BG Reads | News You Need to Know (August 11, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
*NEW* BG Podcast Episode 101 - Criminal Justice Reform with José Garza, Democratic Nominee for Travis County DA (SHOW LINK)
Note: Show also available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Sound Cloud, and Stitcher
*NEW* The City of Austin's FY20-21 Budget Process (Blog Link)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin City Council proposes cutting police funding by a third (Austin Monitor)
Austin City Council members are proposing cuts to the Austin Police Department budget totaling roughly $149 million, or 34% of the department’s current budget.
Council members are scheduled to vote on the city’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year as early as Wednesday and no later than Friday.
The proposal, posted to the City Council message board Friday afternoon by Council Member Greg Casar, attempts to incorporate ideas council members have discussed over the past few weeks during hours-long budget meetings. Nearly three-fourths of the council members say they support it.
About a fifth of the money – just over $22 million – would be immediately transferred to other city departments, including Austin Public Health and Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services.
Council members have also recommended that nine divisions of the police department, including 911 operations and victim services, be moved to other city departments or be made into their own offices. Doing that would amount to a $79.5 million reduction in police funding.
Another $47 million would go into a holdover pot of money, which council members would decide over the next year how to spend. This chunk of funding covers several other divisions currently under police, such as the traffic enforcement and mounted patrol, that the council could decide to reduce funding for and/or make into standalone departments.
“The goal of the proposal is to immediately reinvest dollars into the safety and well being of Austin, while also committing ourselves to long-term change,” Casar wrote on Friday… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
TikTok planning to bring hundreds of jobs to Austin, despite Trump's order (KVUE)
Despite President Donald Trump last week ordering a ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of the popular social media apps WeChat and TikTok, the latter says it is still planning on bringing hundreds of jobs to the Austin area.
"We're proud to build our presence in Austin and be a part of the thriving business and tech community locally," said Blake Chandlee, VP of global business solutions for TikTok, an Austin resident. "The Austin community embodies the same creative and entrepreneurial spirit that defines the TikTok community, and we are going to do all we can to ensure our company's future in Texas and the U.S. Our goal is to be here for years to come for our users, our creators and for the 1,500 people we currently employ in America, the 10,000 people we intend to hire here, including the hundreds of new jobs we're bringing to Austin."A spokesperson for TikTok said the Austin positions will mainly support TikTok's team that works closely with brand advertisers and partners. TikTok's offices are located at Lavaca Street and 15th Street… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
More houses planned for tight South Austin real estate market (Austin Business Journal)
StoryBuilt is preparing to kick off its latest single-family community as the Austin area is seeing a record-low supply of housing on the market in part due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pre-sales on the 12-home community — dubbed Clementine — in South Austin will begin Aug. 18. The modern farmhouses will be constructed on roughly two acres at 5107 Menchaca Road, south of U.S. Route 290. The houses will be nestled under Heritage oak trees and built along a singular drive. Clementine will have a shared community pool.
“Clementine is all about living where you love, so not only in a house but in a thriving urban environment,” said Hank Parker, a StoryBuilt architect and development manager for Clementine.
StoryBuilt went under contract to purchase the property in April 2018, according to the company. The sale closed in fall 2019.
Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for houses is outweighing supply. That's causing prices to rise rapidly in parts of the metro.
Housing inventory in the five-county Austin metro dropped by 0.9 months in June to 1.8 months of inventory, creating an extremely competitive market that is causing the houses that do hit the market to receive multiple offers, according to the latest data from the Austin Board of Realtors. Experts consider about six months of housing inventory to be healthy.
Compared to last year, new listings in the Austin area dropped 5.4% in June to 4,170 and active listings dropped 32% to 5,300.
This has caused the median sale price in the Austin area — $340,000 — to be about 5% higher than a year ago when the economy was booming.
In terms of South Austin, Brian Copland, a real estate agent with Realty Austin, said first-time homebuyers in their mid-to-late 20s are looking to buy move-in-ready houses south of Lady Bird Lake. Low inventory, low interest rates and more buyers have created a perfect storm to drive up prices, he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Coronavirus testing in Texas plummets as schools prepare to reopen (Texas Tribune)
The number of Texans being tested for the coronavirus has fallen sharply in recent weeks, a trend that has worried public health experts as officials consider sending children back to school while thousands more Texans are infected each day.
In the week ending Aug. 8, an average 36,255 coronavirus tests were administered in Texas each day — a drop of about 42% from two weeks earlier, when the average number of daily tests was 62,516.
At the same time, the percentage of tests yielding positive results has climbed, up to 20% on average in the week ending Aug. 8. Two weeks earlier, the average positivity rate was around 14%… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Corpus Christi-area district first in Texas to cancel football, volleyball seasons (Houston Chronicle)
Ben Bolt-Palito Blanco ISD canceled its football and volleyball seasons Monday, making it the first school district in Texas to do so amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Ben Bolt-Palito Blanco High School, located 60 miles southwest of Corpus Christi, competes in Class 2A in the University Interscholastic League. The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reported the district’s school board voted to stay in an online-only curriculum for the first nine weeks of the school year. The district is not allowing practices for extracurricular activities through Oct. 3 and any possible start date for the football or volleyball regular seasons would be pushed to early November, making them untenable.
