The Daily Hustle: 6/25/10

While we attempted to acquit ourselves admirably yesterday, with 152 items on the agenda, a few were bound to fall through the cracks. After the jump, a collection of additional developments from Thursday.

… Bringing it back to yesterday's liveblog – where I wrote that Randi Shade had lost me in her comments regarding her tentative support for having the city attorney report to council instead of the city manager – Shade writes in to explain further:

The short version of what I was trying to convey is that changing the reporting structure of the City Attorney doesn’t come close to solving the problems associated with Keypoint and/or the larger issues associated with having better policies in place to ensure that information on legal risks is provided on a regular basis to the Council and City Manager. The SEC’s up-the-ladder reporting rules for public companies under Sarbanes-Oxley Act seemed like a good analogy because the same tension exists between law department, board members, shareholders and the CEO and staff in corporate settings, too. It is complicated regardless of whether the City Attorney reports to Council or City Manager and I was trying to manage expectations. You have said in past Chronicle columns that Council is taking greater responsibility with this action, but it seems to me the greater responsibility requires a bigger conversation. Maybe it wasn’t the best analogy.

… In other actions yesterday, council nearly punted on approving six historic zoning cases on its agenda, ultimately deciding to approve the requests on first an second reading, but not third until August, when the cases would be brought up three at a time – similarly to the new rules proposed from historic zoning.

… In addition, three appointments were made to board and commissions at yesterday's meeting:

* Amy Welborn (appointed by Chris Riley) to the Commission for Women.
* Andrew Bucknall (appointed by Lee Leffingwell) to the Urban Renewal Board.
* Mark Clayton (appointed by Leffingwell) to the Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services Advisory Board.

Council finally adjourned a little after 10:30pm. That's not too bad, considering they don't meet again until July 28, for a budget work session, then July 29 for a full meeting. While TDH is breathing a sigh of relief, he's also wondering what on earth he'll be writing about for the next month. (Don't worry, I'm sure he'll come up with something …)

What the hell else is happening?

On the city calendar: Where's Live From the Plaza?

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