Notes from February 27 Austin Neighborhoods Council Meeting

The Austin Neighborhoods Council held its monthly meeting yesterday. In addition to its regular business, the meeting included a panel of speakers from Austin Independent School District (AISD) addressing the audience and answering questions about the interim school bond election scheduled for May 10, 2008.

AISD Interim School Bond Discussion
Vincent Torres (AISD Board of Trustees, District 4, Vice President) explained the basics of the bond process:

1. When board decides that a bond might be needed, they form a citizens bond advisory committee (CBAC)
2. Advisory committee explores if and when a bond is needed and for what it is needed. This can include public hearings to collect public comment
3. Board considers recommendations and calls a bond election if necessary

Robert Schneider (AISD Board of Trustrees, District 7) delved into the history of this specific bond:

- It started out as an interim strategic bond
- It was originally scoped at 200 million dollars
- As a result of recent legislative action, school districts are required to get voter approval to raise taxes by any more than 1.17, which promted AISD to consider whether it might want to include more in the necessary election
- Several public forums were organized by the CBAC
- After receiving feedback from the CBAC, the board decided to pursue a larger bond election

Nan Clayton (CBAC) addressed some specifics of what is included on the bond:

- The so-called 4 x 4 state mandate requires new facilities
- Several facilities are operating at over 125 % of capacity, which is officially considered overcrowded
- The State legislature is requiring a transition to use of more software-based textbooks but without having funded the required technology

Mark Yzanga (CBAC) addressed some of the issues and lessons learned from the process:

- Citizen comment started as tepid, perhaps because no concrete proposals were provided at the beginning of the public comment period
- Lack of integration/overall city planning process made it difficult to come up with accurate estimates

Q&A followed:

- One person expressed concern about locating the proposed South Austin High over the acquifer - Rob responded that building a school would be good for the environment because it would result in less impervious cover than other permitted uses
- Propositions 1 and 2 on the bond issue are pretty much directly taken from the CBAC recommendations
- Prop 3 addresses the need for performing arts center in light of the fact that the long center may not be suitable due to lack of parking. Some concerns were raised about the structuring of Prop 3 and whether or not it might be politically motivated.
- According to nan clayton, none of the bond packages include library improvements.
- There is a facility use and boundary committee that is responsible for making recommendations about changing boundaries to improve facilities use
- South High School land acquisition is expensive because of size requirements of highs chools and potential impervious cover requirements

Candidate Forum

At the upcoming Austin Neighborhoods Council meeting in March, they will be holding a candidates forum for the three Austin City Council seats up for election in May. After the forum, the Austin Neighborhoods Council will vote on deciding whom to endorse.

Other Austin Neighborhoods Council Business

- It turns out that single member districts cannot be on may ballot because it is too early for a charter election (has been less than 2 years since the last one)
- Some of the city council members are proposing a resolution to further investigate single member districts, which would probably take long enough to keep it off the november ballot
- The Austin Neighborhoods Council would like to see a real public process for drafting the single member districts ballot

Board of Directors and Officers

At this time, the Cherry Creek on Brodie Lane Neighborhood Association's Board of Directors consists of the following individuals. Officers are indicated with their office in parenthesis.

Percy Wegmann (President)
Silkgrass Bnd

Carla Trautwein (Vice President)
Lightwood Loop

Barbara Statum (Secretary)
Silk Oak Cove

Kristyn Brown (Treasurer)
Silkgrass Bnd

John Schatte
Tea Rose Trail

Linda Criss
Tea Rose Trail

Carmen Ramos
Silkgrass Bnd

Erica Taylor
Silkgrass Bnd

Fritz Parker
Lightwood Loop

Charlotte Peterson
Lightwood Loop

City Councilwoman Jennifer Kim Introduces Austin Residents to Google Earth Initiative

On the morning of February 16, Jennifer Kim and several city staffers gave a demonstration of how the City of Austin is starting to use Google Earth for visualization of current and future buildings in the downtown business district and the north side of Ladybird Lake. The project is still in its very early stages, and the exact goals weren't yet clear. From public comment, it was evident that people are interested in the following main issues:

Data - where is the data going to come from, who is going to pay for its acquisition and how is the city going to make sure that data used for decision-making in the planning and zoning process is accurate?

