Beside the Point
Council notes
By Michael King, Fri., March 18, 2005
During briefings, CFO Stephens also delivered an overview of the city's bond program, in prepation for the appointment of a citizens' advisory committee that will develop a bond proposal later this year. Stephens reported that most of the funding from the 1998 bond election has been spent or will be within the next two years, and gave an overall positive review of the city's bond prospects. He also presented several projections that would follow from the council's choices in proposing an increase of one to three cents in the property tax rate for any 2006 bond election. The council took no action, but members are in the process of recruiting citizens for potential appointment to the CAC.
Jan Stephens, of the city's redevelopment services office, briefed the council on applicants for city hall's new restaurant space, an indoor-outdoor cafe to be situated at the corner of Second and Lavaca. The surviving applicant is Austin Java Company others hesitated, and Apple Annie's withdrew its application because of a city requirement that the restaurant serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner (still a dicey Downtown proposition) and the plan is the lease will be completed by April for operations to begin in August. After hearing from Rick Ingalls of Austin Java Company several council members admitted to being regular customers the council voted to authorize staff to negotiate and execute a lease.
There's no council meeting this week no doubt in honor of SXSW but there will plenty to do March 24.
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