The rules for Town Lake trail are few and far between, and quite rightly so. Don’t drop litter; clean up after your dog; keep to the trail; don’t take samples from the plants; women wear a sports bra while jogging, men make sure you shorts don’t let the mouse out of the house while jogging; dogs on a leash except at auditorium shores; cyclists, no speed in excess of 15MPH.

None of these are formal, they are just good. So, today my thought was, no blocking. Walking three abreast on the trail just doesn’t work. It really doesn’t work when you are all wearing mp3 players and not talking to each other, let alone listening out to what’s going on around you.

Three going clockwise can’t pass three going anti-clockwise; three on one side, two on the other, pretty much blocks one passing in the middle. So I propose that where there are three people blocking one side, now the football season is with us, it becomes an automatic right to be able to execute a tackle from behind on one of the three if you need to pass.

No need for those slightly embarrassing calls, on y’alls right/on y’alls left, instead just shout no blocking and run or bike right through… (more…)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back on the street!

Yep, the next round of this increasingly confusing topic is due on the agenda of Thursday April 30th council meeting as item #25. For those of you not paying attention, that means today, unless you are reading this before midnight, by which time I’ll have hopefully finished writing it…

You can find the full agenda here. I’m not a specialist on city council meetings/processes, but as far as I can tell, this is open to the public, but possibly only to listen. So far in the City Council meetings it has been heard in the afternoon or evening, in the Public Hearing section. As I read it, this time it’s being heard in normal council business, where no separate discussion is necessary unless desired by a Council Member. Unless you know better!

It would seem that since the last meeting, city staff have been busy. There is a comeback on the taskforce recommendations, which seemingly pretty much explains why they are not really implementing any of there major points. This can be read here.

Instead of a separate office for events, staff is recommending folding the responsibilities into the Urban Transportation Commission (UTC). This may be prudent, but it’s not at all clear its right. Prudent because at a time of trimming city budgets, declining tax revenues etc. the last thing the city could probably afford, was a new department. However, adding the “special events” to the UTC will double the number of monthly meetings and “require additional support staff” – which probably just means saving headed notepaper then, and then a potential new head of department on the city “shilling”.

Depending on which side you take, events, churches/business(not claiming they are the same, just lumping their objections together), residents or Task Force members, you can be sure that the final recommendations don’t add up. There seems to be a new 30-day Rules Posting Process, according to Jason Redfern, Right-of-Way Management Division Manager, Transportation Department – “that has not started yet, which will provide stakeholders the opportunity to make suggestions”.

Joey Trmyer of Conely Sports, isn’t pleased with what he’s seen far and wrote this blog post and this letter to the council. I have to say, and I’m taking Joeys “council” on this, a number of the plans might work for static events like the Art Fest, but they introduce significant safety questions for sports events of all sizes. Kathie Tovo, ex-Bouldin Creek Neighborhood Association prez. is also concerned with a number of the proposals too. So far two out of four.

News reaches me though that Council Member of Mayoral candidate Leffingwell is this evening proposing his own set of changes which reach a more effective compromise. Hey Larry, why didn’t I hear about this from you?

So, who knows which way this will go, if you are at all interested, and able, head down to city hall in the morning but be prepared to be confused and delayed as the agenda, ordinances and time keeping get shifted around to suit the political time table. I won’t be there this time, please post comments and let me know how it goes.

Town lake is an amazing place to run at the weekends, there are often more people out running, than most cities can muster to participate in a 5k. You can’t really “see the wood for the trees” though, people flash by in all directions.

It’s not the same on weekday mornings though. Sure, there are still a lot of folks out, but the numbers are down and so you actually notice individuals. This post is for the late-20’s girl, blonde, red t-shirt, black shorts, with her hair held back with a white band, running on the trail this morning.

Running without a decent sports bra doesn’t do you any favors. Yes, it’s distracting, no they won’t get any bigger in any meaningful way, the skins just stretches. When you get older you’ll regret that. If you had a sports bra on this morning, you need a new one, it’s lost it’s support.

