Earlier this month, I posted a Police Notebook entry about APD's Lt. Wayne Demoss, who was appealing a decision by Chief Art Acevedo to deny Demoss a promotion to the rank of commander because he had visited a brothel during a December 2007 trip to Panama, where prostitution is legal.

Demoss didn't deny that he'd visited the brothel but claimed that the purpose of the visit was merely to satisfy his curiosity about such establishments and that he didn't actually pay for sex (okay, Clinton). Whatever the truth is, he won his appeal.

Meanwhile, Patrick Ockletree was promoted to fill the open commander position. Loathe to make Demoss wait for another opening or demote Ockletree through no fault on his part, the city council decided that the only logical thing to do was create a new police commander position just for Demoss.

In case you were wondering, the typical annual salary for an Austin police commanders is $113,000.

For more, see these Statesman articles:

• Arbitrator: Austin police chief was wrong to bypass officer for promotion.
• Council poised to create new police commander position.