Old Town, Georgetown Texas

On Tuesday, December 13th at 3:00 PM the Georgetown City Council will hold a workshop to examine progress made by the Lone Star Rail District. The District aims to connect San Antonio to Georgetown, with points in between and points beyond. Passenger rail seems to be on everybody’s wish-list in Georgetown, and it’s an obvious [...]

Current city codes prohibit depositing grass clippings back onto our lawns, or adding any organic material. Mulching lawnmowers cutting the grass without a catcher, landscapers applying mulch, and gardeners applying compost are all breaking the law and could be subject to a $2,000 fine, EVERY DAY until the material is removed and taken to the [...]

On Tuesday , January 25th, the City Council will review proposed changes to the UDC that currently control how people work out of their homes. There are two main schools of thought – regulate or don’t regulate. There are also two different geographic views: regard the Old Town Overlay District as a distinct area to [...]

Also coming before Council on Tuesday, January 25th is an amendment designed to establish design guidelines and HARC involvement with regard to residential changes in the Old Town Overlay District. Old Town Overlay District Limitations on Residential Additions and Infill.

Coming for its first hearing with City Council on Tuesday, January 25th is a welcome amendment to the UDC that finally gives HARC the discretion to forbid the demolition of a historic property. Certificate of Design Compliance for Demolitions. Currently any historic structure may be moved or demolished 175 days after the Historic and Architectural [...]

Here in Georgetown we have been enormously lucky to receive the benefit of top journalism coming from The Austin Bulldog. Thanks to publisher and editor Ken Martin, we have gained access to a lot of back-room maneuvers that our elected representatives would prefer to keep secret from us. Some people may still be thinking that [...]

By Ross Hunter The Community Impact local newspaper has scooped everybody (after oldtowners.com of course) with the first media report of Tuesday’s council meeting. The story appears on their website here: http://impactnews.com/georgetown-hutto-taylor/257-recent-news/9081-georgetown-residents-call-for-greater-transparency-in-dealings-with-city-officials We make no secret that we eagerly await the Williamson County Sun’s take on all this on Saturday, but credit where credit is [...]

By Ross Hunter Well, friends, we went down to the council meeting, and we won a major success. We walked out of there with the greatest sense of triumph I’ve felt in several years. It was a historic night, a grand watershed event. It was a decisive battle in the campaign to restore Georgetown to open government. [...]

By Ross Hunter Council is tomorrow, about 24 hours away, and I’m inviting you to attend the session. If you haven’t read the weekend Sun you should pick up a copy anywhere you can and get an exhaustive overview of the numerous allegations made lately against our city attorney, along with comments from most of [...]

Yes it’s a predictable headline, but it did feel sunny like the upbeat Beatles number on Saturday morning to pick up the weekend Williamson County Sun and read the start of 3 pages of coverage on our controversial city attorney. The Sun was back in the saddle, guns a’blazing! Council beat reporter Jamaal E. O’Neal [...]

By Ross Hunter The Fourth Estate is a name that some people are still proud to be identified by, and I suspect that Ken Martin and his team of investigative journalists at the Austin Bulldog are such people. But I seriously doubt that Linda Scarbrough and Clark Thurmond, publishers of the Williamson County Sun, actually [...]

[Editor's note. This story is reproduced under a Creative Commons license granted by its author, Ken Martin, of The Austin Bulldog. The story here is stripped of its original formatting, graphics, and links to its many sources – and the source materials are especially useful. Original links are NOT indicated here – and there are [...]

[Editor's note: this story is reproduced under a Creative Commons license granted by its author, Ken Martin, of The Austin Bulldog. The story here is stripped of its original formatting, graphics, and links to its many sources. Original links are shown in red here. We encourage you to click through to the original story at [...]

[UPDATED 4/30 with changes requested by Ken Martin] An Austin investigative reporter yesterday scooped our local news organizations, breaking the story that our city council violated the Open Meetings Act when it voted in closed session to hire our new city attorney. Editor Ken Martin published the story on Wednesday, April 28, in The Austin [...]

By Ross Hunter We at OldTowners would like to declare our support for Tommy Gonzalez, soon to be our District 7 council representative, as Ben Oliver retires from the excellent fight he has made on our behalves these last six years. Tommy is running unopposed, but even so he wants to run a modest “campaign” [...]

By Ross Hunter I like this little clip of Robert Redford describing the damage created by short-sighted growth – terminal, non-restorable, gone-forever damage; damage inflicted by destroying the original gift of creation in order to sell off its enduring character for a bit of money today; how it feels to be the community remaining behind [...]

By Ross Hunter HARC held a re-hearing today of its denial of CDC last week for the new restaurant on the square. The applicant came back with a compromise, which HARC approved by unanimous vote. HARC is treating this sign as a canopy sign, and is allowing the modified area of 23.33 square feet. The [...]

By Rick Williamson I know from being at the HARC meetings on the Romeo’s Restaurant sign applications a couple of years ago, how intricate and often tedious it can be for everyone concerned. And the HARC folks usually get all the flack for it while the applicants get all the sympathy for being “victimized” and [...]

By Ross Hunter Monday’s HARC hearing regarding the proposed sign for a new restaurant on the Square resulted in a denial of a Certificate of Design Compliance for the applicant. However, this is a complicated matter, and raises an area of unsettled law. What happens next I don’t know, but I can guess that I’ll [...]

By Ross Hunter There’s a HARC extended meeting happening today, this afternoon at 4:30. That’s about 4 hours from now, I don’t expect people to be able to attend, but if you can come down to show support please do. The meeting is an extension of last Thursday’s meeting. Note that it’s NOT in Council [...]