Nina Hernandez
Austin Chronicle
Austin, TX, United States
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Past articles by Nina:
Indoor Skydiving Lets You Train Your Dragon in Virtual Reality
Taking to the skies with iFly's latest immersive VR → Read More
The Next CodeNEXT Put Off for Another Day, Again
City manager Spencer Cronk to wait for more input before making tough choices → Read More
Innovating an End to Austin Street Life in Community First, A Home for the Homeless
At Community First! Village, a self-sustaining development in East Austin where the formerly homeless live in RVs and tiny homes, everyone you meet has a story. All bound together by what founder Alan Graham calls a "catastrophic loss of family," the villagers support themselves and each other through work that keeps the entire community churning. In Community First, A Home for the Homeless,… → Read More
Michelle Obama, and All Who Love Her
Becoming tour brings First Lady’s grace to her Austin fans → Read More
Activists Say Austin Public Library Policy Change Is Overdue
Activists asked the Library Commission this week to ask for an overhaul of the Austin Public Library's code of conduct policies regarding children, specifically with regard to de-escalation. The calls come a month after 13-year-old LaTashia Milligam was arrested at APL's Carver Branch. Rumors spread that she threatened to fight a classmate; when police responded, they picked Milligam up on an… → Read More
Judges Not Ready to Endorse Public Defender Plan
The fate of Travis County's potential public defender's office, first proposed last spring, is more uncertain than ever. Travis County District Judge Brenda Kennedy, presiding judge of the criminal courts, announced in a Feb. 15 letter that none of those judges are willing to sign off on a grant request by the Travis County Commissioners Court that could secure the funds to get a plan in motion.… → Read More
Travis County Sheriff Apologizes for Embarrassing Internal Video
“Motivational” video re-creates galley slave scene from Ben-Hur → Read More
Fire Chief Goes Easy on Accused Harasser
Less than three months into his tenure, Austin Fire Chief Joel Baker's handling of a harassment case has been called into question. Baker released a disciplinary memo on Jan. 11 suspending Fire Captain Roger Scarcliff for a single day over his "discourtesy" to a fellow employee and violation of department rules. The incident in question happened after an October anti-harassment presentation by… → Read More
Austin Animal Center Strains to Maintain Its No-Kill Status
City shelter struggles with overcrowding and volunteer dissatisfaction → Read More
With Little Enthusiasm, City OKs Opting Into Oak Hill Parkway Project
Plus more items from City Council's first substantive meeting of the year → Read More
Council Set to OK New Contract for Downtown Homeless Shelter
City Council returns to the dais today, Thursday, Jan. 31. It'll be interesting to study new members Paige Ellis and Natasha Harper-Madison and their respective idiosyncrasies, though how anyone could top Harper-Madison's D1 predecessor Ora Houston in the idiosyncrasy department is beyond me. There'll also be a new dynamic at play with newly elevated Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza as the theoretical… → Read More
Michael Cargill Wins Right to Pack Heat at City Hall
Court rules in favor of local gun enthusiast, City fined for violating open carry statute → Read More
New Data and Rules for Dockless Scooters
Open data on 2 million dockless trips, plus new rules for riding on trails → Read More
Rebooted City Council Gets a New Chance to Fix Austin: 10-1, take two
When the brand-new 10-1 Austin City Council took office in 2015 with a grand vision of hope and change, it didn't anticipate how the next four years would actually play out. Efforts to quickly move the needle on hot-button city issues stalled out amid simmering discontent with then-City Manager Marc Ott, and then in the power vacuum created by his 2016 departure. As vacancies in the city's… → Read More
Rep. Sheryl Cole on the 86th Texas Legislature
“We’ve always been on defense, and we’ve got to learn how to play offense” → Read More
APD Holds Little Back in Dusterhoft Firing
Seedy personal life at center of assistant chief's tumble from heights of police brass → Read More
Council Says Goodbye to 2018
After tackling one last mammoth agenda, members take a powder → Read More
City Council Heads Into Holiday Break Wrestling With Process
Toward the end of a 90-minute briefing at Tuesday's work session on "Government That Works for All" – a banner for the city's campaign to modernize City Hall and its internal workings – Council Member Delia Garza noted that the nature of the discussion itself was an example of how policy conversations on the dais are often derailed. The briefing started off innocuously enough. Staff told Council… → Read More
Council: They Saw the Light!
In its penultimate meeting of the year, the Austin City Council made quick work of a slim agenda. One of the bigger-ticket items, the long-discussed release of 33 acres of Austin's extraterritorial jurisdiction to Dripping Springs as part of a development deal, was postponed to Dec. 13. There's been chatter about that one from environmentalists, but it appears poised to pass once it does reach… → Read More
Hail to the Fire Chief
After a career spent fighting fires – literally and administratively – in Atlanta, Joel Baker is preparing for his next challenge: leading the Austin Fire Department. He arrives as AFD is patching up its tattered coverage map with five new stations; the department is embroiled in negotiations with emergency service districts surrounding Austin; and relations between AFD brass and the rank and… → Read More