BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 13, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 74: Episode 74 : Austin Public-Private-Partnerships with John Rosato, Southwest Strategies Group (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Trial date pushed back for Austin land development code lawsuit (KXAN)
The trial date for a lawsuit over Austin’s proposed new land development code has been pushed back.
Originally, the case was set to go to trial Feb. 18. Instead, both parties have now agreed it will be on March 9 at 9 a.m. in the Travis County Courthouse.
One day after the Austin City Council approved the first of three required readings of the new land development code, it faced a lawsuit from 19 Austin residents. The lawsuit wants Austin City Council to recognize certain landowner protest rights, and wants it to admit it didn’t provide proper notice of a hearing. Acknowledging that would essentially void Austin Planning Commission’s recommendations on the code rewrite and the City Council’s vote on it moving forward.
Austin’s land development code, which defines rules for building in the city, has not had a major update in three decades. The city council and Planning Commission have worked for months on proposals for the new code. A previously proposed update, called Code NEXT, was scrapped last year after years of work. At the time, Mayor Steve Adler said the move was necessary because the discussions had become so divisive… (LINK TO STORY)
Proposed Rules Would Make It Impossible To Use Scooters On Butler Hike And Bike Trail (KUT)
The Austin Parks and Recreation Department is set to recommend a number of rules regarding scooters on Austin’s trail system, such as speed limits and geofencing to keep scooters off of the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail.
“We heard from the public specifically in regards to the Butler Trail that there was a desire for scooters not to be an added use to that very busy trail,” said Amanda Ross, division manager for natural resources at the Austin Parks and Recreation Department.
Currently, geofencing limits scooters to 8 mph once riders reach the trail. Under the proposal, new geofencing limits would stop the scooters from working on the trail.
The recommendations come following a pilot program at several trails last year: Johnson Creek Trail, Shoal Creek Trail south of 15th Street, northern and southern Walnut Creek Trail.
The pilot only allowed for electric bikes on the Butler trail, because most of the trail isn't paved… (LINK TO STORY)
See also:
Austin landlords repeatedly cited for health and safety violations could get right to rent revoked (Austin Monitor)
José Pérez and his family were afraid of their stove.
It caught on fire when they tried to cook, so the family bought prepared food. They had other problems in their apartment, too: The air conditioning went out for a week one August, there was no hot water for a month, and mold grew in the walls. But the stove is what made Mariana Pérez scream one day, when she saw her husband get electrocuted by some faulty wiring.
“I was literally glued (to the stove) for about three seconds,” José Pérez said in Spanish. “I could not get myself off the stove.”
The Pérezes have lived in the one-bedroom apartment in North Austin with their two kids for six years, three of which were spent with a busted stove. The 200-unit complex, called Creeks Edge, is on a city list of rental properties with a history of poor maintenance. Landlords of properties on this list, known as the Repeat Offender Program, are subject to mandatory inspections.
Since the program’s creation in 2013, the city has had the ability to go one step further: to suspend or revoke property owners’ rental registrations, barring them from renting to new tenants. Tenants and housing advocates say doing so could better persuade landlords to make repairs, especially in a state with few tenant protections… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Leader of Texas’ health department leaving after a year for Louisiana job (Texas Tribune)
The head of Texas’ massive health and human services agency is stepping down after just over a year on the job to lead Louisiana’s health agency.
Courtney Phillips, tapped by Gov. Greg Abbott in October 2018 to lead the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, will leave her post March 13 to become secretary of Louisiana’s Department of Health.
Phillips has close ties to Texas’ neighbor to the east; she spent 12 years at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, and she holds three degrees from universities in Louisiana.
"Upon deep reflection, I have decided to return to my home state to serve as Louisiana's Secretary of Health and be closer to my family and loved ones," she wrote in a resignation letter to Abbott on Wednesday.
In Texas, Phillips oversaw the publication of an ambitious strategic plan for the 40,000-employee, $38 billion-per-year health and human services system. It laid out 72 goals for the agency to achieve over the course of a year, including increasing women in Medicaid’s use of long-acting, reversible contraceptives by 10% and decreasing repeat emergency room visits for children in Medicaid with chronic asthma by 15%. Phillips will not be around to see whether the agency meets its goals… (LINK TO STORY)
City launches ‘Resilient Houston’ plan to prepare for future disasters (Houston Chronicle)
No traffic deaths on Houston streets, 4.6 million new trees, and no more homes in the floodway. All by 2030. Those are some of the lofty goals set in the master resiliency plan, “Resilient Houston,” that Mayor Sylvester Turner and city officials unfurled Wednesday, a 186-page document that spells out how the city and its residents can orient themselves to best prepare for future disasters like Hurricane Harvey.
The plan addresses resiliency at five scales — people, neighborhoods, bayous, the city and the region — and sets 18 targets, along with a corresponding set of 62 actions to make those happen. “There’s a lot in there,” said Marissa Aho, the city’s chief resilience officer, who has spearheaded the production of the plan over the last 18 months. Aho was hired from Los Angeles, where she developed a similar framework. About a third of the actions are initiatives the city already has in the works. Another third build on existing city projects, and the remaining actions are new. They range from the immediate term, such as the appointment of resilience officers in each city department this year, to the more distant future, such as reaching complete carbon neutrality by 2050… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas improperly picked winners for contracts worth $10 billion, health insurers argue (Texas Tribune)
The state of Texas is trying to give away a business opportunity valued at roughly $10 billion. To win, all an applicant has to do is score highly on something like a standardized test.
The applicants — in this case, health insurance companies vying for a chance to collect premiums for covering elderly, blind or disabled adults in the state’s Medicaid program — spent months answering test questions that spanned almost 60 pages, comprising mostly essay prompts and a few true-false questions.
There’s just one problem, according to some of the test takers: More than 30 people were responsible for evaluating the responses, and they couldn’t even agree on the answers to the true-false questions, let alone the more subjective ones.
More than half a dozen health insurers — a group that includes multibillion-dollar corporations as well as local, nonprofit health plans — are protesting the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s awarding of contracts in Medicaid’s STAR+PLUS program on the grounds that the scoring process simply made no sense… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Barr to testify before House Judiciary panel (The Hill)
Attorney General William Barr has agreed to give testimony before the House Judiciary Committee next month amid growing questions over the administration's alleged interference in the criminal case of a close ally of President Trump.
Democrats on the panel released a letter Wednesday confirming Barr’s March 31 appearance, saying they are concerned the agency has become politicized under his watch.
“In the interest of transparency, we wish to be candid about one set of concerns we plan to address at the hearing. Since President Trump took office, we have repeatedly warned you and your predecessors that the misuse of our criminal justice system for political purposes is both dangerous to our democracy and unacceptable to the House Judiciary Committee,” they wrote… (LINK TO 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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