Integration - How will this new system be integrated with the existing GIS and public records data?

Access - Google Earth is a heavyweight tool. How will those without the ability to use it at home get the necessary level of access.

Street-level View - From the demo, it looked like the software doesn't do particularly well with street-level views. This could be a problem when trying to visualize the impact of proposed developments to our cityscape.

All in all, Google Earth looks like a very powerful tool that could have a positive impact on the planning and zoning process and the city does have some limited budget allocated to pursuing it, but it sounds like it's going to take a while to get up and running with it.

I would not expect that the city will be acquiring data for our part of town anytime soon, but the tool for creating 3D models itself is openly available (Google Sketchup) and it sounds like it might be possible to pull in some of the city's existing terrain and building footprint data from their website and do our own models, if we are so inclined.

Austin Green Neighbor Program

Our neighbor Phil Brown forwarded the below announcement from the City of Austin:

BECOME A GREEN NEIGHBORHOOD!

When Austinites are asked what they like best about our city, our outdoor lifestyle is always near the top of the list. In large part that’s because we are surrounded by accessible waterways – the creeks, lakes and springs that connect us to our environment.

The City of Austin’s Green Neighbor Program helps homeowners preserve our waterways as well as our drinking water supply. The companion booklet, Clean Creek Challenge, provides useful suggestions on earth-wise landscaping, water conservation, car and pet care tips, toxic chemicals and many more. You can use the booklet as a helpful reference, to test how “green” you are, or take part in the Clean Creek Challenge by scoring your earth-wise actions to win either passes to Barton Springs pool or Green Neighbor t-shirts. If enough of your neighbors become Green Neighbors, you can become a Green Neighborhood and be eligible for Council and web site recognition as well as some neighborhood beautification awards.

If you would like a Water Quality staff person to attend your meeting and introduce the program, please call Kathy Shay, 974-2446. To learn more about the Green Neighbor program please visit www.cityofaustin.org/watershed/greenneighbor/.

Copies of the Green Neighbor booklet are also available at all Austin libraries or 505 Barton Springs Rd, 11th floor.

You could be rewarded with prizes for helping out, but more importantly, you will be rewarded with clean and plentiful water for us and future generations!

Regards,

Sara Heilman

Water Quality Education

City of Austin, Watershed Protection Dept

512.974.3540 (wk) 512.466.6798 (c)

512.974.2846 (fx)

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/watershed/education.htm

Green Living Tip

Our Neighbor Pat Laird forwarded us a green living tip from the Sierra Club:

If you’re in need of lumber, consider buying from ecofriendly wood providers. The Forest Stewardship Council has approved 59 million acres of timber forest in 47 countries for their environmentally responsible practices. Friends of the Earth also has buying tips on its Good Wood Guide site

Announcement of Shred Day Record Management Event

Shred Day 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
7:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Austin High Parking Lot
1715 W. Cesar Chavez

With the increased awareness of identity theft, it’s important to dispose of personal records carefully. To highlight this, the Association of Records Managers and Administrators and the City of Austin is sponsoring a Free event to help individuals and families with:

* Home records management
* Identity theft protection
* Recycling

Households can bring up to five file boxes of paper records for shredding. Mobile shredding trucks from Austin Shred, a Balcones Resource Company, CenTex Shred and Iron Mountain will be on-site to shred the material.

Restrictions:

* No wet material
* No plastics/binders
* No electronic media

For more information contact Jannette Goodall at 974-9045 or via email at Jannette.goodall "at" ci.austin.tx.us