The board of directors of the Austin Chamber of Commerce has selected Phil Wilson as its new chair. Wilson is the general manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority and was formerly executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation and Texas Secretary of State. The news release quotes Ellen Wood, the previous Austin Chamber chair: “Phil’s experience in the business world alongside shaping important public policy makes him a wonderful fit to lead the Chamber. This is a pivotal time for Austin and the Central Texas Region, many decisions will take place in 2018 that will resonate for years down the road. Phil’s steady hand and proven leadership will be invaluable to the community.” Brian Cassidy, managing partner of the Austin office of the Locke Lord law firm, was chosen as the chamber’s chair-elect.

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is raising tolls on the U.S. Highway 183A and 290 toll roads and State Highway 71 toll lane by 2.23 percent effective Jan. 1, 2018. The CTRMA press release says that the rate increase is consistent with the Consumer Price Index and “will equate to rates approximately $0.01 – $0.03 greater than the current rates at each toll plaza.” For customers with an electronic tag, the rates for a full-length trip on 183A will increase by six cents, by five cents on 290 and by two cents in the 71 toll lane.  View a PDF of the detailed rate schedule here. The increases are part of a regular CTRMA policy that adjusts rates by small amounts according to inflation every year in order to avoid having to make large increases every five years. Signs on these tollways will be changed to reflect this increase within the next few weeks, but the old rates apply all the way through the end of 2017. MoPac Express Lane rates are not going up.

The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority wants everyone to have a safe ride home this New Year’s Eve and is offering free rides from 6 p.m. until the end of service that night. Rides will be free on MetroBus, MetroRapid, MetroRail and MetroAccess. In addition, MetroRail service will be extended, with the last ride departing downtown at 2:30 a.m. MetroRapid will also have a later service, with the last buses departing downtown along Guadalupe and Lavaca at 2:30 a.m. as well. Local MetroBus will follow Sunday service on New Year’s Eve and on Jan. 1. MetroRapid and MetroRail will run Sunday service on Jan. 1. The Night Owl, UT Shuttle and E-Bus routes will not be running on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. The Capital Metro press release also points out that “MetroAccess subscription trips scheduled on Jan. 1 will be canceled automatically. Customers needing to keep their subscription trips should call 512-852-7272. The reservation line will be staffed New Year’s Day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.” The transit store and all Capital Metro administrative offices will be closed from Dec. 30 through Jan. 1. As always, customers will still have 24-hour access to the automated Customer Service GO Line at 512-474-1200 and the Trip Planner. View more details about the New Year’s Eve extensions here. Everything resumes regular service on Jan. 2 except for UT Shuttle and E-Bus.

The Travis County Commissioners Court is spending more money than initially planned to push an infamous police shooting case before the U.S. Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the commissioners voted to add an extra $20,000 payment to the law firm Alexander Dubose Jefferson & Townsend for appellate services in the case of Texas vs. Kleinert. Former Austin police detective Charles Kleinert in 2013 shot and killed Larry Jackson Jr. during a bank robbery investigation in Central Austin. Earlier this year, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s ruling that Kleinert enjoyed immunity because he was working as a member of a federal task force as the time of the shooting. The county’s original contract with ADJT approved by the court in July included a flat rate of $30,000 along with $5,000 for out-of-pocket expenses. The firm helped the district attorney’s office file a “petition for certiorari, which is the mechanism to request Supreme Court review of lower court decisions,” according to a memo from the DA’s office. The high court ultimately accepted that petition, kicking off a series of further legal steps ADJT will now provide assistance with. “Where it stands at this point from a logistical standpoint, they may not accept the case, and if so we are done,” Assistant District Attorney Gregg Cox told the commissioners on Tuesday. “If they do, I would anticipate we would be coming back with some sort of proposal to litigate this in front of the Supreme Court.”

The holidays are (finally!) within reach, and the George Washington Carver Museum will take part by hosting a Dec. 29 Kwanzaa Celebration from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Kwanzaa is a weeklong holiday that begins on Dec. 26. The celebration of the holiday honors African heritage in the Americas, with each day celebrating a different community principle. The celebration at the museum is on the day that focuses on Ujamaa, or cooperative economics. According to a press release from the city, the principle “emphasizes ‘cooperative economics and encourages the building and maintaining of our own stores, shops and businesses, and to profit from them together.’ This Kwanzaa celebration is free, and open to the public. To RSVP, please call 512-974-4926.”

