The “Stuff the Bus” food drive is back the weekend of Dec. 8-10 to collect healthy, nonperishable food for those who need it over the holidays. A joint effort by Capital Metro, Whole Foods Market and the Central Texas Food Bank, this is the sixth year of the event. The theme this year is “There’s no place like hope for the holidays.” There’s even a fun promo video! Last year’s event raised the bar by far surpassing the 50,000-meal goal, therefore this year’s goal is 150,000 meals. To donate, look for Capital Metro buses parked at the Domain and downtown Whole Foods store locations from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. all weekend, and smaller Capital Metro vehicles at the Arbor Trails Gateway and Bee Cave locations on “select days,” according to the press release. In addition, all buses will collect monetary donations as well as food, and Santa Claus will make an appearance at both the Domain and downtown locations from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday. No worries if you miss the bus; all Whole Foods Market locations will also be accepting donations until Dec. 14. You can also make donations online at capmetro.org/stuffthebus.

The city of Austin wants its artists to learn how to make a living doing what they love. That’s the focus of a new six-week training program put on by the Economic Development Department. The press release states that “(l)ocal arts professionals and subject matter experts” will lead the Artist Career Training Program, along with city staff, and promises that graduates will gain “a better understanding of City resources, business canvas, goal setting, budgeting, tax law, protecting their intellectual property, marketing best practices, project proposal outline and a professional peer network.” In addition, the whole thing caps off with a “Proposal Pitch Competition with an opportunity for cash awards.” The program will run on Tuesday evenings, 6:30-9:30 p.m., from Mar. 27 to May 1, and the 24-member cohort will be selected through a “competitive application process … reviewed by a panel of community arts leaders and artists representing a range of artistic disciplines.” It is free to apply; registration in the program is $150. The department is holding information sessions on Dec. 7 at 1 p.m. and Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. at the Entrepreneur Center of Austin and on Jan. 10 at 1 p.m. at the Museum of Human Achievement.

The Austin Police Association has shared with the Austin Monitor preliminary results from a poll done by Littlefield Consulting to determine attitudes toward the proposed contract with the city. Overall, the organization is happy with the results, according to APA President Ken Casaday. In addition to numerous questions about the police and their salaries, those polled were asked, “Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Donald Trump?” The answer: Only 28 percent of those Austin voters polled said they had a favorable opinion of the president, and 66 percent responded that they had an unfavorable opinion. Just 6 percent declared that they were unsure. So, Austin voters are less favorably impressed with Trump than likely voters around the country, according to research by a group devoted to polling, Fivethirtyeight.com. In polls conducted between Nov. 26 and Dec. 3, the president had a favorable rating among likely or registered voters nationwide of 39 percent in two polls and 42 percent in one poll.

Last week, much of Austin was captivated by an Austin Monthly column about sidewalks (ahem). Seizing the opportunity, the city’s Public Works Director Richard Mendoza and Sidewalk Program staff will hold an AMA on Reddit to answer the burning questions raised and triggered by that column. It all goes down Tuesday, Dec. 5, at 11 a.m., so get your sidewalk questions ready!

On Sunday, City Council continued its search for Austin’s next city manager, kicking things off with a brief public meeting. For the most part, the meeting was a chance to go over the process of the day, in which Council members would meet in groups with City Manager Search Advisory Task Force members, and a chance to game out how not to violate quorum or Texas Open Meetings Act rules in the process. However, there was one bit of news: Denise Roth, who is a is a senior advisor at WSP | Parsons Brinckerhoff, has removed herself from the competition for the job. In a letter to Council, she explained that “in the last 24 hours a substantial multinational company had offered the opportunity to serve in a leadership position,” leaving five candidates to interview.

Amy Everhart, currently the director of public affairs for Mayor Steve Adler, will be joining the Austin Board of Realtors in January in a newly created position, which will coincidentally be called “director of public affairs.” Everhart said she will be managing both communications and government affairs employees in her new position. She said she had not been looking for a job but the opportunity was just too good to pass up when it was offered. Everhart worked for Mayor Lee Leffingwell for several years and was part of supported Mike Martinez’s unsuccessful campaign for mayor in 2014. ABoR CEO Paul Hilgers is leaving the organization at the end of the year. A national search for a new CEO is now underway.

A draft North Shoal Creek Neighborhood Plan has been released by the Planning and Zoning Department, and the department is now seeking community input. The plan concerns the shape and character of future development within the area of approximately one square mile, comprising about 3,700 residents, bordered by U.S. Highway 183 to the north, Anderson Lane to the south, Burnet Road to the east and MoPac Expressway to the west. The draft was guided by the Imagine Austin plan principle of “complete communities” and created after a thorough planning process, which included public and small group meetings as well as online surveys. After community input and review, the plan will be submitted to the Planning Commission and City Council for adoption. View the proposed plan here and attend the open house this Saturday, Dec. 9, from 10 a.m. to noon in the Pillow Elementary School cafeteria, 3025 Crosscreek Drive.

