BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 6, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
*NEW* Episode 98: Processing and the State of Black Austin Music with Jackie Venson (SHOW LINK)
On today’s episode Bingham Group CEO A.J. speaks with Jackie Venson singer-songwriter and guitarist, and native Austinite.
Jackie candidly details her June 12th letter (”Jackie Venson asks the Austin music scene: ‘What are you willing to do?’” ) which led to her curating Blues on the Green’s first all-Black lineup in the event’s 30-year history.
The event, titled Blues on the Screen (due to COVID-19 restrictions), premieres Wednesday July 8th at 7PM.
Note: Show also available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Sound Cloud, and Stitcher
*NEW* Bingham Group CEO joins the Austin Monitor board
The Austin Monitor board voted last week to add Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham to its board. Five days a week, the Austin Monitor brings news from Austin City Hall, Travis County Commissioners Court, and multiple other civic entities that make key decisions for central Texas.
[AUSTIN METRO]
ICUs could be overrun in 10 days amid coronavirus spike, Austin mayor says (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin-area intensive care units are in danger of being overrun in the next 10 days to two weeks if the number of people admitted to the hospital for the coronavirus continues its current pace, Austin Mayor Steve Adler said Sunday.
“Hopefully we will see that trajectory slow and we will know whether or not that happens this week,” he told the American-Statesman.
The Austin area has about 1,500 hospital beds for coronavirus patients. A total of 446 people were hospitalized in those beds on Saturday night, Adler said.
Health officials on Sunday recorded 59 new hospital admissions for COVID-19, the disease linked to the coronavirus, continuing a troubling trend. The seven-day average number of new hospitalizations was at 61.6, uncomfortably close to the threshold into Stage 5, when the virus poses the highest risk to populations with existing health issues and compromised immunity.
Austin Public Health’s guidelines under Stage 5 include recommending that all residents avoid gatherings outside of their households and allowing only essential businesses to stay open… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Travis County continues moving forward with its phased reopening plan (Austin Monitor)
Unlike the city of Austin, Travis County will not need to revise its return-to-work strategy. The county approached its return-to-work plan with an eye toward flexibility and no date certain for reopening. As a result, county facilities are plowing ahead with the original plan to reopen incrementally, with a focus on essential positions and considerations for a permanent telecommuting strategy.
“The approach that we’re taking now is very incremental and very careful,” Eric Stockton, from the Technology and Operations Department, told the Commissioners Court on June 30. “The things that have been restored in the past few weeks are very limited.”
He clarified for the court that the county has the ability to pull back on reopening its facilities at any point, based on the Covid-19 case count in the community and recommendations from Austin Public Health.
So far the county services that have restarted limited operations with in-person interactions include civil and criminal courts, Justice of the Peace precincts 1-5, Tax Office drive-thru and lobby appointments, and the County Clerk and elections. These functions, Stockton explained, are essential for the county to fulfill its legal mandates to the public.
“Essential” county services will be the next category of services to return to the physical workplace, followed by functions that “enhance residents’ quality of life.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Parks advocates push $750M bond proposal to add sidewalks, trails throughout city (Austin Monitor)
Parks and transportation advocates hope to put a $750 million bond proposal on the November ballot that would fund many construction projects centered around “active transportation” found in the Austin Strategic Mobility Plan.
The effort, led by the group Austin Outside, is focused on the call to improve sidewalks, bike lanes, urban trails and safety projects connected with the Vision Zero goal of greatly reducing motor vehicle accidents involving pedestrians.
Austin Outside is gathering petition support online with the aim of getting more than 3,200 signatures by the middle of the month, before it begins final talks with City Council members. The goal is to have Council direct city staff to assemble a project list and create the ballot language Council would need to approve in August in time to make the November ballot.
Currently the group is targeting the July 30 Council meeting for discussion and action on the proposal. If approved, the bond proposal would likely join the multibillion-dollar Project Connect on the ballot, with Council also expected to take action on that long-discussed plan in the coming weeks.
The Strategic Mobility Plan, which was adopted last April, aims to shift travel in Austin away from single-occupancy vehicles with the goal that half of all trips taken by 2039 will be completed via other modes such as walking, biking and transit.
Ted Siff, who led the Austin Together PAC that pushed for passage of the city’s successful $925 million bond proposal in 2018 is the chair of Austin Outside’s bond advocacy committee. He said the group expects to have market research completed in the coming weeks to show Council members what kind of support the proposal has in the community… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
City issues first notices of intent to suspend in Repeat Offender Program (Austin Monitor)
The city announced last week its first notices of intent to suspend in the Repeat Offender Program, which is designed to ensure that property owners or their agents keep their properties in compliance with Austin city code.
The two properties that received the notices were 2400 Wickersham Lane and 7929 Gault St. The notices outline various issues with the properties that must be corrected within 30 days of the notice. The issues include damaged siding around main electrical disconnect boxes, disconnected or damaged gutters, and broken appliances.
The Repeat Offender Program was approved by City Council back in 2013, but this part of the program has just now been implemented. The original ordinance was tweaked by Council in November 2014, and then the Austin Code Department worked to create and implement the necessary processes and procedures for identifying properties that meet the criteria.
