City of Austin Council Message Board

Colleagues, for Thursday’s meeting, I’m posting an amendment related to the effective date of the HOME ordinance and giving the City departments enough time to develop their processes to support the program. The Planning Commission recommended a 60-day period to allow for that process development, a...

My heart aches for the family of our fallen officer this morning, and I send my prayers for the wounded officer’s swift recovery. APD officers and leaders, first responders and their families, and those affected by the violence have my strong support as we respond collectively to this tragedy. Thank...

Natasha, I wish you all the best as you take the time needed to heal. Please know that my staff and I are here to support you and your team. I have seen you get through extremely challenging times in the past.

Take good care.

Leslie

Mayor, thanks for highlighting item 55. I share your stated interest in increasing public notice on amendments the Council is proposing to the Land Development Code. It just makes sense. The intent of item 55 is to increase notification and public hearing opportunities. Yesterday, I restated my supp...

Colleagues, The Service Extension Request item on the August 31 agenda is my resolution to restore technical decisions to expert staff on water and wastewater SERs and establish cost-sharing for projects outside of the City’s jurisdiction and within the Drinking Water Protection Zone. After discussi...

Colleagues, on this week’s agenda, I’m pleased to introduce Item 126, an initiative I am calling HOME (Home Options for Middle-income Empowerment). HOME is intended to benefit middle-income households by encouraging smaller single-family homes and to provide options for existing homeowners in the fo...

Thank you, CM Kelly, for detailing your experience of the critical conditions at Austin Animal Shelter. I share your concern, particularly with the rising temperatures. As I understand it from conversations with our staff, emergency measures are underway to alleviate the overcrowding and we will be ...

thanks to everyone! We have 10 signatories now to this important international declaration! My staff is teeing up a press release to issue next week once the document is officially presented in Denver at the Cities Summit. I sure do appreciate all y'all, and grateful to be able to carry our message ...

got it! and thanks so much, MPT Ellis and CM A Alter! Everyone, please do let me or Atha know if you'd like your names/titles added to the official declaration of concern and intent around resilience and sustainability. The Cities Summit of the Americas is the first-ever convening of parties from th...

Colleagues, I want to thank Council Member Kelly for her support of both the items I’m bringing this week, and I appreciate her posting her proposed amendments here. Regretfully, I will not be able to support them. I have outlined some of the issues they present below: Item 24: Amendment 1 - this re...

Colleagues, I want to thank Housing & Planning Director Rosie Truelove and her staff for providing the summary memo of the eTOD Policy Plan earlier today, and for joining Project Connect Mobility Officer Annick Beaudet at the work session to answer our questions about the plan. The memo points o...

Colleagues, Tomorrow will be our first official Austin Energy Utility Oversight Committee meeting of the year. We have a couple of items to dispense with at the top of the 9 a.m. hour, then we will hear from any speakers. Austin Energy will then lead a 45-minute briefing on Winter Storm Mara. The me...

CM Kelly, I appreciate your intention with this IFC, but I cannot support your item and its approach at this time. As the mayor and I have communicated, we have agenda items for all affected departments to provide us with status and progress reports and to answer questions from the dais. We will hav...

Colleagues, I appreciate and concur with the offers Mayor Watson, MPT Ellis, and CM Ryan Alter have made to work through the last few issues relating to committees: > CM R Alter to be vice chair of Planning & Housing, and > CM Qadri to be appointed to Visit Austin. After reviewing the mayor's an...

morning, Mayor! Thanks for posting the committee lists and gathering our inputs. Couple details for our new colleagues as you're deciding what committees you'd like to be on: > Committees should have at least four members, with no upper number limit. > The Austin Energy Oversight Committee is a comm...

CM Kitchen, thanks for drafting this resolution to expand the ATP board. Adding two new members to that board has been a focus of discussion for a while now, particularly among those most closely focused on Project Connect. I support adding a member appointed by the City Council, and as a member of ...

CM Ellis, I support these additions to our federal legislative agenda - thanks for recommending.

cheers,

Leslie

Colleagues, I am re-posting the schedule for upcoming council work sessions, public hearings, and vote on the Austin Energy Base Rate, as well as links to the City Clerk and Austin Energy webpages with Base Rate Review documents. AE Base Rate Review Schedule: • Nov. 9, 2022, 10:00 a.m. Special Calle...

Mayor, thank you for clarifying the intent of the framework policy in your recent post and for incorporating language from our colleagues. Thank you for accepting my amendments which are intended to restate the Council’s support, in particular, for the environmental regulations that help sustain the...

Mayor, thanks for assembling all the dates in this coherent list. The dates proposed below work well at my end. CM Ellis' point about needing time between work session and voting session is well-taken, and I agree that the Thurs-Fri combo is better than Wed-Thurs. NOTE: It's possible that I'll be in...

thanks to all for adding your thoughts on this thread. I've conferred with Spencer and Jackie, and staff will be prepared to discuss this item with us in Executive Session on June 16.

Leslie

Colleagues, I want to thank the sponsors of Item 65 for the effort to put labor front and center on our Power Purchase Agreements for Austin Energy. I share the interest in leveraging our purchasing power to gain progress for our climate and workers rights goals, and I’d like to gain more informatio...

Colleagues, thanks for these posts. I join you in requesting a postponement - and if I were going to be on the dais tomorrow I'd vote to support the delay. I have serious reservations over staff's responses to my Q&A submission. As a result, I have an array of specific follow-on questions aimed ...

all, I want to draw everyone's attention to the 11-page memo from Director Meszaros received earlier today with answers to many of the questions posed so far. This is helpful in centering our discussions going forward and I appreciate staff's quick work in responding. I look forward to our conversat...

morning, all! I'd like to add my name as a co-sponsor to the CAC resolution you're initiating, CM Kitchen.

Thanks so much,

Leslie