Sara hensley austin

He is also a Certified Economic Developer. The great majority of her tenure was spent as the Director of Planning and Development. In this capacity, she oversaw the functions of long-range land use planning, zoning and subdivision, historic preservation, real estate development, transportation planning, engineering, building inspections and permitting.

Most recently, Ms. O'Donnell worked directly for the City Manager overseeing the development of two outward facing, multi-departmental plans: Neighborhood Plus and the Resilient Dallas Strategy. He is a licensed professional engineer with a civil engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Betts is a public servant with 20 years of executive leadership experience managing personnel, property and multi-million dollar budgets. He has served in leadership roles within recreation and parks, higher education, US Army, nonprofit, and government organizations. Hensley held the position of Director of Parks and Recreation in Austin from December until March , when she was asked to serve in the interim role.

Hensley was an interim assistant city manager for Austin from March until the end of There are so many important stories we don't get to write. As a nonprofit journalism source, every contributed dollar helps us provide you more coverage. Do your part by joining our subscribers in supporting our reporters' work.

A lot, if voters are being asked to mandate one. Proposition A, one of two local measures on the Nov. The long-delayed South Central Waterfront Plan moved closer to implementation Thursday after City Council initiated a tax increment reinvestment zone to guide the use of new property tax revenue on the south shore of Lady Bird Lake. The TIRZ is…. Read more stories by Elizabeth Pagano.

She has called for a review of all contracts, after discovering that PARD has been "giving away the farm" for decades. Now an expensive new boathouse has been designed, as part of the Waller Creek Tunnel Project — and PARD, for the first time, has advocated adding concessions and has opened up the boathouse rental contract for competitive bids. In turning over the fiscal rocks, Hensley appears to enjoy support from council and city management. Council Member Sheryl Cole, who chairs council's finance and audit subcommittee and, like Shade, is a Parks advocate, said, "It's past time for us to look at our parks in different ways.

She favors opening up Zilker Park, Butler Park, the Waller Creek parks, and other areas to more private concessions — offering more fun things to do in the park. To win the support of the Austin community, PARD certainly will need to carefully define a set of ground rules for public-private partnerships. Nationally, some joint efforts have worked out well; others have been criticized for unseemly and unreliable corporate branding of public assets.

Some vocal open space advocates abhor allowing a single sno-cone stand on city park land; other Austinites would welcome private support if it allows better parks and amenities. Hensley has even raised the delicate issue of PARD fee waivers for public events, made by council members to help out community groups. Preliminary budget reviews by PARD suggest that the department is losing close to a million dollars a year, from usage fees that are waived, reduced, or never assessed.

Moreover, all PARD usage fees actually go not to maintain the site used, or even to the department, but straight into the city's General Fund — another problem that needs fixing. Hensley cites as a model cities that set an overall annual budget for waivers; at a bare minimum, she thinks PARD needs to be reimbursed for its hard costs to host events in parks, such as staff overtime.

Both Cole and Shade expressed a willingness to delve into the matter. While fee waivers do help nonprofits, "I would support a revenue impact analysis," said Cole. For decades, council has been stripping PARD of revenue with little real accountability.

To cite but one example, in council passed a resolution creating a free swim day at Barton Springs Pool; this year it was on July It's a generous public gesture, but Cole has no memory of council asking about the giveaway's revenue impact.

In essence, the city and PARD itself have been acting like a rich uncle, handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars in park use fee waivers to every nonprofit and organization that hosts a fundraiser or an event in a park and asking for nothing back other than good will. Then, like a poor relation, it begs the Austin Parks Foundation, the Trail Foundation, and others to fund the department's own basic needs.

The time may have come for PARD to start acting more like an "enterprise department" e. I think I would support any financial proposal she brought forward to improve the department's fiscal sustainability. Hensley wants to fight smarter for General Fund allotments as well. And we have not done that," she says frankly.

She aims to amass the hard data and statistical analysis necessary to make a strong case for funding PARD to a higher standard. Anyone remember Beverly Griffith's mid-Nineties crusade to have PARD reidentified as a public-safety program — thus immunizing it from budget cuts? Says Hensley, "We may have said, 'We need more people,' but the truth is, why? Shade pointed out that Hensley has a difficult role; it's hard to win fans as a change agent unless a department is in true crisis.

Ott countered: "All the department heads I've hired have essentially been brought in as change agents. It's part of our mission to become the best managed city in the country.

You have to be prepared for dramatic positive change, to make us the best — the standard bearer for all other parks departments across the country.

I'm open to any suggestions and new ideas. Perhaps one day, Hensley will make unpopular moves, and her honeymoon will end. But for now, Austin has embraced her, and that bodes well for any ideas she champions. Echoed Cole, "She's the right person with the right vision for the right time. Now more than ever, we need your support to continue supplying Austin with independent, free press.

Support the Chronicle. Information is power. Support the free press, so we can support Austin. Photo by John Anderson. A frayed hoop net is one of many repair jobs for cash-strapped PARD. Photo by Jana Birchum. City shelter struggles with overcrowding and volunteer dissatisfaction. Cronk Meets Job Creation Goals. Checking in on the Climate Protection Program's progress — or lack thereof. Climate Change Crosses County Lines. Study predicts how climate change will affect Texas' future water needs.

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