After that, Code had to register the identified properties, conduct inspections and fully staff the program. The notices of intent to suspend were all set to go out in February, and then Covid-19 hit and the first notices were postponed.
If the two properties do not remedy the issues within 30 days, the owners could face criminal charges in Municipal Court (with fines of up to $2,000 per violation, per day), civil penalties in an administrative hearing (fines of up to $1,000 per violation, per day), suspension of site plan, permit or certificate of occupancy, civil injunctions or penalties in state court, or action with the Building and Standards Commission. Worst of all, they could lose the privilege of renting to new tenants.
Property owners may file a written complaint or commendation about an Austin Code Department officer within three days of receiving the notice… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Remains of missing Texas soldier Vanessa Guillen identified, lawyer says (Associated Press)
Army investigators have identified the body of a soldier who vanished more than two months ago from a base in Texas, according to a lawyer for the soldier’s family.
Remains found last week buried near Fort Hood belong to Spc. Vanessa Guillén and Army officials informed her family in Houston Sunday, attorney Natalie Khawam told The Associated Press. Guillén, who had been missing since April, was killed and dismembered by a fellow soldier who took his own life last week, federal and military investigators have said.
Human remains were found Tuesday near the Leon River in Bell County, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Fort Hood, during a the search for Guillén. An Army spokesman said earlier Sunday that they were still waiting for positive identification of the remains.
Investigators were unable to use dental records to identify Guillén because of the state of her remains and instead used DNA from bone and hair samples, Khawam said. Guillén’s family received the information in the company of their priest, she said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Evidence growing that Houston's main coronavirus strain is more contagious than original (Houston Chronicle)
Evidence is growing that a mutated coronavirus strain, the main one circulating in the Houston area, is more contagious than the original virus in China. Two new research papers show that the newer strain is more transmissible, a possibility first suggested by a team of scientists in May. At the time, that suggestion was considered highly speculative by many scientists, including some in Houston.
“A summary of the data thus far suggests that this strain has gained a fitness advantage over the original and is more transmissible as a result,” said Joseph Petrosino, Baylor College of Medicine chair of molecular virology and microbiology. “It is safe to say this version is more infectious.” Petrosino said that although Baylor hasn’t yet conducted a surveillance study, the area rate of positive tests and increase in hospitalizations point to a significantly higher prevalence of the virus strain now. He said Baylor is finding the mutated strain in as many as 80 percent of viruses it analyzes. Houston Methodist researchers reported the strain was prevalent in the Houston area in a paper in mid-May. The paper said 70 percent of the specimens examined, taken from COVID-19 patients treated at Methodist from early March to March 30, showed a mutation to the spike proteins the coronavirus uses to attach to and enter human respiratory cells… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas universities are moving more classes online, but keeping tuition the same. Students are asking if it's worth the money. (Texas Tribune)
Sarah Ramos has spent her summer anxiously awaiting a fall return to Texas A&M’s campus at College Station. She is hoping for some normalcy after she and her classmates were abruptly forced off campus last semester and into Zoom-based classes for the remainder of the spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.
But as Texas scrambles to address a soaring number of COVID-19 cases, Ramos is worried her upcoming course load could once again be moved online. That’s just not the college experience she’s looking for. So now, Ramos says she’s considering withdrawing from A&M for the fall and delaying her upcoming graduation.
“I do want to return to school, but the likelihood of that is teetering right now,” said Ramos, who’s working at a grocery store over the summer to save up for tuition. “I want the best education possible, and I really don't think that I can get that online. I can't get that from a screen.”
Texas universities are finalizing their fall reopening plans as August approaches. The state’s major public universities are generally all offering some in-person classes, though most schools have moved sizable portions of the fall course schedule online or are offering classes in a hybrid format. A&M is planning on conducting at least 50% of classes online-only, while UT will move almost one-third of its 11,000 courses online… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Lobbying battle brewing over access to COVID-19 vaccine (The Hill)
The race for a COVID-19 vaccine is setting off a different kind of competition in Washington: Who will get it first?
Food suppliers argue their workers should be near the front of the line. Fifteen trade groups recently made their pitch to President Trump, citing his declaration that the food and agriculture sector is a critical component of the nation's infrastructure.
Trump administration officials have signaled they will take a “tiered approach” to giving out the vaccine when it is ready and said that, depending on the results of clinical trials, high-risk individuals, people with pre-existing health conditions, and front-line health care workers will be prioritized.
After those groups, it’s anyone’s guess.
“Will it be people at highest risk? Will it be people who are key to spreading and transmission? Will it be politically effective lobby groups? Will it be people who can pay the most for it?” said Barry Bloom, a research professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
After Ironing Out Kinks, States Renew COVID-19 Contracts (Governing)
When state governments began calling for private-sector help in the fight against coronavirus earlier this year, that call was met by a cadre of tech companies from Utah.
The affiliates of Silicon Slopes, a nonprofit that represents the state's tech start-up community, launched a new public-private partnership to assist governments as they tackled challenges like test deployment, virus-tracking and data collection.
The initiative was led by health-care vendor Nomi Health, marketing analytics firm Domo, and Qualtrics, an online survey software company. Together, the companies had all been in talks to provide what they called a unified "crisis response service" for state governments — a means for officials to augment and extend testing efforts… (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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