Stuff like this was inevitable. Leaders of two Christian groups want City Council to stop extending benefits to domestic partners of city employees, now that the state attorney general has called the benefits unconstitutional. City officials reject the demand, at least for now. Pastor Gerald Ripley of Voices for Marriage and Philip Sevilla of Texas [...]
Posts Tagged ‘City Council’
Ana Reyes makes history in Farmers Branch
I didn’t pay much attention to Saturday’s elections, since there was nothing on the ballot for me and there were few races of interest around the state. One place where there were races worth watching was in Farmers Branch, and the news from there was excellent. Ana Reyes became the first Hispanic to win a [...]
Single member districts for Farmers Branch
Another long battle comes to an end. A Dallas federal judge has directed Farmers Branch to implement single-member City Council districts after the U.S. Justice Department signed off on the city’s proposed map. The move could set the stage for a fiery May 11 election in which the outcome may provide the suburb of 29,000 [...]
Austin’s choices for Council districts
The Statesman has a look at the choices Austin voters have for how to redesign their City Council from an all-At Large system to one with Council districts. In the debate over whether to change the City Council from citywide members to those who represent smaller districts, one question has galvanized supporters and opponents: who [...]
Seattle bans plastic bags
Spotted this while we were in Portland. Those ubiquitous, single-use plastic bags will no longer be available at checkout counters at grocery and retail stores across Seattle starting Sunday. The ban intended to cut down on pollution requires grocers and other retailers to stop handing out plastic bags and charge customers a nickel fee for [...]
Local action on payday lending
Patricia Kilday Hart reports on a promising movement. No one was particularly surprised a year ago when the Texas Legislature failed – once again – to pass meaningful regulation of the payday and auto title loan industries. After all, the folks who charge triple digit interest on loans to society’s most desperately poor had invested [...]
It’s Williams on Williams time again
I would not call it a good thing to come out of the updated interim maps since there’s a good chance one of these jokers will get elected, but for those of you with a morbid fascination with sideshows, the two Williams non-brothers who have spent the past year or so seeking out an office [...]
Austin bans bags
They go farther than other cities have gone. At 2 a.m. [Friday], the Austin City Council passed one of the broadest bag laws in the nation, agreeing to ban disposable paper and plastic bags at all retail checkout counters starting in March 2013. Before and after the ban takes effect, the city plans to do [...]
Austin may accelerate its bag ban schedule
They’re considering their options. The City of Austin might ban the thin plastic and paper bags offered at checkout counters beginning in March 2013 a year earlier than expected and scrap plans to require retailers to charge a fee for such bags in the meantime. Austin Resource Recovery , the city’s trash and recycling department, [...]
On free speech and reproductive rights
I must say, I was a bit flummoxed by this story. The City of Austin might repeal a 2-year-old ordinance requiring some facilities that counsel women with unplanned pregnancies to post signs saying they don’t offer abortions or contraceptive services. The four Austin facilities affected by the ordinance sued the city last fall, saying the [...]
Single member Council district dispute in Boerne
I’ve noted several stories about single member Council districts in various Texas cities over the years. They often involve litigation, so these battles can have implications beyond the borders of the locality in question, but I just find the questions about why a given city should or should not change from an at large system [...]
Austin rethinking its May election
Yeah, maybe that wasn’t the best decision. Austin City Council members are again discussing whether to move the May council election back six months a politically fraught question that led city officials to trade thinly veiled insults earlier this year. A [recent] U.S. Supreme Court decision revived the seemingly settled issue. The court blocked Texas [...]
Austin mulls far-reaching bag ban
This will be worth watching. The City of Austin might enact one of the broadest bag bans in the nation and prohibit disposable paper and plastic bags at all checkout counters starting in January 2016. In the meantime, starting in 2013, retailers could continue to offer thin, so-called single-use bags, but customers would have to [...]
The Bellaire “urban transit village”
Very interesting. Nearly a year in the drafting, a sweeping change to Bellaire’s zoning laws creating an “urban transit village” where there is now a collection of nondescript warehouses will soon be before City Council. On Nov. 1, the city’s Planning & Zoning Commission unanimously voted to recommend Council approval of the zoning ordinance they’ve [...]
Austin will get its vote on district Council seats
You Austin folks won’t get to vote for Council members next November, but you will get to vote for what kind of Council members you have. The council approved Thursday a resolution that calls for a district proposal to go before voters in the November 2012 election. That move was endorsed by the advocacy group [...]
San Antonio moves forward with streetcar plan
San Antonio City Council has voted to approve funding for a five-year transit expansion plan that includes a streetcar line. The vote all but guarantees construction of the city’s first urban rail project since San Antonio ended its electric streetcar operation in 1933. “I do believe what this plan does is it looks forward,” [Mayor [...]
There’s an app for reporting handicapped parking space violators
In Austin, anyway. Ever see someone parked illegally and wanted to do something about it? Your chance might be coming. A new smartphone app could allow people in Austin to report illegal parking in spots reserved for people with disabilities. The City Council on Thursday will consider a resolution to link such an app to [...]
