Paul Saldaña kicked off his campaign for Place 6 on the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees Thursday at the Serranos Southpark. The native East Austinite and community organizer told his supporters, “I am passionate about public education, which is a driving variable that impacts our quality of life, and it’s absolutely important that we elect leaders that will serve as a strong voice for our children, families, teachers and neighborhood.” AISD is the fifth-largest school district in Texas, serving approximately 87,000 students at 129 schools. AISD District 6 includes 18 AISD campuses in South Austin. Saldaña has more than 20 years of experience in civic and governmental affairs and owns his own public relations firm, Saldaña Public Relations.

This time, it’s District 3 candidate Fred McGhee who is the subject of a formal ethics complaint. The complaint, filed by fellow District 3 candidate Shaun Ireland, alleges that McGhee has violated city code “by printing and mailing a postcard for the purpose of political advertising, without a required disclosure notice.” The postcard in question is an advertisement for McGhee’s book, History of Montopolis. McGhee’s campaign logo and information about his campaign Facebook page are included on the postcard by way of a return address. In a news release, Ireland expressed respect for his opponent. “I would like to consider this lack of disclosure an honest mistake, but Dr. McGhee has run for other offices,” wrote Ireland. “I am sure he is well aware of the requirements of city code and state law.” McGhee told the Monitor that the purpose of the mailers was to promote his book, not his campaign. “It’s a relatively minor matter,” said McGhee. “There are many, many more important things for the 12 candidates in District 3 to be talking about.”

The Ethics Review Commission will consider a complaint against District 3 City Council candidate Susana Almanza this evening at a specially called meeting. The complaint, filed by Montopolis resident Stefan Wray, alleges Almanza did not include information about the employers of 23 donors who contributed $200 or more to her campaign, as is required by city code. Almanza has stated that the mistake was unintentional and has already been corrected. She also has pointed out that the mistake is a common one made by several other candidates running for office in Districts 1, 2, 8, 9 and 10. The commission will meet at 6 p.m. at One Texas Center. Almanza has waived a personal appearance at the hearing and is not expected to attend.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU Foundation of Texas have filed a civil rights complaint against the Austin Independent School District over the opening of a pair of two single-sex middle schools, the Gus Garcia Young Men’s Academy and the Bertha Sadler Means Young Women’s Leadership Academy. The civil rights organizations want an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education into whether the new schools discriminate against students based on sex and race. The district transformed Pearce and Garcia middle schools into the single-sex campuses. Both schools’ student bodies are mainly Hispanic and African-American. The ACLU claims that Pearce and Garcia were two of AISD’s poorest-performing schools. As of Wednesday, AISD officials said they had not seen the complaint.

Caught between a critical need for an additional judge for family court and a promise to hold the line on tax increases, Travis County Commissioners voted Wednesday to allocate $424,000 for a new court to hear child protection cases. Earlier in the budget process, District Judge Lora Livingston told the commissioners that children and parents involved in abuse and neglect cases get an average of only 10 minutes to present their case, while most needed at least 30 minutes. She also said that caseloads were so high, they had to hire private attorneys to represent some of their clients. (See Austin Monitor, Aug. 25.) Livingston told the commissioners during their budget markup session Wednesday that it had been almost 20 years since the county had given the civil courts a new associate judge, but during that time their child protective services caseload had grown exponentially.  Despite the apparent lack of available funds, Commissioner Bruce Todd said they had to find a way to make it happen. If we don’t fund this, I can’t say we’ve had a successful budget. Not only is it legally mandated, but it’s morally mandated,” he said. “I would not be embarrassed to tell anyone I raised their taxes to pay for this.” Judge Sam Biscoe said they would likely fund an additional associate judge and three staffers through a one-time expenditure from reserves, meaning they will have to find the funds again in the next budget cycle. Commissioners approved the budget addition, 3-0-2, with Commissioners Margaret Gomez and Ron Davis abstaining.

