BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 27, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast Special Episode - Discussing the FY2021 City of Austin Budget Talk #2 (SHOW LINK)
Note: Show also available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Sound Cloud, and Stitcher
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Police release two people who fired handguns in deadly incident during protest (KUT)
Both people who opened fire during an incident that led to the death of a man at a Black Lives Matter protest in downtown Austin on Saturday night have been released after questioning. Both shooters reported themselves to police, according to Austin Police Chief Brian Manley.
One shooter is believed to be the driver of a vehicle that drove toward a crowd of protesters and shot 28-year-old Garrett Foster, who was shot multiple times and died. The other was in the crowd and shot at the car as it left the scene, Manley said during a press conference on Sunday.
Protesters were marching along Congress Avenue just before 10 p.m. when a vehicle drove toward them at the intersection of Congress and Fourth Street, according to a Facebook Live video. Protesters crowded around the car and several gunshots rang out.
Manley said according to an initial investigation of the incident, the motorist shot Foster, who was carrying a rifle “and may have pointed his weapon at the driver of this vehicle prior to being shot.” As the motorist began driving away, an individual in the crowd drew their concealed handgun and fired shots at the car… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
For first time in nearly a decade, Austin office rent growth falls below national average (Austin Business Journal)
Office rent growth in the Austin area fell below the national average in the second quarter for the first time in nearly a decade, according to CoStar Group Inc.
Rents grew by less than 1.2% year-over-year in the five-country Austin metro. It's the first time the rate has been below the national average, which was 1.4% in the second quarter, since 2011. The rise in sublease space hitting the market and a dramatic slowdown in leasing activity amid the Covid-19 pandemic are to blame, CoStar Central Texas Economist Sam Tenenbaum said.
“Rents aren’t falling, but they aren’t growing nearly as fast as they had been,” Tenenbaum said.
That’s good news for companies in the market looking to secure office space right now or renew leases. On the other side, though, as office vacancy and sublease space ticks up and more new buildings are finished, competition will increase among landlords, diminishing their pricing power… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Formula One cancels U.S. Grand Prix at COTA due to COVID-19 concerns (KXAN News)
Circuit of the Americas confirmed a BBC report earlier Friday that Formula One canceled the U.S Grand Prix in Austin due to COVID-19 concerns.
“The cancellation is prudent, but painful,” Bobby Epstein, COTA founding partner, said in a release on Twitter.
“It is my hope that the pandemic will soon pass and we will celebrate 2021 with the greatest Formula One United States Grand Prix ever,” Epstein said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
With 1,000 new coronavirus fatalities in Texas in just 6 days, the state's death count is rising faster (Texas Tribune)
Texas reached another grim milestone Sunday when it surpassed 5,000 deaths from the new coronavirus. In doing so, the state reported 1,000 deaths in six days, four days faster than it took to hit that total the previous time.
According to state health data released Sunday, 5,038 people in Texas had died from the virus. That’s 153 more deaths than the day before and 1,080 more than a week ago. Public health experts have said that reported totals are likely to be an undercount because not all people who died with coronavirus symptoms were tested.
Since July 20, when Texas passed 4,000 deaths, some Rio Grande Valley counties have seen significant increases in the number of people dying from COVID-19. That part of the state— among the hardest-hit parts of Texas — has a larger share of Hispanic residents than many other areas… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
As COVID cases exploded, workers on Texas' $295 million contact tracing deal did little to no work (Houston Chronicle)
Just as coronavirus infections began rising a few weeks ago in Texas, contract workers hired by the state to track down exposed Texans were spending hours doing little or no work, received confusing or erroneous instructions and often could not give people the advice they expected, interviews and records indicate. Health authorities around Texas also say they are running into technical snags with new contact tracing software the state has deployed, known as Texas Health Trace, saying it isn’t ready for widespread use in their counties. The chaotic beginning and technical glitches — combined with exploding case counts and widespread testing delays — have undermined the goals of boosting COVID-19 monitoring statewide and the state’s massive deal for a privatized contact tracing workforce.
