Thursday’s marathon council meeting was the last of many
Thursday’s Austin City Council meeting was the final meeting in many ways—it was the final meeting of 2016, as council won’t meet again until Jan. 26, 2017; and it was the final meeting for District 6 Council Member Don Zimmerman and District 10 Council Member Sheri Gallo, both of whom lost their reelection bids. That means it was also the final meeting of Austin’s inaugural 10-1 council after the new format became official in 2014.





“This is the last time to take a photograph or a mental image of our inaugural 10-1 council,” Mayor Steve Adler told the audience. “I think it’s important that everyone remember what this dais looks like right now. It has been an absolute honor and a privilege to work with this council.”

The council members displayed stamina in the year's final meeting, which stretched until 1:30 a.m. While there was plenty of action taken from the dais, perhaps the most anticipated moment came with the council’s approval of The Grove at Shoal Creek planned unit development, or PUD, which closed the book on a two-year saga of heated back-and-forth debate between neighbors and developers.

District 5 Council Member Ann Kitchen also celebrated her birthday inside council chambers yesterday. The meeting opened up with the entire council chamber singing “Happy Birthday” to Kitchen. But by the time the meeting got out at 1:30 a.m. Friday, her birthday had already officially passed.





Alison Alter beats incumbent Council Member Sheri Gallo in District 10 runoff election

When the polls closed at 7 p.m. Tuesday, a substantial vote differential was revealed between incumbent District 10 Council Member Sheri Gallo and challenger Alison Alter. Despite Gallo getting 12 percent more votes Nov. 8 in the general election, it was Alter who took a commanding 66 percent lead in Tuesday's runoff election, and the difference proved too much for Gallo to overcome. In the end, Alter defeated the incumbent with 64 percent of the vote.

 

Red River Cultural District curfew extension has venue owners ecstatic

An Austin City Council committee on Monday reviewed a recommendation to implement a pilot program in the Red River Cultural District, a music venue hotspot, that could extend outdoor music curfews to as late at 2 a.m. The current curfews are 10:30 p.m. Sunday to Wednesday; 11 p.m. Thursday and midnight Friday and Saturday. The prospect of an extension brings excitement to venue owners, who say their revenues, are suffering, which has a trickle-down effect on the city’s music scene as a whole.

“It could be the biggest thing that we do for music in Austin in a long time,” said Steve Sternshine, president of the Red River Cultural District Merchant’s Association. “It’s the most exciting thing we’ve seen.”

The full council will consider the recommendation Jan. 26.

The city will consider relocating major events away from downtown parks

The Parkland Events Task Force, set up in 2015 to analyze the balance between booking major events in the city’s parks and public recreational access, presented its year-long report to the Austin City Council’s Environment, Open Space and Sustainability Committee on Tuesday. The report recommends lightening the load of events carried by a few downtown parks, such as Zilker Park and Festival Beach, by spreading the events to different parks throughout the city.

David King, co-chair of the task force, said the over-saturation of events at the downtown parks often makes the parks inaccessible to the public and taxpayers who paid to build and use them. The recommendation will go to council in January.

One major PUD down, another one to go

While the council closed the book on The Grove at Shoal Creek on Thursday, members took the first step toward potentially approving Austin Oaks, a controversial, 865,000-square-foot PUD proposal in north Central Austin. The council discussion on the item started at 11 p.m. Thursday, and public comment took the meeting until 1:30 a.m. The PUD is a controversial topic and has split the surrounding neighborhood. A total of 61 people were signed up to speak on the topic, which council set for a time certain of 6:30 p.m. However, due to the late hour of the meeting, only about a quarter of those people were still around to speak.

Council passed the measure on first reading and is expected to take it up again at its Feb. 2 meeting. The public hearing will remain open through the second reading.