The Daily Hustle: 5/14/10

Is the transportation bond election shifting gears? (Photo by John Anderson)

So, much anything happen yesterday?

The city's decision to release the Keypoint report dominated the news yesterday evening, just as the Arizona travel ban owned the afternoon news cycle. But City Council took a few other actions deserving a second look, including postponing an item asking for more options in the November bond election.

As the Hustle wrote this week, concerns over the city's bonding capacity, prompted by potential bond elections this year, next year, and in 2013, had caused concerns among some council members. To that end, Sheryl Cole sponsored an item yesterday asking the City Manager to present options to address the transportation projects in this November's proposed bond election while preserving debt capacity for future bond packages, along with a comprehensive picture of the financial impact of the elections.

Item 40 came up after council's lunchtime break, and when it did, Lee Leffingwell – not one of the item's sponsors – said that while he applauded the request for more information, he was “not ready to vote on it today.” He cited a need to “do some more work on the language,” so that it could adequately address the concerns of all council members, and “to make sure it does not conflict” with the previous council resolution proposing the November vote. With that he made a motion to postpone the item until May 27, “to work together on the revised language that we can all agree on … I'm sure we can get there in two weeks.” (Council doesn't meet this coming Thursday.)

Cole had no objection to the delay, saying additional discussion and info was needed “so all the council can feel confident” when pitching the bonds to voters. However, she did reiterate that with “all the complex issues that are popping up on the revenue side,” including Austin Energy's evolving business model, “I think we have to be very careful on the debt side.”

… It came out this week that Dorinda Pulliam, the Town Lake Animal Center director, is leaving her post to work on “high level Departmental and City Corporate projects” before retiring in January 2010, according to a city memo. Pulliam “is being assigned to assist with special projects in other divisions within the department and other corporate level projects,” reads the memo from H&HS director David Lurie. The announcement comes at a critical time for Austin animal services, with the recent adoption of “no-kill” guidelines, last week's groundbreaking for the city's new animal center in East Austin, and a heated debate between advocates and staff over when to vaccinate incoming strays. Her assistant director slot at Animal Services will be filled on an interim basis by Bruce Mills.

What the hell else is happening?

Not much. The Live at the Plaza music series is canceled due to the weather.

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