The Austin Independent School District has received a grant from the Criminal Justice Division of the Office of the Governor. The funds are from the federal Victims of Crime Assistance Act of 1984 and AISD is the first district in Texas to receive money from this source. The district is getting almost $4.5 million “to provide mental health services to elementary children and their families who are victims of crime,” according to the press release. The money will be divided among 22 elementary schools that feed into LBJ, Lanier and Akins high schools. Each school will create a mental health center with two staff members to deliver “therapeutic services to students and families.” The district’s strength as an applicant for this grant was largely due to its existing mental health services programs at several middle and high schools, which started from a pilot at Crockett High School in 2011 and eventually spread to several other campuses. AISD’s assistant director of comprehensive health services, Tracy Spinner, said: “By providing mental health services on campus, we are able to identify, support, and efficiently provide clinical treatment for our students experiencing a variety of mental health issues. We are thrilled to have this opportunity to expand the number of campuses to elementary schools with direct access to this critical resource at no cost for families.”

The holidays are here! All offices and schools in the Austin Independent School District will be closed today, Dec. 20, through Monday, Jan. 1. Staff will return to work on Tuesday, Jan. 2, and classes resume on Wednesday, Jan. 3. AISD’s Department of Communications and Community Engagement will also be closed for the holidays; therefore, contact AISD’s media hotline at 512-414-2414 if there is a district emergency. View the AISD calendar here for holidays and events in 2018.

After Thursday’s vote by the City Council to reject a contract worked out between the Austin Police Association and city negotiators, the APA seems unlikely to want to continue negotiations at this time, according to people close to the process who spoke on the condition of anonymity. At any rate, the APA is expected to announce the results of a vote by its members on whether to continue negotiating this morning. If they decide to reject or postpone further negotiations, they will go back to the rules police departments follow under Chapter 143 of the Texas Local Government Code. That means considerably less transparency than existed under either the previous contract or the contract Council rejected last week. One source said he expects APA might want to start negotiating again in June or July for the Fiscal Year 2018-19 budget. At the same time, the city has lost its chief negotiator, Larry Watts, who was serving as Austin’s interim labor relations officer. Watts confirmed Monday that he had returned to retirement. After all, he was only doing the job because of the sudden death last June of Tom Stribling, who was the city’s labor relations officer at the time. He said he told the city several weeks ago that he would be going back to retirement on Dec. 15.

A second attempt at bringing digital billboards to Austin via the Board of Adjustment fell unceremoniously flat at the Dec. 11 meeting of the board. This time around, Reagan National Advertising was asking for a reconsideration of the board’s November decision. “I do not find anything compelling or that anything has changed on the parameters of the sign, location, the description, the content. … So I would make a motion to deny,” said Board Member Bryan King. Board members voted unanimously to deny the reconsideration, giving Reagan no opportunity to talk, but a new chance to take the matter to court.

Austin Independent School District Chief Financial Officer Nicole Conley Johnson has a new responsibility: member of the Texas Commission on Public School Finance. The commission was created this year by the Texas Legislature during its special session. The 13 members of the commission are appointed by the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the House of Representatives; Conley Johnson was appointed by Speaker Joe Straus. The commission will look at Texas’ current school finance system and make recommendations for improvement. Conley Johnson has been CFO for AISD since 2009.

The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 22 this session, which established a pilot program for schools to create their own individual accountability systems. Twenty school districts will be participating in the pilot, and Austin Independent School District has been named one of them. Joining Austin are Alief, Bullard, Canadian, Clear Creek, Dallas, El Paso, Humble, Jonesboro, Lyford, Midland, Point Isabel, San Saba, Sharyland, Snyder, Spring Branch, Sunnyvale and Waco ISDs, and Premier and Richland Collegiate high schools. This spring, those who are participating have to attend four monthly meetings, which will be hosted by the Texas Education Agency, as they develop their plans. Then, according to the TEA website: “Once a plan receives approval from the agency, districts and charter schools may use locally developed domains and indicators together with the three state-mandated domains to assign overall A–F ratings for each campus.” The agency will use the results from the pilot to roll out the program on a larger scale for the 2018-19 school year.

Merck & Co. has announced its new information technology hub in Austin will be located on the campus of the University of Texas’ Dell Medical School. The hub, which was approved to receive more than $800,000 in economic incentives from the city over a 10-year period, will be part of the school’s Health Discovery Building that is intended to pair science and technology expertise to spur improvements in health care. The company announced it will focus on digital health, business analytics and computer science in its Austin facility, which will cost an estimated $28 million and is expected to create more than 600 jobs in the Austin area. The hub’s location on the medical school’s campus will also serve as an anchor of sorts for the area known as the “innovation zone” for health care businesses that are expected to open in the wake of the medical school’s opening. Still to be decided is who will be the main tenants that will occupy the redevelopment of the nearby 14-acre campus of the former University Medical Center Brackenridge, which is slated for redevelopment over the next 15 years.