Daily News Recap (2-3-15)

By Erin Pollack
Web Editor 

The San Marcos police department might add two new mental health officers, after city council approved the first of two readings for a $266,000 grant on January 20th. The San Marcos police department currently has one officer to serve the entire city. The amount of mental health cases has increased by 98% since 2012, which opts the department to use patrol officers when the current mental health specialist is dealing with another case. The second reading and final approval for the grant is scheduled for today’s council meeting.

San Marcos is making a city-wide switch from 96 to 65 gallon trash carts in an effort to reduce the amount of trash that ends up in the landfill and maximize recycling in the city. Residents that wish to keep the larger trash carts should contact the city’s solid waste coordinator, Amy Kirwin. However, residents that choose this option can expect an extra monthly charge. Any organizations that would like the city to come speak to their group explaining the switch and how to maximize their members recycling rates can contact Kirwin as well.

According to Forbes Magazine, San Antonio and Austin are named as top cities where Hispanics are doing the best economically. San Antonio was ranked 8th and Austin was 9th on the Forbes Top-Ten List. This put the cities above average in homeownership, self-employment and median household income.

Representative Tom Craddick and Senator Zaffirini hosted families impacted by the loss of loved ones due to distracted driving crashes at their Texas Capitol today. Representative Craddick and Senator Zaffirini are both authors of House Bill 80, a bill that provides an approach to the unsafe practice and education of drivers on the dangers of texting while driving. Families of the lost loved ones met with legislators and were invited to share stories at a briefing afterwards. Representative Patricia Harless hopes that lawmakers will pass this legislation in the future to make our roads safer and help save Texan’s lives.

The Obama administration will announce new rules today requiring intelligence analysts to delete private information that they may have collected from Americans that have no intelligence purpose. The Washington Post reports that analysts will delete similar information about foreigners collected within five years. The new rules will also institutionalize a regular white house-led review of the national security Agency’s foreign leaders.