BG Reads | News You Need to Know (April 24, 2020)
[BINGHAM PODCAST]
BG PODCAST EPISODE 83: Metro Discussion with Jason Giulietti, President, Greater San Marcos Partnership (LINK TO SHOW)
[BG BLOG]
Analysis: Why Rent Control Isn't An Option for Austin (LINK TO BLOG)
[AUSTIN METRO]
City, county to work with business on reopening Central Texas (Austin Monitor)
County Judge Sarah Eckhardt, Mayor Steve Adler and Austin Chamber President and CEO Laura Huffman announced the formation of the Opening Central Texas for Business Task Force in a Zoom press conference on Thursday morning.
The county, city and chamber are teaming up to work out ways to reopen the local economy while continuing to protect the community from the spread of Covid-19.
The task force will evaluate and account for specific needs by industry sector, evaluate the preparedness level of businesses to safeguard public health, educate the business community on public health requirements, monitor public health outcomes to determine whether adjustments are needed, and provide feedback to policymakers.
Eckhardt noted that the infection rate in the county is now down 90 percent.
“Now that we have gotten to a 90 percent reduction in infection rate, I know that we cannot stay home forever,” she said. “We do need to find ways to adapt to Covid-19 and begin commerce in a mindful and measured way. And there is no better partner to help us figure that out than commerce itself.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
At Huston-Tillotson University, a stepping stone from poverty gets steeper (Texas Tribune)
Hundreds of alumni returned to Huston-Tillotson University in late February for homecoming festivities at the historically black school's east Austin campus. The Huston-Tillotson Rams spent the week-long festival in fellowship, holding brunches and crowning a king and queen. There were sold-out basketball games and festivals for alumni-owned businesses.
Homecoming is a tight-knit affair for the university community, said spokesperson Autumn Caviness, who has been at Huston-Tillotson for a decade. Many of the university's students are the first in their families to attend college, and most can't afford it without financial help. So the festivities celebrate not just the accomplishments of students, but also the sacrifices entire families made to get them there.
"We're very touchy-feely, a very personal campus," said university president Colette Pierce Burnette… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin Teachers Ditch The Syllabus and Ask Students To ‘Do What They Can, When They Can. (KUT)
The transition to online learning has presented a new challenge for teachers: how to help students deal with the emotional turmoil of living through a pandemic.
Andrew Gonzalez, a U.S. history and ethnic studies teacher at Travis High School, says he’s just trying to talk to students, rather than replicating the usual school schedule.
“The challenge is that there are so many kids that have been thrown into this scary place that they’ve never been in,” he said. “They’re having to take on a lot more responsibility in the family than perhaps they did before.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Council approves $2.5 million in aid to musicians, artists impacted by Covid-19 (Austin Monitor)
A pair of actions taken Thursday by City Council will direct $2.5 million toward financial assistance for local musicians and other creatives facing substantial losses of income due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
An ordinance change passed on the consent agenda calls for $1.5 million to be withdrawn from the city’s emergency budget reserves and transferred to the Austin Music Disaster Relief Fund, which Council approved the creation of earlier this month. That money will be used to provide grants to local musicians based on eligibility criteria formulated by the Music Commission and relevant nonprofit groups.
A separate resolution also approved on consent directs city staff to use the $1 million Creative Space Assistance Fund and reconfigure it as the Austin Artist Disaster Relief Fund, which will also provide grants to hard-hit artists. CSAP was originally created to help financially vulnerable venues with rent stipends or capital improvements, but the effects of the pandemic required Economic Development Department staff to consider all options for providing financial relief to creatives who have seen steep drops in their income… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Most Texas voters think coronavirus will be contained “in the next few months,” UT/TT Poll finds (Texas Tribune)
Texas voters are concerned about the coronavirus and believe it presents a serious crisis, and they are deeply worried about the economy, unemployment and the health care system. But they also think the disease could be contained enough to return daily life to normal within a few months, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.
The coronavirus pandemic is a serious crisis, according to 66% of registered Texas voters, while 26% say it’s “a serious problem but not a crisis.” Democrats are more likely than Republicans to call it a crisis: 91% said so, compared with 48% of Republicans. And urban voters (75%) were more likely to call it a crisis than suburban voters (66%) or rural voters (54%). While 81% of black voters say the pandemic is a serious crisis, only 66% of Hispanic and 65% of white voters agreed.
