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| PIAC Meeting Tuesday Nov 18th, 6-8pm |
| Friday, November 14, 2008 |
 WHAT: RMMA PIAC Meeting
WHEN: Tuesday November 18th, 6-8pm
WHERE: Waller Creek Center Room #105 (625 E. 10th Street)
AGENDA
1. Call to Order and Introductions
New Member Kevin Ludlow
2. Citizen Communications: General
Speakers signed up prior to the meeting being called to order will each be allowed three minutes to address their concerns regarding items not posted on the agenda.
3. Approval of Minutes from 10/14/08
Discussion and Action
4. Day Labor Update
Susan Gehring, Health & Human Services
5. Letter to Support Transit Circulator
Discussion and Action
6. Mueller Redevelopment Updated (Catellus)
Construction Update
Marketing Update
7. Items from Commission Members
Update of Tower District and Market District Planning
Update on History of VA Clinic at Mueller
8. Items from Staff
Annual Report
9. Next Meeting
10. Citizen Communication: General
Speakers signed up will each be allowed three-minutes to address their concerns regarding items not posted on the agenda.
ADJOURNMENT |
| Mueller Neighborhood Association Opposes Proposition 2 |
| Thursday, October 16, 2008 |
 The Mueller Neighborhood Association (MNA) passed a resolution to oppose Proposition 2 at their October general membership meeting. Proposition 2, a grassroots referendum placed on the ballot by Stop Domain Subsidies, attempts to repeal existing subsidies allocated to The Domain development in Northwest Austin. Unfortunately, Proposition 2 could have effects beyond The Domain. If the referendum passes, it would have an appreciable effect on the Robert Mueller Municipal Airport Redevelopment. Although the full impact is difficult to estimate, at least $12 million in bonds which have already been issued would be called into question, and future phases of the development would likely suffer.
Planning for the Mueller Town Center has just begun, but it is already envisioned as a vibrant social hub offering far more than simply retail and dining. The Austin Children's Museum recently pledged their interest in locating at the Town Center, and, per the Master Development Agreement, at least 30% of the businesses within the Town Center will be locally owned and operated.
If Proposition 2 passes, the future of the Town Center will be adversely affected. Furthermore, the existing Master Development Agreement (exceeding 1,000 pages) between the master developer and the City of Austin would have to be renegotiated. Regrettably, there is no guarantee the renegotiated contract will bind either side to continue with the same level of existing benefits for the community: 25% affordable housing, 30% local businesses, and exceptional park and open space requirements. Proposition 2 has the ability to threaten the economic incentives, which include the development of affordable housing and guaranteeing local businesses space within the Town Center, which were previously negotiated by both the City of Austin and the master developer.
The Mueller Neighborhood Association urges you to vote NO on Proposition 2.
About Mueller: The Mueller development is an asset to surrounding East Austin neighborhoods and the greater Austin area. The innovative result of a public-private partnership with extensive input from Austin citizens, Mueller will provide many acres of parks and green space, 10,000 new jobs, and a vibrant town center.
For more information related to the Mueller Neighborhood Association, please visit our website  . |
| MC Oval Stickers Now Available |
| Tuesday, October 14, 2008 |
 We haven't really invested a whole lot of time into promoting the Mueller Community and have rather just enjoyed seeing it grow more organically. But with the community steadily growing and the site climbing the ranks of Google and friends, we have our first promo item for the site.
If you'd like to get your own MC bumper sticker, just let us or your block captain know and we'll get it out to you. The stickers are 3" x 5" and are made from pressure-sensitive white vinyl and should have no problem standing up to the elements.
For the time being we'll just be giving them away, but once supplies start getting a bit low we'll start selling them for $1.00 each just to recoup some costs.
Hope they're well received :) |
| Checking in with the site... |
| Tuesday, October 07, 2008 |
It's been a few weeks since we last made a post to the front page and it seems like that might be a bit too long. As many of you have already noticed, the site has had a number of new additions over the past week or so, and we're happy to say that plenty more will be coming.
Among the new modules added to the site were the Events Calendar, Forum Watches, the functioning Groups, a preliminary look at Videos, and our favorite, the redesigned Profile Overview page. The Profile Overview page was designed specifically for people saying that they wanted all of their information in a more centralized location. We couldn't make it much more central than that.
Again, there are plenty of new ideas on the way and as always, we appreciate everyone contributing to the site and are always happy to receive feedback! |
| Mueller Voter Registration |
| Tuesday, September 16, 2008 |
 With the big election coming up in just a few months, we wanted to remind everyone that now is the time to register to vote!
There has been a recent thread posted regarding the topic. If anyone has any questions or comments regarding voting, please respond to the thread .
Finally, if you would like voter information, voter registration forms, or have specific questions related to voting from your new address, please get in touch with fellow Muellerite Dreux L. Dreux has been going around the neighborhood seeing if people are registered to vote and would be happy to provide you with any information he can. You can also send him a private message . |
| Upcoming MNA Meeting Postponed |
| Thursday, September 11, 2008 |
In light of approaching hurricane Ike (and more importantly the rain it's going to bring us), the Mueller Neighborhood Association meeting scheduled for this Saturday morning has been canceled.
The meeting has been rescheduled to the following Saturday, September 20th.
More information about the meeting can be found in this thread. |
| Mueller Pool Staying Open Through October |
| Friday, September 05, 2008 |
Good news from Alliance to everyone who has been asking about this one.
Off-season Pool Hours
Beginning Saturday, September 6, 2008, the pool will be open for Resident Swim from 6:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday for the months of September and October (hours may be subject to change).
 Please note the pool will still be closed on Mondays for maintenance. Lifeguards will not be on duty and the pool is considered "swim at your own risk".
Keep the Pool Clean!