Me, I always run in spandex/lycra shorts, same reason, well thats my excuse and I’m sticking to it. As Baz Luhrman might have sung, “but trust me on the sports bra”.

Even if you are not an avid sports fan, but have HBO access, it might be worth catching the current episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

One of the “stories” in episode 145 is about local Austin boxing coach Ann Wolfe. She is unique in any number of ways, Wolfe went 24-1 as a female boxer, including one massive knockout fight where she beat then defending World Champion, Vonda Ward as well as 7x other world titles. Wolfe went on to start her own gym and coaching, she’s out on Bastrop Highway. One of her current boxers is Austin’sJames Kirkland who is the WBO NABO light middleweight champion.

The show take you through Wolfes’ background and well as how boxing became her savior, it also shows some of her unsual training metheods. It also shows some some notable Austin landmarks from Wolfes past, including Brackenridge hospital emergency wing, where she used to spend the night with her kids when homeless. Wolfe is unique in other ways too. A couple of Travis Counties finest also feature when they stop Wolfe and another of her boxers, for driving in a stolen vehicle. It’s a look at a different way of life here in Austin.

It’s strange to see democracy in action, or rather process over people. In a response to one person who asked me before the meeting what they had to do to ensure the “event” community won the current battle, I replied, the city process isn’t set up to create winners, it’s there just to make sure there are no losers!

And so it was tonight, at the City Council meeting where the staff recommendations for implementation of the Downtown Street Closure Task Force recommendations were heard. It was public hearing and a large number of people from 4-sides showed up, with a few others including marginalized neighborhood associations.

The Churches were well represented, as were the Race and Event organizers, and the task force members. In addition there were a large number of runners and event participants, but they had been effectively neutered by the race organizers through their emergent AREA organization. The Austin Races and Events Alliance (AREA), had appealed for people to attend but not speak until they’d spoken, probably fearing a backlash similar to the earlier one at the early taskforce meeting.

In the end the meeting was conducted in a relatively orderly and positive fashion, with Mayor Wynn and a number of the speakers enjoying entertaining interaction. After some 2-hours 30-minutes, most of it hearing public testimony, what became clear is that the City staff had turned months of work from the taskforce into a lose-lose-lose situation and wasn’t clear why this was.

The staff recommendations introduced rules like ensuring that Caesar Chavez was ALWAYS open, which the task force had never considered, as far as I know. That, had the Art Austin, 1st Night Austin and many other event promoters and producers losing out. The recommendations did not institute the Special Events office that the Task Force had recommended, thus they were losers. The Churches didn’t get their access needs met and they lost out, and well, the race organizers didn’t get it their way either, so they lost out too.

After the meeting I was asked “did we win?” My answer was, no, but you got what you wanted. What did they want? Well almost no one it seemed wanted it to go ahead as prescribed, and that’s what they got.

What happened was Council Member Leffingwell proposed to adjourn the public hearing and pass the staff proposal on the caveat that the letter submitted by the Task Force would considered and the proposal amended to accommodate. After a small amount of discussion and clarification from council members and Mayor Wynn, thats what they got, approved on first reading with the Leffingwell compromise. 2nd reading with be on either the 23rd or 30th of April, based on City Staff’s ability to meet with Task Force members and incorporate the changes.

However, quite why and how we got to where we did is beyond me? Why would staff come forward with these recommendations that were so out of line with a process that had taken months of compromise? Given that it’s been three of four months for staff to come forward with that, how likely is it that they’ll come back in as little as two weeks with the update thats acceptable to the task force and everyone else?

I found it personally interesting that none of the Mayoral candidates publicly took a stance on this and push it through one way or the other. One can only wonder if they really hope they’ll get the election over and done with before the Street and Event Closure really does claim a loser, the mayoral candidate that backs the wrong horse.

