Four of the seven finalists to become the city’s new police chief are current or former Dallas cops. City Manager T.C. Broadnax announced the final slate of hopefuls for the department’s top job on Thursday afternoon, which also includes the police chiefs of Irving, San Jose, California, and Charlottesville, West Virginia.

The three who are either current or former department employees include former Deputy Police Chief Albert Martinez, who ran the Southwest Division before leaving to become the top security official for the Catholic Diocese of Dallas; Assistant Chief Avery Moore, who was the East Patrol Division commander; Major Malik Aziz, the longtime head of the Northeast Division; and Deputy Chief Reuben Ramirez, who oversees the department’s Criminal Investigations Bureau and previously was over Internal Affairs.

Aziz was a finalist in 2017 and is currently one of two finalists for the top cop job in Milwaukee, earning support from the local NAACP chapter and the National Black Police Association. Hall demoted him to major in a reorganization shortly after she became chief.

Broadnax has invited 55 organizations to participate in digital panel interviews beginning on December 15. The city manager expects the next chief to begin in early 2021. In the meantime, Deputy Chief Lonzo Anderson, the 23-year veteran and head of patrol who has been a calm and reassuring voice during recent Council meetings, will serve as interim chief ,starting December 15.

Broadnax will make the ultimate decision between the internal candidates and the external: those include Eddie Garcia, the police chief in San Jose; Jeff Spivey, the police chief in Irving; and RaShall Brackney, the police chief in Charlottesville. In 2017, when Broadnax chose U. Reneé Hall to run the department, just three finalists were internal.

Over the past few weeks, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has repeatedly complained that the city’s search for a new police chief has been less than transparent. During a recent local radio appearance, he said he wishes the City Council’s Public Safety Committee could handle the hiring process. In a newsletter emailed last week, Johnson said he was concerned about the qualifications in the job description and wondered why Dallas couldn’t hold a public form with the candidates in the midst of a pandemic. In Tuesday’s state of the city address, Johnson spoke about his desire to continue to push for more public involvement in the police chief selection process.

But has the public really been shut out of the hiring process? Late Tuesday night, not long after Johnson finished delivering his speech in the Hall of State in Fair Park, City Manager T.C. Broadnax sent a memo to the mayor and the Council that laid out how the final stages of the hiring process will unfold over the next few weeks. This morning, the city manager announced the seven finalist candidates.

The search began in October, when the city put the selection process in the hands of Gary Peterson, a recruitment consultant who has led police chief searches in cities like Nashville, Seattle, and San Francisco. Peterson first met with the mayor and the Council and used that feedback to craft a candidate profile and job description. The City Council Public Safety Committee received monthly briefings as the search unfolded, and in November the city conducted a community survey to seek public feedback on the qualifications sought in the next chief. More than 4,500 people responded.

The city manager’s memo states that 36 people applied for the position, and he hopes to make a hire by January 1. Per the city charter, the city manager has sole authority to hire the next chief. However, Broadnax says the next few weeks of interviews will be collaborative and will include feedback from the mayor and Council. Dozens of stakeholder groups are expected to meet with the finalists.

In many ways, the process mirrors the approach Broadnax took when hiring outgoing Chief U. Reneé Hall, with one key exception. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the process has shifted online. Gone are the informal meet and greets hosted by business associations at downtown hotels where council members could hobnob with candidates. Gone are the community meetings at City Hall, where residents were encouraged to visit with the finalists. Those events will be replaced by the video conferences that have become a ubiquitous part of pandemic life.

If anything, that shift online has made the process even more transparent, says Councilwoman Jennifer Staubach Gates, chair of the council’s Public Safety Committee.

In a move that most people have seen coming for a couple of weeks, the Mavs are set to release J.J. Barea, the 5-foot-10 guard who has played 11 of his 14 seasons in the NBA with the team. The Mavs had 16 players under guaranteed contract and had to get rid of one of them before the season started to meet the NBA’s 15-man roster limit. The 36-year-old was the likely choice, pretty much as soon as he signed his new $2.6 million deal. It was like a going-away present.

