Daily News - The Austin Chronicle (2024)

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Driving Strikewards?

Following from Justin Ward's coverage last week, busdrivers' union Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1091 is holding its vote tonight on whether to accept the latest pay offer from Capital Metro and its main contractor StarTran. The offer is 3.5% immediately, 3.25% each year for the next two years, and $1,000 in compensation for wages lost for working under the old contract. But the union argues the new plan guts health care provision, which is already below what is offered to city and state employees.Cap Metro and StarTran are preparing for the possibiity of a strike, and put out a press release today saying that, if the drivers walk out, they are ready to run a handful of routes (1L/1M, 3, 4, 7, 10, 17, 20, 37, 300, 331) on a reduced service from 6am to 7.30pm, while Capital MetroAccess for passengers with disabilities will operate weekdays only. UT shuttle buses and the Capital Area Rural Transportation System should be unaffected. "Should employees walk off the job," the Cap Metro press release added grimly, "StarTran will be recruiting to fill positions."See Cap Metro's press release after the jump.

Supreme Courts Bursts Brimer Booster's Bubble

Remember the giddy days of 2000, when politicos would wait until after the election to get the courts to throw the results their way? Sen. Kim Brimer, R-Fort Worth, and a bunch of wholly unrelated groups (ahem!) have been fighting tooth-and-nail to get Democratic candidate Wendy Davis chucked off the ballot for his Senate District 10 seat. But Brimer has just been thrown another, and possibly final, legal defeat.The question has been over whether Davis, who was on the Fort Worth council when she filed her paperwork to run, was therefore ineligible to run (read Brimer's original complaint here). But since every lower court has said Brimer has no grounds for his complaint, it's no surprise that theSupreme Court of Texas gave his latest request short (in fact, one line short) shrift yesterday.According to the Dallas Morning News, Brimer has another appeal in with the Second Court of Appeals in Fort Worth, but it seems a wild hope that the lower court would over-rule the highest court in the state. Looks like Brimer will have to spend some of that $1.5 million warchest of his on some actual campaigning.

Daugherty Artz Needs Prufreeders

So we received the Dougherty Arts Center catalog of fall 2008 classes and camps today – my kid is a regular there – and as I read it, I was surprised to learn that our mayor is someone named Will Winn [sic] and one of his colleagues on the city council is Lee Liffingwell.Hey Dougherty: You better watch it. It's budget time.

Littlefield Clean Up Begins

Remember the Waller Creek oil spill in January? A buried oil tank under the back alley between the Littlefield Building and the Driskill Hotel got sluiced out by a broken water main, dumping pollution into the storm drains and finally into Waller Creek. The water was cleaned up pretty quickly, but then came a long process of working out whose tank it was and any legal culpability. This meant a delay in finally clearing up and reopening the alley, which has remained sealed off with the leak site covered with plastic sheeting.Good news. Stephanie Lott with the city's Watershed Protection and Development Review Department just called to say council has been given a memo confirming that remediation activity (i.e., fixing the hole) will start this week. HVP Austin Littlefield, the building's owners, have entered into a voluntary clean-up agreement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The contractor will remove the contaminated soil and fill the space with slurry concrete.

Patterson's September 1 Plans

It's no secret Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson has some big loyalties in life: his party and hunting are on that list. But when the Republican Party decided to schedule the first day of its national convention on the same day as the opening of dove hunting season in Texas, Patterson had a big choice to make. Take his automatic place as a delegate, or load up for bird?So what's a land commissioner to do? He'll be dove hunting. "In Texas, it's probably the most important day of the year for a lot of middle aged men," said GLO spokesman Jim Suydam, who'll be tagging along with his boss on the day. "It's a combination of sitting, watching the sun go down and seeing how beautiful it is, and bursts of excitement."Actually, Patterson (who was an early booster for Fred Thompson's White House run) never takes his slot, because the presidential nomination is always a foregone conclusion. But that doesn't explain why eight of the 49 Republican senators will be elsewhere. MSNBC reports that Pat Roberts of Kansas, Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, Gordon Smith of Oregon and Susan Collins of Maine will all be 'too busy on the campaign trail.' Retirees Larry Craig of Idaho, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Wayne Allard of Colorado all take a pass, as will Ted Stevens of Alaska, but probably for different reasons.

Every Day Is Halloween

Everybody has that one thing that sets their spine on edge and their teeth chattering: For owners of Halloween haunted house attractions it's not snakes or zombies or ghouls, it's waiting for the announcement of the Top 13 Professional Haunted Attractions contest, the Oscars of the haunted attraction world. When the 2008 winners were announced on Wednesday, Austin's own House of Torment (which opens for its fourth year at its current Highland Mall site on Sept. 19) catapulted in at number 6, pushing past legendary haunts like Philly's Bates Motel and NoLa's House of Shock. House of Torment vice-president John Love explained, "We've been hoping we were on the list. They review hundreds of haunted houses, and we submitted our materials because we thought we were doing something really special. Thankfully, our peers saw it that way."Halloween is a $6 billion-a-year industry (second only in gross revenue to Christmas in non-travel spending), with major industry gatherings, a trade body (the Haunted House Association) and its own trade journal, HauntWorld, which hands out the awards. "Every house that's on that list puts on big shows," said Love, "and this is the first year we've really exploded on the national scene."See full list below the jump. If you dare!

Will the Real U.S. Senate Race Please Stand Up?

If anything would make you question the science of polling, it would be the Cornyn vs. Noriega race. One week, the campaign of Democrat Rick Noriega optimistically points to a poll purportedly showing the incumbency of Republican John Cornyn in trouble; the next, Cornyn’s camp triumphantly points to another poll showing a safe lead over his challenger. (Libertarian Yvonne Adams Schick will also be on the ballot.)

Interim DPS Director Named

Longtime Texas Department of Public Safety Director Tommy Davis resigned this summer in the wake of a scathing Sunset Review of the department and the DPS's failure to protect the Governor's Mansion from arson. Today, the Public Safety Commission (the oversight body of the DPS) announced Davis' interim replacement will be Major Stan Clark of the DPS's Highway Patrol division. Press release from the DPS follows: