https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2011-06-21/tdh-6-21-11/

TDH: 6/21/11

By Wells Dunbar, June 21, 2011, 12:34pm, Newsdesk

With this Thursday being City Council's final meeting until the end of July, you know it's gonna be a doozy. The 139 item agenda for this week's meeting, the final one with Randi Shade on the dais, contains action on Formula One, pedicab regulation, the return of Willie's statue, controversial development issues, and Fun Fun Fun Fest, naturally.

City Council agenda preview for Thursday, June 23:

Items 3, 29: Purchase of two tracts in the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve for $450,000.

Item 9: Nearly $2.5 million of water discharge system improvements at Davis Water Treatment Plant.

Items 12, 13: Adding 12 and 16 staff-recommended firms to, respectively, the large-scale and small-scale civil engineering rotation list, at $9.6 million and $6.4 million.

Item 16: A three-year agreement between AISD and the Convention Center, allowing the convention center to use AISD warehouse storage in exchange for rental concessions at the convention center.

Item 17: Changes to by-laws for the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau, codifying many best-practices not in effect at the convention center.

Item 19: The return of the Willie statue, postponed from last council meeting.

Item 20: The first of the Formula One items: Item 20 inks a deal with the Comptroller to establish the F1 Major Events Trust Fund.

Item 21: This resolution authorizes Circuit Events (the local F1 crew) to act as the Local Organizing Committee, “to act on the City's behalf.”

Items 39-45: Acceptance of several grants for Police initiatives.

Items 49-77: The meeting's mammoth Purchasing Office agenda.

Item 78: Naming an unused section of the city's Todd Lane Solid Waste Services Transfer facility as a “backup Transition Facility” for incoming city recycler Balcones Resources.

80: New rules and regulation for the pedicab industry, including insurance requirements for drivers, and prohibitions on where they can operate.

Item 89: Beginning with items from council: Item 89, waiving $3.8 million in development fees (largely right-of-way construction costs, we understand) in an agreement with would-be Downtown hotel developers White Lodging. At their work session this morning, Laura Morrison said she would likely move to postpone the item, desiring further discussion.

Item 90: Postponed from a recent meeting, a resolution establishing a Committee on Geographic Representation.

Item 92: Reassigning corridor planning studies to specific firms: Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. studies Airport Boulevard corridor improvements; URS Corporation, Inc. studies FM 969 (E. MLK Blvd) corridor improvements; HDR Engineering, Inc., studies East Riverside Drive corridor improvements; and Wilbur Smith Associates, Inc., studies North Lamar Boulevard and North Burnet Road corridor improvements.

Item 93: Rejiggering the appointment of the Airport Boulevard Advisory Group overseeing the form-based code revamp of the thoroughfare.

Item 94: Asking City Manager Marc Ott to prepare new Nov. 2012 charter amendments in addition to ones already proposed: Reducing terms limits from three to two (while extending terms to four years) and raising the number of petition signatures for initiative and referendum to match the number of signatures for city charter changes, among smaller tweaks.

Item 96: Adopting the Animal Advisory Commission’s recommended criteria in the selection process for a non-profit that will operate an adoption center at the current Town Lake Animal Center site.

Item 97: Following direction from the Early Childhood Council, the Hispanic/Latino Community Oversight Team, and the African-American Resource Advisory Commission, taking $200,000 in unallocated social service funding and using it to to “fill the gap in social services for Austin youth” to youth service providers.

Item 98: Speaking of social services: Council action on the oft-delayed revision to city social service contracts. The City Manager is directed to “Use the new staff recommendation based on a modified 70% funding option which adds approximately 15 additional recommended respondents to the list of the highest scoring 16 respondents, as a starting point for the negotiation process.” It also calls to look at funding proposals outside the RFP, via partnerships with Austin Travis County Integral Care and Center for Child Protection, and extends current contracts to Sept. 30 2012.

Item 99: Council puts an extra day of fun into Fun Fun Fun Fest, moving this year to Auditorium Shores from its Waterloo Park home. An arbitrary limit on events at the shores had threatened to lop a day off the three-day punk & underground music fest, but council is intervening to award the fest a third day.

Item 101: From Chris Riley, a list of environmental standards and expectations for Formula One to meet. Riley wrote an op-ed on the very subject today also.

Items 115-130: The first-read zoning agenda. Three items (116-118) concern rezoning areas along Riverside and in the Montopolis neighborhood for the multifamily Riverside Gardens project. Item 120 seeks Central Business District zoning at 701 & 711 W. 7th, while Item 125, for 807, 809 & 811 Nueces, seeks Downtown Mixed Use zoning.

Items 131-136: Some not terribly controversial-looking public hearings and possible action.

Items 137-139: Thought that was it? Council added this three item addendum, including an application for $2.2 million in grant funding to develop city owned land in Colony Park in far East Auistin.

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