The Austin City Council is about to have a serious study session.

Council members will meet at the Mower County Senior Center starting at 5 p.m. Monday for their annual council retreat, where they will hear about the city’s work done last year from city officials. In addition, council members will begin to list what important issues the city may face in 2013.

One of those issues is the city’s Coffee with the Council meetings. A public outreach initiative, the council created informal meetings to hear concerns and questions from residents starting in March 2012. Yet council members suspended meetings in July, after a few residents would dominate meetings with concerns about city, county and state matters. Council members also say one local political candidate used much of a meeting to stump for office, though the meetings were about hearing citizen concerns.

Though the council voted to re-visit the issue in 2013, it is unclear what changes will be made to Coffee with the Council. The council previously pledged to discuss ways to restart and improve the meetings at its retreat.

 

Planning commission to meet Tuesday

The council retreat isn’t the only city meeting of import to take place next week.

The Planning Commission will meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday inside the City Council Chambers to discuss a request by Hormel Foods Corp. to amend its conditional use permit to build an inedible waste treatment building.