Austin Energy General Manager Larry Weis noted at an Electric Utility Commission meeting on Monday that the utility’s Chief Operating Officer Cheryl Mele will step down on Dec. 21 and will be temporarily replaced by Elaina Ball, current vice president of power production. “There’s a good group of people to keep a steady hand on the ship, and my advice to the commission is to listen to them but challenge them,” he said. Mele announced on Nov. 23 that she would be leaving the utility to join the Electric Reliability Council of Texas as chief operating officer and senior vice president. The Austin Monitor reported on Nov. 19 that Weis would be leaving his post, and City Manager Marc Ott announced on Thursday that utility senior vice president and chief financial officer Mark Dombroski would take over as interim general manager while the city searches for a new general manager. Weis explained that the shift would occur on Jan. 1.

Travis County Precinct 3 Constable Sally Hernandez filed to run for sheriff in East Austin on Friday. Hernandez joined fellow Democrats Don Rios and Todd Radford in the quest to replace current Sheriff Greg Hamilton. Republican Joe Martinez has also filed his candidacy in the race. Conspicuously absent from the ballot so far are declared candidate John Sisson and Hamilton himself, who has teased his interest in seeking re-election. Both men have until the end of Monday to officially enter the race. Meanwhile, the campaign for retiring County Commissioner Ron Davis’ Precinct 1 seat is officially a three-man competition. James Nortey also filed his candidacy at Democratic Party headquarters on Friday, joining Arthur Sampson and James Travillion. Richard Franklin III is also expected to join the race as a Democrat, though no Republican has expressed interest in seeking to represent northeast Travis County on the Commissioners Court. The same cannot be said for western Travis County, where incumbent Commissioner Gerald Daugherty is officially set to face off against fellow Republican Jason Nassour. Democrat David Holmes appears to have an opening to keep his political powder dry through the primary, pending the last-minute appearance of an opponent. Meanwhile, five people have joined the effort to fill outgoing state Rep. Elliott Naishtat’s District 49 seat. As of Friday, Mathew Shrum, Huey Rey Fischer, Heather Way, Aspen Dunaway and Gina Hinojosa have officially entered the race. Naishtat himself filed but has since recanted his ambitions to seek a 14th term.

According to a post on the City Council Message Board, Council will talk about the newly created Office of Performance Management during its Tuesday work session. Mayor Steve Adler, who has pushed for such an office to establish a sunsetting review process in the city, wrote, “I would like the City Council to have a robust discussion before we act or acquiesce on the creation of a new Office of Performance Management.” In the memo, embedded below, he specifies that that “robust discussion” should focus on the end goals of performance reviews, what kind of performance reviews should be conducted and whether reviews should be conducted in the city manager’s office or somewhere else, like the Office of the City Auditor, among other things.

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As a direct consequence of City Council’s discussion on Thursday about the Austin Energy waste contract, Council Member Don Zimmerman is pushing for a calendar that shows when city contracts are set to expire in an effort to avoid “firefights” in which Council is pressured to make a quick decision on the eve of a contract’s expiration. During discussion about the waste management contract on Thursday, Zimmerman raised questions about the deadline and why time crunches around contract renewals and solicitations are so common. Zimmerman posted his suggestion on the City Council Message Board but, at the time of press, had yet to receive a reply.

On Friday, the [Re]Verse pitch competition crowned its first winner, awarding a $10,000 innovation prize to Brandon Ward for his idea that turns spent grain from breweries into granola bars. According to a press release about the award, Ward will be using his money to create a prototype of his “Brewnola” bars and to conduct market research before launching distribution. His pitch proposed a company that will locally source ingredients, use compostable packaging, donate to local homeless shelters and pay employees $24 per hour. In a statement to the press, Ward said, “I’m not sure that we ever would have become aware of the environmental impact of spent beer grain if not for the Reverse Pitch competition. … The competition helped open our eyes to this problem and gave us the opportunity to solve it. Hence, with help from the City of Austin, Brewnola has been born.” According to that same release, the competition may serve as a prototype for the city as well: “The City’s Office of Innovation is exploring how challenge prizes might be utilized as a tool for other public challenges in the future.” The [Re]Verse contest was a collaboration among the city, the U.S. Business Council for Sustainable Development, Impact Hub Austin, the RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service and community partners.

After some discussion (and a few votes), City Council has opted to postpone its discussion about short-term rental changes one week, until Dec. 17. The change will allow Mayor Steve Adler to be present for the deal. It will also probably make for a very long last meeting of 2015, which has a packed agenda that already includes transportation network company regulations (among many, many other things).