If Barea doesn’t play another second in the league, the Puerto Rican guard is a success story, an undrafted player shorter than me—though he was hilariously listed at 6-feet in game programs for years—who carved out a valuable role for himself on a championship team. His play against Miami in the 2011 Finals earned him a big contract with the Timberwolves, which ultimately didn’t work out. But he was welcomed back in 2014 and played the best basketball of his career after returning to Dallas, leading the second unit and forging an unstoppable two-man game with Dirk Nowitzki. In the process, he became a fan favorite—not something he had always been during his first stint in the city. And that doesn’t even touch on the humanitarian work he did when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico.

Other than Mark Cuban and coach Rick Carlisle, Barea was the last public-facing link to that title-winning squad. He wants to keep playing and asked to be released sooner rather than later if they were going to do it anyway so he could try to catch on with another squad. (The Mavs are replacing Barea in camp with veteran Courtney Lee, who is also not expected to make the final roster.) If he doesn’t, I’d expect him to make an appearance or two here as the team celebrates the 10th anniversary of its championship season. And then again when his jersey is retired, which I expect to happen at some point. The only question: will it be the No. 11 he wore the first time, or the No. 5 (his favorite) that he wore when he came back?

City Council Approves $8 Million for Ammo, Tear Gas, and Rubber Bullets. The money allows the city to enter into another 5-year agreement with law enforcement equipment company GT Distributors Inc. Council members Lee Kleinman and Adam Bazaldua were the only two to vote against the proposal. Kleinman cited concerns about the federal TRO that was issued over the summer banning the city from using less-lethal weapons on protesters, and he questioned the need for the police department to maintain 500 high-powered, assault-style rifles.

Thirty-Six Applicants Are in Contention for the Role of  Dallas’ New Police Chief. Six different community groups will start vetting candidates next week, and City Manager T.C. Broadnax has said he plans to pick U. Reneé Hall’s successor by the time she leaves on December 31.

Kewon Dontrell White Is Arrested for the Fatal Shooting of Dallas Rapper MO3. The 22-year-old faces a murder charge in connection with the November 11 death of 28-year-old Melvin Noble, who was killed after exiting his vehicle on I-35E near the Dallas Zoo.

Dallas County Reports 1,348 New COVID-19 Cases and 33 Deaths. Tarrant County reports 1,536 coronavirus cases and 15 deaths, including the first death of a child, a 17-year-old boy.

If you’ve been around FrontBurner for any length of time, you know that today is Christmas for your correspondent because today is Dallas City Council Christmas Sweater Day. This is the day on which I turn my considerable attention to a City Council meeting, and even though the discussion there might be about the proposed expenditure of millions of dollars on lethal and non-lethal munitions for the Dallas Police Department, as happened this morning, and even though the Geneva Convention and other important matters might come into play, I instead focus on what our elected representatives chose to wear. When people talk about the collapse of local news media, this is the sort of important coverage they bemoan the loss of. Here’s the lifeblood of democracy:

Since the pandemic began, I haven’t duked anyone. I’m beginning to worry that I might never duke anyone again.

By “duke,” I of course mean that I haven’t tipped anyone extravagantly—and in cash—in months. Way back in the times before our cash seemed to be crawling with contaminants, Frank Sinatra dubbed that kind of tipping “duking.” He was famous for carrying neatly folded $50 and $100 bills and pressing them into the hands of maître d’s and bartenders, anyone whose hard work might help fuel a gasser of a night. 

Me, I couldn’t afford to operate like the Chairman of the Board. When I was duking, I used twenties. Still, it adds up. And now that my wife and I haven’t hit the town since March, we’ve accumulated some cash. There’s a bit more to it than just a lack of tipping, but either way, we’ve added this savings to cash we shielded from investments just as the pandemic began. 

I don’t feel good about that money sitting in a bank account that earns almost exactly what I’d make if I’d stuffed the cash in my mattress. But what’s the alternative? Dipping into savings and playing the market right now, in a time when 8 million people have fallen into poverty, when more government stimulus is far from certain, when the fallout of the election is still falling out, and when the virus is still spreading and unpredictable, seems more like gambling than investing. It actually seems almost as irresponsible as duking people with stacks of twenties. And that’s why I’ve decided to do it. Here are a few things I’ve considered in preparing to place my bets: