You are here

City and County Notes - June 2009

Share |

By Tiffany Young Friday, 26 June 2009

Art in Public Places

The City of Austin Art in Public Places added two new public artworks to the city’s permanent art collection. The collection, created by Austin glass artist Kathleen Ash, was recently unveiled at the grand opening of the North Village Branch Library at 2505 Steck Ave.

The Art in Public Places program allocates 2 percent of eligible capital improvement project budgets to artwork. Ash was commissioned to work with building architects to integrate her artwork designs into the architecture of the building and create work that is engaging to library patrons.

“I want the viewer, especially the young, to wonder and question and be curious about the journey that we travel when we open a book,” she said.

Ash has been working with glass at Studio K in Austin for more than 30 years and specializes in glass for architecture, lighting and limited-production art glass. Visit www.cityofaustin.org/aipp.

New facilities for Travis County

The Travis County Commissioners Court approved a $1.5 million contract with Austin consultants Broaddus & Associates to develop a master plan for Travis County facilities downtown.

The county has only appropriated money for the first of two phases of the contract, amounting to $841,000. Phase One began June 1 and will end by February 2010. If commissioners do not like how the study is going, they have the option not to fund Phase Two, which is scheduled to be finished by December 2010.

“Phase One is fully funded. Phase Two has a funding-out clause. If the commissioners court did not want Phase Two, we can pull the plug in September during the budgeting process,” County Judge Samuel Biscoe said.

Phase One will consist of a comprehensive, long-term needs assessment for the county through 2035. Phase Two will result in a strategic facilities master plan to meet those needs.

The cost of the contract is of the same magnitude as other complex studies, such as the $5.1 million University of Texas’ Brackenridge Tract study and the $1.4 million City of Austin downtown master plan, said Christian Smith, special assistant to the commissioners court and former head of the county’s planning and budget department.

Police training campus named

In May, city council unanimously approved naming the Austin Police Department’s Training Academy after former Austin Mayor Roy Butler in recognition of his more than half-century of support for law enforcement. The Roy Butler Police Training Academy campus includes classrooms, a driving track, gym and outdoor shooting range in southeast Austin. Improved facilities are expected to be built later this year.

Butler, the first Austin mayor elected by the public, served two terms from 1971-1975.

Locally, he has served on the Police Training Monitoring Committee, was one of the first members of the Police Citizens Oversight Committee and continues as a member of the Public Safety Task Force and as chair of the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement Officer Standards and Education Advisory Board.

Solar rebates

City council approved rebates to businesses for installation of solar equipment as part of Austin Energy’s Commercial Energy Efficient programs on May 14.

The aim is to reduce local air pollution through energy conservation. Several apartment complexes are receiving rebates. Each project will save carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and carbon monoxide from being emitted into the atmosphere.

The savings by each business is equivalent to the planting of hundreds of trees or the removal of thousands of vehicular miles. The amount of kilowatt-hours per year saved by each of these energy improvements is equivalent to providing electricity to two to three average Austin homes for a year.

Upcoming Austin City Council meetings

July 23, Aug. 6, 20, 27

Sessions begin at 10 a.m.

301 W. Second St.

Meetings are broadcast on municipal TV cable channel 6 and on 88.7 FM radio, starting at 1:30 p.m. Meetings are streamed live on the channel 6 website, www.ci.austin.tx.us/channel6. Visit www.ci.austin.tx.us/council for more information, including transcripts, schedules, agendas and archived video.