And so it was, process over people. – Oh yeah, before anyone suggests I’m a conspiracy theorist, I’m not. I also know that things don’t happen by accident.

Mark your diaries, I hear that City staff will brief to Council and taskforce members today at 2:00pm (time varies) at City Hall Council Chambers. The brief will cover the progress on the Taskforce recommendations.

April 2nd at 6pm, a public hearing will be held with possible action by Council for amending City Ordinances related to Street Events Closures and review of the new Right-of-Way Closure Rules. Citizens may provide comment to Council at this hearing.

I’ve reported on this twice, and posted a summary on the difficulties faced and reasonable progress made taskforce. If you remember, one of the early meetings was attended “mob-handed” by the athletes community, and most never got the chance to speak. This is your/their chance.

I’ll find out where the documents can be obtained, and update this post.
[Update: 3/30/09 The documents covering the current state are all now posted on the city website http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/dsectf.htm - Thanks to Taskforce member Kathie Tovo for the links and work on the taskforce.[/update]

The best results from public participation at city hall meetings is garnered by actually having a considered, factual input based on what is being discussed. An emotional rant might make you fell better, but they rarely “move the ball forward”, but hey, feel free to do either :-)

Missed in the run-up to the holidays 2: Thursday 18th December saw the Austin Downtown Street Event Closure Taskforce[1][2] report back to the full City Council.

I had attended the four of the first five or so meetings, including the infamous “Conely mob” meeting on August 11th. At that meeting, an innocent request to get a few sports events participants to some of the meetings, got out of hand in an “Internet connected world” sort-of way, and a hundred or so showed up at one meeting, leaving no standing or sitting room and a lot of disgruntled attendees.[More on this later].

After about a 6-meeting gestation, bi-weekly meetings, went weekly. The task force was co-led by RunTex owner Paul Carrozza, and local political grandee and former Democratic U.S. representative, Jack Hightower, with assistant City Manager Rudy Garza accompanied by a city staff from Parks and Recreation and other effected depts. as well as Lt. Boydston, APD Special Events Unit and other safety related groups to advise. Also heavily involved in the process(from my observation) was Larry Shooler, Policy Director for City Council Member Lee Leffingwell.

However, staff were there primarily as advisors, the bulk of the work was done by the task force members. For those of us from the public that did show up, there was a limited opportunity for people to speak for 3-minutes before the start of the meetings. After that it was down to the old game of passing short notes to task force members on specific points during meetings, a frustrating experience at best. Mid-way through the process the task force seemed to be getting bogged down, lack of clear definition and the [obvious?] groupings for and against events, seemed to be stopping reasonable progress. I also missed about 5-meetings.

It was then with some surprise when I attended the last two meetings. The task force had come up with a good set of recommendations. Seemed to have pulled together some key threads. Presentation of these on the 18th was pretty straight forward with a number of the Task Force members, Shooler and Garza present along with the full council.

The key points and focus areas were:

• Issues/Challenges
  • Events in “downtown” up from 110 in 2005 to 145 in 2007
  • Number of downtown residents estimated to almost triple between 2000-2010
• Event Frequency, Number, Variety, Scheduling, Capping etc.
• Application Approval Process and Timeline etc.
• Set Race Routes, Street and Building Access etc.
• Financial Cost/Impact and Event Fee Structure
• Political Events and Parades were not in-play for the Task Force

And a large number of issues and concerns related to these. From which the Task Force made the following recommendations, presented by Carrozza to the City Council.