Know an outstanding woman who deserves recognition? Nominations for the 2018 Women’s Hall of Fame are now being accepted. The city press release states that the Austin Commission for Women bestows this yearly honor on women who have made “significant contributions to Austin and Travis County by breaking through barriers for women, working to better the lives of women and girls, or through other forms of public or community service.” Nominees must live in Austin or Travis County to be eligible. The application form is here; you may nominate yourself. The deadline for nominations is Jan. 31, 2018.

As we have reported, the city is in the middle of considering an ordinance that would mandate paid sick time for employees citywide. The final stakeholder meeting on that proposal was Thursday. But, those who were unable to attend meetings can still weigh in on the city’s website, where the conversation continues prior to the ordinance’s return to City Council. Or, if you have nothing to say on the topic and are just nosy, it’s a good place to see what your fellow citizens think about the issue. Either way, it’s all going down at speakupaustin.org.

Mayor Steve Adler joined several fellow City Council members and about 250 others at the annual Congress for the New Urbanism Central Texas Chapter’s annual luncheon in downtown Austin on Wednesday. The theme of the affair was “Making Place Matter” with Carol Coletta of the Kresge Foundation as the featured speaker. Joining the mayor at his table in the vast ballroom of the JW Marriott Austin were Council members Delia Garza, Ann Kitchen and Alison Alter. Before introducing Coletta, Adler addressed the crowd and spoke of his recent experiences at the Waller Creek Light Show and the opening of the Central Library. He praised both events for drawing diverse crowds from across the city. “One of the challenges that we have is that there are not many places and moments in time when we can find that measure of expressed diversity and a collection of our community in one place,” he said of the light show. “And it felt wonderful.” Contrasting that unity, Adler then mentioned CodeNEXT and drew some audible murmurs. He said the process could well be the most polarizing he has seen in his time in Austin. Nonetheless, he suggested that a successful CodeNEXT could preserve and encourage diversity at the expense of economic segregation. To get there, he said more residents will have to join the relatively small number of activists who have been fighting it out at meetings and in the press. “We have yet to develop the loud voice in our community that is reassuring the community, that says we have to work through issues but we can, in fact, get there with respect to CodeNEXT, which is something that I believe to be true,” the mayor said. “We need to have that voice begin to emerge in our community so that the people who are hearing about it are hearing not only the challenges that we have to be able to get there but also the promise and the expectation that we’re going to be able to do that.”

There’s only about a week left for Austinites to offer feedback to the Bond Election Advisory Task Force from the comfort of their own homes. The task force is currently seeking input on what residents would like to see on the 2018 bond package in order to make a recommendation to City Council. There are a couple of public meetings left on that topic. But there are also a couple of online tools that remain open until Dec. 8. So visit the online bond simulator and bond survey while you can, people.

In a long-studied response to Austin City Council’s Gender Equity Resolution, on Nov. 27 Commissioner Ashley Normand presented a comprehensive recommendation to improve long-term gender equity in Austin to the Human Rights Commission. “I went to the census survey and found some real disparities (between men and women),” said Normand. “I think that’s important that the data be broken down further.” She pointed to the Equity Office as a sign of improvement but said that when it comes to policy decisions, gender should be given priority in addition to race. “There are a lot of programs that are really great, but there is no one office that is looking at this systemically,” she noted. In an effort to make the original resolution passed by Council more robust, she suggested that Council appoint the Law Department to investigate and determine if some of the resolutions can be turned into ordinances “because there is not otherwise an affirmative equity action in place,” she said. The original resolution explores paid family leave, protection of employees’ right to express breast milk in the workplace, prohibition of salary history requests in connection with hiring, protection of family caregivers from employment discrimination, and protection of victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and stalking from discrimination in housing or employment. Normand also recommended that Council prioritize the current rape kit backlog at Austin Police Department. As of March 2017, there were still 1,700 kits left to be processed. She explained that a continued backlog will allow criminals to continue to commit crimes without repercussions. “What kills me is that rapists tend to be serial criminals,” she said. Commissioner Gary Brown noted that the Public Safety Commission is currently working on this backlog. Nevertheless, Normand insisted that more transparency was needed to effectively clear the outstanding kits through the lab. Chair Sareta Davis agreed with her observation, saying, “It’s a major crisis of public confidence, and it needs transparency.” The Human Rights Commission will reconvene in January, at which point it will vote on whether to pass Normand’s proposed recommendation.