High schools in Class 1A through 4A in the UIL start football, volleyball, cross country and team tennis seasons later this month. For these schools, district certification dates — when playoff teams must be determined — are Oct. 27 for volleyball and Nov. 7 for football. Class 6A and 5A volleyball and football programs start fall practice Sept. 7. Ben Bolt is allowing cross-country athletes to train individually and compete in the district championship meet. The Houston area’s 4A and 3A teams commenced fall practice in football last week and the volleyball regular season begins Monday. Houston ISD’s eight 4A schools — Furr, Kashmere, North Forest, Scarborough, Washington, Wheatley, Worthing and Yates — are currently not participating in athletics with the district preparing to start the school year virtually Sept. 8 through Oct. 16. No extracurricular activities are allowed while the district is online, according to Houston ISD’s re-opening plan… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
For Nirenberg, plan to use sales tax for San Antonio’s economic recovery is familiar and risky (San Antonio Express-News)
When 2020 began, Mayor Ron Nirenberg was determined to use millions in sales tax dollars to expand San Antonio’s public transit system. He would need voter approval to do it and was methodically gearing up a major campaign to win that support. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit. Hundreds of thousands of residents lost their jobs. Families sat in their cars in miles-long lines to receive free groceries from the San Antonio Food Bank — an image of desperation that shot across the country and haunted the mayor. Now, Nirenberg has a different legacy project in mind.
Rather than bolster VIA Metropolitan Transit in the near future, he wants to spend that sales tax money on an economic recovery plan. The idea is to seize a once-in-a-generation opportunity to strengthen San Antonio’s economic foundation and ensure a strong, broad-based, lasting recovery once the pandemic eases. Details on the mayor’s plan are scant at the moment. Writ large, it calls for spending $154 million from a one-eighth-cent sales tax over four years, plus more, on job training and higher education for people thrown out of work by the COVID-19 crisis. The idea is that when the economy gets back on its feet, they’ll qualify for better-paying jobs. But Nirenberg faces a daunting task. He already had backed off the transit expansion proposal, deciding it wouldn’t be prudent to ask voters for support at a time when many are suffering economic hardships and might recoil from any ballot proposition with the word “tax” in it. But VIA’s board would not be put off and threatened to get the tax proposition on the November ballot anyway, with or without the mayor’s support… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Harris favored as Biden edges closer to VP pick (The Hill)
Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is poised to make his vice presidential pick, a key strategic decision with big implications for his campaign and his presidency if he wins the White House.
A half-dozen women are seen as the top contenders for the post. All would offer different kinds of advantages for Biden with key demographic groups and as advocates for a Biden administration.
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) remains the favorite to get the nod. Confidants and longtime allies to Biden say she makes the most sense as a running mate during the campaign and as a governing partner for him on Capitol Hill.
“I think she remains a low-risk pick for him,” said one source who speaks to Biden. “She doesn’t have a lot of baggage, and she has relationships on the Hill which could help him as president.
“I think in a lot of ways she could help him the way he helped Obama,” the source said.
Democratic strategist Joel Payne said Harris is a low-risk pick because she appeals to so many different Democratic groups.
“Sen. Harris would appear to be a candidate who would be the easiest to sell to all the varied constituencies that make up the Democratic coalition,” he said. “It would also appear that her pick would make the least waves, and in a race where most observers feel like Biden enters the fall with a marked advantage, a Harris selection allows that momentum to continue virtually uninterrupted.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
California judge orders Uber And Lyft to consider all drivers employees (NPR)
A California judge has ordered Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers from independent contractors to employees with benefits, a ruling that could be consequential for gig economy workers if it survives the appeals process.
Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday that Lyft and Uber's thousands of contract drivers should be given the same protections and benefits under labor law as other full-time employees of the ride-hailing companies.
Schulman said Lyft and Uber use "circular reasoning" by only treating tech workers, not drivers, as employees.
"Were this reasoning to be accepted, the rapidly expanding majority of industries that rely heavily on technology could with impunity deprive legions of workers of the basic protections afforded to employees by state labor and employment laws," Schulman wrote.
The judge said Uber and Lyft have refused to comply with a California law passed last year that was supposed to make it harder for companies in the state to hire workers as contractors, so gig economy workers such as drivers for the ride-hailing companies would receive health insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick and family leave. As independent contractors, Uber and Lyft drivers are not provided these benefits.
"It bears emphasis that these harms are not mere abstractions; they represent real harms to real working people," wrote Schulman, adding: "To state the obvious, drivers are central, not tangential, to Uber and Lyft's entire ride-hailing business."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Blame game in high gear as Covid relief talks stall (Politico)
Top congressional leaders and the White House lashed out at each other Monday over who’s to blame for stalled coronavirus relief negotiations, the latest sign that a bipartisan deal to boost the U.S. economy appears unlikely anytime soon.
President Donald Trump claimed in a tweet that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) “want to meet to make a deal" on a relief bill, but aides to the two top Democrats said no one from the White House had reached out to them since negotiations fell apart over the weekend.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), meanwhile, accused Pelosi and Schumer of using the economic hardships being felt by tens of millions of Americans to pressure Trump and Senate Republicans into a deal.
“They think they have political leverage over the president of the United States and so they’re willing to personally increase the pain for vulnerable families unless they get their way on matters not related to Covid,” McConnell claimed on the Senate floor. “Republicans wanted to agree on the things we could agree to. Democrats said our way or the highway.”
But Schumer rebutted the GOP's claims, saying the White House and top Senate Republicans were the ones who refused to compromise, leading to inaction on critical issues including testing, education funding and additional stimulus payments.
"Rather than compromise, our Republican counterparts said, 'Take a hike,'" Schumer said. "Quite literally they said virtually this in the room: ‘It's going to be our way or no. We're not going to meet you in the middle.'"… (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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