• Create Office of Special Events (OSE) to report to the City Manager’s Office
• Create Special Events Advisory Commission
• Create a “no event” zone around 5th/6th Streets to provide open access
• There should be a no-entrapment rule, all events should provide alternate access
• Walks should be held in a “moving bubble” rather than blocking streets
• There should be a cap on events at current levels
• Timeline for Event submission and review changed from 60 to 210 days prior to the event
• Events getting 20% or higher objections are referred to Special Events Advisory Commision
• Organizers must have approved application before marketing events
• Traffic plan inc. alternate access must be finalized earlier

Of these, when you look at it, the Cap was perhaps most feared by the event community. The problem is that each event community has their own, blinkered view on the disruption caused by their events. Limited by their events own geographic boundaries. What they don’t see is the big picture. The problem is that under the current scheme, nor does anyone person or department in the City, since different types of events are currently permitted and approved through different depts. So while you could take 145 events, and say thats almost 3-every weekend. It isn’t, sometimes it is more, sometimes less, and there are the inevitable clashes which don’t become apparent until Road Closures are processed, sometimes long after the events are approved.

For such a relatively small downtown area, often using public roads, 145 events as a cap seems more than enough. One of the key recommendations of the task force was to tier races and to find and encourage other great parts of the City. This both spreads the benefit and the burden. The continued, unbridled growth of events in the downtown district was perhaps the greatest concern of the non-events stakeholders, including residents, businesses, Churches etc. all of whom suffer regular disruption, which is currently left to the best will of the event organizer to minimize.

The “no event” zone was referred to as both the “Equator” and the “Red Sea”. Using the former designation, it was envisaged that the “Red Sea: would part on Congress for no more than six “grandfathered” events. Other events could start north or south of 5th/6th St but not cross or close them. So You could have a 5k race that went south from 4th, down Chavez, and loop back around, but it couldn’t cross or close 5th/6th, likewise a Walk could start on or north of 7th but not cross or close 5th/6th.

Final recommendations were around the City’s ability to understand, plan, budget and grant waivers for events. Currently there is no clear process, or understanding of the cost or benefit for events, and no tracking or post event evaluation is done to see if event organizers meet their commitments, and if waivers for closures and fees etc. are justified. There is also some work to be done on various ordinances if these recommendations are to become the norm.

The council meeting wrapped up with questions from council members. There were few. Members Leffingwell and Martinez both raised the point of citizen input. This was accepted, and the job is now on staff to turn the recommendations into proposed policy.

As part of that process, and in review with council, it’s clear that a broad coalition of event organizers and participants, and NOT just those from the sports community, need to review and provide feedback, as well as the neighborhoods, including mine Bouldin Creek, and the businesses and other effected parties. It’s our city and its also the events, from art, to music, and sport, are what make downtown Austin the small village it is, in a Capital city.

[1] “Downtown is defined by MLK to the north; Oltorf to the south; I35 to the east; and Lamar to the west.
[2] Minutes, Mission Statement, and full member list(although not including their alliances) can be found on the city website, here.

The 2nd Austin Santa Speedo to raise awareness for Austin based outyouth.org appears to have a blast, there were more than double last years runners. It’s understandable that people are a little self conciousness but you really are invisible in a crowd of some 4,500 odd.

Ed(Head Santa) and I(CEO, Chief Elf Officer) hope to get the numbers up over the next couple of years to the point we can organize our our direct fundraising event/run. Until then we’ll keep going with the Santa Speedo at the Trail of Lights 5k. Mark your calendars for 2009, come on down, don’t be shy.

Before you ask, most of us are straight, except for the GBF’s who were racing for the 2nd year; you don’t have to have cancer to raise money for it etc. Many of us can completely understand and the need for people to support confused teens at their most vulnerable times, if you enjoy Jasons video and the run, why not donate just a few dollars to outyouth?
They accept paypal etc. http://www.outyouth.org/howtohelp/donate.html

A big thanks this year to Guin for getting Brian, Krista and the Texas State Triathlon team up from San Marcos. Also to Jason for the video. There are more pictures on flickr, here. This year and last years videos are here. The Texas State team also have some pictures on facebook, here.

Well things are getting going for this years Santa Speedo run. I met with Head Santa Ed last week for lunch to plan out the 2nd Annual Austin Santa Speedo run. As Head Elf I should have written this post days ago. Between Ed and I we’ve created evites, Facebook events and more. While I blog here on Austin metroblog, Allen Chen over on the Austinist covered it first, and to be honest they did a great job last year too!

