Back on the Dais

The City Council convenes today (Thursday) for the first time in more than a month, with new Council Member Betty Dunkerley making her debut. The agenda is long, long, long, but expect lots of postponements. Among the highlights:

Stratus, Stratus, Stratus: Repeat 12 more times, because there are 15 separate Stratus zoning cases (including the oft-postponed Bear Lake PUD). All are posted for first reading only, but don't be surprised if the council doesn't even get through the public hearings tonight. The council may also adopt (again on first reading) the proposed settlement of Circle C claims with Stratus, which takes up another seven agenda items.

The council may double the size of Lott Park by adding city-owned lots originally acquired for the Anderson Hill (SCIP II) housing project. They may also create a task force to examine "the gentrification implications of historic zoning in East Austin" and pass a 90-day moratorium on such cases. That could affect two H-zoning cases on this agenda, for a city-owned property on 12th St. (also once part of SCIP II), and for the Robinson Brothers warehouse (now Third Coast Studios) at Fifth and I-35.

Farther south, an item allocates $360,000 from Austin Energy to fund neighborhood improvements and youth programs around the Holly Power Plant. And for those interested in commenting on the city's proposed action plan for federal funds from the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, council will hold a (required) public hearing.

The Council may finally dispense with the Vintage on Town Lake, a proposed upscale multifamily project on Riverside just east of I-35. First reading was more than a year ago, and the case has been postponed six times since. Further down Riverside, more of the old Pleasant Valley Sportsplex -- owned by Travis County commissioner candidate Gerald Daugherty -- is being offered up for yet more multifamily zoning.

Spending money: The council should approve the construction contract for the oft-delayed new Austin Resource Center for the Homeless downtown facility; about $1 million to lease land (for parking) adjacent to the Convention Center; and contracts with 25 different engineering firms, for a combined total of $22.5 million, to work on sewer replacement projects for the next five years. The city may also agree to accept $115,000 in grants from the EPA for "security enhancements" to drinking water facilities.

Miscellaneous: The city has finally settled on a consultant -- The Cultural + Planning Group of Los Angeles -- to overhaul the always contentious arts funding process ... Council may add the clean-energy industry to the clusters being targeted for support-and-recruitment by the Mayor's Task Force on the Economy ... And two items are related to trains: one to keep locomotives from idling in Allandale, and another to (if possible) change the rule that trains must blow their horns at every intersection.