The Daily Hustle: 3/21/11
GEDs and boutique hotels: Your City Council preview
By Wells Dunbar, 12:16PM, Mon. Mar. 21, 2011
Glad that's over! After a week's hiatus from reality, the Hustle's back in time to update you on this Thursday's City Council meeting. Rip off your wristbands for all the deets below the fold.
Agenda highlights for City Council's Thursday, March 24 meeting:
Item 8: A $1 million Accelerate Austin contract to repair Elton Lane and Griswold Lane in West Austin.
Item 11: Naming 10 firms to an engineering services “rotation list” for street repairs, at $16.7 million.
Item 12: What's this – a Water Treatment Plant No. 4-related expenditure? Yup, it's an additional $228K for Spicewood Spring pump station improvements. (Missed you!) Oopsy! Not a WTP4-related expenditure after all.
Items 14-20: The Health and Human Services agenda contains many worthwhile items, like an agreement between Austin Community College and the city where ACC will offer GED classes at Rosewood Zaragosa Neighborhood Center, and other items implementing healthier food options at schools and installing additional bike racks.
Item 27: A $2.5 million contract with outside firms to help reach Austin Energy's goals of 35% renewable energy generation. “AE’s staff will also require specific consulting services to assist in the evaluation of energy plans and strategies for achieving the City’s energy goals,” says back-up.
Item 41: A resolution sponsored by Lee Leffingwell supporting Senate Bill 853, “to restrict wastewater discharges in the Contributing Zone of the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer.”
Items 47, 48: The meeting's 10:30am briefings, the first “on pending special district legislation,” the second, an update on Solid Waste Services' long-term recycling contract – a precursor to naming a contractor soon.
Items 52-59: The day's zoning agenda. Item 53 addresses a property at 416 Congress, which is requesting historic-central urban redevelopment zoning to put up a mixed-use, boutique hotel at the site.
What the hell else is happening?
On the city calendar: The Community Action Network Resource Council meets in the Boards and Commissions Room at City Hall, 5:30pm.
The Arts Commission meets in Council Chambers at City Hall, 5:30pm.
The Electric Utility Commission meets at Town Lake Center, 721 Barton Springs, 6pm.
HEY! Sign up for the Hustle's weekly e-mail newsletter, recapping news, politics and more every Friday. Don't worry, we'll never spam or sell your address. Visit here, enter your info, and click 'City Hall Hustle.'
Got something you wanna show the Hustle? Email it to wells [at] austinchronicle.com, tweet it @CityHallHustle, drop by the Hustle's Facebook or Tumblr page, or leave a comment in the section below.
Got something to say on the subject? Send a letter to the editor.
A note to readers: Bold and uncensored, The Austin Chronicle has been Austin’s independent news source for over 40 years, expressing the community’s political and environmental concerns and supporting its active cultural scene. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press. If real news is important to you, please consider making a donation of $5, $10 or whatever you can afford, to help keep our journalism on stands.
Maggie Q. Thompson, June 13, 2022
Austin Sanders, Aug. 13, 2021
The Daily Hustle, City Council, Water Treament Plant 4, Zoning, Downtown, 416 Congress, Health and Human Services, Spicewood Springs pump station