BG Reads | News You Need to Know (August 27, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
*NEW* BG Podcast Episode 104: Entrepreneurship and Austin Development with Nhat Ho of Civilitude Engineers & Planners (SHOW LINK)
Note: Show also available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Sound Cloud, and Stitcher
*NEW* BG Blog: Council Discusses Creation of Austin Economic Development Corporation (BLOG LINK)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Health officials urge people to keep social distancing as risk level is lowered to Stage 3 (KUT)
Austin Public Health officials want people to continue social distancing, wearing masks and practicing good hygiene even though the health authority has loosened guidelines due to a recent plateau in COVID-19 cases.
Tuesday’s transition from stage 4 to stage 3 removes guidelines to avoid nonessential travel, dining and shopping. Higher-risk individuals, including seniors, should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people instead of the previously recommended two. Everyone should still avoid social gatherings of any size, the guidelines state.
Dr. Mark Escott, the interim health authority and medical director for APH, said although Austin is doing better than many other major U.S. cities in terms of its positivity rate, it’s important to stay the course to help both the economy and schools.
“We’ve got to ensure that by Sept. 8, we can be even in a better place so that we can not only open schools but keep them open and add additional students in safely,” he said during a news conference on Wednesday.
Escott said he would like to see a positivity rate of 5% or less in each race and ethnic group in order to open classrooms. Currently, the positivity rate is around 7.6%.
“We don’t want to be in the situation where schools predominantly in communities of color can’t open when other schools can open,” Escott said.
APH Director Stephanie Hayden said the department is working to mitigate the risks presented by Hurricane Laura evacuees coming to Austin. Evacuees who have tested positive or have symptoms will be housed in an isolation facility. Escott said he’s more concerned with backyard barbecues and sorority and fraternity parties than the risk associated with evacuees… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin shelters for Laura evacuees at capacity, city says (Austin American-Statesman)
Texans from a corner of the state that expected to be hit hardest by Hurricane Laura assembled at Circuit of the Americas on a blazing Wednesday afternoon to see if they could receive shelter in an Austin hotel, courtesy of the city.
“I want to go home. It’s hot, and I miss my house,” said Tanyria Duhon, an 11-year-old from Port Arthur.
Hundreds lined up in vehicles at the race track. One man said he was scheduled to have heart surgery Wednesday before the hurricane canceled those plans. Another said they had slept in their car overnight. Whole families were piled into vehicles, pets included.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, sheltering from a hurricane in Austin had to be different from previous disasters. Instead of staying in one or a few large spaces, evacuees would be sent to hotels where they could more easily isolate from one another.
So evacuees were directed to Circuit of the Americas to receive information on a hotel to stay in that was paid for by the city, said Austin’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokesman Bryce Bencivengo… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Historic Landmark Commission vetoes skyscraper design for historic building (Austin Monitor)
In recent months, there have been several cases of developers proposing multi-story buildings as a way to preserve the facades of historic structures while balancing the economics of Austin real estate.
On Aug. 24, the Historic Landmark Commission firmly put its foot down on the practice of constructing skyscrapers above historic buildings when it denied the certificate of appropriateness for the 150-foot-tall hotel developers proposed for the property at 1415 Lavaca St.
“There seems to be a trend of putting high-rise additions onto historic landmark buildings,” Historic Preservation Officer Steve Sadowsky said, referring to the Masonic lodge renovation plans. “This is not a concept that we want to have as a precedent for future development.” He did note that the economic realities of the real estate market are driving the designs of projects at this scale.
Commissioners agreed with this assessment and voted 6-2 to deny the application for a certificate of appropriateness. Commissioners Witt Featherston and Mathew Jacob voted against the motion.
Featherston expressed his view that he did not believe the design was moving in the right direction but he wanted to give the applicant the opportunity to move forward in the process. “Unfortunately, we don’t get to choose who protects them for us …because we can’t afford to do it ourselves,” he said.
The proposed structure for the site is a 13-floor hotel by Hilton called the Motto. The design has already undergone several iterations with input from historic preservation staff and commissioners resulting in a blueprint for a modern structure jutting up from the center of the Bartholomew-Robinson Building and seeming to float for 30 feet above the historic cupolas of the one-story structure before taking on the conventional appearance of a skyscraper.
“What they are planning to do does not meet the Secretary of Interior’s Standards and there’s no getting around that,” Commissioner Terri Myers said. These standards govern what designs the commission may allow for additions to a historic structure.
