AISD trustees appointed two new administrators at their meeting Monday. Texana Turner will take on the position of director of middle grades at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders. Turner is a former teacher and has been assistant principal and principal of Sims Elementary since 1999. Nancy Johnston Phillips has been appointed director of state and federal accountability. Phillips has been director of Special Programs/Instructional Technology at the Corsicana Independent School District and an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University of Commerce.

Lest it seem like we're ganging up on Glen Maxey (or rather, labor, Toby Futrell, and Bill Aleshire are ganging up on him) by reporting only bad news in his campaign to unseat incumbent Tax Assessor-Collector Nelda Wells Spears, let it be noted: In recent days, the former state representative has garnered the endorsements of Latinos for Texas, South Austin Democrats, and Capital Area Asian American Democrats, and he won a straw poll of Lake Travis Democrats with 63% of the vote.

Spears, in addition to the Central Labor Council endorsement noted above, has also picked up the support of the West Austin Democrats, and Southwest Austin Democrats.

So in case there was any doubt, Marc Ott is sitting on the front row of the seating in council chambers, with his family, in some seats marked "Reserved."

Council will be naming Ott city manager in a moment. We'll bring you details as they happen.

Before things got under way, political gadfly Gus Pena stopped by to shit on the picnic. He delivered an angry, rambling diatribe, riddled with ad hominems against the selection process, speaking to his veteran status, and condescendingly calling the mayor and council members by their first names. Classy!

Council has officially named Ott as your next city manager, by a 6-0 vote, with Jennifer Kim abstaining due to a lack of "adequate public input." We'll bring you her full statement, as well as reaction from the rest of the council, later today.

UPDATE: Kim's statement after the jump.

Seven Democratic groups combined their endorsement meetings into one huge clusterfu… er, forum Wednesday night at the AFL-CIO Hall Downtown. We'll present a more detailed review in next week's print edition, but the biggest highlights are obvious: District 46 state Rep. Dawnna Dukes got shut out, clearly due to her allegiance to Republican Speaker of the House Tom Craddick, and Dan Grant enjoyed a clean sweep over Larry Joe Doherty in the race for Congressional District 10.

Candidates were allowed a one-minute statement, followed by two questions from randomly selected participating groups.

Endorsements listed below; here is a key to the alphabet soup:

(i) = incumbent
Austin Tejano Democrats (ATD)
Capital Area Asian American Democrats (CAAAD)
Capital Area Progressive Democrats (CAPD)
South Austin Democrats (SAD)
Southwest Austin Democrats (SWAD)
Texas Environmental Democrats (TED)
(The Capital City Young Democrats also participated, but did not announce results Wednesday night. Several groups require a supermajority to endorse, and thus did not endorse in several races. SAD only requires a plurality to endorse.)

And it's … Major Applewhite!

Just joking. We'll bring you the news as it's announced – be it today, or tomorrow.

UPDATE: Council just emerged out of executive session to end today's meeting without taking any action (although in fairness, all they were technically authorized to do today was authorize search firm Arcus to negotiate contracts with the candidates).

With no motion on Item 3, the council adjourned – but not before Will Wynn announced the city was posted for action tomorrow. "I do anticipate making a motion and taking action tomorrow," said the mayor.

Has the Kim coup taken root? Or will Major Jelynne or Marc take that sweet ride to the third floor Thursday?

Council's currently convened in executive session, in the midst of final interviews with Jelynne Burley and Marc Ott. Last night's meet and greet with the candidates – attended by more than a 150 members of the public, including a sizable African-American turnout, no doubt heartened by the candidates' diversity – revealed both to be dedicated and prepared.

Yet the event did little to placate those believing the public should have had a greater hand in selecting the city manager. Can we now count council member Jennifer Kim among those who believe the search should've been performed differently? Guess so. After the jump, an email she sent to her council colleagues …

If the consolidated endorsement meeting (see this morning's post below) doesn't grab your attention too much, why not fill your appointment book with the last of two public hearings on the proposed interim bond issue from the Austin Independent School District? It starts tonight at 6pm at the LBJ High School cafeteria.

There's been some rumblings that AISD has been unresponsive to public inquiry about this interim bond (up to last week, the bond hotline and the website were still giving info on the 2004 bond). But one of the big components is technology expenditure, a late addition to the proposal and mostly part of legislative mandates and urgent contract changes. Since the district only has 12 IT support staff to run and repair its 32,000 computers, that may seem less like unresponsiveness and more like the sound of water being bailed out of a badly listing vessel.

A whole boatload of area Democratic groups are holding a consolidated endorsement meeting tonight at the AFL-CIO hall downtown at 1106 Lavaca (immediately northwest of the Governor's Mansion). That means you can expect a boatload of candidates there making presentations, probably every Democrat running for anything in Travis County. The groups involved include the South Austin Democrats, Capital Area Progressive Democrats, Texas Environmental Democrats, Capital City Young Democrats, Capital Area Asian American Democrats, Southwest Austin Democrats, and Austin Tejano Democrats. The meeting begins at 6pm and is expected to run about four hours.

Last week, with the Central Labor Council endorsements looming, former state Rep. Glen Maxey again went on the offensive against 16-year incumbent Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector Nelda Wells Spears, whom he is trying unseat in the March 4 Democratic primary.

“For the past 16 years, Nelda Spears has operated the Tax Assessor-Collectors office as an At-Will employer,” Maxey wrote in a Jan. 10 campaign e-mail labeling her a “Johnny-come-lately” on employee protections. “Every time AFSCME has asked Spears to change to a Just-Cause employee policy, she has refused. While Ms. Spears has kept the power to fire her staff at-will, she herself has failed to show up for the taxpayers. Now that she is facing a stiff challenge for re-election, she's suddenly now promising to ‘consider’ changing her attitude toward employees and changing the policy.”

The charge fell on deaf ears: Last weekend, the CLC endorsed Spears.