Naked City

Behance.com team members and South by Southwest registrants (l-r) Scott Belsky, Chris Henry, and Dave Stein rediscover their childhoods with a pile of LEGOs in a corner of the Austin Convention Center. (Photo by John Anderson)

• REDO FOR RED BUD? The Parks & Recreation Department hosted a public forum March 11 to hear concerns and recommendations for Red Bud Isle, a popular Lady Bird Lake spot and one of the city's few leash-free dog parks. Maintenance of the park is carried out, with PARD's blessing, by a volunteer group, Friends of Red Bud Isle. Representatives of that organization, the Austin Police Depart­ment, and the Parks and Recreation Board were among those in attendance. The Friends, founded in April 2007, work closely with other agencies to provide volunteer labor at the island park. Austinite Phil Burns had lodged several complaints with the city about the group's work, particularly regarding invasive plant species, erosion prevention, and steps into the lake that he says weren't up to code. At the forum, emotions were put on hold, and participants drew up a priority list of future changes they'd like PARD to explore. The Top 3: reducing the number of parking spaces, removing poison ivy, and establishing an alternative "leash-free" area. Jim Von Wolske, an engineer, also floated the idea of an additional bridge, 35 feet above the current structure, which could span the island and allow the existing bridge to serve as a pedestrian walkway to Red Bud. – Jacob Cottingham

• PURE CASTINGS The Texas Commission on Environmental Qual­i­ty is being criticized for failing to tackle what Neil Carman, clean air program director for Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter, has called a "toxic chemical cocktail" emitted by the Pure Castings Co. foundry in East Austin, near Zavala Elementary School. After making a presentation on March 12 to City Council on the latest TCEQ ambient air-monitoring report, Carman said: "What TCEQ found in December was 24 metals; 12 are highly toxic, including seven cancer-causing agents. ... They found it every hour they were sampling next to Pure Cast­ings." Carman said that one carcinogen, hexavalent chromium, was measured at 4,000 times the levels in the EPA's risk-based assessment guidelines, "but these are not standards, so TCEQ is bending over backward [for businesses]. When you're dealing with carcinogens, there is no safe level except zero." Carman has also criticized TCEQ for its "single bullet" approach of treating each toxic chemical independently rather than addressing the complete range of emissions. Local activist group PODER (People Organized in Defense of Earth and Her Resources) has asked that the city of Austin use part of a $10.5 million affordable-housing bond available for 2009 to buy the property and repurpose it for residential use. – Richard Whittaker

• KLRU NEGOTIATIONS CONTINUE After two days of contract negotiations with a federal mediator last week, local public television station KLRU has not yet been able to resolve its differences with production and engineering employees represented by Texas State Employees Union Local 6186. KLRU renegotiates its contract with employees every three years. When the latest round of talks, which began in September, found the two parties in a stalemate, KLRU called in a federal mediator, who met last week with both sides. "Although several smaller issues were resolved," wrote TSEU Vice President Mike Gross in a bulletin to members afterward, "the station continues to insist on eliminating ... compensation for long work days, extended work weeks, long periods between meal breaks, and short turnaround time between scheduled shifts." KLRU General Manager Bill Stotesbery was unwilling to comment on details of the disagreement while in negotiations, but according to Gross' bulletin, the station's position is that the administrative burden of such guarantees is prohibitive. In response, the union has presented "a compromise that would drastically reduce the station's work in accounting for the compensation," Gross wrote. Whether KLRU will accept the offer remains to be seen. Both sides meet again Monday, March 23, to continue negotiations. – Nora Ankrum

Forgione to Stay Close to Home

Photo by John Anderson

Retirement won't mean retirement for Pat Forgione. The outgoing Austin Independent School District superintendent, who steps down on June 30, has announced his new job: distinguished presidential scholar and executive director of the new Center on K-12 Assess­ment and Performance Management of the Education Testing Ser­vice. The world's biggest private educational testing nonprofit organization, ETS is responsible for administering and grading tests such as the SAT and the GRE. Always known as a stats maven (before moving to Austin, he was U.S. commissioner of education statistics), Forgione said the new center will concentrate on the "fairness, quality, usefulness, accuracy, and timeliness of assessment." Just as importantly, he said, "This will allow my wife, Kaye, and me to remain in Austin." AISD's board of trustees is expected to confirm Meria Carstarphen, superintendent of public schools for St. Paul, Minn., as his replacement on March 23. – R.W.

Oh No, Rhizome!

This polar bear took to Austin’s chilly climes last weekend – perfect weather for a “procession for the future” march to the state Capitol, sponsored by the Backbone Campaign, a national progressive advocacy group that’s holding marches in cities across the country. (Photo by Jana Birchum)

Members of the Rhizome Collective were forced to vacate their Eastside warehouse space at 300 Allen this week due to City Code violations that, according to Solid Waste Services spokeswoman Jennifer Herber, make the building unsafe for occupants. Organizations that use the space, including Food Not Bombs, Bikes Across Borders, and the Inside Books Project, are scrambling to continue their services while they relocate, said Rhizome spokeswoman Laura Merner. Collective members Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew own the property and have until April 13 to pull the permits necessary to bring it up to code, a potentially costly process. Before the violations were discovered, the couple had announced plans to sell the property, offering the collective the chance to buy it – if the collective does so now, it will have to take on responsibility for the repairs. In the meantime, plants from the permaculture projects on Rhizome's grounds will be transplanted to area community gardens, said Merner. Questions linger over who made the anonymous complaint prompting the inspection, the coincidental timing with the planned sale, and why past city inspections haven't turned up such serious problems. Whatever the eventual answers, the loss or dispersal of the Rhizome presents a serious blow to local grassroots activism. – Nora Ankrum