The Austin City Council will hold a public hearing at its regularly-scheduled Monday night meeting to decide whether to build six new tennis courts to the west of Neveln Elementary School.

The hearing comes in light of an April 23 decision by the Austin Public School board to accept bids for six new tennis courts to the west of Neveln Elementary School and preliminary site construction work to the east and south of Ellis Middle School Monday. The council must decide whether each project can go forward after Austin residents Kimberly and Mark Steene filed an appeal on the tennis court project. The council has yet to vacate Sixth Avenue SE within school property.

“In terms of the tennis courts, we did have planning commission approval,” Mark Stotts, director of finance and operations at Austin Public Schools, told board members on April 23. The city’s planning commission also allots time for people to appeal its decisions, and the Steenes filed an appeal.

Apart from the hearing, the council will award seven bids for construction work to be performed around the city, including rebuilding streets and demolishing the residential building at 1700 First St. NE.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mayor Tom Stiehm will have the opportunity to sign off on the National Association of Letter Carriers’ annual national food drive. Austin letter carriers will challenge Albert Lea’s in a food drive, where nonperishable and household food items are placed next to mailboxes on Saturday, May 12. Benefits of the food drive will stay local.

Following the city council meeting, council members will gather in a work session to look into receiving grants from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airport Improvement Program. They must approve an agreement with the FAA first.

The work session will then discuss the Vision 2020 Steering Committee’s request for $10,000 to assist with starting up the program. The money would come from the city’s general fund and go to the Development Corporation of Austin. The Steering Committee, which hopes to kickstart Vision 2020 with $50,000, will ask the county, Hormel Foods and other groups for the rest of its startup money.

 

The council members will also:

—consider whether to close N. Main Street from Second to Fourth streets for the Farmers Market from 3:30 to 6 p.m. Thursdays, starting May 17.

—consider whether to approve a lease agreement between Austin Utilities and Northern Natural Gas.

—define the precinct lines within ward boundaries

—consider whether to allow El Parral Ballroom to sell liquor on Sundays.

—decide whether to allow the Planning and Zoning Department the power to contract to remove junk and illegally stored vehicles from these properties: 904 Fourth Ave. SW, 708 11th Ave. SW, 607 10th St. SW, 600 First Ave. SW, 107 Second St. SE, 1300 First Pl. SE, 1409 11th Ave. NW, 1915 Second Ave. NW and 611 First Ave. NW.

—look into filling a recently vacated Public Works mechanic position.

 —Trey Mewes contributed to this report.