Headlines

• City Council meets today (Thursday, April 7), and while selecting a contractor to handle the city's recycling stream has been postponed to April 21, an item to archive council members' emails should pick up the slack, attentionwise. See "The Personal Is Political."

• Changes to city property tax abatements for historically zoned houses – the majority of them owner-occupied and clustered in a few Austin neighborhoods – may go to City Council soon. Per council's direction, city staff has worked with a subcommittee of the Historic Landmark Commission on revamping the tax exemptions. Their recommendations will be presented to the full commission on April 11, then presented to council, with potential council action at a later date.

• The city's 2012 election will be here before you know it – so what better time to brush up on the pros and cons of an important ballot question that could bring light rail to the streets of Austin? See "Why Rail?."

• Meanwhile, this year's City Council election is just a calendar page away; if you're not registered to vote, you have until Thursday, April 14, to do so for the May 14 election. (Early voting starts May 2.) See "Campaign Contretemps," for the latest news on upcoming races.

• The Texas House last week broke almost precisely along party lines to pass House Bill 1, its version of the 2012-13 state budget. The draft, which effectively cuts funding to essential services by $23 billion, now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to receive a frosty reception for being too draconian.

• In what has to be a record year for budget protests at the Texas Capitol, thousands of people representing a broad range of advocacy groups rallied Wednesday on the Capitol grounds in yet another plea for lawmakers to think about the consequences of their budget-slashing actions.

• Austin and Travis County have been trying for years to turn dirt on the Waller Creek Tunnel Project; on Friday, April 8, the two entities officially kick off construction, with U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, Mayor Lee Leffingwell, County Judge Sam Biscoe, and other muckety-mucks grabbing a shovel.

• The Mexican American Legislative Caucus is suing the state of Texas, alleging that a flawed counting process in the 2010 census missed residents in colonias in unincorporated areas and that the census data underrepresents border Latinos by between 4% and 8%. See "Census Undercount in Colonias?."

• The Texas Senate has approved a plan to replace the three-member Texas Railroad Commission with a single commissioner. Cue possible panic among Republican lawmakers like Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa, who viewed a seat on the commission as an exit plan from the Legislature or stepping stone to bigger things.

• Big news in Aggieland. The Texas A&M women's basketball team took home the NCAA championship title Tuesday night in a 76-70 cliffhanger against Notre Dame – not bad for the Lady Aggies' first trip to the national finals.