Austin Police Want New Helicopter, More Staff
The council is set to discuss for the Austin Police Department today.
The department says its current fleet is and that a new helicopter would enable officers to to some emergencies.
APD also wants council to approve a bigger budget for the department so it can hire more staff.APD Police Chief Art Acevedo and other police staff during a budget work session meeting yesterday.
The focus was on how many staff members the department needs to do its job. Last month, APD needs to add more than 250 people to the department by 2017.
The council will vote on the budget in September.
Are Downtown Benches Attracting Homeless People?
Officials with public works and the Austin Police Department are meeting today to decide if they want to remove benches on Brazos near Sixth Street to prevent homeless people from .
But not everyone thinks that鈥檚 a necessary move.
Richard Troxell with says other major cities have figured out how to have benches in their downtown areas.
鈥淭he City of Austin purports to want to be a world class city and yet somehow we can鈥檛 figure out how to manage benches. I mean, I鈥檓 perplexed,鈥� Troxell says.
But , which runs a homeless shelter for women, agrees it鈥檚 a good idea to have the benches removed.
鈥淚t takes more of the transients or homeless off of Sixth Street a little bit. By and large it鈥檚 really much better for the businesses and we鈥檙e pro that,鈥� Salvation Army Spokesperson Randy Allen says.
Regents to Vote on New KUT Signal
The University of Texas Board of Regents is on a plan for 鈥� one for music and one for news.
KUT would purchase KXBT 98.9 FM for $6 million 鈥� $4 million of that would come from the university in the form of a ten year loan.
A committee of the UT Board of Regents tentatively approved the plan yesterday.