City Council Member Mike Martinez will hold a press conference today where he will, according to a news release, “take on Steve Adler’s so-called tax ‘plan’ that will force the average middle class renter to pay for expensive tax breaks for millionaires.” The event will take place at 11:30 a.m. at the Austin City Hall Plaza, 301 West Second St.

Travis County Commissioners granted rank-and-file employees a flat $1,000 a year raise, and granted peace officers such as sheriff’s deputies and park rangers a one-step increase in their pay scale. The raises, which are limited to employees who make less than $100,000, will cost the county about $5 million. Commissioner Ron Davis objected to spending that much, because it exceeded the $4.3 million reserve fund budgeted for next year. He wanted the raises limited to $750 per employee, but ended up on the short end of the 4-1 vote. For some peace officers, it’s the first pay increase in five years.

Stonewall Democrats of Austin will hold a meeting tonight to consider endorsements for five races for City Council. Starting at 6 p.m., the group will hear from candidates for mayor and for Districts 2, 3, 7 and 9. The group will meet at Smith Auditorium of the Congregation Beth Israel, 3901 Shoal Creek Blvd. This is their second endorsement meeting. They have already endorsed in Districts 1, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10.

The District 1 City of Austin candidate forum will be held tonight, at the Asian-American Resource Center. The forum is the first of a series that will be held by the city’s Ethics Review Commission and Austin’s League of Women Voters. The forum will take place at 6 p.m. at 8401 Cameron Road.

Travis County Commissioners received a large and unexpected health care bill Tuesday. According to Jessica Rio of the county Planning and Budget office, they needed an additional $4 million for the rest of the fiscal year to cover the cost of claims for county employees. Travis County is self-insured, meaning that it directly pays the costs of its employees’ medical claims. Commissioner Gerald Daugherty said that despite putting in an additional $7 million for health insurance in 2014, they are exceeding the budget. “If we’re not taking on this health care thing the way that we need to as an entity, then we’re just going to continue to watch it escalate to the point that we really can’t get our arms around it,” he said. “When you talk about our current payout actually being $52.87 million, and last year’s total was $52.32 million. And with five weeks left, we’re averaging about a million dollars a week.” Daugherty added that the number of claims above $25,000 has grown to 167 this year compared to 147 for all of last year. Commissioners, who approved the extra funds, have contracted with a new administrator for FY 2015 in hopes of keeping costs down without having to cut benefits to the county’s 5,000 employees.

Plans for a new food trailer court in South Austin cleared the Planning Commission last week, despite concerns from its most immediate neighbor. Contractor Ray Yates was representing the landowner, James Samon, and explained that they were seeking a change from Limited Office (LO) zoning to Commercial (CS) Zoning in order to build a food trailer court on the land. Samon also owns the adjacent GNS Lounge and lots along South First Street, for a total of six adjacent lots. Yates said that Samon wanted to get all of those lots zoned uniformly, in order not to inadvertently run afoul of code by parking a trailer on the wrong lot. “There’s no future development plan. He’s an original Austinite, and he’s kept this property in the family. I don’t see any future development other than food court trailers,” said Yates. Jesse Saletan, who owns the property to the west, said his land was zoned LO but used as single-family residences. He said he was very concerned about the prospect of the property changing over to CS zoning, though he supported the idea of food trailers on the land. Saletan said he would support CS zoning for the land along South First Street but not the land immediately adjacent to his own. In the end, the Planning Commission approved CS zoning for tract 1, Limited Retail (LR) zoning for tract 2 and Limited Office (LO) zoning for tract 3, as was recommended by staff.

City Council members are set to conduct an executive session discussion of the potential sale of a swath of state-owned land at Bull Creek Road and 45th Street. This, of course, is the 75-acre TxDOT tract that’s drawn widespread attention and concern from neighbors in the area. Last week, the Statesman reported that Stratus Properties “is working with H-E-B to acquire the site.” The paper put the value of the tract at “almost $900,000 per acre.”