BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 2, 2020)
[BG Blog]
Bingham Group Recognizes Black Austin Business, Community, and Policy Leaders (LINK TO POST)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 76 - Culture Talk with Kahron Spearman, Austin Chronicle Writer and Critic (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Planning nonprofit suggests stitching Austin back together over I-35 (Austin Monitor)
With last week’s announcement of funding to improve Interstate 35 through Central Austin, the Downtown Austin Alliance is inviting the community to gather around a vision for a more ambitious plan.
Dewitt Peart, president and CEO of Downtown Austin Alliance, said the organization aims to take advantage of the state’s investments in infrastructure for I-35, “the highway that has been somewhat of a scar on our city,” to build something that benefits everyone, including those who live and work in neighborhoods around the interstate.
The alliance invited the Urban Land Institute to study the interstate in consideration of the Texas Department of Transportation’s proposed Capital Express Project. After touring the corridor and surrounding neighborhoods last week, the nonprofit research group presented its vision to bridge the city’s east-west divide using a “cap and stitch” design.
The “caps” would cover the buried highway with a combined 11 acres of public spaces like soccer fields or parks in key downtown areas. The “stitches” would add new right of way for better east-west connections, featuring bike lanes, wider sidewalks and trees.
The state’s plan to expand I-35 has brought both praise and blame from stakeholders, as did the Texas Transportation Commission’s announcement last week of having secured the $4.3 billion needed to fund the central segment from U.S. Highway 290 East to Ben White Boulevard.
Mike Rollins of the Austin Chamber of Commerce and Gary Farmer of Opportunity Austin sent the commission a letter of enthusiastic support for its decision, calling the project a top priority for the region and a necessary element of regional and national economic health.
Bay Scoggin, director of TexPIRG, had a different take, saying the project “won’t solve congestion, will increase our burden on the environment and will exacerbate our reliance on cars.” Covering the project with public space, he said, won’t change any of that.
“While the cap-and-stitch design is attractive and more park space desirable, adding to our car-dependent infrastructure has time and again shown to increase congestion, increase our carbon footprint and worsen health-related air pollution impacts,” he told the Austin Monitor. “If we want an Austin that is healthier and more mobile, we need to be focusing on moving people, not cars, and $8 billion in taxpayer dollars could be spent on proven public transit solutions. … We should be focusing our efforts there, and not on applying cover-up to what would become the most recent in a long line of highway blemishes that don’t solve congestion… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
City, festival officials share coronavirus plan as preparations ramp up ahead of globally attended SXSW (Community Impact)
Two weeks before SXSW Conference and Festivals opens its doors to the world, the city of Austin released its plan to prevent and contain any cases of novel coronavirus.
The city’s five-phase plan outlines guidelines for the Austin Public Health Epidemiology and Public Health Preparedness Division for preparation ahead of any cases of COVID-19, the disease commonly referred to as coronavirus in recent months. The plan further details policies to handle suspected and confirmed cases of coronavirus and how to handle cases spread from person-to-person in the community.
“This is not the first epidemic [APH] has faced,” said Matt Lara, public information specialist for the city of Austin’s Homeland Security and Emergency Department. “They’re constantly working on these policies ... to make sure when something like this does happen, everyone is prepared.”
APH has worked in coordination with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Texas Department of State Health Services to construct its coronavirus plan since January, according to Feb. 28 agency news release.
“We have a very good relationship with [DSHS]. They are giving us constant updates,” Lara said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Parks board asks Council to add commercial projects to parkland dedication ordinance (Austin Monitor)
The Parks and Recreation Board has asked for a change to the city’s parkland dedication ordinance that would require commercial developments to set aside parkland or make a fee-in-lieu payment to the city.
The resolution unanimously approved at last week’s parks board meeting asks City Council to expand the applicability of the ordinance to include commercial projects in addition to the residential and hotel/motel construction that is already covered. The board recommended that commercial developments be required to set aside 100 square feet of park space for each employee on-site, up to a land area representing 10 percent of the total area of the project.
The action was taken in part because of an amendment to the Land Development Code proposed by Mayor Steve Adler that would allow new developments of up to 6 acres located in transit corridors to opt for the fee in lieu rather than requiring them to create park space on their project.