City Manager Marc Ott announced his pick for interim Austin Energy general manager and kicked off a nationwide search for a new, permanent manager in one fell swoop Thursday. Ott has appointed Mark Dombroski, AE senior vice president and CFO, as the interim general manager to replace outgoing GM Larry Weis. He has also brought on Mycoff, Fry & Prouse to lead the executive search to fill the vacancy, with preliminary plans to screen the first round of applicants in early March. In a memo to City Council and Mayor Steve Adler, Ott explained, “Since we have developed a strong leadership team at Austin Energy, I have decided that the Interim General Manager should come from within the Austin Energy team. With an ‘in-house’ Interim GM we will maintain as much continuity during this transition period as possible. That being said, I believe that any one of the remaining members of the AE executive team could step in to temporarily fill the General Manager role. I’ve considered each executive for this interim position. Each would bring a different perspective and focus. As you know, during this transition period we will be focused on a cost of service study and, along a parallel path, preparing an associated budget reflecting potential rate changes resulting from the study.”

City Council approved amendments to the “Meet and Confer Agreement” Thursday that will allow it to proceed with plans for policing the “spring festival season.” The agreement includes options that will allow the Austin Police Department to create a volunteer sign-up system for officers who would like to work during festivals as an overtime assignment. It will also allow any remaining positions to be filled by non-Austin-resident officers or retired APD officers, or by APD officers reassigned from their normal duties. At the same time, Council ratified an amendment that, according to a city press release, “permits, but does not obligate, Council to authorize officer residency incentive pay. The conditions for residency incentive pay will be set by ordinance at Council’s discretion.”

The Environmental Protection Agency released its regional haze plan for Texas on Wednesday, designed to reduce air pollution that impacts visibility in the Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains national parks in Texas as well as the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma. According to a Sierra Club press release, the plan puts in place new restrictions for coal-fired units in Luminant’s Big Brown, Martin Lake, Monticello and Sandow plants; NRG Energy’s Limestone plant; GDF Suez Energy’s Coleto Creek plant; Xcel Energy’s Tolk plant; and a plant owned by the San Miguel Electric Cooperative. Though none of those plants are owned directly by Austin Energy, the utility receives energy from plants across most of the state because it is part of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas market. Environmental advocates, including the Sierra Club and Earthjustice, praised the plan in press releases on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Luminant wrote in a press release Thursday that it believes the plan “goes far beyond the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act.”

On Saturday, Bike Austin is hosting an awareness-raising Survive Riverside ride and walk, an event intended to highlight the dangers faced by cyclists and pedestrians who travel on East Riverside Drive. The effort is part of the orgnaization’s campaign to encourage installation of safety improvements – such as protected bike lanes – along the thoroughfare. According to Bike Austin’s announcement about the event, the East Riverside corridor was the site of “over 32 life-altering injuries and crashes” and “at least 3 deaths” between 2010 and 2014. Area residents, city staff and City Council Member Pio Renteria will be speaking at the event, which begins at 1 p.m. Participants should meet at the Midway Field House, 2015 E. Riverside Drive.

Do Austinites support regulations – currently under consideration by City Council – for transportation network companies such as Uber and Lyft? It is apparently a landslide in either direction, depending on whom – and how – you ask. On Wednesday, Uber released the results of a poll that it commissioned through pollster We Ask America stating that 70 percent of Austin voters “support keeping the current rules to prevent the elimination of ridesharing,” though it does not go into detail about the proposed rules in its poll. One week earlier, on Dec. 2, TX Rides for Hire – an interest group consisting of Texas taxi and transportation companies – released the results of a poll it commissioned through Littlefield & Associates Consulting. According to those results, 70 percent of likely voters support “common sense safety rules for ride hailing services like Uber and Lyft,” specifically fingerprint-based background checks. Council directed city staff on Oct. 15 to draft separate ordinances, one that would set operating fees for transportation network companies and another that would require their drivers to pass fingerprint-based background checks before being hired. Uber and Lyft have both vocally criticized the latter proposal, stating that, with some exceptions, neither company chooses to operate in cities with such a policy.

In order to better tackle the district’s financial complexities, Austin Independent School District At-Large Trustee Kendall Pace has put forward the idea of creating a new AISD budget committee that will look at the district’s multimillion-dollar (billion before state recapture) budget. But with Pace absent Monday night, board members went back and forth over whether the measure was redundant, considering that all board members would probably want to debate the matter at length in regular meetings anyway. In addition, trustees wondered to what degree the committee would advise the board at large. As a compromise, President Gina Hinojosa suggested going forward with a temporary committee to look at the overall budgeting process. A change in that process and in the way information is presented might enable board members to ask more detailed questions but still keep out of administrative affairs, suggested Vice President Amber Elenz. Pace (via text) and District 6 Trustee Paul Saldaña volunteered to sit on the temporary committee.