03:42 PM CST on Wednesday, February 16, 2005

By Jason Whitely / 11 News

Safe Clear may be safe for now. It seems a compromise may keep a bill designed to end Mayor Bill White's non-consent towing ordinance from being introduced in Austin this week.

KHOU-TV

The Safe Clear plan appears alive for at least one more week after a meeting between Mayor Bill White and Texas Senator John Whitmire.

Despite a sigh of relief from City Hall Wednesday, the mayor is downplaying a recent meeting with Texas Senator John Whitmire over a bill that could scrap his Safe Clear plan.

The result of that meeting was that Safe Clear will continue to operate while the senator and mayor work on a compromise to the bill. Whitmire had planned a vote for Thursday that could have killed Safe Clear. After the two-hour private meeting at an Austin hotel, the mayor said the vote on that bill has been delayed indefinitely.

"I don't speak for any other elected official," said Mayor White, "I'll let him address what the intention is, but I think it was very constructive and he ... he did not want to go back to the old system."

Whitmire's office said the senator can still bring the bill up at any time. But on Wednesday the face-to-face meeting between Whitmire and White seemed to pave the way for a possible compromise on the controversial towing plan.