The purpose is to raise awareness and promote the work of Out Youth Austin! To take part, you must register for the 5k via the Trail of Lights 5k, and then show up on the night, at least by 6.15pm near the bonfire and we will strip down to red speedo, or swim costume and then start the run together. See last years video on youtube or the pictures on Flickr.

So, if you have not received an evite, or on facebook, now’s your chance to join in and have the most fun you can in a red speedo or bikini. We’ve got members from the Texas State tri team coming along, a number of people have signed up for the evite. Last year the temperatures were in the high 70’s for the run, @alkaloids and Derek Yorek of Team Hump started up front and finished up there, the rest of us mingled around near the back and ran through the crowds.

Now, I understand the whole speedo thing here in America. If you feel that going and buying a speedo is something that is just ‘beyond the pale‘ and not to be seen doing in public, do I have a deal for you. The swimoutlet.com has red speedos and bikini seperates on sale for just $9.95 plus postage. Don’t delay, get yours in time for the run!

This year the plan is to have three or four groups if people show interest. there will be the fast, the joggers, the back of the pack crew(which will inclide me this year as I’m doing a 100-mile bike ride the same day), and the supporters.

If you really can’t see running through some 1,000 people in a speedo or bikini then why not come along and support? Instead of paying the race entry fee, donate the same amount to OutYouth Austin.

Otherwise, see you there. Don’t forget to confirm your attendance via either the evite or the facebook event.

If you are exhausted after trailing around the shops today, or feeling a little round after eating too much yesterday, two events to get you back off the couch and active again. Just as the doldrums about the economy kick back in, these are two events to either make you think again or give you a new opportunity.

The first up is the Austin Get Motivated event. Not so much for me, while I could use some motivation at this point, I somehow think that my cynical personality would come out and I’d miss the message while criticizing the messenger. Peter and Tamara Lowe are the latest in a long line of almost evangelical, motivational speakers and they’ll be in town on December 2nd at the Austin Convention Center with General Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani, as well as a host of other speakers. I talked to a ‘city official” at yesterdays Thundercloud Subs Turkey Trot, and was told they were expecting 12,000 people to turn up. The convention/seminar starts at 8.00am, seems like downtown is likely to be jammed from 7am.

If you want to go, it will cost $299. However, for that you can apparently take your whole office.

Next up is a date for the diary. On Tuesday January 13th the City of Austin is hosting the Active Texas Summit at the Palmer Events Center on Barton Springs Road. It doesn’t appear to be aimed at the general public, but at $95 for early registraion, I actually think the ability to hear first hand on what is being proposed, strategies to get involved in sports related events in Austin and Texas, if you are looking for something to get you back on track after the Christmas holidays, this could be it.

The leisure sector, fitness, events etc. are an important service industry in North America. If times continue to get hard and people hunker down, keeping this vital part of the economy going will be key. It’s all too easy to complain about the events that go on downtown, and I take part in both, the events and complaining, they do provide an essential link to the economy through food sellers, facilities providers, fencing, porta-lets, printing, police, the list go’s on and on. Continuing and growing the tradition is an opportunity even in hard times. People need distractions, they need focus and for many sports not only fulfill those needs, but they also are a significant aid in fitness and health.

The day starts early, at 6:30 with an optional exercise program, and ends late with Health and Fitness Awards and a Blues show at Antones, with (healthy)meals and (virtuous)breaks, and transportation to Antones included. In the middle there will be a host of speakers and sessions, the agenda has Mayor Will Wynn, Governor Perry, Luci Baines Johnson, Paul Carroza, Marc Ott, and Susan Dell who is a member of the President’s Council for Physical Fitness and Sports.

So, feeling a bit overloaded after yesterdays bird? Maybe one of these is for you!