BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 27, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
*NEW* BG BLOG: Austin Mayor Steve Adler announces "Stay Home – Work Safe" order (LINK TO BLOG POST)
*NEW* BG PODCAST EPISODE 80: Discussing Austin's Omnibus SXSW/COVID-19 Resilience Plan (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Top business, development groups call for Austin, Travis County to reverse construction shutdown (Austin Business Journal)
Virtually all of the region's major business advocacy organizations for the development and design industries are calling on Austin and Travis County to reverse parts of their orders that effectively shut down most construction activity.
Austin and Travis County issued shelter-in-place orders on March 24 to fight the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Austin later clarified that residential and commercial construction is generally prohibited under its order with a few narrow exceptions.
"We cannot express strongly enough how much confusion these documents have injected into the local building industry in a brief 24-hour period," leaders of groups representing Realtors, builders, contractors, architects, engineers and other businesses wrote in a letter emailed to Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt on the evening of March 25.
"The lack of clarity in the city and county orders has thrown our building industry into complete confusion," according to the letter. "We urge you to immediately amend your respective Stay at Home — Work Safe Orders and explicitly allow both commercial and residential construction to continue."
The letter was signed by top leaders of the Real Estate Council of Austin, Austin Chamber of Commerce, Austin Board of Realtors, the Downtown Austin Alliance, Austin Apartment Association, Home Builders Association of Greater Austin, LGBT Chamber of Commerce and Austin Contractors and Engineers Association.… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Council wants ‘bridge aid’ for residents, businesses ahead of federal COVID-19 help (Austin Monitor)
City Council directed staff to move quickly in the coming weeks to allocate direct payments and other forms of aid to residents and small businesses that have taken a severe financial hit from the COVID-19 pandemic.
A wide-reaching item passed on the consent agenda Thursday directs city staffers to “develop programs to support Austinites that have been economically impacted by the public health crisis, including, but not limited to, the small and local businesses and workers in the creative, hospitality, service, music, and film industries and other associated industries impacted by the COVID-19 related cancellation of major events, including, but not limited to the 2020 SXSW Festival.”
The agenda item was conceived with a narrower focus since it was initiated in the days after the March 6 cancellation of South by Southwest, which is a major economic driver for local hotels, bars, music venues and other small businesses. As the city gradually instituted measures intended to slow the spread of the virus, it became apparent that the relief measure would need to have a wider scope… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin City Council Approves 60-Day 'Grace Period' For Owed Rent (KUT)
Austin tenants affected financially by the COVID-19 pandemic have 60 days to come up with owed rent once a landlord starts threatening eviction.
With a unanimous vote Thursday, council members approved an ordinance adding another step to the eviction process, thereby slowing a potential force-out of tenants unable to pay rent because their wages have dried up. It goes into effect immediately and applies to both residential and commercial properties.
“No one should lose their home during the pandemic,” Council Member Greg Casar, who brought the item forward, said. “It’s wrong and it’s also terrible for public health.”
There had been confusion on behalf of renters and landlords about how to move forward amid staggering unemployment. Some landlords have begun offering payment plans to those affected by the coronavirus, while others have reiterated that rent is due in full… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Gov. Greg Abbott orders air travelers from New Orleans and around New York to self-quarantine (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled an executive order Thursday requiring visitors flying to Texas from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and New Orleans to self-quarantine for 14 days during the coronavirus pandemic.
The order aligns Texas with federal guidance announced Wednesday that aims to contain the spread of the virus outside New York, which has become the epicenter of the outbreak in the United States. New Orleans, the biggest city in neighboring Louisiana, is seeing its own rise in cases.
"This is intended simply to achieve the goals that have been articulated by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] and by the White House organization focused on reducing the spread of the coronavirus in the United States," Abbott said during a news conference at the Texas Capitol in Austin.
The executive order only applies to people coming from airports in the four locations, not by roadways, Abbott said. They will be required to self-quarantine for the 14-day period or for the duration of their stay in Texas, whichever is shorter… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Saving lives vs. saving the economy. Texas fuels the coronavirus divide. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
State Rep. Rafael Anchia spent his Monday evening retweeting family photos and stories about mothers, grandfathers and abuelitas. His message was that they were more than a policy consideration and should not have to sacrifice their lives for the economy, as Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had suggested. “Certainly I’ve been hearing from merchants associations and chambers of commerce about the pain they’ve felt and from their employees, and I don’t ever want to dismiss that,” said Anchia, a Democrat from Dallas. “But it is a bridge too far in my view to start suggesting you’re going to be affirmatively making calls on who lives and who dies. That is something I never expected any government official to be advocating for in this environment.”
