Public Notice: Taking a Mulligan?

The Hancock Conservancy held its twice-delayed open house meeting with Austin parks officials to discuss the future of the Central Austin park and/or golf course Tuesday evening, and the added time may have mellowed the group's messaging into a more concerted plea for consensus among the various stakeholders and opinions.

As I wrote a few weeks back ("Conserve What?", Feb. 12), there's been some animosity between two schools of thought as the Parks and Recreation Department and its Golf Division try to chart a future for its historic nine-hole course – a perennial money-loser that during the pandemic has oddly become profitable. City golf czar Kevin Gomillion scratched his head (virtually) on Tuesday night about that sudden turn in the finances, but signaled that if it stayed that way going forward, PARD would be happy to keep running it as is, ending the need for a restructuring plan and the current debate over it – which has become quite heated between the "make it a park" Hancock Conservancy and the "keep it a golf course" Hancock Golf Conservancy.

Perhaps to forestall some of that, the Hancock Conservancy – while still adamant in its belief that the 45-acre site would be better as public parkland than a golf course – said in a statement just after the meeting that its focus for the moment is on seeking consensus to take to city officials around four points:

• No driving range should be included as a component in any plans for the site;

• No RFP. The city should pursue a "more public" request for information process rather than the "closed-bidding" request for proposal process being contemplated;

• More time to review proposals, "in particular to allow for full public participation"; and

• Ecological restoration of Waller Creek must be included in any plans.

And that's where we stand at press time, with HC promising to put out a concept park plan later this month, outlining what that would look like and how it could be paid for. Stay tuned, and see www.imaginehancockpark.org and www.hancockgolfcourseconservancy.org for more info.

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Stand Up for Schools is the annual fundraiser for educational support nonprofit Austin Voices for Education and Youth, a two-time "Best of Austin" award winner (don't forget to vote in this year's poll) that among other things puts on the HopeFest resource fair at Northeast Early College High School. This year you have to supply your own lunch, but the speaker list is impressive indeed – with recently confirmed U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona delivering the opening speech, followed by a panel including U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett; Montserrat Garibay, the Austin union leader who's now senior advisor for labor relations in Cardona's office; Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, chair of the California State Board of Education who led Biden's U.S. Department of Education transition team; and Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig, former UT-Austin faculty who's now the dean of the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. Monday, March 8, noon-1:30pm; see info and register at www.austinvoices.org.