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Can't Make a City Council Meeting? Austin Now Offers Input Options Online

A candidate forum will be held Friday starting at 6:30 p.m. for the Austin City Council runoff election.
KUT News
A candidate forum will be held Friday starting at 6:30 p.m. for the Austin City Council runoff election.

The new Austin City Council knows everyone has an opinion about what things it should be doing, what things it should change and how those changes could come about. A recurring theme along the current council’s campaign trail was that many Austinites felt unheard and sometimes outright disregarded by city politicians.

At the beginning of the year, council proposed altering its meeting and committee format to pare down their traditionally long meetings.  So, starting tonight, there will be new ways to communicate with council and the mayor.

The council will meet tonight to get public comment on proposed changes to how its meetings are run. The public input part starts at 6 p.m. tonight at City Hall.

At the same time, Austinites will be able to express themselves via phone. There will be one phone line for English speakers: 1-888-400-1932, and one for Spanish speakers: 1-888-400-9342.

And those who want to participate through a virtual town hall can do so on Twitter by tagging tweets #myatxgov. Citizens can also voice their opinions on the Speak Up Austinonline discussion board. Additionally, if you want more information you can call 311.

Deadline for public input is Jan. 26. You can find the online forum for input here at Speak Up Austin.

Texas Standard reporter Joy Diaz has amassed a lengthy and highly recognized body of work in public media reporting. Prior to joining Texas Standard, Joy was a reporter with Austin NPR station KUT on and off since 2005. There, she covered city news and politics, education, healthcare and immigration.
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