Council: Still Pondering Austin Energy

City Council has plenty to consider this week (April 25): 107 items on the agenda ranging from contracts to zoning – so it only makes sense that they should be looking around for more work to do. That was the thrust of at least one proposal floated at Tuesday's morning work session, as Council members looked for ways around the simmering impasse over Austin Energy governance. The issue is nominally on this week's consent agenda (Item 20), but it appears that because of scheduling conflicts the substantive discussion will be postponed until May.

Nevertheless, Council dug into the matter at some length at the work session, with CM Bill Spelman laying out a schematic PowerPoint trying to balance Council authority against potential AE board responsibility – hoping to persuade his colleagues that ongoing utility management could be delegated to an appointed professional board without jeopardizing elected Council authority. It's not clear how well he succeeded, but he did amuse his colleagues by dividing the various utility tasks into "bins" that looked suspiciously like trash cans and dumpsters.

CM Chris Riley, coming from a slightly different direction, amended a suggestion from the Electric Utility Commission (a 30-day wait period for Council review of board decisions) into adding all pending board decisions to the subsequent Council agenda – whence they could be plucked as necessary for discussion and review. Mayor Lee Lef­fing­well initially balked at that idea – suggesting that it would be a de facto acknowledgment that the AE board was only advisory, and therefore a duplicative waste of time and money – although later he implied that, with some procedural safeguards, the notion might be made to work.

The discussion was inconclusive, except to suggest the consensus hasn't shifted much since the April 11 Council meeting that both adopted a draft ordinance (first reading only) and left its managerial specifics pending in midair. On one end are Laura Morri­son and Kathie Tovo, skeptical of granting any authority to a new board; at the other are Spelman and Leffingwell, advocating a board of professional utility policy makers, subject to Council review – with the other CMs expressing various opinions in between, and the uncertain specter of state deregulation ever-looming.

Any other business? Just 106 items or so, ranging from the long-delayed East River­side Corridor zoning district and regulating plan to a public hearing on a rezoning proposal that could add mixed-use development to the Downtown Austin Community Col­lege campus, and a public hearing on proposed affordable housing regs for the University Neighborhood Overlay District (i.e., West Campus). Speaking of affordability, one of the two morning briefings is a staff update on the potential for another affordable housing bond vote, presumably in November; we may get a feel for where Council members are leaning. The 5:30pm music honorees are the formidable McCallum High School Chamber Guitar Ensemble (keep them in mind when you're voting on the AISD bonds), and don't forget: It's not only coming up on Bike Month (May), Bike to School Day (May 8), and Bike to Work Day (May 17), it's also National Infant Immunization Week (April 20-27) – still a bulwark for public health.

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Note: The budget process continues with an all-day work session Thursday, May 2; in a new twist, departmental video presentations should be posted online prior to the meeting.