Billboard, video spur push to end deer culls

But city manager says Lakeway open to input on deer control options.

A video taken by a Lakeway resident witnessing the netting of deer adjacent to area homes March 8 is fueling outrage and calls for change in the city’s deer population control policies.

“Despite an ongoing public outcry, officials in Lakeway reportedly have once again hired a contractor to lure deer into traps made of netting and then truck them 80 miles away to be shot in the head and butchered,” a statement on the website of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals says. “Lethal initiatives like this tear wild families apart, leaving young or weak animals vulnerable to prolonged and agonizing deaths from starvation and dehydration. And they are notoriously inhumane, as every minute trapped — particularly when humans are in close proximity — is a terrifying eternity for these easily frightened prey animals, who can badly injure themselves in their frantic attempts to escape.”

Officials in the western Travis County city say there are no viable alternatives for controlling the deer population, which pose

Six years in — and who knows how many more years to go — it looks like the long overdue project to bring Rosewood Courts into the 21st century finally, at long last, has some wind at its back.

The Housing Authority of the City of Austin has an ambitious plan to replace much of the historic public housing complex in East Austin with new low-income housing, including some home ownership opportunities.

I told you Sunday that the city Historic Landmark Commission had given its blessing to a historic designation needed for the housing author- ity’s revised plan — developed with community input — to rehabilitate and renovate eight of the 25 buildings at Rose- wood Courts while demolishing and replacing the rest.

That’s up from a six-building rehabilitation proposal in hard