Austin executive fired over power failures
AUSTIN, Texas -- Austin's city manager was fired Wednesday in the wake of public anger over a slow and fumbled response to a winter storm power fai...
AUSTIN, Texas -- Austin's city manager was fired Wednesday in the wake of public anger over a slow and fumbled response to a winter storm power failure that left thousands of people in the Texas capital without electricity for a week or longer. The 10-1 vote by the Austin City Council to remove Spencer Cronk, the city's top executive, came after growing calls for accountability after an ice storm this month knocked out power to more than 170,000 customers. Frustration in the nation's 11th-largest city boiled as Austin officials for days gave few updates about the widespread outages and no assurances about how long repairs would take.