BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 17, 2019)
[BG PODCAST]
NEW -> Episode 57: Micromobility Policy with the City of Austin’s Jason Redfern and Jacob Culberson (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
‘Domain on Riverside’ developers agree to house 100 homeless residents in existing apartments (Austin Monitor)
In response to more than a year of criticism and concerns tied to gentrification in East Austin, the developer of a proposed massive mixed-use project on East Riverside Drive has agreed to provide housing for up to 100 homeless residents and associated health care services in the apartment complexes currently on the property.
Presidium and Nimes Real Estate, owners of the nearly 100-acre site, announced an agreement with the Ending Community Homelessness Coalition to provide housing for a portion of the city’s homeless population in five existing apartment buildings, which will eventually be demolished to make way for 4 million square feet of office space and roughly 4,700 multifamily residential units.
The agreement with ECHO also calls for the property owners to provide $1.75 million over five years for health care and other supportive services for those residents… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin home prices hit all-time high for September (Austin Business Journal)
There's a new number to know when talking residential real estate in the Texas capital. The median single-family home price hit $406,000 in September in Austin proper, a record for the month.
That was up 11.9% from the same month in 2018, according to new data released Oct. 15 by the Austin Board of Realtors. There were 798 single-family home sales within city limits in September, up 14.8% year-over-year.
Overall, the five-county Austin metro saw 2,654 singe-family home sales last month, a 13.4% year-over-year increase, and median price increased 6.7% to $320,000. Housing inventory dropped to 2.5 months, down from 2.9 months in September 2018. Housing inventory refers to how long it would take to sell all of the active listings currently on the market. It is a key barometer for gauging the temperature of the market, and in the Austin area that is seriously hot — real estate experts consider at least six months of inventory necessary for a market with balanced supply and demand.
To dive into the ABOR data, go here… (LINK TO STORY)
Crime rising in downtown Austin, police chief says (Austin American-Statesman)
Violent crime in the last 10 months has risen by 18% in downtown Austin, and property crime by 15%, compared with the same period last year, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said Tuesday during an Austin City Council work session.
“We have crime around our city and in our downtown, as we’ve had in years past and as all major cities have,” Manley said. “I don’t believe the crime has reached a crisis level, but I think we have public order issues.”
Manley shared the data while council members were discussing homelessness, but he stressed that he had no information on whether people who are homeless played any role in the change.
“We’re working to pull together the data on actual hard crime — such as aggravated assaults, robberies — that involve members of our homeless community, either as victim or as suspect,” Manley told council members Tuesday. “And then (we want) to compare that to a similar period in time last year to look for any changes.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Calls for Texas House Speaker Dennis Bonnen's resignation are limited — but growing — as his party plans to meet this week (Texas Tribune)
A small but growing bipartisan group of Texas House members have called for Speaker Dennis Bonnen to resign after a secret recording of the GOP leader meeting with a conservative activist was released this week.
Just as notably, not a single member of the House has publicly expressed support for Bonnen, who said at that June meeting with Michael Quinn Sullivan that he has a list of Republican members “to go pop” in 2020 and that he finds one Democrat “vile” and another “a piece of shit.”
That recording and the silence among most members that followed its release Tuesday have stoked speculation about where exactly the speaker stands with his 149 colleagues — and whether the damage Bonnen did can be repaired… (LINK TO STORY)
Medicinal cannabis prescriptions rise 65 percent as Texas expands program (San Antonio Express-News)
Texas doctors have prescribed medicinal cannabis to almost 1,000 patients, a 65-percent jump since the end of last year, according to newly released numbers from the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the Texas therapeutic marijuana program.
The growth comes as the state recently opened the program to cover a host of new patients with ailments including terminal cancer and autism. Previously, only those with uncontrollable epileptic seizures could get access to cannabidiol that is low in THC, the element that gives people a high. “I'm glad to see more patients accessing cannabis through the compassionate use program, even though our numbers still pale in comparison to other states that allow more comprehensive access,” said Heather Fazio, Executive Director of the Texas Marijuana Policy Project… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas AG: San Antonio can keep scooter proposals secret (San Antonio Express-News)
As expected, the Texas Attorney General’s Office has ruled against the efforts of three news organizations to use the state’s open records law to obtain proposals submitted by nine electric scooter companies seeking two-year contracts with San Antonio.
The applications in response to the city’s request for proposals, or RFP, contain minutely-detailed business profiles of the scooter companies -- some more than 100 pages. They took months to prepare and answer a host of questions from the city on everything from staffing, insurance and user agreements to where the firms would deploy their vehicles. San Antonio plans to award three contracts sometime this fall to reduce the number of scooter companies now operating under a temporary set of rules, allowing each of the winners to rent up to 1,666 so-called dockless vehicles… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
J&J Makes $4 Billion Opioid Offer as Distributors Seek Deal (Bloomberg)
Johnson & Johnson has offered to pay $4 billion to settle all claims accusing the company of helping fuel the U.S. opioid epidemic, as part of a potentially larger deal involving drugmakers and distributors that could top $20 billion.
J&J’s overture came on the heels of a proposal by distributors McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health Inc. and AmerisourceBergen Corp. to pay $18 billion to wipe out all opioid suits against those companies, according to people familiar with the proposal. The Wall Street Journal first reported the distributors’ offer Tuesday. The money would be paid out in annual $1 billion increments, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the negotiations are private… (LINK STORY)
U.S. House, including most Texas members, votes in disapproval of Trump's Syria actions (Texas Tribune)
The U.S. House, including several members from Texas, overwhelmingly passed a resolution Wednesday that condemned President Donald Trump's latest actions in the war-torn country of Syria.
The legislation put 354 House members — a bipartisan majority of the Texas delegation among them — on the record opposing Trump's decision to pull American troops out of Syria. That policy shift created an opening for Turkey to invade the northern Syrian regions held by longtime allies of the United States, the Kurds.
All Texas Democrats backed the resolution, as did most Texas Republicans… (LINK TO STORY)