Mayoral aide Matt Watson bid adios to city hall last Friday, after accepting a job in the Washington D.C. office of Environmental Defense Fund. He’ll be working on energy policy in EDF's Climate & Air Program, helping to get climate-protection legislation – such as the new draft just advanced by Congressman Henry Waxman – passed by the U.S. Congress. Watson earned his green credentials working tirelessly on the nuts-and-bolts implementation of the Austin Climate Protection Plan for Mayor Will Wynn. With the Wynn-Watson duo departing city hall, municipal leadership on the ACPP is now in question.

In response to citizen requests, city council sent questions submitted by the community to the three finalists teams vying for the job of creating Austin’s new comprehensive plan. The teams' answers now can be read online at www.cityofaustin.org/compplan. Be forewarned that it’s cumbersome to compare responses on individual questions, and that the responses to the 24 questions run at least 30 pages each. (One respondent said many of the “follow-up” questions were in the city’s Request for Qualifications, so they simply pasted in parts from their original submittal.) Staff responses to citizen queries and gripes about the city’s process are posted separately.

Chick Corea, Al Di Meola, Stanley Clarke, and Lenny White still burn in the fusion reactor memory of last May’s two-night Return to Forever reunion stand at the Paramount Theatre. In January, the Mediterranean stingray himself, Di Meola, returned, this time to the One World Theatre, where he broke off the axe portion of RTF and speared an intimate audience with Flamenco-stampeded slights of hand. Now comes El Capitan’s turn. Corea, no stranger to the One World, instead loads into UT's Bass Concert Hall, this time with another six-stringer in tow, guitar mystic John McLaughlin. Two such jazz/rock pioneers could draw a symposium of sonic scientists all by themselves, only they’ve seen fit to gird the power of two with a trio of genuine all-stars. Kenny Garrett on sax will dislodge lung sponge, but in bassist Christian McBride and one of the best drummers alive, Brian Blade, the Five Peace Band come armed to the teeth. The Miles Davis alum leading FPB have written new material, the 2-CD Five Peace Band Live previewing its summer release for Concord Records on sale in the Bass lobby, while also acting as another evolutionary leap forward in Corea and McLaughlin's decades-long history of collaboration. In Brian Blade alone, they’ve advanced their musical agenda 1,000 years. This Leonard Cohen disciple can only wring his hands that he won’t be at the PAC’s main lodge on Thursday, April 2, 8pm, to witness an alternate, but doubtlessly no less mind-blowing return to forever. Tickets here.

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the publication of Billy Lee Brammer's The Gay Place, the Chronicle's own Michael Ventura wrote this: "It is still the finest novel written by a Texan, and with Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men it gracefully holds its place as one of the two great political novels in American literature." And on the occasion of what would have been the 80th birthday of Brammer, who died in 1978, ACC's annual Carnival ah! program will feature a panel called Austin in the '50s: The Political and Literary Landscapes of Billy Lee Brammer. The panel kicks off with the premiere screening of "The Flea Circus," a short film based on an excerpt from The Gay Place, directed and produced by his daughters Shelby and Sidney Brammer. Next up is a panel discussion, and if you know the first thing about Texas letters, you know the lineup is an impressive one: Longtime Texas Monthly columnist (and one of Brammer's Mad Dog pals) Gary Cartwright; Brammer's first wife, Nadine Eckhardt, whose memoir Duchess of Palms was just published by UT Press; legendary curmudgeon Don Graham, who's perhaps the leading authority on Texas literature; Kaye Northcott, former editor of The Texas Observer; Texas Monthly senior editor Jan Reid (The Bullet Meant for Me); and former state legislator A.R. "Babe" Schwartz, who helped lead the Killer Bees in its Senate quorum-busting move in 1979. The Chron's Film News columnist Joe O'Connell will moderate. The event is free and open to the public. It takes place this Friday, April 3, at 5pm on the Mainstage Theatre, 2nd floor of the Rio Grande Campus of Austin Community College (1212 Rio Grande). Refreshments and birthday cake in the lobby post-panel.

