Will a certain RG4N communications chairman announce a run for a certain local elected position? Will the Allandale Neighborhood Association indeed appeal their dismissed lawsuit? And do they have any money to?

Tune in tonight, Fri., January 11 7pm, at St. Louis Catholic Church on 7601 Burnet Road to find out!

RG4N's press release after the jump.

The Dallas City Council Public Safety Committee on Jan. 7 approved a policy that would allow Dallas Police officials to hire applicants who have used “hard” drugs – only once, mind you – including cocaine. Under the new policy applicants who admit to having tried a “serious illegal drug” no more than one time will not be automatically barred from seeking employment with the PD – so long as the drug use took place 10 years ago, prior to the applicants 21st birthday, and did not including shooting up, reports The Dallas Morning News.

The new, once-only-and-no-junkies policy was a compromise offered by one council member, Ron Natinsky, after his colleagues balked at a more “lenient” policy suggested by Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle that would not automatically disqualify applicants who’d admitted to up to four incidences of past hard-drug use. Apparently that was just too liberal for some council members who raised questions about what sort of “message” such a policy would send – especially to “the children.” When it looked like the relaxed policy would tank on a council vote, member David Neumann, who initially was opposed to the move, stepped in to broker the once-only compromise, the DMN reports. “We have to be responsible role models to our families, to our friends, and to our citizens,” he said. “And part of that is being benevolent in understanding that we make mistakes.”

The city of Hutto has followed the lead of Austin and 19 other Texas cities in signing the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Like Elgin, Hutto is within the Envision Central Texas region. In all, 755 U.S. cities have committed to follow the goals of the international Kyoto Protocol – still unsigned by the U.S. Typical municipal actions include cutting greenhouse gas emissions and adopting anti-sprawl policies for land use. In 2010, Hutto plans to open its first dense, mixed-use development on 469 acres off State Highway 130. If little Hutto gets it, why not Washington D.C.?

Amidst the national names filing in Texas for the Republican presidential nomination, there are a couple of lesser-known figures, even lesser than twice-failed presidential candidate and three-time Senate also-ran Alan Keyes. Houston-based practitioner of oriental medicine Hoa Tran was the first Republican hopeful to file, but he’s been joined by physician Hugh Cort, a Christian Conservative from Alabama who proposes bombing Iran, dismantling the Internal Revenue Service, and, in his role as self-proclaimed counter-terrorism expert, claims Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11. Cort said he is running for president because “the Lord has given me a very important message.”

Wells here – I'll be on Fox 7's Good Morning Austin around 7:20-7:30am tomorrow (Friday, Jan. 11) to discuss the City Manager search, the new city-run Parking Enterprise and the upcoming Downtown plan. My homeboy Steve Pickering (from KLBJ radio) will also be on hand, as well as Fox's own Crystal Cotti.

City Council just named the interview finalists for the position of Austin's city manager, and to the chagrin of conspiracy theorists everywhere, they are two external candidates: San Antonio Deputy City Manager Jelynne Burley and Fort Worth Assistant City Manager Marc Ott.

The decision came after council picked the matter back up in today's executive session, after being unable to reach consensus during their specially called meeting yesterday. It sounds as if debate over how to proceed may be responsible for the delay. Today, Council Member Jennifer Kim has made calls for a public vetting of the candidates, and it sounds like search firm Arcus agrees. Their Doug Firestone suggested a "public meet-and-greet this coming Tuesday evening" would be appropriate, "someplace with free parking." The next day, Wednesday, Jan. 16, council's still posted for additional interviews and deliberation, but it's unclear whether the city legal department's answered the question of whether they'll be able to announce their decision and hire by the council meeting the following day (Thursday, Jan. 17), due to the necessity of contract negotiations. Still, Mayor Will Wynn (whose office has led the search) optimistically opined council will "go ahead and post for potential action for that week's City Council meeting."

So, to repeat: Council picks two outside finalists, preps for meet-and-greet next week, wants to announce hire then too, but we'll see.

UPDATE: Pasted after the jump is the city's press release on its selections. And if you haven't ogled it already, here's Beside the Point's rundown of the candidates in today's print edition.

Shell Oil Company’s Houston-area plant has been illegally spewing a wide range of harmful emissions into the air in violation of its permitted limits and the Clean Air Act on the average of more than once a week for the last five years, resulting in the release of millions of pounds of excess air pollutants, according to a lawsuit filed this week by Environment Texas and the Sierra Club.

“Because the state of Texas and the U.S. EPA have both failed to put a stop to these blatant violations, ordinary citizens are stepping up to enforce the law themselves,” said ET Executive Director Luke Metzger in a statement.

The Austin Independent School District kicked off the first of a series of state-mandated national background checks Tuesday, starting with Superintendent Pat Forgione, whose fingerprints were taken in a public photo op with Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott.

AISD is the first district to conduct national background checks under a state law passed in 2007, requiring some 1 million teachers and public school employees to be fingerprinted over the next four years. The law was drafted in response to an alarming rise in the number of sexual misconduct cases investigated by the TEA. According to the agency, the number of sexual misconduct investigations skyrocketed from 110 in 1997 to 251 in 2007.

Currently, the district is only required to run a statewide search, but under the new program, employees will have their fingerprints entered into an FBI database to detect crimes committed in other states. The background checks are mainly aimed at felony crimes, but misdemeanors will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, according to the TEA. The law only applies to teachers and nonteaching employees hired after Jan. 1.

In the ongoing, albeit slightly scaled-back rush to build new coal-fired power plants in Texas, the state’s historically industry-chummy environmental commission has been roundly criticized for failing to assess Texas’ true energy needs, as well as the cumulative air quality impact of proposed coal plants, prior to handing out new permits.

But thanks to language written into the 2008 federal Appropriations Bill by Waco-area Democratic Congressman Chet Edwards, the federal Government Accountability Office will be called in to conduct such a study. The GAO is Congress’ nonpartisan investigative arm. Among Edwards’ concerns, considering the Environmental Protection Agency is about to tighten ozone pollution standards, is that Waco and several other cities statewide (including Austin) will become federal violators following the change, forcing local governments to take costly countermeasures. Edwards says the study should analyze cumulative emissions in Central Texas from existing and planned coal burners for an entire ozone season.

Currently, permitting procedures only address cumulative impacts within 37 miles of a plant. Governor Rick Perry reportedly called for GOP attacks on an earlier version of the bill, due partially to its focus on not-yet-regulated carbon dioxide emissions, apparently fearing the results could somehow make Texas look worse than its present status as the nation’s #1 emitter of Co2.