Naked City

The City Council met Tuesday in special session to decide which proposed charter amendments will be on the ballot, and police oversight didn't make the cut. Danny Thomas proved to be the swing vote (joining Mayor Gus Garcia and Council Members Daryl Slusher and Will Wynn) against allowing the council, and not the city manager, to hire the city's police monitor and appoint the civilian review panel. A companion proposal to open to the public police records which are currently confidential died without a motion.

The Austin Independent School District will hold a Board of Trustees candidate information session tonight (Thursday) at 6pm in the board auditorium in Bldg. B of the Carruth administration complex, 1111 W. Sixth. Immediately following, a drawing will be held to determine the order in which candidates' names will appear on the May 4 ballot.

Longtime Austin activist turned Georgetown retiree Della Green has filed to run for mayor, a job now held by MaryEllen Kersch. Recalled by voters during the Feb. 2 election, Kersch will leave office in May. Green has been one of the most outspoken critics of Georgetown's current council.

The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority may continue plans to pump water from Canyon Lake to sell to the growing Hays County cities of Kyle and Buda, District Court Judge Margaret Cooper ruled this week. The judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a group of Comal County residents who claimed the loss of water from the lake would drain the area's tourism revenue derived from fishing, boating, and swimming activities. The Friends of Canyon Lake plan to appeal Cooper's decision. Kyle and Buda want to purchase the GBRA water because of concerns over the depletion of groundwater from the Edwards Aquifer.

Eager to learn more about its purpose in life and its customers, Capital Metro will install infrared detectors costing $182,000 on 20 buses and employ new electronic gizmos to count and collect data on riders.

On March 14, the San Antonio City Council voted to offer former Austin City Attorney Andy Martin that city's top legal spot. Martin left his Austin post last year after announcing he was ready to strike out on his own, but reportedly decided to accept the San Antonio job because it was too good to pass up. While Martin's tenure in Austin was marked by a number of legal controversies (including Hyde Park Baptist Church, police oversight, and the mass of laws and lawsuits over Barton Springs) in which the city attorney's performance was called into question, the Alamo City reportedly was impressed with Martin's experience in aquifer and water issues. He will start his new job on April 1.

Austin ISD Area Superintendent Larry Lewis has been named one of four finalists for superintendent of a Champaign, Ill., school district, composed of approximately 10,000 students. Lewis, who has been with AISD since 1996, oversees Anderson and Reagan high schools and their feeders.

A fire in Johnston High School's printing and graphics shop caused about $150,000 in damage early Monday morning. The Austin Fire Dept. is investigating the cause of the fire, in which no one was hurt. No classes were canceled, but about 150 students were relocated to other classrooms.

On March 20, the Texas Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League and other local and national groups kicked off "Back Up Your Birth Control," a national campaign to raise awareness of emergency contraception (EC), otherwise known as the "morning-after pill." Although EC can help women avoid unintended pregnancies and abortions, only 10% of women between the ages of 18 and 44 have ever heard of it, TARAL said. Last year, the organization's Education Fund conducted a survey of Texas hospitals and discovered that only 33% provided EC, even to rape survivors. For this week's campaign, UT-Austin students dressed as doctors distributed fliers on their campus, and TARAL contacted doctors across Texas urging them to prescribe EC for patients.

From the Bad News for Awkward Children Dept.: At their meeting today (Thursday), the State Board of Education Instruction Committee will consider a rule, approved by the full board in January, that would increase the time students in grades K-6 spend in gym class to at least 30 minutes a day, or 135 minutes a week. If the committee agrees, the rule will pass.

Those of you who read Waco Tribune-Herald Editor John Young's editorial in the Austin American-Statesman on Wednesday and were baffled, rest assured: The dude is not on drugs. Young's references to the "Mu Flux Plan" (Ku Klux Klan), "James Lingerie" (James Leininger) and "Walk-Mart" (Wal-Mart) were the result of a spell check gone wild, according to the Statesman. (Actually, we like the idea of the fundamentalist Leininger in women's undergarments, and think Mu Flux Plan would make a pretty good name for a punk band.)