Austin ISD moves its election to November
As the song goes, two out of three ain’t bad. The Austin school board voted unanimously on Monday to move trustee elections from May to November. The school district will share November election costs with the county and the Austin Community College District, the board of which voted last week to move its elections. “This [...]
Austin officially keeps May elections
That’s all she wrote. The Austin City Council decided Friday to hold the 2012 council elections in May instead of November, ending a weeks-long debate marked by accusations of voter suppression and political expediency. A new state law aimed at helping more overseas military personnel vote in primaries will make it tough for Texas cities [...]
The can banners fight back
I’ve blogged before about New Braunfels’s new ordinance that bans disposable containers on the Comal River. Since then, those who oppose the ban have gotten organized and have succeeded in putting a referendum to repeal the ordinance on the November ballot. There are plenty of people who support the ban, however, and now they have [...]
Austin will keep May elections for now
As we know, the city of Austin holds its municipal elections in May. They have three year terms for City Council, so half of their elections are held in even-numbered years. As we also know, a bill that was passed by the Lege this spring will cause a conflict for cities like this as the [...]
San Antonio City Council extends domestic partnership benefits to city employees
Good for them. On Thursday, words like “abomination,” “sin” and “Satan” were commonplace in City Council chambers as the audience weighed in on a tiny portion of San Antonio’s $2.2 billion budget. The council listened to three hours of public comment on an estimated $300,000 line item that will extend benefits to domestic partners — [...]
Can Ban opponents get their vote
Impressive. [New Braunfels] City Council, confronted Wednesday by a petition challenging a controversial new law, called for a Nov. 8 election to let voters decide whether disposable containers will be banned from local rivers. The “Can the Ban” coalition gathered more than 4,300 signatures during a whirlwind, weeklong campaign after the City Council passed the [...]
New Braunfels bans disposable containers on the river
Despite some talk that they might wait awhile to take action, the New Braunfels City Council has voted to ban disposable food and beverage containers – think cans and bottles – on waterways within its city limits. The law covers the Comal River and a small section of the Guadalupe River that passes through the [...]
New Braunfels may delay new river regulations
Looks like the preliminary approval they gave to banning bottles and cans from the Comal River may be put off for awhile before implementation. Grassroots opposition to a proposed prohibition on disposable containers on the Comal River has persuaded the law’s sponsor to consider delaying it while other methods of crowd and litter control can [...]
New Braunfels bans bottles and cans
On the river, that is. City Council gave preliminary approval on Monday to a controversial rule prohibiting disposable containers — bottles and cans — from the ecologically sensitive Comal River. The first reading of the proposal, amending an existing ordinance, passed by a 5-2 vote. Another ordinance, which would prohibit tubers from taking an extra [...]
Sometimes, a little spite goes only a little way
I’ve decided I’m more amused by this story than anything else. Last year, six tea party members in the Houston area promised to make Austin City Council members pay for rebuking Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, and they used extensive campaign finance complaints as their tool of retribution. The result: $1,500 in small fines for [...]
Austin presents a single-member Council map
The city of Austin has released the first maps of a proposed six-district City Council, which Mayor Lee Leffingwell would like to put on the ballot next year for public approval. The City of Austin has for decades operated under a so-called gentleman’s agreement , an unspoken rule that has reserved one City Council seat [...]
San Antonio’s extended term limits
This year for the first time, most candidates on the ballot for San Antonio city offices are not subject to the old term limits law. San Antonio [once] had some of the nation’s strictest term limits for City Council — two 2-year terms and then a lifetime ban on service. Voters in 2008 relaxed those [...]
District representation in Austin
I have to admit, it hadn’t occurred to me that there were any large cities in Texas that didn’t have City Council districts, but Austin is such a place, at least for now. Mayor Lee Leffingwell will soon propose sweeping changes to Austin’s elections and governing structure, including creating districts for City Council representation, an [...]
Recycling for apartments
The city of San Antonio is taking a big step forward in expanding its recycling program. The new amendment ensures that all families and individuals living in apartments, condominiums, townhomes, high rise condominiums and San Antonio Housing Authority properties have an adequate number of recycling containers in which to dispose of recyclables and that the [...]
Tomball declines to be like Farmers Branch
I’m stunned. Pleased, but stunned. The Tomball City Council late Tuesday defeated a proposal to make English the city’s official language and voted down another measure seeking to prohibit illegal immigrants from renting or owning property or owning or operating a business there. The council also voted to keep the city’s day laborer site open [...]
San Antonio smoking ban passes
By a slightly larger margin than expected. The City Council on Thursday approved a fortified smoke-free ordinance aimed at protecting public health, despite pleas from frustrated bar and restaurant owners who said that the ban would hurt their business. The new ordinance, which will qualify San Antonio as a smoke-free city under criteria set by [...]