� You need a scorecard to keep up with the continuing fallout from the city’s handling of the KeyPoint report on the Nathaniel Sanders II shooting. On Tuesday, the city’s legal department coughed up another copy of the report, this one containing the handwritten comments of Paul Golonski, a lieutenant with the California Highway Patrol (and a “longtime colleague” of APD Chief Art Acevedo). Golonski’s scribbled notes indicate his disagreement with much of the review that faulted police for the fatal shooting. For related developments, see “City Hall Hustle” and “KeyPoint Questions Linger After City Admits Goof.”
� City Council meets today, Thursday, May 27, and KeyPoint looms over its annual review of the city manager’s performance. Also on the agenda: taxi franchise renewals, the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, and more. See “Council Preview.”
� The Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization this week approved its 2035 plan, which strives to balance multimodal transportation with Texas’ highway fixation. See “Green Light for CAMPO 2035 Plan.”
� In other transportation news, Capital Metro board members began appearing before the Sunset Advisory Commission in the wake of the commission’s budget-slashing recommendations for the agency. See “Naked City.”
� Formula One, the elite car-racing organization, has picked Austin as the host city of its F1 races from 2012 through 2021, raising prospects of an economic boom and questions over what the city will need to fork over in exchange for the Grand Prix. See “Austin Hits the Fast Lane.”
� City Planning and Development Review Director Greg Guernsey is proposing a cap on the number of historic landmark designations – and the tax losses to the city they create. He lays out three options: a monthly limit of owner-initiated cases, a one-per-month cap on designating landmarks in local historic districts or in a national registry, and a financial limit on property-tax abatements each year. The City Council may consider the proposal next month.
� In an embarrassing development for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and its policy of issuing polluter-friendly permits, the EPA has taken control of the permitting for the Flint Hills Resources refinery in Corpus Christi and may also intervene with 39 other facilities. See “Environmental Cage Match.”
� The city of Austin and Daimler AG officially opened public registration May 21 for the Car2Go car-sharing program. The city – along with Car2Go – has received the EPA’s 2010 award for clean air/transportation efficiency for the pilot phase of the project.
� A cash reward in the case of the Circle C-area sewer spill just grew to $15,000, a handsome sum that may loosen just enough lips to identify the vandals who earlier this month blocked a sewer line, causing a 250,000-gallon wastewater spill into an Edwards Aquifer feeder stream. The reward total jumped this week when Stratus Properties said it would toss in a $7,500 match for what the city has already posted.
Quote of the Week
“We view this report not as a recommendation but as marching orders.”
– Capital Metro board chair and Austin Mayor Pro Tem Mike Martinez, appearing before the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission to address the commission’s review of the transit agency
This article appears in May 28 • 2010.