“Partisans are relying on different sources of information,” said Joshua Blank, research director for the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin. “They’re hearing something different. It’s not that Republicans don’t think it’s a crisis. It’s that they don’t think the Democrats are getting good information.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Chatbots help Texas officials cope with flood of coronavirus unemployment claims (Wall Street Journal)
State unemployment offices are using chatbots to keep up with a flood of questions from people who have lost jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic and need to file a claim. The economic shutdown triggered by the pandemic has driven 22 million people to file new claims for unemployment insurance in just four weeks, The Wall Street Journal reported. They are equal to 60% of all claims filed during the 79 weeks of the 2007-09 recession. There is no modern precedent for the scale of the claims, the Journal said.
Texas, which has received more than 1.4 million claims since early March, is using artificial intelligence-driven chatbots to answer questions from unemployed residents in need of benefits. Other states including Georgia and South Carolina told WSJ Pro they are using chatbots in similar ways. “In this particular instance, you have got to…exploit technology to support the human element. It’s critical in today’s situation,” said Doug Robinson, executive director of the National Association of State Chief Information Officers. “We have millions of people who are in crisis. The states really have to look at anything they can do to meet the demand.” The Texas Workforce Commission, which oversees unemployment benefits and other services for the nation’s second-most populous state, worked with Accenture PLC to develop an AI system for handling the load. It was deployed on March 30 to handle text and voice questions. The chatbot can understand the question and offer a reply, much as a human being would… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas Supreme Court says Abbott’s order banning inmate releases stands (Houston Chronicle)
The Texas Supreme Court acted to let stand Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on certain releases at jails and prisons amid the coronavirus pandemic. The high court halted an injunction by a lower court, which had said in its ruling that the governor had violated the constitutional separation of powers. The Supreme Court found that criminal court judges who sued over the ban were not harmed by it; therefore, they did not have sufficient grounds to try to block it. The case will now proceed before a district court judge.
The lawsuit by civil rights groups and the entire misdemeanor bench in Harris County said it was unlawful for Abbott to ban judges from doing their jobs and exercising discretion to grant no-cost bail or parole for a large swath of defendants. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who appealed the injunction, applauded the findings, saying in a statement that the court rightfully ruled in favor of protecting “the health and safety of Texans from the unlawful release of potentially thousands of dangerous individuals into our communities.” Andre Segura, attorney for the Texas ACLU, said it was “eminently clear” Abbott overstepped his authority with a ban that trampled on precedents in state law and the Constitution. “Importantly, the court found that neither the governor nor the attorney general has any teeth by which to enforce this executive order, and that prosecuting judges for following the Constitution would raise serious problems,” Segura said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Trump approved of Georgia’s plan to reopen before bashing it (Market Watch)
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly told Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp that they approved of his aggressive plan to allow businesses to reopen, just a day before Trump pulled an about-face and publicly bashed the plan, according to two administration officials.
The green light from Pence and Trump came in separate private conversations with the Republican governor both before Kemp announced his plan to ease coronavirus restrictions and after it was unveiled on Monday, the officials said. Trump’s sudden shift came only after top health advisers reviewed the plan more closely and persuaded the president that Kemp was risking further spread of the virus by moving too quickly.
“I told the governor of Georgia Brian Kemp that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities,” Trump said Wednesday, just a day after telling reporters that he trusted Kemp’s judgment. “He knows what’s he’s doing.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Congress approves another $484 billion to help people and businesses hit by coronavirus’ economic crisis (Texas Tribune)
The U.S. House passed another round of spending Thursday to fend off economic calamity as the new coronavirus continues to create commercial chaos.
With a price tag of $484 billion, the newest deal cut between the Trump administration and Capitol Hill Republicans and Democrats will temporarily replenish about $320 billion into a forgivable loan fund earmarked for small businesses, and another $60 billion for the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program, which is a grant set up to serve as a company's life support while it awaits a larger small-business loan. Additionally, Congress appropriated $75 billion to support hospitals and $25 billion for additional coronavirus testing.
The bill passed almost unanimously in the House, with only a handful of nay votes. All Texans in attendance voted for the bill. Republican U.S. Reps. Brian Babin of Woodville, John Carter of Round Rock, Kenny Marchant of Coppell and Ron Wright of Arlington, along with Democratic U.S. Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas and Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, did not vote… (LINK TO FULL 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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