Bring a toy to Sunday’s Reindeer Run 5K

The Reindeer Run 5K is scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. Sunday at Camp Mabry, 2200 W 35th St., followed by the kid’s 1k at 9:45 a.m.

The event benefits the U.S. Marine Corp’s Toys for Tots program and participants are asked to donate a new, unwrapped toy. To register or for more information go to www.austinreindeerrun.com.

The Pflugerville school board will decide Thursday whether the district will offer insurance benefits to domestic partners.

The board will meet at 7 p.m. in the cafeteria of Pflugerville High School, 1301 W. Pecan St.

In October, the district began handing out information on its 2013 insurance benefits, offering coverage to same-sex and heterosexual domestic partners for the first time. If the board upholds the administration’s decision to offer such benefits, it would become the first district in Texas to do so.

At a board meeting last month, Trustee Jimmy Don Havins called for the issue to be put on the agenda and said he plans to make a motion to revert to the current coverage, which does not include unmarried partners, and wants “an up or down vote” on the issue.

Five employees signed up for the domestic partnership benefits during the enrollment period. The benefits are to go into effect Jan. 1. Those employees were required to sign an affidavit stating they have jointly shared a permanent residence for at least a year and had to show proof of at least two of the following: a joint lease, mortgage or deed; joint ownership of a vehicle; joint ownership of banking or credit card accounts; or proof of power of attorney or a will attesting to the domestic partner as a beneficiary of life insurance.

The district pays only for employee coverage. Employees pay the premiums for family members, and the same practice would be in place for domestic partners.

City officials are reminding residents of the rule that requires an annual $10 permit for all residences and commercial properties with security systems.

The permit form includes contact information for police. Permits can be picked up from the Pflugerville Justice Center, 1611 E. Pfennig Lane, and forms are available at the city’s website at www.pflugervilletx. gov/alarmpermit.

The deadline to renew or register a system is Jan. 1.

The Lake Travis High School DECA program will host Dunk for the Cure, a fundraiser benefitting the Dell Children’s Hospital Blood and Cancer Center.

T-shirts will be on sale and several activities will take place during boys’ basketball games. For information, go to ltisdschools.org/page/10534.

Lake Travis Fiction Writers will gather from 7 to 9 p.m. Tuesday for a workshop titled What’s Your Genre? The Evolving Target at the Old Bee Cave School House, 13333 Texas 71, Suite A.

Presenter Pat Evans will compare and contrast industry definitions for fiction genres. To attend, e-mail austinwritergirl@yahoo.com.

Go to laketravisfictionwriters.blogspot.com.

By BenjaminWermund GEORGETOWN — Williamson County will pay a $751 fee to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for failing to get necessary clearances before conducting work near Edwards Aquifer recharge zones.

Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to pay the administrative fee for the enforcement charge, which said an April 19 investigation found that the county failed to obtain approval of an Edwards Aquifer protection plan before commencing additional work on O’Connor Drive, which runs along a recharge zone.

A notice of enforcement is generally the more severe of two charges the environmental agency hands down, TCEQ spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said.

The work in question was on two driveways along the road that the county did not originally plan to build when they received initial project approval from the environmental agency, county spokeswoman Connie Watson said.

The county submitted an exception request for the construction of the two driveways, she said, but the rest of the project was covered under the original water pollution abatement plan.

The exception was submitted for approval prior to the driveway construction, but that work was completed before the county received official approval of the exception, Watson said.

“(The original plan) was submitted, that was approved, but our error was, we had started and completed the construction prior to getting the official approval,” Watson said.

Watson said the county worked to protect the aquifer while doing the road work.

“All of the storm water was properly treated during that construction,” Watson said. “It wasn’t that there was any problem with following our plan.”

The charge could come at a bad time for the county, which has been fighting a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list four Central Texas salamanders as endangered, arguing in part that the county’s existing regional habitat conservation plan is enough to protect the species.

Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Lesli Gray said it’s too early to tell if or how the charge would affect the decision whether or not to list the salamanders as needing protection under the Endangered Species Act.

The charge could fall under one of the five factors used to decide if existing regulatory mechanisms offer enough protections for the species, Gray said.

“The service could potentially consider the information as part of that,” Gray said.