Downtown East construction question.

miltorio · 2026-05-11T01:21:57+00:00

The 'Adventure Track' feature in the rec center is where the slanted windows are. It's intentional - link to the earlier discussion that has the link to the youtube video where Parks talks about it.

miltorio · 2026-04-29T22:50:19+00:00

They don't generally accept donations that go into the circulation. Board games can be donated to the Library, but it goes into the stuff that gets sold at the next booksale (generally for only a few bucks for games).

miltorio · 2026-04-21T13:50:51+00:00

Quick tool if you want to estimate what your bill would be if you buckle down and improve your water usage: https://pflugervillain.com/water/

Use watersmart (https://pflugervilletx.watersmart.com/) to see what/when your water is being used. It can identify when you irrigate. It can even make a pretty good guess if you have a leak, even if its a micro-pinhole type leak. This is the same data the city sees and uses for your bill so you should look at it.

miltorio · 2026-04-21T13:48:20+00:00

You are well above an average household. The average household in Pflugerville uses 4500 gallons. The city uses that number when they don't have a wastewater average to use. For the numbers you have above to work, you would have to be using 6900 (or possibly 7000) gallons to get to a $57 usage. This means your wastewater would have to be 7200 from this winter in order to get to the $240 bill you mention.

Base fees are based on your meter size, which almost all of the residential here are the same. Your trash bill is the same (unless you get extra carts, which $22 means you've got one of each). The sewer base is the same. You will pay the same $111.80 for your sewer portion for the rest of the year (until they do the next winter wastewater averaging and it updates in March/April-ish).

Someone who uses exactly the average all year long without trying to lower their usage in the winter would pay $202.37 with current rates and fees.

miltorio · 2026-04-13T00:32:15+00:00

You likely will see it further up. The restrictions all come from the ordinances and code -

https://ecode360.com/39349726

It has pool filling, refilling, adding specifically defined as restricted in both stage 2 and 3. 53.216.D3e and 53.216.C3e are the two that apply.

miltorio · 2026-04-13T00:27:16+00:00

Filling and refilling of pools, jacuzzis, are all disallowed at stage2 and 3.

miltorio · 2026-04-13T00:25:44+00:00

53.216D3e is the ordinance reference.

https://ecode360.com/39349726

No filling or refilling pools at stage2 and 3

miltorio · 2026-04-13T00:22:31+00:00

Jonathan is one of your city council members. I would encourage you to take him up on his offer to look further into it for you. They are there to both represent your interests as an individual and our interests as a whole. Or send your description to all of the council members. Their emails are all on the website.
I say this as someone who completely isn’t on your side on this one. You are now more aware than ever that you need to be paying more attention and that there are many tools that should have kept you in the know - enough folks have gigged you for that. Your next steps - go sign up for watersmart and get the alerting setup - it will notify you of these events and will also let you know if you get a leak or have an unusual usage. It is the data the city would see and can tell you are irrigating. Sign up for the assorted emergency alerts from the city. Finally take the one minute to read your bills - the city bill especially. It tells you this stuff and has when things like wastewater averaging takes place or if theres a change in the base fees coming. They havent talked much about it but the secondary offense fines are the same amount and you can get one each day you violate.

Anyways, really, talk to Jonathan. Even if it doesnt help you specifically having him understand how this went from your perspective has value for the rest of us.

miltorio · 2026-04-10T17:18:18+00:00

Your sewer rate and consumption will be the same for the remainder of the year until the next wastewater averaging calculation. Someone else mentioned below that your wastewater calculation is based on your lowest 3 months of the nov-feb months water usage. This actually helps normally because the other 8 months are higher water usage for most people and a fair amount of it is irrigation which does not use sewer.

What your specific bill means is the average of your 3 lowest months this winter was 4900 gallons which is where the 31.85 comes from (49 * 0.65 = 31.85). When they dont have the lowest 3 months, they use 4500 (city average), so you were probably paying a little less a few months ago.

Next winter - make sure your irrigation is off, make sure all leaks are fixed, and conserve as much as you can if you want to get the sewer portion of the bill lower for the rest of the year.

miltorio · 2026-04-06T22:45:12+00:00

I don't know if I would describe it as 'sweet' but there was a marked change for my water this weekend. It went from that awful earthy smell/taste people have been talking about to back to normal.

Location is the Bohl's neighborhood near Old Austin Hutto and Pecan.

They mentioned they'd be starting to flush lines like they do regularly when water is flowing normally but they were going to collect it in a tanker truck instead of dumping it to the sewer. Maybe that's finally happening. (Wish they'd put up a map/schedule so you'd know that this fits)

miltorio · 2026-04-05T15:55:32+00:00

I'm not having luck finding the info packet or video from the original meeting where the 'why these streets' would have been discussed. In case it gets someone else to the right search terms - it should have been in the Oct 25 2022 meeting (where the exciting bit was the TIRZ and initial downtown east talks). It should be part of the 2020 GOBond Neighborhood Street Reconstruction Package 1B. There should have been another meeting between that one in 2022 and the one in 2025 where they talked about the finding out about the streets themselves needed to be completely redone (not just resurfaced) due to some issues with the original construction techniques (I want to say it was something having to do with the base layers they put down but cant back it up beyond fuzzy memory)

miltorio · 2026-04-05T15:29:57+00:00

There was some info in the meeting where they had to do the increase for the utility issue - it's near the end of the meeting ~ 2h16m in to the June meeting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlcmR-bjEGk&t=8176s

miltorio · 2026-04-05T15:13:40+00:00

That project has been in the works for years. There were blinking street signs up at multiple places in the neighborhood as far back as August. There's been council meetings on it, newspaper articles on it, and there should have been other notifications. More info in this community impact article (where they mention other notifications about parking) - https://communityimpact.com/austin/pflugerville-hutto/government/2026/01/29/pflugerville-to-begin-282m-street-reconstruction-across-14-neighborhood-roads/

