BG Reads | News You Need to Know (November 18, 2019)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 61: CBD Market for Small Businesses with Prohibition Creamery's Laura Aidan (LINK TO SHOW)
NEW -> In the Weeds: Hemp legislation updates from USDA and State of Texas (LINK TO BLOG)
[AUSTIN METRO]
As community engagement meetings wrap up, AISD trustees set to vote on four school closures Nov. 18 (Community Impact)
After releasing a plan for school changes Nov. 1 that included the potential closure of four East Austin elementary schools, Austin ISD staff met with community members to explain the plan in meetings throughout the city.
The final three of those community meetings were held Nov. 12 at Eastside Memorial Early College High School, Metz Elementary School and Sims Elementary School. The district has proposed closing Metz and moving students into the modernized Sanchez Elementary School, and closing Sims to move the students to modernized Norman Elementary School.
The other two schools proposed to close are Pease Elementary School downtown and Brooke Elementary School on East Fourth Street. Meetings were held at those schools Nov. 7… (LINK TO STORY)
Can San Diego's housing crisis solve Austin's? (Austin American-Statesman)
Donald Lewis is among more than 300 people who live in one of three San Diego tent shelters erected for the homeless in recent years. Lewis, 48, said he came to the shelter about a month ago after living in a park. But time on the streets led him to become increasingly fearful of being overrun by rodents, disease or drugs. Since he arrived at the shelter, Lewis said he hasn’t had to worry about being robbed or beaten, has gained self-respect and is able to get up every day and speak positively about something in his life.
Austin business leaders largely have based their efforts on addressing homelessness on strategies used in San Diego, where in 2017 a scourge of hepatitis A tore through its homeless community, killing 20 people and sickening nearly 600 more. Out of that devastation emerged a broad strategy to attack homelessness on a variety of fronts, including temporary pop-up shelters, large storage facilities, cleanup campaigns and increases in police enforcement of rules on public camping and encroaching on the public right of way. Many cities and private groups throughout the country took notice, sending delegations to tour temporary shelters and storage centers — among them, leaders with the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. They came back to Austin with a plan to build a Sprung shelter, a brand-name tent facility made of tensioned fabric, to house 300 people, and to mirror San Diego’s family reunification program, which has seen an estimated 1,800 reunited with relatives in the last two years… (LINK TO STORY)
Investigator Chosen To Examine Claims Of Racism Against Former Austin Assistant Police Chief (KUT)
Austin City Manager Spencer Cronk announced Friday the city has hired a Texas attorney to investigate allegations of racism made against a former higher-up at the Austin Police Department.
Lisa Tatum will investigate allegations of racism among the executive staff of the Austin Police Department. Last week, complaints that former APD Assistant Chief Justin Newsom frequently used a racist term for black people, including to describe a former city council member and a former chief at APD, were made public. The City has not said what the investigation will cost or how long it is expected to take… (LINK TO STORY)
Trump to tour Apple manufacturing plant in Austin (Austin American-Statesman)
President Donald Trump will travel to Austin on Wednesday to tour an Apple Inc. manufacturing plant and tout the company’s recent expansion in Central Texas, a White House official told the American-Statesman on Saturday.
Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook and senior administration officials on Wednesday will hear from employees about how products are assembled at the Austin facility, the White House official said.
Apple announced in September it would keep manufacturing its Mac Pro computers in Austin, after it received exemptions from some proposed federal tariffs… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
House speaker saga drags on for Texas GOP, as critics seize on drug charges against a Dennis Bonnen ally (Dallas Morning News)
The Dennis Bonnen saga drags on, subjecting Republicans to at least some political hazard as they enter a crucial election cycle fussing and feuding over whether the Texas House speaker should leave now or a year from now.
Though Texas GOP leaders want the Bonnen flap to die down, the party-purging group Empower Texans and some other die-hard conservatives continue to beat the drums that the speaker needs to leave now.
Last week’s disclosure that state police were conducting a cocaine-possession investigation of House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee Chairman Poncho Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass, provided more fodder for Bonnen’s intraparty critics. Several questioned his judgment in selecting Nevárez — and why Bonnen’s still hanging around… (LINK TO STORY)
The private border wall group is building again, this time in Texas (CNN)
A private group backing President Donald Trump's border wall has kicked off a new project on the US-Mexico border in an attempt to showcase its barrier designs and shore up support for the President's signature issue.
It's not the first time that We Build the Wall, a group founded by an Air Force veteran, has had a presence in the border. In May, the group, which had raised millions of dollars in a GoFundMe campaign, broke ground on a stretch of wall on private property in New Mexico.
Similar to the New Mexico project, the group is building on private land in the Rio Grande Valley region in Texas, a strategy that shields it from government intervention. It's also using the same contractor: Fisher Industries, a company that's captured Trump's attention.
"I think the Trump administration will like this," founder Brian Kolfage said about the latest roughly 3 miles of wall. "This will 100% change the game in Texas."… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Budding Hemp Farmers Struggle To Find Success In The 'Green Rush' (NPR)
Hemp farming exploded after the 2018 Farm Bill passed last December. The bill decriminalized the plant at the federal level, opening the door for many U.S. farmers to grow and sell hemp.
Over the past year, licensed hemp acreage increased more than 445%, according to the advocacy and research group Vote Hemp. More than 510,000 acres of hemp were licensed in 2019, versus about 112,000 acres in 2018.
At the same time, products made with cannabidiol — a chemical compound found in hemp — are being sold everywhere from gas stations to CVS. CBD is promoted as a cure-all for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, even though the science isn't there yet.
Farmers see an opportunity to get in on the "green rush." But now, some are worried that their first harvest could leave them empty-handed… (LINK TO STORY)
How a CIA analyst, alarmed by Trump’s shadow foreign policy, triggered an impeachment inquiry (Washington Post)
The lights are often on late into the evening at CIA headquarters, where a team of elite analysts works on classified reports that influence how the country responds to global crises. In early August, one of those analysts was staying after hours on a project with even higher stakes. For two weeks, he pored over notes of alarming conversations with White House officials, reviewed details from interagency memos on the U.S. relationship with Ukraine and scanned public statements by President Trump. He wove this material into a nine-page memo outlining evidence that Trump had abused the powers of his office to try to coerce Ukraine into helping him get reelected. Then, on Aug. 12, the analyst hit “send.”
His decision to report what he had learned to the U.S. intelligence community’s inspector general has transformed the political landscape of the United States, triggering a rapidly moving impeachment inquiry that now imperils Trump’s presidency. Over the past three months, the allegations made in that document have been overwhelmingly substantiated — by the sworn testimony of administration officials, the inadvertent admissions of Trump’s acting chief of staff and, most important, the president’s own words, as captured on a record of his July 25 call with the leader of Ukraine… (LINK TO STORY)
The Bingham Group, LLC is an Austin-based full service lobbying firm representing and advising clients on municipal, legislative, and regulatory matters throughout Texas.
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