Looking for a calendar featuring pinups a little more mysterious and exotic than your average, buxom bathing beauty? Look no further than "The Sisters of Seton," issued by the Catholic nonprofit Seton Healthcare Network and the Daughters of Charity in celebration of 100 years of service in Central Texas. Instead of snapshots of Pamela Lee frolicking across the sand, or Gisele stretched across the roof of a silver Hyundai, you get former Seton administrator Sr. Mary Rose McPhee (Sister March), who lovingly smiles at a newborn tucked in its hospital bed, and Sr. Teresa George (Sister May) standing rather modestly (and fully dressed) in front of an EMS helicopter. Guaranteed to make you feel warm inside -- just not in a sinful way. To get your own calendar, contact Christopher Attal at 324-1990.

"How are economic issues affecting civil liberties?" will be the main question posed at "Blurring the Lines," a discussion featuring David Evans, executive director of the Austin-Travis County Mental Health/ Mental Retardation Center and sponsored by the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. Wednesday, March 27 at 11:30am, Trudy's Texas Star restaurant at 409 W. 30th, just east of Guadalupe.

The Cherrywood Neighborhood Association steering committee decided last Wednesday to help Pato's Good Tacos owner Roldan Ramirez raise money and clean up the site of his restaurant, which burned down March 5. Austin Fire Dept. reports attributed the fire to transients who started a small fire behind the restaurant in an attempt to keep warm. Some Cherrywood residents worry that the Pato's incident has stoked resentment against the homeless people who regularly linger or panhandle along I-35 or in their neighborhood; one recent e-mail to the neighborhood listserv gives them cause for concern. "I urge you to do everything in your power and community effort to make our neighborhood 'Bum Free,'" the tirade reads. "Call 911 and tell the police you need help now and want an officer to respond immediately every time you observe illegal behaviour. If you are approached or have reason to speak to a Bum, tell them to leave the neighborhood then call 911. Please rack up the pressure!"

Springtime is the perfect time to find true love -- and to eradicate prejudice. For Austinites interested in the latter activity, the Austin Race and Cultural Relations Group will hold a prejudice reduction workshop to be facilitated by the Austin Council for Community Reconciliation on Saturday, March 23 from 9am-4pm at the Baha'i Center of Austin, 2215 E. M. Franklin Ave. To register, contact Nora Hughes at 231-8240 or gesmclaren@earthlink.net.

Spring is also a good season for learning about Islam, which you can do at "Presenting and Re-Presenting Islam: Teaching and Studying about Islam in the United States," a conference March 21-22 at UT's Thompson Conference Center. For more info, contact Christopher Rose at 471-3881 or csrose@mail.utexas.edu.

Houston ranks first, and Austin 13th among U.S. cities in the number of residents owning cell phones, according to a new study by consumer market monitors Scarborough Research. Nationally, 62% of Americans own cell phones, up from just 48% in 1999. Scarborough's profile of "the wireless adult" is tech-savvy and -- interestingly -- "slightly more female (52%) than male (48%)."

What's Unprintable? The Statesman's SXSW coverage was exhausting if not exhaustive, and the major daily's home team once again managed to cover the Festival while studiously avoiding any mention of those upstarts at The Austin Chronicle -- you know, the little news weekly that founded SXSW. The ostriches at the Statesman like to pretend we don't exist. But the family newspaper's censors were not as alert over the Wednesday cover of XLXTRA, that monument to imitation as the sincerest form of flattery. The insert's cover featured Lucky and Chopper of the band Kissinger -- as well as one of Lucky's guitar-strap buttons, which cheerfully declaimed, "My Shit's Fucked Up." Couldn't happen to a nicer rag.

Council Member Will Wynn and Travis County Commissioners Karen Sonleitner and Margaret Moore went to Washington, D.C., last week to spend a few days chatting up our federal representatives. The trio met with Reps. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, and Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison to discuss the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, which relies on grants from the U.S. Dept. of Interior. The BCP program sets aside thousands of acres spanning West and Northwest Travis County for the protection of endangered songbirds and other native wildlife.