Adler’s amendment would also allow the fee to be applied to projects located in a floodplain or on land featuring drainage facilities or environmental buffers suitable for park use… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Bleak prospects prompt Buttigieg to quit, hours before Dallas rally, as Sanders pulls away in Texas (Dallas Morning News)
Joe Biden finally won a primary. That kept him alive through Super Tuesday, a landscape so bleak that Pete Buttigieg called it quits on Sunday afternoon, scrapping a rally in downtown Dallas two hours later. With Sen. Bernie Sanders holding commanding leads in Texas and California, the biggest prizes on a day when one third of Democrats’ pledged delegates get awarded, pressure is mounting on the remaining also-rans.
The prospects are uncertain even for Biden, who had just two full days between his landslide in South Carolina and polls opening in 14 states from coast to coast, precious little time to leverage that jolt or consolidate support as the field narrows. Mike Bloomberg has saturated Texas airwaves, drowning out him and everyone else. And most Democrats planning to vote in the primary cast ballots early, before Saturday’s huge win restored Biden’s much-scuffed aura of electability. The former vice president was so strapped for cash and desperate for resurrection in South Carolina that he let a month slide without stumping in a Super Tuesday state — a streak he finally snapped on Sunday with stops in Alabama and Virginia. He’ll stump Monday night at Gilley’s honkytonk near downtown, after a stop in Houston earlier in the day… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas to play an outsized role on Super Tuesday (Austin American-Statesman)
Joe Biden catapulted himself back into the Democratic presidential race with a big win in the South Carolina primary Saturday, setting up Super Tuesday’s Texas primary as a critical showdown between the former vice president and Sen. Bernie Sanders, the democratic socialist from Vermont and early front-runner.
“I know Texas is going to be a big, huge part of the momentum that we’re going to feel tonight,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, one of three co-chairs of the Biden campaign, told about 30 volunteers in a Houston living room Saturday morning before going door-to-door for Biden. “It’s going to be real great moment tonight when we win South Carolina, and then the next two days just put your feet on the pedal and accelerate because it’s going to be brand new race.” Biden will swoop into Texas on Monday, with events scheduled in Houston and Dallas on the eve of Super Tuesday, when 14 states will hold primaries (and American Samoa will hold caucuses), choosing 1,344 pledged delegates, more than a third of the total nationally… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas scrambles to prepare for coronavirus outbreak now moving into next phase (Houston Chronicle)
Texas officials are scrambling to remain prepared for a major outbreak of a pneumonia-like disease whose global spread one expert says is now moving into “the next phase.” From the governor’s office to hospitals to state agencies, Texas officials are intensifying efforts to plan for scenarios that could unfold now that the coronavirus is no longer relatively contained to China and surrounding countries and the number of cases is soaring in countries in Europe and the Middle East.
“I think we need to call an audible,” said Peter Hotez, an infectious disease specialist at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital. “We need to refresh the algorithms about who’s at risk and when we should suspect someone has the virus. We’re not calling it an epidemic yet, but we should start operating as if it were.” Hotez said the disease’s spread — the number of cases in Italy and Iran, now about 900, more than doubled in two days, for instance — has made basing screening on the individual’s travel history less relevant. He also noted some recent cases have been characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms rather than respiratory symptoms. The virus, which originated in Wuhan, China, in early January but has now spread to 48 countries, has been diagnosed in 82,000 people and caused nearly 3,000 deaths, most involving elderly people or those with underlying serious conditions. Most people experience mild symptoms and make full recoveries… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Buttigieg dropping out of presidential race (The Hill)
Pete Buttigieg is dropping his presidential bid after a disappointing showing in South Carolina, ending a meteoric rise that saw the once-obscure former mayor of South Bend, Ind., beat out several bigger-name rivals in the race for the Democratic nomination.
Buttigieg is on his way to South Bend, where he will make the announcement later tonight.
The then-mayor launched his campaign last April, touting a unifying message and the promise of generational change in Washington.
Buttigieg positioned himself as pragmatic alternative to progressive Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), touting his own "Medicare for All Who Want It" plan.
He also sought to attract moderate voters of all stripes, often talking about his conversations wooing "future former Republicans."… (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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