But with stay at home ordinances locking down half the country’s population, including in Dallas-Fort Worth, a conflict is growing over whether tight restrictions enacted to reduce the spread of the coronavirus are outweighed by the economic costs. And Texas is fueling the divide. On Twitter, Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz said, “We must protect public health & work together to defeat this pandemic. But we also can’t let our response destroy every job in America.” Fellow Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn told Fox News, “We’re all trying to figure out what that balance is.” Julie McCarty, chief executive officer of the True Texas Project (formerly the Northeast Tarrant Tea Party), said coronavirus restrictions damage and infringe on liberties. “We are a generous people. We are an educated people. We are an independent people,” she said over email. “If I’m 80 years old and at risk, I don’t need the government telling me to stay home. I’m smart enough to figure that out for myself. Guidelines are fine, but requirements? No.” Michael Quinn Sullivan, leader of the influential Empower Texans organization, tweeted “We live in a fallen, sinful world. One result of which is we get sick and die. It’s either going to be from some crazy virus, or a distracted bus driver when I am crossing the street. Either way, are we so scared of dying we are willing to give up living?”… (LINK TO THE FULL STORY)
Inside the story of how H-E-B planned for the pandemic (Texas Monthly)
The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the country in just a handful of weeks. As Americans focus on the essentials—feeding our families and ensuring we have the necessary supplies to keep our households clean and safe—grocery stores and pharmacies have demonstrated just how crucial they are to a functioning society. We’ve seen chains struggle with the challenges the current crisis presents. Some stores are instituting policies limiting the numbers of shoppers allowed in at a time, creating long waits to enter. Perhaps even worse, other stores are not, leaving their shops a free-for-all without adequate social distancing measures. Staples like flour and yeast, to say nothing of hand sanitizer and toilet paper, are proving difficult to find on shelves. Supply chains are taxed. And the conditions faced by employees vary wildly by chain, with stores developing new (sometimes controversial) policies around sick leave for the workers who have proved themselves essential, and often doing so on the fly.
San Antonio-based H-E-B has been a steady presence amid the crisis. The company began limiting the amounts of certain products customers were able to purchase in early March; extended its sick leave policy and implemented social distancing measures quickly; limited its hours to keep up with the needs of its stockers; added a coronavirus hotline for employees in need of assistance or information; and gave employees a $2 an hour raise on March 16, as those workers, many of whom are interacting with the public daily during this pandemic, began agitating for hazard pay. This isn’t the first time H-E-B has done a good job of managing a disaster—it played an important role in helping the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Harvey in the immediate aftermath of the storm—which led us to ask: How did a regional supermarket chain develop systems that allow it to stay ahead of a crisis as big as this one? We spoke with nearly a dozen employees, executives, and customers to better understand—in their words—how H-E-B has taken on its unique role in shaping its business around the needs of Texans in the midst of trying circumstances… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Advisers steer Trump to drop back-to-work deadline (AXIOS)
Believing the worst is yet to come, some top advisers to President Trump are struggling to steer him away from Easter as an arbitrary deadline for much of the nation to reopen.
State of play: The operating assumption among administration officials involved in the coronavirus planning is that the April 12 mark — 16 days away — will not, in fact, turn out to be the starting gun for businesses across America to reopen… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gig Workers Would Get Unemployment Safety Net In Rescue Package (NPR)
With very few people booking Airbnbs or taking Uber rides right now, millions of people in the gig economy are seeing their livelihoods abruptly upended.
Take Ed Bell, in San Francisco, who rents out his in-law suite on Airbnb. That is his main source of income — he calls it his "gig" — supplemented by "side hustles" doing consulting work.
Business was booming. Then came the coronavirus pandemic.
"Last year I had approximately 90% occupancy, 90% of the days were occupied," Bell said. "In March I've had zero."
The $2 trillion economic relief package making its final way through Congress may soon offer relief for gig workers like Bell and Emily Kuckelman, who has been driving for Uber in Denver since 2016… (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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