Without lifeguards, we will have a significantly reduced housekeeping schedule so please be sure to pick up after yourself and help keep the area clean.
We appreciate the feedback we received in favor of making the pool available for an extended season and will continue to explore the requirements and options that might permit non-resident access off-season. |
| At last, arm your erasers! |
| Tuesday, September 02, 2008 |
 So if you're wondering why there is a picture of an eraser off to your right, there's a symbolic answer to follow:
The ability to edit your posts has finally been restored!
Yes we know people have been a little sore about this one, but it's back and it's pretty intuitive. Contact us if you're having trouble figuring it out. There have also been a bunch of smaller features turned on in the Forums and Pages. Just let us know if you notice any problems and as always, we love getting feedback and suggestions.
Lastly, and for those interested, the site's designer will be speaking at the next Mueller Neighborhood Association meeting (scheduled for Saturday the 13th). More details will follow, but it's intended to be a basic Q&A on the site and a short discussion of where the project is headed. We hope to see you there! |
| Another Mueller Community Update |
| Monday, August 25, 2008 |
With another 7 days crossed off the calendar, it felt like the time for another brief update.
As most of you have noticed by now, we officially added the Pages module for public use last Friday. For all practical purposes you might think of the Pages like a Wiki, only custom tailored to citiCite. It will likely take some time for the content to start adding up, but we're hoping for our very own Mueller Encyclopedia before long.
Getting Catellus involved?
Many of you have asked if Catellus would be somehow be involved in the Mueller Community site. We thought what better way to find out than just to ask?
After exchanging a few emails, it seems that the current position of Catellus is NOT to be involved in the Mueller Community site, at least not at this time. Although no official reason was given, they were very cordial in their response and told us that should they desire to play a role in the site, they'll let us know.
So I guess that's that - for now anyways. Thanks to Catellus for at least considering the offer. |
| ...one week later |
| Monday, August 18, 2008 |
Well it's been a full week now since we launched citiCite and despite some little hiccups, it looks like everything has been working fairly well. Perhaps I'm just biased? =]
In any event, we thoroughly appreciated all of the feedback over the new site and have definitely been putting it to good use. The main problem points seemed to be the lack of some basic navigation features our old site had, a broken server clock, and problems keeping people logged into the site. These issues have been put to bed and we're working on fixing a few more smaller glitches.
There have been a number of requests regarding highlighting of new posts (similar to how the old board worked), and we're working on a solution to this right now. It shouldn't be long. Additionally, we are still lacking in some email notifications but should have that back in order early this week.
You might also be pleased to know that we're getting close to launching our 'citiCite Pages' - a module somewhat similar in nature to a Wiki. We hope it's something that people look forward to reading and contributing to.
Other than that, we just want to thank everyone again for their exceptional patience this past week as the new software started taking shape. We're looking forward to continuing development of citiCite and bringing you more useful tools for the Mueller Community. As always, if you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to contact the board. |
| A note on some of the migration problems... |
| Monday, August 11, 2008 |
We're approaching hour 7 or so since the Mueller Community was migrated to the new citiCite package. ...and admittedly not without a few problems.
One of the biggest things that has been brought to our attention is the lack of navigation that mimics the previous software. We've been working all morning trying to restore the functionality to levels that people are happy with and your feedback has been invaluable.
We've also noticed (and been informed of) an issue with our clock setting. Unfortunately this may pose a bit of a problem for the next few days but we expect to have it fixed soon. In the meanwhile, you might notice that your posting times are off by a few hours.
To anyone that has been trying to register on Mueller Community this morning, we apologize, but it was just recently brought to our attention that there was a minor glitch in the CAPTCHA preventing people from creating accounts. This should no longer be an issue. On a similar note, we're also working on fixing a small bug with the password resetting functionality. We hope to have this restored by later this afternoon.
One final note is that email reminders are currently not being sent out as they previously had (such as when someone replies to one of your forum posts). While we realize this is an inconvenience, we ask that you bear with us while we continue making tweaks to the new software. This functionality will definitely be restored.
We're hoping that before long the site is fully functioning and considerably more useful than its predecessor site.
Thanks again. |
| Welcome to the new Mueller Community! |
| Monday, August 11, 2008 |
Introduction
It's been a long time in the making, but we've finally arrived at something new for the community - citiCite.
In the coming weeks we'll be ironing out all of the little bugs and glitches that tend to come with a software release as well as finishing development on a few remaining features. At no point are we expecting to have any downtime with the site and new features should appear seamlessly.
In the meanwhile, some of you may notice that little bits of functionality have been turned off. For example, and though this is rarely done, you can not currently attach a file to a forum post. We're working on correcting little problems like this and expect things to be worked out shortly.
Migration Process
Given how much content has come across the site in the past year, migrating everything over was no easy task, but we're pretty sure everything went over properly.
If you happen to notice any specific irregularities (especially just outright errors), please let us know about it and we'll try to resolve the problem(s) as soon as possible.
New User Profiles
One of the ideas we're trying to promote more heavily on the new Mueller Community site is the sense of real-life identity. The hope is that people can use the site to get to know one another, but then translate that into real-life in the community.
If you've already logged in, take a few minutes to add some content to your user profile. An account photo would be especially nice =].
Please remember to only share as much information as you're comfortable being public. We're working on specific privacy settings, but in the interim, the profiles can be publically searched.
Thanks to everyone!
We can't thank everyone enough for all of the praise we've received on the site over the past year. An idea that started simply as a means for people to get some information has flourished into the central hub of communication for the entirety of Mueller Community. Simply put, we can't thank you enough for your participation.
We're already hard at work on many new features and we hope everyone will continue to enjoy Mueller Community as it continues to grow.
Thanks again!
Kevin Ludlow |
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