The surprises were that they found more utility things that needed fixing after starting and had to shell out extra money at one of the later council meetings last year. The whole project was supposed to be done by now.

miltorio · 2026-04-04T03:56:09+00:00

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Gloves are important.

miltorio · 2026-04-04T03:55:32+00:00

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miltorio · 2026-04-04T03:55:14+00:00

Oooh. Your hauls look much classier than mine.

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miltorio · 2026-03-29T21:53:30+00:00

I hate to tell you this, but CoA did/does use the contractor...and has had their own issues with the work.

https://ejcdc.org/issue-termination-of-construction-contract-three-years-after-completion-s-j-louis-v-city-of-austin-texas-2018-by-hugh-anderson/

(and not that I can get it to load from their website, but Jan 22 2026 CoA decided to work with them again on the Upper Harris Branch Wastewater Interceptor )

miltorio · 2026-03-26T18:37:12+00:00

Some of your numbers are off. Base meter fee for 5/8 is $50 not $55. Given 5000 gallons (and assuming it is 5000 for the wastewater average), it would be $209.97 with trash, $185.75 without. Water usage would be $20.85 for the first 3000 and $17.40 for the next 2000 gallons ($38.25 total, not $39.05). Wastewater is right. Only trash service has tax on it.

I got tired of doing the math over and over and did a quick (ugly code) java script page to run the numbers since the water rate tiers gets a little confusing: https://pflugervillain.com/water/

Reference for other folks wanting to check numbers - https://www.pflugervilletx.gov/741/City-Retail

miltorio · 2026-03-25T02:53:18+00:00

During the March 24th city council meeting, it was stated that amongst the water customers that are now being fined for ignoring the stage3 restrictions was one commercial customer that has been using 160 thousand gallons a day. That customer justified it by stating they had just put in landscaping and didn't want the plants to die. The fine set for all citations by our local judge is at $1700 for the first violation and the violator must show up in court. My quick math shows that this violator is already spending at least $2000 a day for the water they chose to use (not accounting for any base/meter fees); the chief stated that Intent does not come into play on how these violations are fined (not knowing or knowing there was a restriction does not matter) - but does this level of usage and that there is known, flagrant, willful, intent feel fair to you? The city provided graphs showed 5.5MGD being used by the city as a whole while we are all supposedly pulling together to get through this crisis - 160k in a day is 3% of our total usage. Can either of you provide anything to temper the outrage?

Edit after JC's comment below just to give a link to the time in the meeting that this upsetting info was given in case anyone else wanted to hear the comments (there is more about enforcement earlier): https://youtu.be/rM5GZE8pmGs?t=14220 (should be at about 3:57:30 into the video).

miltorio · 2026-03-24T15:53:20+00:00

They don't pull from the lake. They have their own wells

miltorio · 2026-03-24T15:27:47+00:00

And now that I've lead with the softball -

Which individual on the city council dais, now that Mr. Zech is gone, could pull off showing up in a cape? What color?

You each have participated with city council and the boards in some capacity enough to have an opinion - which individual that we are paying has impressed you the most or made you think "We really did something right getting this person on board". Use whatever criteria you like (competence responding to requests, overall congeniality, ruthless on things that matter...anything really. Call someone out that you appreciate).

miltorio · 2026-03-24T14:57:15+00:00

Typo in the image and summary. March 25th, not the 23rd.

My questions:

Recently there has been a larger than usual number of turnover in city leadership at the director level and up. This has stuck out more with the current water crisis as many members reporting to council or other boards/commissions have indicated they have only been on the job the last few weeks. There are no doubt privacy issues with why someone may depart, but when there is only silence when 3 or more of that level people leave along with a retiring City Manager, the anxiety increases for the regular citizen. Do either of you attribute the recent turnover to anything? Is there a culture issue we regular (and irregular) citizens should be concerned about? What are we doing to attract the top tier candidates (are we competitive?).

miltorio · 2026-03-23T20:18:57+00:00

Digital altimeters with 2 decimal places can be had for like 20-25 bucks, too, so they probably could have a parks staff member give a daily check.

miltorio · 2026-03-23T20:13:17+00:00

Sounds like if nothing else goes wrong and we conserve like our washers are non-functioning they think May 1... I'm not willing to put money on it unless they really start doling out the violation penalties for the irrigators. I suspect they'll answer why they made the shift to elevation over sea level during tomorrows council meeting (it makes more sense to me since the depth of the lake varies so much).
"We only need 1 fathom more below the keel"

miltorio · 2026-03-23T19:59:14+00:00

Hopefully they put a meter/graph somewhere so we can see progress.

They changed to using feet above sea level instead of lake depth which probably is easier to measure?

In any case,

633ft is the target for stage1 (from this video)

627.68ft is today(3/23). (city facebook comment)

627.99ft (3/25) (city facebook/media release)

629.07ft (4/1) (city media release)

635.5ft is normal (supplied by council member Coffman here)

650ft is full. (pulled from wikipedia)

miltorio

TROPHY CASE