Even with strong pushback on the design from the commission, Sadowsky said that staffers were neutral on the project. He explained that although the proposal unquestionably did not meet the required standards, the historic resource is currently gutted and unoccupied. Without major intervention, he said the building is “doomed.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
ClearCam exemplifies promise of new kind of startups in Austin (Austin Business Journal)
The $2.6 million friends-and-family funding round closed in July by medical device startup ClearCam Inc. is a harbinger of Austin’s nascent health care startup scene.
ClearCam is the first company spun out of the University of Texas at Austin as a collaborative effort between the engineering school and Dell Medical School. The startup is well on its way toward a successful exit by acquisition, said Doug Stoakley, ClearCam's co-founder, president and chief operating officer.
“We went from an idea to a cleared [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] product in two years,” said Stoakley, who co-founded the startup in November 2017. “We have exceptionally strong interest from the market. It has been fun.”
The company’s success also is unusual because there are “not a lot of examples of collaboration from two [UT] schools that develop technology that eventually commercializes,” Stoakley said. “There’s a lot of cheering for us.”
ClearCam’s FDA approval was exceptionally quick, said Dr. John Uecker, co-founder, chairman and CEO of the company, which has developed technology for cleaning cameras used during surgery without removing them from the patient's body.
FDA approval for a medical device “more commonly takes five to seven years,” said Uecker, who is also Dell Med's chief of innovation. ClearCam's devices will be used “in humans in the next two weeks,” Stoakley said.
Uecker said he expects ClearCam to begin generating revenue by the end of the year. The company has “several accounts lined up,” Stoakley said. Its first four customers, all hospitals or hospital systems, will begin using the company’s product during the remaining months of 2020, he said. ClearCam will have eight total customers during the first quarter of next year and 12 in the second quarter of 2021.
Another reason for cheering is that ClearCam is an example of the type of company the city’s entrepreneurs, investors and economic development officials envision emerging from Austin’s innovation district — anchored by Dell Medical School, Dell Seton Medical Center, Waller Creek and its chain of parks as well as the Texas State Capitol Complex.
The innovation district is a coordinated effort to recruit health-technology companies to make Austin a national hub for medical and life science innovation. It combines the public and private sectors — within the medical school, there is an incubator where health-tech startups can lease workspaces and collaborate with UT staff and students.
The district is poised for massive growth and redevelopment as millions of dollars are now being invested in buildings and parks on and around the old Brackenridge hospital. Construction began in July on a 17-story office tower. A January study commissioned by the Downtown Austin Alliance and Capital City Innovation found that if the innovation district is successful it could generate $800 million in economic output and create 2,800 permanent jobs within 10 years… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
At near Category 5 strength, Hurricane Laura reaches Gulf Coast and Texans brace for "catastrophic" damage (Texas Tribune)
Hurricane Laura moved ashore in Cameron Parish, Louisiana — which borders Texas — around midnight Thursday after almost strengthening into a Category 5 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center. Its size and strength brought warnings from the hurricane center of "catastrophic" devastation from storm surge and wind damage on both sides of the Texas-Louisiana border.
The storm was a Category 4 hurricane as it swept ashore. It had intensified as it neared the Gulf Coast and at 10 p.m., the hurricane center reported that the storm’s maximum sustained winds had reached 150 mph — just 7 mph short of becoming classified as the most dire level of hurricane.
Cameron Parish is on the other side of the Texas-Louisiana border from Jefferson County, which is home to Beaumont and Port Arthur. Tens of thousands of homes in the area were without power by 1 a.m. Thursday, according to Entergy Texas, Inc. Hurricane Laura could mark the latest in a string of devastations for Texans in that region, where some are still recovering from damage caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The full scope of damage likely won't be known until later Thursday because the storm is expected to continue moving inland. Storms of Laura’s strength can severely damage buildings and homes, down power lines, and snap or uproot most trees, according to the hurricane center. On Tuesday, Gov. Greg Abbott warned Texans in the area about the storm’s dangerous winds. And on Wednesday, he told Texans that the state would not be able to rescue people caught in the hurricane’s path from Wednesday evening until 9 a.m. Thursday.
"We don't know exactly how it is going to affect us. We are watching it, letting it pass and as soon as it goes out we are going to see what we can do," Beaumont Mayor Becky Ames told KFDM as the hurricane was making landfall in Louisiana… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Why Harvard is calling bull on Texas A&M-linked beef research (Texas Standard)
Few things are as inexorably tied to the idea of Texas in the popular imagination as cattle ranching. Beef is something of a centerpiece around which all kinds of Texan dishes revolve – whether you’re craving smoked brisket, chicken fried steak, chili con carne, or just a good old-fashioned hamburger.
