Life, Interrupted

This is an AM appearance, and you can sign the resolution and then leave. Here's what Casa sent out:

Casa de Luz Needs You for the Culminating Solution

This Thursday December 6th, the Austin City council will vote on a resolution that will probably solve the regulatory problems for Casa de Luz. We need the biggest turn out of supporters ever.
Please come to City Hall,
Thursday December 6th before 9:30.

You Must Sign-In-Support by 9:45 a.m. and the vote will be held at 10:30 a.m. You can come early, sign-in-support and leave, or stay with your friends and watch the vote.

Very Important! Do Not Sign-up to Speak! This will delay the vote on this issue! (See explanation below)

The Resolution the councilman Chris Riley will propose:

… If the city has surplus parking, and there is a business that is within 1,000 feet of that surplus parking, and that business needs parking for its building code requirements. That business could apply to the city to have that parking cover it’s building code requirements…

The process:
Councilman Riley has spoken to the interested groups. This resolution should be in the ‘no-conflicts-bucket’ of city resolutions. The no conflict bucket gets voted on as a group at 10:30 am. If people sign-up to speak, then the resolution gets removed from the no-conflicts-bucket and discussion continues later in the day. Therefore, it is very important for people to sign-in-support, AND NOT sign-up to speak.

Casa de Luz Requests:

Please come to Austin City Hall, Thursday, December 6th before 9:30 am, 301 West 2nd Street, 78701, at the corners of Cesar Chavez & Guadalupe & Lavaca. There is underground parking or see below. You can sign the list supporting the resolution and leave, so these 15 minutes could be your morning break. This seems to be the culminating moment to bring Casa de Luz into compliance so that management can go back to work and provide more services to the community.

You can bring a sign, wear green, but do NOT sign-up to speak, as well as, please be polite and orderly. The show of support is important! It will be fun!

Ride a Bike & bring a Lock

Parking: 100 Congress Avenue; 111 Congress Avenue; 302 Congress Avenue; West 3rd Street; 504 Lavaca Street

Capmetro.org:
Buses headed North on South 1st
Stop at Lavaca & 2nd - ID: 2603 – 110; 484

Buses headed South on Guadalupe
Stop at Guadalupe & 2nd ID - 5630 – 110, 486, 935, 985, 987

"Whether Casa de Luz closes or stays open is decided this evening (Wednesday, 9-26-2012) at City Hall on Caesar Chavez Dr. The Building and Standards Commission will make a binding decision tonight at 6:30, Room 1101, 301 West 2nd Street. This is a public meeting. You and everyone that has an interest in keeping Casa de Luz open is invited to attend."

Considering how many restaurants are downtown with no parking other than street parking, I don't understand why they can close the center. But that's what is at stake. Here's what I wrote as I was heading out of serious illness, back in February of 2011. It was addressed to the Austin City Council, as well as there being a variant version for why PARD (Parks & Recreation Department) should join with Casa to beautify and improve the area.

I have meals on my card, and I want to use them at leisure! Thanks to Casa, who had bullet points out so a brain-fogged (at that time) woman could write this letter of protest.
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February 14, 2011

To mayor and city council:

This category is parks, neighborhoods, zoning, environmental, small business, nonprofit -- this is Casa de Luz.

Two years ago, I was dying from catastrophic illness. Only discovering the macrobiotic way of healing through dietary moderation has saved my life. Now, slowly, I am rebuilding that life, struggling to get back to the self-employed business owner I once was. Part of the reason I remained in Austin was because I was convinced that I would find no healing anywhere else I could afford to live. I would find only enduring until an early death.

Casa de Luz has been an integral part of my healing process. I have learned much about cooking macrobiotically from the employees and community at Casa. I know, on weeks when I feel awful and cannot muster the strength to cook healthy, minimally processed meals for myself, I can go to Casa and get that food. When I finally am able to work again, I am counting on Casa as a way to interject variety and a guaranteed healthy meal into my weekly food rotation.

To quote Chad Evans, Casa’s general manager: “Perhaps it would be interesting for them [the city council and mayor] to find out that Austin has a non-profit organization serving nearly 100,000 organic healing meals per year at deep discount to serve the overall public good. Dining at Casa de Luz can change one's life. Carefully crafted and minimally processed meals help people conquer catastrophic illness. It's a choice to participate in a shifting of paradigm.”

Casa is part of a building wave of preventing major disease and chronic conditions through healthy eating. It has changed my life and helped me point others along the path to health. Please don’t take the Casa de Luz dining hall and community away from us. It has taken 20 years to build that community. Help them come up with a parking solution. Help PARD recognize that they would be excellent partners in the beautification and maintenance of the parks and walking city we want Austin to become.

Casa de Luz is the kind of grassroots place the city council always says they want to blossom here. Well, they (Casa) took root and are blooming. Let’s encourage the plant to continue to bloom and grow – not kill the green growth where it flourishes.

Thank you --

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