As monarch populations continue to decline, a grassroots movement of native milkweed stewards is emerging across Texas.

Texas Observer

August 2019

For the last two decades, gardeners and butterfly enthusiasts have been trying to grow native milkweed to help monarch butterflies, which lay their eggs exclusively on the plant and depend on it for food. Monarchs are revered throughout North and Central America for their beauty, ability to pollinate many wildflowers and sophisticated two-way migration, unique among butterflies. But since the 1990s, monarch numbers have declined by 90 percent, and advocates are urging the federal government to put the butterfly on the endangered species list. Research has found that the eastern population of monarchs—the one that migrates through Texas—has an 11 to 57 percent chance over the next two decades of reaching numbers so low that it may never recover. Continue reading.

The other ACL: The Austin Community Landfill

The Austin Chronicle

Jan. 18, 2019

Late last year, four people showed up at the Travis County Commissioners Court to tell their elected officials what it's like to live near one of the state's most controversial dumps. The Austin Community Landfill actually lies next to its namesake city, which likes to think of itself as progressively environmental. But neighbors and advocates are worried that local government's previous resistance to the site is waning. Continue reading.

Travis County says goodbye to a coyote-killing machine

The Austin Chronicle

Dec. 22, 2017

If you live in Central Texas, chances are you have a coyote story to tell. Perhaps you've encountered the native predator on a walk, or looked outside your living room to see one trotting along the street. Those in outlying parts of Travis County often cook dinner as coyote howls float on the breeze. Continue reading.

County moves forward with new women's jail despite vote to delay and community outcry

The Austin Chronicle

Sept. 7, 2018

Lauren Johnson knows what it's like to be booked into Travis County Jail and to feel the world spinning as her freedom, her community, and her privacy disappear. She knows what it's like for her pregnant body to ache on a thin jail mattress and to give birth with a guard at her hospital room door. And what it's like to hand over custody of her firstborn child just 48 hours later. She knows what it's like to relapse years later and to return to jail, leaving behind three kids, missing every birthday and every holiday, and losing her identity as the glue that held everyone together. And she knows what it's like to get out again, to get clean again, and to spend the rest of her life trying to fix the system. Continue reading.

The city is asking voters to send more money to a little-known program that protects Barton Springs

The Austin Chronicle

Oct. 26, 2018

On a warm August morning, I stand in the dry bed of Onion Creek in Hays County and watch as Kevin Thuesen lowers himself into a hole in the earth. I pay attention when he stresses having three points of contact at all times because I'll soon be following him into this small cave. Thuesen, a land manager for Austin Water Utility who loves to tell jokes and talk hydrology, has invited me along for a day of spelunking and hiking to illustrate the somewhat counterintuitive concept behind the utility's Wat­er Quality Protection Lands – namely that Barton Springs, 20 miles away, depends on these city-owned properties full of caves, pores, and conduits. "What you put in here," he says, "is what you get out in Barton Springs." Continue reading.

Retracing marriage through a love of dove hunting

Texas Co-op Power Magazine

July 2018

Outside the car window, a landscape of oak and cedar replaces the traffic and urban sprawl we left behind in Austin. It is late summer, almost evening, and my husband, Joe, and I have left our desk jobs early to drive 40 miles to the ranch near Florence where I was raised. What awaits us is, for him, a sacred experience: opening day of dove season. Continue reading.

Texas Bar Journal

July 2015

The north-central area of Texas near the Oklahoma border is a transition zone where eastern piney woods gradually morph into tallgrass prairie. With its rolling hills of post oak and blackjack and sweeping plains spotted with deep ravines, it is an undeniably beautiful yet somewhat undiscovered part of the state where wolves are known to show up on doorsteps. Continue reading.

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How the right lease negotiations kept the Fifth Street bar in business

The Austin Chronicle

July 12, 2019

Everybody knew it was coming, but no one knew when. As Downtown Austin was growing tall and fancy from Seaholm to Rainey, Fifth and Lavaca stalled. Almost all of the establishments on the corner, including Rebel's Saloon and Hudson on Fifth, had trouble staying in business and closed, one after another. A resident of the nearby Plaza Lofts describes the block as having "pretty much died."

Then came Justin Lavenue and Dennis Gobis, ambitious service-industry guys who were 26 and 30 years old, respectively, and had aimed to eventually own their own bar. Continue reading.

A chef’s story of addiction and recovery

Edible Austin

August 2018

On a cool morning in April, Chef Philip Speer pulls up to Better Half Coffee & Cocktails, his motorcycle rumbling through the post-rush-hour quiet. After ordering a sparkling water, he sits on the patio under filtered sun and begins to talk about the incident in late 2014, and what came after. “I was very ashamed and very embarrassed,” Speer says, his arms and hands, beautifully tattooed, resting on the picnic table between us. “I lost everything…like, literally lost everything that I had.” Continue reading.

In a year when rising property taxes have consumed political attention throughout the state, the Travis Central Appraisal Dis­trict's handling of local taxpayers' assessments is attracting continuous controversy. Already facing possible litigation over its highly criticized purchase of multiple listing service (MLS) data on home sales, TCAD has decided it will not offer face-to-face informal hearings to any property owners this year. This is a major change from its past handling of appraisal protests, but TCAD hasn't communicated this clearly to the public, even as some formal protest hearings began this week. Continue reading.

OutFront Magazine

November 2017

What led Tushar Vakhariya to Keller Williams is a common refrain expressed by many other agents on the move: He wanted to join a company that could help sustain his business’s success. Continue reading.

Edible Austin

July/August 2018

Several years ago, Austinite Jarred Maxwell spent his days as a rural land broker, traveling to the less-populated areas of the state that had once been home to vibrant communities. Maxwell was bothered to see that the places “that make Texas, Texas” had become desolate and boarded up. “Those small, rural communities are where [Texas] kind of got its identity, and I feel like if all that stuff disappears, everything along with it goes away.”

Maxwell stresses that this type of cultural erosion directly affects the local food systems used by nearby larger communities. Continue reading.

Texas Bar Journal

January 2016

Eric Grossman is standing with a dozen people on the bridge of the Stockholm expedition vessel, surrounded by the frigid air and absolute solitude of the high Arctic. As the ship floats among glittering snow-covered ice sheets, they are less than 500 miles from the North Pole. Continue reading.

Austin Woman

January 2017

Selling $40 million a year in paper planners and stationery is the most obvious characteristic that sets Erin Condren’s eponymous company apart from Austin’s proliferation of online startups. A dedication to being largely manufactured in the United States is another. Most of what makes Condren’s company different, though, is its purpose. Continue reading.