But another “beef” is taking shape between Texas A&M and Harvard University, with each accusing the other of conflict of interest when it comes to research about red meat in the American diet, and whether beef consumption is linked to heart disease and cancer.
It started with a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine last year.
“[The study] sort of sought to upend the consensus around the idea that there’s a proven link between excess consumption of red meat and heart disease and cancer,” said Jason Heid, senior editor at Texas Monthly, who has been covering the spat. “Texas A&M became part of that because the lead author of the study, named Bradley Johnston, was, at the time, being recruited by Texas A&M to come work there, and had received funding from Texas A&M’s AgriLife.”
One of the main critics of that study was Walter Willett, who serves as professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard. Willett accused Texas A&M AgriLife Extension of being part of a “disinformation triangle” because it had accepted money from the beef industry, implying that studies from AgriLife couldn’t be trusted because of its financial ties to the beef industry. Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp refuted Willett’s claim back in January in a letter to Harvard, saying, “I can assure you that Texas A&M’s research is driven by science. Period.”
But Heid also said that accusations of conflict of interest come from both sides. That’s because both universities have accepted money from industry for nutrition research – it’s sort of unavoidable when there’s limited money to conduct their studies… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Lakers, Clippers push to end season after Bucks protest Jacob Blake shooting (CBS Sports)
NBA players and coaches held an impromptu meeting at the Disney bubble to discuss plans following the postponement of three playoff games on Wednesday, including the Milwaukee Bucks-Orlando Magic game in which Milwaukee players staged a walk-out before the start of Game 5 of the first-round series. The Lakers and Clippers were among the minority of teams that are pushing to end the season, according to Sham Charania of The Athletic. LeBron James said in the meeting he wants the team owners to be more involved and take action.
The protest comes in response to the shooting of an unarmed Black man named Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Sunday. Shortly after the Bucks made a statement by not playing, the Rockets and Thunder decided to also not play today, as well as the Lakers and Trail Blazers.
Bucks owners Marc Lasry, Wes Edens and Jamie Dinan released the following joint statement:
"We fully support out players and the decision they made. Although we did not know beforehand, we would have wholeheartedly agreed with them. The only way to bring about change is to shine a light on the racial injustices that are happening in front of us. Our players have done that and we will continue to stand alongside them and demand accountability and change."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
GOP sticks to convention message amid uproar over Blake shooting (The Hill)
Republicans stuck closely to their message during the third night of the GOP national convention, even amid a national uproar over the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Wisconsin.
Back-to-back speakers stuck to familiar party talking points, tipping their hand to "cancel culture," warning about "violent mobs" and knocking Democrats on abortion at a time when the country is being rocked by another police shooting of a Black American, the Gulf Coast is bracing for a catastrophic hurricane, coronavirus cases continue to climb and California battles wildfires.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) helped set the tone for Wednesday's theme, warning in the first speech of the night that "our founding principles are under attack."
"From Seattle and Portland to Washington and New York, Democrat-run cities across this country are being overrun by violent mobs. The violence is rampant. There’s looting, chaos, destruction and murder," she added.
Remarks from Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R), delivered from his home state of Texas, focused on the country's "heroes," while Michael McHale, the president of the National Association of Police Organizations, warned of "chaos" across American cities.
"The violence and bloodshed we are seeing in these and other cities isn’t happening by chance; it’s the direct result of refusing to allow law enforcement to protect our communities. Joe Biden has turned his candidacy over to the far-left, anti-law enforcement radicals," he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
GOP deploys ‘heroes’ to soften Trump’s hard edges (Politico)
On Monday, the only Black GOP senator sought to convince African Americans they can find a home in the party, while the girlfriend of President Donald Trump’s eldest son vociferously trashed the nation’s most populous state as “a land of discarded heroin needles” and chaos.
On Tuesday, two of Trump’s adult children assailed the media before his wife delivered a plea for unity and healing amid ongoing coronavirus outbreaks and racial unrest.
But on Wednesday, the GOP left behind some of its contradictory messaging for a new, unifying theme: American heroes. Speakers commended nurses on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic, praised military wives who prioritized their children while grieving the loss of a spouse and recognized suffragettes who paved the way for American women to vote.
It was a night meant to merge the dueling messages that consumed the previous two nights of the Republican National Convention — one part compassionate conservatism for the pre-Trump GOP, the other red meat for Trump’s liberal-loathing base.
“America’s heroism is not relegated to the battlefield … It’s the parent who will re-learn algebra because there’s no way they’re letting their kid fall behind while schools are closed. It’s the cop that gets spit on one day and will save a child’s life the next,” proclaimed Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who spent a decade serving as a Navy SEAL, in a speech that left out any mention of Trump… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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