10-1 Ticker... Council Updates!

Orson Welles Returns: At its "mock meeting" Tuesday morning, as City Council considered an imaginary zoning case in order to rehearse common procedural actions, Mayor Steve Adler paused to let any credulous Channel 6 (ATXN) viewers know – "in the spirit of War of the Worlds" – that the discussion was just a simulation, and they should not be alarmed...

Annexation Never: "Mock" meeting or not, D6 CM Don Zimmerman made it clear he's not reading from the City Hall script – when his meeting rehearsal script (prepared by staff) called for him to second and vote yes on an imaginary motion for a city land annexation, he seconded but voted nay...

Defending the Landliners: D1 CM Ora Houston has balked at any City Hall presumption that all Austinites have access to smartphones and the Internet, and insists that public outreach include conventional telephone contacts; she's also not keen on bureaucratic acronyms, asking staff to spell out shorthand like "RFPs" (i.e., Requests for Proposals)...

PAC Questions Still: The Austin Monitor reports that the "Coalition of Austin Neighborhoods" PAC, which ran a mysterious pre-election Statesman ad denouncing consultant David Butts and some of the candidates he supported, has filed an apparently incomplete campaign finance report attributing contributions to Mike Levy, Bryan Hardeman, and Michael Reynolds – and raising more questions than it answered...

We're still waiting on complete contribution info from the South Carolina-based South Forward PAC, which spent thousands in not fully accounted money against Adler in the mayoral race...

Bold-Faced Name: Former Houston state Rep. Scott Hochberg reported he contributed $250 to the Adler campaign, and $350 to that of D5's Ann Kitchen (also a former rep.)...

Dollars Per Vote: The Monitor also reported that on a per-vote basis, the D4 race between CM Greg Casar and defeated Laura Pressley was by far the most expensive campaign, with each candidate spending in excess of $30 per vote; by contrast, D3 CM Pio Renteria spent only $2.54 per vote...

Council Slackers?: Some folks posting to the city's "SpeakUpAus­tin" feedback website seem to be under the impression that the previous Council only worked "part-time" – surviving veteran Kathie Tovo reports (and Council observers can confirm): "For the record, in my experience, it has never been a part-time job."