The Daily Hustle: 3/7/11

Ain't it spring break already? City Council meets this Thursday, convening to a relatively light agenda. They'll also get some heavy lifting outta the way at their weekly work session, which has been moved to Tuesday morning – tune in tomorrow at 9am to watch. We've culled their agenda highlights for you, after the jump.

Highlights from City Council's Thursday, March 10 agenda:

Item 2: Renewing and expanding the Austin Energy's lease of office space along Barton Springs for 72 months, at a cost of $14 million.

Item 3: A “wholesale reworking,” according to back-up, of a resolution regarding what Austin Energy and the city deem confidential vis a vis competitive industry matters (bids, etc.) for AE. “Fundamental to these changes was the presumption that information is presumed public unless specifically exempted and that Austin Energy would make available anything a competitor would make available in the ERCOT market.”

Item 8: $4.6 million for a renovated Ground Transportation Staging Area at the airport for taxi drivers, in climate-controlled contrast to their current, minimal and outdoor facilities.

Item 15: Creating a managed growth agreement for a parking garage at Fifth and Brazos. Armbrust and Brown are representing the garage's interests.

Item 16: $1.8 million for Americans with Disabilities Act improvements to Capital Metro bus stops.

Item 19: New positions for the Transportation department, funded by new parking revenues.

Item 23: Item from lead sponsor Mike Martinez, adding support of HB 1677 – changes to the Austin Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund – to the city's legislative agenda.

Item 24: Item looking at parking in the South Congress area, including potential “creation of a Parking Benefits District, Residential Permit Parking districts, and the application of Residential Permit Parking within Vertical Mixed Use districts.” Chris Riley is lead sponsor.

Item 25: Sheryl Cole is lead sponsor of this item creating a “Leadership Committee on Supportive Housing Strategy,” presumably to ease back from permanent supportive housing's negative connotations.

Items 30, 31: 10:30am morning briefings, one on the “Enterprise Asset Management Strategy Implementation Proposal,” another on Solid Waste Services' long-term recycling contract – is a decision coming down next meeting?

Items 34-39: The world's shortest zoning agenda, including four historic zoning requests.

Item 41: The day's biggest item – public hearing and possible action on approving the Imagine Austin Plan Framework, which, if approved, would be forwarded to working groups for refinement along with the plan's Preferred Growth Scenario.

What the hell else is happening?

On the city calendar: City Council is co-hosting a Small Business Summit tonight, at Clarion Inn and Suites, 2200 S. IH-35.

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