Council to hold next talk Saturday

Published 11:35 am Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The next Conversations with the Council will be held from 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday at the Austin Public Library.

The Austin City Council invites the public to join an informal meeting where residents can make suggestions, ask questions and express concerns.

Only three people attended last month’s Conversations with the Council meeting. Mayor Tom Stiehm, who attended last month’s meeting, said more residents with specific problems should attend Conversations with the Council to get help.

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“We’re looking for more people to come in and say, ‘I’m having this type of problem; what can you do?’” he said.

Following last month’s meeting at Gymocha, council member Judy Enright said she was optimistic a new location would bring more attendees.

“We’re moving it to the library, which is more of a central location,” she said. “We’ll see how that goes.”

The event’s starting time has also changed, as the library does not open until 10 a.m.

The last informal meeting, held April 21, ran the gamut of topics, from the need for more street signs and biking directions and how to clean the proposed downtown stage to helping downtown businesses and attracting high-paying jobs to Austin.

“We didn’t have a huge turnout, but I thought it went very well,” Enright said. “The citizens who did show up had some good questions and comments.”

Enright and Mayor Tom Stiehm have addressed several of the issues brought up that morning. For example, they contacted Hormel Foods plant managers over a concern workers biking to their jobs were not following the rules of the road. The company agreed to include bike safety messages in its upcoming newsletter.

Conversations with the Council, previously Coffee with the Council, recently returned after being on hiatus since July 2012, when the council stopped the meetings to address guidelines.

The next Conversations with the Council will be held on the following Saturdays at the Austin Public Library: June 15 at 10 a.m., July 20 at 10 a.m. and Aug. 17 at 10 a.m.