Council: Meet Your Waterloo

The Waller Creek Tunnel Tour in Aug. 2013 (Photo by John Anderson)

With any luck, by the time you read this (May 12), we will have solved all Austin's transportation nightmares by staying home from work. "Don't Rush Austin" took place Wed­nesday (after the Chronicle deadline for this story), but I'll presume the rush-hour streets were vast fields of emptiness – even City Council's Wednesday budget work session was delayed an hour in deference to Mayor Steve Adler's initiative. Sounds like a plan – since we won't vote for mass transit, we might as well avoid the roads altogether. (Without disrespecting Adler's temporary solution too harshly, it's worth noting that there are plenty of working-class commuters for whom "staying home" – or even "arriving late" – is never an available choice.)

Last Thursday's meeting adjourned at the civil hour of 5:30pm – just in time for music and proclamations. Such efficiency did not seem likely earlier, when Council devoted the entire morning to a debate over Austin Water's conservation plan and Drought Contingency Plan, two related items whose necessity was lost on the council members from the westernmost districts: Don Zimmerman, Ellen Troxclair, and Sheri Gallo. The conservation plan presented by AW Director Greg Meszaros was an adjustment of the current regs, basically making permanent the once-a-week watering limit of the Stage 2 restrictions (with a second day only by hose-end sprinkler), although softening the restrictions a bit on residential car-washing.

Zimmerman was predictably the most adamant against the changes, berating AW staff ("bureaucrats") and insisting that with the lakes currently full (and the Lower Colo­ra­do River Authority occasionally releasing water), all the restrictions on watering should end. Troxclair worried that "if it rains every day for the next 10 years" there would be no multi-day recourse for residents with automatic sprinklers, and Gallo pointed to AW's own public survey as reflecting that residents (at least of Districts 6, 8, and 10) want the restrictions lifted. Meszaros pointed out that in the (non-random) survey, residents were basically split, with a majority of those in the rest of the city (or at least those who responded) supporting the restrictions – coinciding almost precisely, according to AW mapping, with the low-to-high division of current water usage from east to west.

Zimmerman insisted that's because western soils are poorer, thinner, and retain less moisture than central city or Eastside lands, but Troxclair's plangent defense of automatic watering systems suggested the dispute was as much about large western lots as soil drainage. Another subtext was the ongoing skepticism of Zimmerman and Troxclair about climate change – but it doesn't take a Sierra Club member to acknowledge that the default climate condition of Texas is drought.

The vote to pass both the new regs and the Drought Contingency Plan was 7-3 (CM Pio Renteria absent).

Having forded that torrent, Council also:

• Approved two loans underwritten by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the Family Business Loan Program (with job creation requirements).

• After some debate over the substance and process of a large city towing contract – and claims by smaller towing companies that they had effectively been prevented under the Purchasing Office standards from applying – Council requested more information and postponed action until today. (Factoid learned: With 6,200 vehicles of widely various kinds and sizes, Fleet Services requires about eight tows a day.)

• Over skepticism from Zimmerman ("the government telling people not to smoke"), approved the extension of an anti-tobacco, disease prevention media program that has been successful in reducing tobacco use.

• Approved a resolution directing the Austin Police Depart­ment to develop procedures to improve the public identification of "transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals" (see below).

Today's agenda lists some 20 or so new zoning cases (including a few carried over from last week), and possibly a few other hot-button items:

• Items 3, 4, and 5: These involve additional funding for the Waterloo Tunnel Project, the big ticket being contingency funding ($5 million) to complete the delayed Inlet Facility (under a cloud since the discovery of an unanticipated conflict with a Capitol View Corridor). Expect some renewed agita over who's to blame; Council received a briefing update at the Tuesday work session.

• Item 10: marks the return of the debate over non-peak-hour (i.e., nighttime) concrete pouring in the Central Business District, a recurring noise and light nuisance for Downtown residents – "never" is not an option.

• Item 12: the return of the postponed towing contract, presumably with more information about the nature of the disagreement between staff and smaller companies who say they didn't get a fair shot (the contract is tentatively awarded to Aus-Tex Towing and Recovery).

Also on the agenda are four closed zoning hearings, and 20 open cases – but no music or proclamations, so observers appreciating ceremony must content themselves with Citi­zens Communication. There, Dale Flatt, Kathy Col­lins-Flatt, and several allies who have expressed their unhappiness with the city's residential Code enforcement by filing numerous violation complaints against council members, will have their star turns on ATXN.TV.