• The City Council returns for its first post-budget meeting with some tweaks to the fiscal year 2010 package, plus action on items like the Comprehensive Plan and Downtown density incentives. See “City Hall Hustle.”
• The first day of fall actually felt like it: Alongside a blanket of rain Tuesday, highs dropped into the 70s, providing some much-needed heat relief just in time for next weekend’s Austin City Limits Music Festival.
• That’s a lot of casserole: Austin’s Meals on Wheels served up its millionth plate of the year this week. The platter serves as a reminder that demand, in this economy, is at an all-time high. Find out some ways that you can help at www.mealsonwheelsandmore.org.
• Flu infection is growing at a fever pace, as the Dell Children’s Medical Center set up outdoor tents to deal with an influx of young patients afflicted with the H1N1 virus.
• The League of United Latin American Citizens wants Travis High Principal Rene Garganta to resign after the campus reentered academically unacceptable status. The school met the state’s 2009 TAKS standards but dipped on 2008 graduation rates due to a calculations anomaly. The district is appealing those results.
• Media meltdowns for the Republican governor hopefuls: First, incumbent Rick Perry was condemned for claiming, “Texas is kind of recession-proof.” Then Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison‘s camp braced itself for revelations by former George W. Bush speechwriter Matt Latimer, whose book, Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor, delves into her “purse boys,” whom he calls “taxpayer subsidized butlers.”
• Work is slowly proceeding on the Senate’s health care bill, as Republican senators offer stalling amendments related to ACORN and other straw men. The Dems’ latest proposals have managed to win over go-to Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe.
• Will Dancing With the Stars be dancing behind bars? Disgraced former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay survived the first night of ABC’s celebrity game show with his cha-cha intact, but indictments against “The Hammer” for money laundering and conspiracy are still pending.
Quote of the Week
“This is an embarrassment to the County Attorney’s Office … to the APD, and a complete injustice to the citizens of Austin for wasting their time and money on a bogus political prosecution of my client in efforts to justify a police shooting.”
– Attorney Jason McMinn, responding to the court dismissing a charge against Michael Franklin. See “Naked City.”
This article appears in September 25 • 2009.