“I know that a lot of local health departments are still trying to figure out how to utilize that contract and some have decided to do the work on their own,” said David Lakey, chief medical officer at the University of Texas System and former commissioner of the Department of State Health Services (DSHS). “There is concern with local health department individuals I've talked to related to how they are going to benefit related to this large investment from the state.” DSHS said problems identified by the Houston Chronicle have since been fixed and that “every week” more counties are using its software. Gov. Greg Abbott’s office said months ago that robust contact tracing capacity would help Texas “box in” the coronavirus. But after the state reopened its economy, infections, hospitalizations and deaths skyrocketed, making it impossible for many health departments to keep up with contact tracing. “
When you kind of jump the gun a little bit and open too soon, and you skip the processes that need to be in place, this kind of thing happens,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said. “You might have the most successfully designed contact tracing program or you may not, but honestly it's not gonna make a difference because you're setting yourself up to fail.” At the state level, Texas moved to ramp up and modernize contact tracing in May, when the Texas Health and Human Services Commission quietly awarded a $295 million contact tracing deal to little-known MTX Group, a tech startup that has a headquarters in North Texas. Abbott’s office has staunchly defended the emergency expenditure, but it’s been controversial from the get-go… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Harris County orders schools closed until Sept. 8 (Texas Tribune)
Texas' most populous county ordered Friday that all public and nonreligious private schools stay closed and provide online learning until after Labor Day due to concern over the continued spread of the new coronavirus.
A joint public health order from Harris County and city of Houston health officials states schools must remain closed until at least Sept. 8. But the order could be extended beyond that date, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.
"We are all desperate to move on from this crisis and get life back to normal. September 8 is still likely too soon, but the truth is, the fastest way we can all work together to bring this virus under control, the sooner we will be in a position to reopen again for the long term,” Hidalgo said in a written statement… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
State unemployment agencies could take months to adapt to WH proposal, memos show (NPR)
Ancient state unemployment systems that struggled to handle the first round of COVID-19 relief payments could take months or more to adopt a White House proposal for modifying the benefits, according to memos obtained by NPR.
Such a lag could mean that the roughly 30 million people currently collecting pandemic-related unemployment benefits would see their income drop from a weekly average of $900 to an average of $300 per week.
The proposal would cut emergency unemployment benefits to roughly 70% of a person's lost wages — a more complicated calculation than the current, flat $600.
Critics have warned since March that such a proposal would undermine efforts to speed relief to millions of people out of work due to the coronavirus. The potential delays are so significant that the U.S. Department of Labor told Congress in May that it "strongly" opposed such a change because states would find it "exceedingly difficult if not impossible to implement."
The National Association of State Workforce Agencies told lawmakers on Capitol Hill that it would take most states eight to 20 weeks to move to a system of awarding weekly benefits on a sliding scale based on the worker's wages before losing their job, according to a copy of the memo obtained by NPR… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
40 million Americans face student loan cliff (Politico)
The federal government’s emergency relief for more than 40 million student loan borrowers is set to expire at the end of September, amid sky-high levels of unemployment and an overall economy still stifled by rising coronavirus cases.
The looming end of the benefits also comes with a clear political dilemma in an election year: Unless Congress or the Trump administration intervenes, the Education Department will demand monthly loan payments from tens of millions of borrowers in October, just before they head to the polls. The department is already preparing to send warnings to borrowers, starting Aug. 15, about the expiration of their benefits, according to people familiar with the plan.
“People have now priced into their family finances not having to make a student loan payment during this crisis,” said Mike Pierce, who worked on student loan policy at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau during the Obama administration. “Restarting these payments six weeks before the election seems like a fast way to alienate tens of millions of voters with student loans.”
Both Republicans and Democrats have touted the student loan relief, which was included in the CARES Act in March, to their constituents over the past several months. But it’s not yet clear whether they will come to a bipartisan agreement in the coming weeks on what to do when the sweeping reprieve for borrowers comes to an end… (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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