No regular City Council meeting until Jan. 26, but plenty of buzz on organizational matters and the looming public process for CodeNEXT. See “Stacks and Stacks of Meetings” and “Can’t Hardly Wait,” Jan. 20.
President-elect Donald Trump becomes President Donald Trump on Friday (Jan. 20), amid widespread national protests and international uncertainty over Trump’s qualifications, intentions, policies, and personality. Austin Rep. Lloyd Doggett announced he’s boycotting the inauguration, saying: “We are in for a long struggle that must strategically utilize every nonviolent opposition tool available.”
If Friday’s inauguration of The Big Tweet hasn’t alarmed you sufficiently, here’s another harbinger of doom: the Earth reached its highest temperature on record (again) in 2016, marking the third year in a row that global temperatures have exceeded the highest previous level.
President Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he’s commuting the sentence of former intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, convicted in a court-martial in 2010 of releasing confidential military and diplomatic documents, including several that exposed U.S. military misconduct in Iraq. She will be released in May, reducing her incarceration from 35 years to seven.
Emily LeBlanc, The SAFE Alliance‘s senior director of community advocacy, is leaving the organization after six-and-a-half years to become chief program officer at CASA of Travis County. “It has been my pleasure and privilege to have worked for an organization with the passion and integrity I have found at SAFE,” says LeBlanc.
Police Monitor Margo Frasier issued her final year in review on Wednesday. The 104-page account of APD’s 2015 activity was still making its way through Chronicle printers as our paper went to press. Frasier, who officially retires Jan. 31, traditionally waits until all investigations from a specific year are complete before releasing that year’s report.
The Texas House and Senate both released budgets this week. The House’s $221.3 billion budget allocates more for education and health & human services than the Senate’s, while the upper chamber’s $213.4 billion plan invests more heavily in border security than the House. The House calls for a 5.6% cut in spending. The Senate, without clarifying exactly where it’ll come from, suggests a 7.9% cut.
Austin B-Cycle announced it will expand its ridership service, adding four new stations, and upping the no-charge ride time for each trip to 60 minutes instead of 30 for all passes and members. 24-hour passes increase from $8 to $12, and all other pass rates stay the same
This article appears in January 20 • 2017.