› South by Southwest Music Festival Creative Director Brent Grulke, 51, died of a heart attack Monday morning following oral surgery. A pillar of the Austin music community, he went from writing about local bands to working for them and finally booking thousands of them for SXSW. For more, see “Playback.”
› City Council meets today (Thursday), after an already busy public week – closer to settling the November ballot for charter amendments, and perhaps deciding the final few projects on a $385 million bond package. See “Council: Follow the Props and the Money.”
› Council Member Bill Spelman entered the hospital for surgery last week to remove a tumor on his pancreas. Spelman plans to return to the dais and his LBJ School teaching in a few weeks.
› Austin ISD Board President Mark Williams will not be running for re-election; his surprise exit leaves two empty seats and two challenged incumbents on the November ballot.
› Central Health was expected to vote Wednesday evening to endorse state Sen. Kirk Watson‘s proposal to put a five-cent property tax increase on the November ballot, to help underwrite an Austin medical school.
› Former Travis County Medical Examiner Roberto Bayardo says the state’s theory of the 1996 murder of Stacey Stites is wrong and that it misused his testimony to bolster its case against Rodney Reed. For more see “Medical Examiner: Testimony Misconstrued in Rodney Reed Case,” Newsdesk, Aug. 14.
› A federal judge in East Texas ruled Friday that a lawsuit brought against Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast may go forward. A former employee alleges that the nonprofit tried to “maximize profits” by billing government programs for services never rendered to clients.
› A flood of support for UT’s admissions process hit the U.S. Supreme Court this week; an upcoming case challenges the school’s use of race and ethnicity as part of the selection process. See “Point Austin.”
› Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann and a bystander were killed Monday when Thomas Caffall, 35, opened fire after Bachmann tried to serve him with eviction papers at his College Station home. Caffall was killed as police returned fire.
› The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency overreached when it replaced the “flexible permit” program installed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality with more stringent standards. Though the TCEQ welcomed the decision, most of the 140 companies covered by the flexible permits have since applied for federal permits, leaving only a handful in noncompliance.
› U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has started taking applications for work cards under the new federal deferred action program, designed to help people brought to the U.S. as kids. Visit www.uscis.gov/ChildhoodArrivals for more.
This article appears in August 17 • 2012.