, We have done further analysis of the cost of the Manager's initial "3% base wage increase", as well as significant other cost increases like rising health care costs. NOTE that our constituents are also suffering under increasing costs for such things as health care. In...

Thank you Chair Kitchen for the list and running a good hearing yesterday. Based on the testimony we received, and a general desire to reduce expensive bureaucratic overhead, I can't support any of the new Austin Transporation Department proposed regulations on the TNCs. As I said before, "leve...

CM Pool, No. This is a re-allocation of the proposed budget CIP numbers, as noted originally, not connected to the CapMetro dollars. Because we postponed deliberation of the CapMetro dollars, we do not know how those funds will be allocated; moreover they have public transit policy constraints impos...

Re-allocate the FY2016 Austin Transportation Department and Public Works Department capacity/capital improvement project allocations to include $2M to fund: a study to widen Anderson Mill Road between U.S. Highway 183 and Ranch Road 620 so that there are 2 lanes of traffic flow in each direction; a ...

Dear Mayor & Council, I will be proposing an amendment to Item 1 on 27-Aug-15 agenda, the Highstar south terminal lease agreement: Strike Section 10, Capital Recovery, which starts on page 6. Highstar is a for profit corporation seeking a very long term (30 year) contract on an airport private/p...

I concur with Councilmember Renteria on this matter.

Non-comprehensive (Spicewood-Balcones, central D6) Park Needs: 1. Mountain View Park: • Tennis Courts Resurfaced • Men and Women bathrooms need new doors • Light over pavilion needs repair since it does not work • More ground maintenance including watering trees and grounds • Basketball Court needs ...

RESOLUTION NO._________________ (DRAFT) WHEREAS, according to “City of Austin Drought Contingency Plan” of August, 2012, adopted by City Council Resolution 20120816-005, Table 2, Stage 1 water restrictions may be imposed when “Combined lake storage falls below 1.4 million acre-feet (MAF)”, and Stage...

Dear Fellow Council Members, Please see the below draft resolution. I am planning on making a budget amendment during our budget process to reduce the amount of corporate subsidies via the Chapter 380 (Texas Local Government Code) agreements. As we are all aware, our residents are asking us make the...