BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 16, 2019)
[BG PODCAST]
NEW -> Episode 57: Micromobility Policy with the City of Austin’s Jason Redfern and Jacob Culberson (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Flannigan attacks, Tovo responds (Austin Monitor)
On Tuesday, in the midst of a lengthy Council work session about how to construct a revised ordinance to prevent homeless people from camping on sidewalks and rights of way, Council Member Jimmy Flannigan launched into an anecdote about how his office had helped a homeless veteran and his partner get housing and other services. This was accomplished, he explained, by going through the city’s Veterans Services Office. “This is how you solve the problem. This is how our staff is saying they’re going to solve the problem.”
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Flannigan then excoriated fellow Council members for bringing forward so many resolutions directing staff to do various things, particularly relating to homelessness. Solving the problem, he said, is “not going to happen because of grandstanding. It’s not going to happen because we’ve instilled fear in our community. It’s not going to happen because we passed a thousand resolutions. It’s going to happen because we helped people.”
Council Member Kathie Tovo and Austin Police Association President Ken Casaday both wanted to respond. Casaday, who has been quoted discussing the dangers the homeless pose to police officers, jumped up from his seat in the audience and went to sit at the table in front of Council, but Mayor Steve Adler told him he would not be allowed to speak unless a Council member called on him. None did.
Tovo, the author of numerous resolutions, including at least two related to public restrooms downtown, made it clear that she was fed up with Flannigan’s attitude… (LINK TO STORY)
See related:
BG Podcast Episode 53: Budget and Policy Talk with Austin Council Member Jimmy Flannigan
BG Podcast Episode 30: Jimmy Flannigan, Austin City Council District 6, on 2019 policy predictions
City Council prioritizes changing Austin’s public camping laws by Oct. 17 (Community Impact)
Nearly four months after Austin City Council’s controversial decision to decriminalize public camping, sitting and lying down—bans on which critics said targeted the homeless population—the city’s elected officials are gearing up to vote this week on further changes to those laws.
It will be attempt 2.0 for a City Council that tried and failed to agree on amendments through two meetings in mid-September and the first significant vote on the issue since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott weighed in on Austin’s homelessness challenge and threatened state intervention if the city could not show “consequential improvement” by Nov. 1. The upcoming Oct. 17 meeting is the penultimate gathering of city lawmakers scheduled before the governor’s deadline arrives.
With two resolutions and an ordinance teed up for votes on Oct. 17, City Council tried to work out ideological differences during its Oct. 15 work session—differences that stymied the September attempt to shift policy and change the ordinances. City Council has acknowledged the confusion many in the community expressed following the June 20 decision to decriminalize public camping, sitting and lying down. The Oct. 17 vote, they said, aims to set clear expectations for those experiencing homelessness, the wider public and public safety officials enforcing the laws… (LINK TO STORY)
WeWork still seems bullish on building big in downtown Austin (Austin Business Journal)
Two well-known real estate development companies, Lincoln Property Co. and Kairoi Residential, have partnered with WeWork to develop a massive mixed-use project at Red River and East Cesar Chavez streets in downtown Austin.
WeWork Companies Inc. owns 4.7 acres at Red River and East Cesar Chavez streets near the Fairmont Hotel and Austin Convention Center. It could turn into one of Austin’s largest projects: several towers with office, hotel, multifamily and retail uses. It fits into one of the coworking giant's long-term goals of providing entrepreneurs with not just a place to work but a spot to live and play, too.
“The day-to-day development and entitlement process are being led jointly by LPC and Kairoi,” said Seth Johnston, senior vice president at Lincoln. “The project is still in the early design stage but is moving forward as planned. These are important parcels to the continued development of the Rainey District and we are being diligent in the design process.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Board of Adjustment wants to participate more fully in LDC review (Austin Monitor)
The Land Development Code draft continues to make its way through the city’s boards and commissions, making its latest stop at the Board of Adjustment on Monday night.
The Board of Adjustment is tasked with sending feedback to the Planning Commission about the sections pertaining to variances and code interpretations – the areas of code that are germane to the board.
After discussing the best way to tackle the issue, the board voted to send the Planning Commission notification to further explore the rules of procedure related to the Board of Adjustment, how city staff conveys its interpretations of code language to the board and the language of new “level 2” special exceptions for variances.
According to the commissioners, these sections of the draft code need immediate attention.
In the new draft, any changes to the rules of procedure pertaining to the Board of Adjustment require approval by City Council… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Tape Shows Texas House Speaker Offered Advocacy Group Media Access In Exchange For Political Help (KUT)
During a June conversation at the Texas Capitol, Republican House Speaker Dennis Bonnen urged hardline conservative activist Michael Quinn Sullivan to target members of their own party in the 2020 primaries and suggested he could get Sullivan’s group media access to the House floor, according to a secret recording of the conversation released Tuesday.
Bonnen could also be heard speaking disparagingly about multiple Democrats, calling one House member “vile” and suggesting that another’s “wife’s gonna be really pissed when she learns he’s gay.”
The 64-minute recording of Sullivan's June meeting with Bonnen and another top GOP member was posted on Sullivan's website and the website of WBAP, a talk radio station in Dallas where Sullivan was scheduled to appear Tuesday morning… (LINK TO STORY)
Local Texas officials balk at animus toward cities, plans for sales tax cuts in legislators' secretly recorded meeting (Texas Tribune)
The recording of a conversation between two top Republican state lawmakers and a conservative activist released Tuesday exposed legislators’ intentional political targeting of cities and counties — and their plans to make the 2021 legislative session even more painful for local governments.
“Any mayor, county judge that was dumb ass enough to come meet with me, I told them with great clarity, my goal is for this to be the worst session in the history of the legislature for cities and counties,” Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, said in the recording.
“I hope the next session is even worse,” Republican state Rep. Dustin Burrows of Lubbock replied.
Bonnen then said he was “all in for that.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Murder warrant for ex-officer says victim was holding gun, but that’s legal in Texas (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
The murder arrest warrant for a white officer who shot and killed a black woman on Saturday says that the victim was holding a gun after she heard noises outside her window. But holding a gun inside your home is not illegal in Texas, and the former police officer who shot her was arrested on Monday.
Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price said on Monday that the gun was irrelevant to the investigation. In Texas, homeowners have a right to be armed on their own property, Price said. A witness, the woman’s 8-year-old nephew, told a forensic interviewer that after Atatiana Jefferson heard noises outside their home and thought there might be a prowler in the back yard, she reached into her purse, grabbed a handgun and pointed it toward the window, the warrant said… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Warren defends, Buttigieg attacks in debate that shrank the field (The Hill)
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) cemented her position as the leading candidate to win the Democratic presidential nomination on Tuesday, aggressively parrying attacks from her rivals and turning the conversation to her own purpose.
To her left — physically, if not ideologically — South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg locked in his own budding reputation as the pit bull in the field, sparring with any and all available opponents who dared come his way.
In what remains a massive field of candidates, 12 of whom qualified for Tuesday's debate in Westerville, Ohio, Warren and Buttigieg stood out from a pack of others who felt at times like they were fading from view… (LINK TO STORY)