AISD District 1 Trustee Cheryl Bradley touched on a raw nerve at the March 30 board meeting when she talked about how the district deals with its drop-outs and kids with disciplinary problems. "We just cannot touch on some issues, because we become scared," she said. The discussion (and evisceration of the board's inaction) came up when Superintendent Pat Forgione and staff proposed the radical step of letting private firm Community Education Partners set up an alternative learning center. While staff were impressed by CEP's facilities in Orange County, the firm has a less than impressive record in other cities, including a civil liberties lawsuit in Georgia. However, CEP could have handed out free cookies for everyone and their reception last night would still have been cool. The proposal became a serious misfire for Forgione, who admitted early on that there actually wasn't really the money available, and the debate was more a philosophical one. Every member of the board re-iterated three bullet points: One, thanks to staff for their work; Two, something needs to change; Three, remind CEP to not let the door hit their collective corporate asses on the way out.

Less than a week after the Senate Criminal Justice committee voted out their "bring a gun to work" bill, the lege is at it again. Amongst all the giggling over who does or doesn't carry a gun on the floor, the House Public Safety committee took a long night of public testimony on House Bill 1893, overturning the current (completely constitutional) ban on concealed handguns on university campuses. In his introduction, bill author Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, did the old "the reporting has been inaccurate and misleading" routine. He then went on to make some interesting claims himself. Driver claimed HB 1893 wouldn't affect students because Texas law restricts concealed handgun ownership to people 21 and up. Someone should tell Driver that 12,000 of the 48,000 students at UT Austin are graduates: Add on around 16,500 staff and faculty, plus all the seniors and mature students over 21, and that's actually over a third of the campus and over a quarter of all students who could potentially apply for concealed handgun licenses. For the record, UT Student Government, the Graduate Student Assembly, the Senate of College Councils, the UT Faculty Council, the UT System Faculty Association plus LeTourneau, Texas Christian, Texas Wesleyan Law School and St. Edwards private universities are all against the bill.

There's a hot debate right now on the Senate floor on the Committee Substitute for Senate Bill 298, which would create police checkpoints for officers to check for drunk driving. The bill, written by Sen. John Carona, R-Dallas, would allow law enforcement to set up drunk checkpoints on roads. The issue, however, is whether the checkpoints violate individual rights, creating an unreasonable stop and search. Right now Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, is going toe-to-toe with Carona, arguing that Carona's bill is unjust and takes law enforcement away from "saturating" an area and looking for drunks and instead allows cops to harass and "stop innocent people who are not drinking and are not using alcohol." Carona is arguing that there are plenty of safeguards in place -- requiring law enforcement to develop a written plan for the roadblocks and requiring them to announce the planned stop sight in advance. Carona argues that this does "not take anyone's right away." Check the action here.

Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, got a tad self-righteous this morning in the House Criminal Jurisprudence subcommittee on criminal procedure, confronting a witness from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition about whether it was appropriate in a "color blind" society to consider the impact of criminal justice policy on racial and ethnic minority populations. The bill under consideration, House Bill 789, by Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, would require a criminal justice policy impact statement be prepared for "each bill or resolution that authorizes or requires a change in the sanctions applicable to adults convicted of a felony," to include the estimated number of cases each year that would be effected, the impact a bill would have on correctional facilities, and "the impact of the legislation on major racial and ethnic minority groups." The bill, says a staffer, is just a simple way to provide additional and more complete information to lawmakers about the potential impact of proposed legislation.

Accolades abound Friday night at the H&H Ballroom, the premiere Latin music dancehall of Austin, when Sonidos del Barrio honors local Tejano musicians. With support from the City of Austin’s Cultural Arts Division, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, the Austin Latino Music Association’s (ALMA) annual event focuses on Austin musicians with distinguished careers. Up for awards this year are singer Joe Bravo and seven of the Capitol City’s horn players, including saxophonists Dave Gutierrez, Abel Gutierrez, Joe Salas, Tim Torres, and Jesse Botello plus trumpeters Jesse Hernandez and Lawrence Ramirez. Bravo performs along with A.J. Castillo and a rare appearance by the legendary Tortilla Factory, the seminal Chicano rock-and-soul band. Tortilla Factory’s All That Jazz was nominated at last year’s Grammys. Sonidos del Barrios is only one of ALMA’s numerous events throughout the year. March saw the Trail of Tejano Legends honoring traditional performers, including Manuel “Cowboy” Donley, Roy Montelongo, and the Perez and Ramos families. In May, ALMA’s Latin Music Month program will highlight more Tejano and Latino musicians with events showcasing the wide variety of Latino musical styles. Tickets for Friday, April 3 are $8 before 8pm; $10 afterward. Doors open at 7pm. Call 512-563-3697 for more information.