Naked City

It won't be but a few months before the wrecking ball does to the City Hall Annex what it did to Liberty Lunch as the city continues shooing everyone out of downtown's west end to make room for Computer Sciences Corp.'s new complex. Only this time there's no one bending over backward to give the city office trolls a relocation deal they can't refuse. Rather, the half-serious scenarios making the rounds at City Hall have the Channel 6 guys holed up at the old Hertz rental car hut at Mueller airport, and City Council members conducting business out on a weed-infested runway while the new City Hall is under construction. In fact, Channel 6 will be taking up temporary quarters at Mueller early next year, while other annex denizens will be shuttled off to One Texas Center -- just as soon as it gets that remodeling job the council is supposed to approve Oct. 7. But the real challenge comes in finding a public meeting place for City Council and all the boards and commissions. Heading up the search is Kay Guedea, who is drawing on her familiarity with Austin (she's a 25-year city employee and a 50-year resident) to ferret out a meeting place -- with plenty of space for backroom dealmaking and the like. So far, Guedea has explored several options, including the Lower Colorado River Authority offices on Lake Austin Blvd., the Thompson Center on the UT campus, various hotel facilities, and the way-out-there Austin Bergstrom International Airport. "I'm thinking through every possibility," Guedea assures us ...

Some Village of Bee Cave business owners sounded the alarm this week over the prospect of being run out of town by a City council that's bent -- some would say hellbent -- on preserving the bucolic ambiance of the tiny village west of Austin. This is the village whose main thoroughfare, Hwy 71, plays host to 25,000 vehicles per day, and whose growing pains have forced the council to hire a master planner to help rethink the big picture. The business folks crying foul pointed to The Backyard music venue as an example of a business that's being unfairly picked on by the Bee Cave council -- what with its recent passage of a nuisance ordinance and all. The ordinance prohibits, among other things, "loud and raucous ... sounds created by use of a musical instrument ... [or] by the amplified or unamplifed human voice." Backyard owner Tim O'Connor was quick to issue a "this-is-not-a-story" statement. O'Connor, whose Backyard has been a Bee Cave mainstay for seven years, reckons his outfit will be "grandfathered" -- or exempted -- from the law. But just to be on the safe side, he says he's seeking a clarification on the ordinance with respect to The Backyard's status. O'Connor also offered that he's sympathetic with local officials' growth quandaries ...

The hiring of yet another city bureaucrat is nothing to write home about, but the recent enlistment of Tom Lambert to handle traffic matters is giving the Hyde Park Neighborhood Assn. some encouragement in the Triangle Square department. One of Lambert's functions will be to oversee transportation planning in the development-intensive Triangle area in North Central Austin. Lambert hails from a planning background -- first in New York, then in Mississippi. More recently, he worked for the Legislative Budget Board ...

What do Lt. Gov. Rick Perry, Leslie the Homeless Transvestite, and Liz Carpenter have in common? They're headlining this year's Gridiron show, a can't-miss event spoofing your favorite newsmakers. Mark September 25 on your calendar at the Austin Music Hall. Tickets are $20, available at Star Tickets.