Thinman

Recent Actions

• Posted Travis House: City Council To Finalize Zoning Status Today to Austinist
  On October 13th, the Planning Commission (PC) considered the Historic Landmark Commission’s recommendation that Travis House be designated as a historic building. The owner’s lawyer told Planning that the 1945 building was in bad shape and contaminated with lead, mold and asbestos. Susan Villarreal, Senior Planner with the city responded that "It is a distinctive and interesting building" and an "excellent representative of Colonial Revival style." The PC voted 4-2 to deny the historic designation (DMU-H) and recommended DMU zoning. City Council will make the final decision as to whether the building gets historic zoning at its meeting today. UPDATE: City Council denied historic zoning, so the building will likely be demolished.
• Posted Book Festival Interview With Jonathan Foer to Austinist
  Last Sunday during the Texas Book Festival, I sat down for lunch with Jonathan Foer, author of Eating Animals. I wanted to talk about his new book and at the same time introduce him to one of Austin’s treasures: the vegetarian food at Casa de Luz. As we walked into the less-than-full restaurant, he said, "Nice. Wow, if this were Brooklyn, the place would be packed. What's going on?" "New York City prices," I replied. Your book will be released next week. Have you had any reaction so far?
• Posted The Texas Book Festival: It's This Weekend At The Capitol to Austinist
  exas is playing on the road, the weather should be great, so your excuses are scant. Two hundred and twenty authors and box loads of new books will be arriving. And, according to Clay Smith, this is an excellent year to be a reader. Be sure and check the Texas Book Festival schedule for any last minutes changes. Author Terry Tempest Williams, unfortunately, could not attend. An earlier interview with Clay Smith, the literary director, can be found here.
• Posted Two Wrongly Convicted Men Set Free in Dallas [Interview] to Austinist
  Imagine sitting in prison for a crime you did not commit. Then, ten years into a life sentence, another prisoner confesses, names an accomplice and signs an affidavit. That should be enough to get you out of jail, right? That is not how the system works. In fact, that confession might not matter at all. Two Texas prisoners, however, had the Actual Innocence Clinic in Austin and UT Arlington's Innocence Network dig into their case. They found that affidavit in 2007.
• Posted The Downtown Chronic Homeless: Seattle's Solution to Austinist
  Speaking last Friday at City Hall, Mayor Leffingwell estimated there are around 4000 homeless people in Austin, with about 600 of those chronically homeless. Bill Hobson, Executive Director of Seattle’s Downtown Emergency Service Center, spoke to those fighting the problem in Austin: city and county agencies, private organizations and interested citizens. A Baylor graduate and self-described “recovering Southern Baptist”, Hobson focused on his experiences with 1811 Eastlake, a 75 bed facility for the chronic homeless opened in 2005. Eastlake residents are about evenly split between alcohol and drug addicts and those with serious mental health problems like schizophrenia.