BG Reads | News You Need to Know (September 24, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
*NEW* BG Podcast Episode 108: Industry Update with Skeeter Miller, President, Greater Austin Restaurant Association (SHOW LINK)
*NEW* Job Posting: Local Government Affairs Program Manager (Austin-Bergstrom International Airport)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin could make downtown density bonuses more accessible for developers (Austin Business Journal)
It could soon be easier for developers who otherwise wouldn’t qualify to participate in the Austin's Downtown Density Bonus Program.
City officials are considering an option for developers to pay fees instead of meeting the program’s Great Streets improvement requirements because of state transportation department right-of-way, site constraints or jurisdictional opposition, according to a Sept. 22 memo from Austin Transportation Department Director Robert Spillar.
The recommendation follows a March request from Council for City Manager Spencer Cronk to find a way to establish a fund for the fees-in-lieu and a process for allocating the funds. And the debate about the program sits against the wider backdrop of overhauling Austin's land development code, a longtime priority of city leaders that has ground to a halt because of an ongoing lawsuit and the pandemic.
The DDBP allows developers to build denser or higher than is typically allowed at a site if they provide community benefits like high-quality building and affordable housing. The Great Streets requirement of the program is aimed at improving the quality of downtown streets and sidewalks, and developers are offered financial assistance as an incentive to participate.
In recent years, the Texas Department of Transportation has blocked Great Streets improvements in state right-of-way for developers that wanted to participate in the DDBP, according to city documents. This recommendation would give developers another option.
Spillar said in the memo that the size of the fee would be up to the city of Austin, but a city department, such as ATD, could keep an annual evaluation of the cost estimates on record for calculating a development’s total fee.
Spillar also suggested that the funds could be used for various capital improvement projects.
The city is already using a fees-in-lieu structure for traffic mitigation that Spillar said Council could model for the DDBP.
"ATD continues to refine and streamline methods of fee-in-lieu collection to make it as convenient as possible for applicants," he said in the memo. "This fee-in-lieu funded account has become a critical resource to ATD project implementations."… (LINK TO STORY)
After filing Travis County site plans, Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks to new gigafactory’s place in the company (Community Impact)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke briefly on the development progress at the electric carmaker’s Travis County gigafactory at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting Sept. 22. The upcoming gigafactory, referred to by Musk as “Giga Texas,” is developing quickly, Musk said at the meeting, several weeks after initial site plans were filed with Travis County.
Musk delivered his update on Tesla’s progress in the last fiscal year to a sea of his own company’s cars, occupied by shareholders, in Fremont, California, where Tesla is headquartered. A chorus of celebratory beeps were emitted in lieu of applause from the crowd when Musk mentioned Giga Texas.
Tesla is also currently constructing factories in Shanghai and Berlin. Building factories on numerous continents, Musk said, would boost the company financially, as would additional facilities in North America.
“For Giga Texas in Austin, even if we [manufactured] exactly the same cars as in California, it would still be advantageous to do it there because it’s roughly two-thirds of the way across the U.S., so in terms of delivering cars to the central U.S. and to the East Coast, it’s faster and costs less, and it fundamentally improves our economics,” Musk said.
Tesla has announced the southeastern Travis County factory will produce the new Cybertruck—for which Musk said Tesla has already received around 600,000 orders—and the Model Y car. Site plans filed with the county outline a 7.9 million-square-foot manufacturing facility. The current site plans account for development on 280 acres of the 2,100-acre property Tesla purchased at the intersection of SH 130 and Harold Green Road… (LINK TO STORY)
City of Austin starts suspending negligent landlords' right to rent vacant apartments (KUT)
The City of Austin’s Code Department has told eight landlords they no longer have the right to rent to new tenants after the city says they failed to comply with permitting requirements and rectify dozens of health and safety violations.
“Our goal is to make sure that Austin residents are living in safe conditions,” Code Department Interim Director José Roig said in a press release in June, when the city suspended the first licenses. “This is one measure that we can take, but ultimately what we want to achieve is compliance and to create safe living conditions.”
The city maintains a list of rental properties where landlords have been cited numerous times for things that might endanger the health of a renter. It’s part of the Repeat Offender Program, created by the City Council in 2013, and allows the Code Department to charge landlords an annual fee and do regular inspections of a property… (LINK TO STORY)
Jay Hartzell named UT Austin president (Austin American-Statesman)
The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted unanimously Wednesday to name Jay Hartzell the next president of the University of Texas at Austin. Hartzell has served as interim president of the flagship institution since June 1, when Gregory L. Fenves left to serve as president of Emory University in Atlanta. The board voted in August to make Hartzell the sole finalist for the position. “When the office of the president became available during the middle of the pandemic crisis, the Board of Regents knew we needed a strong leader to step in as interim,” said board chairman Kevin Eltife. “Without question, the first person that came to mind was Jay Hartzell.”
“Seeing President Hartzell work and provide leadership during his time as interim president over the past few months compelled this board to name him the sole finalist for the job,” he said. Before his promotion to interim president, Hartzel served as dean of the McCombs School of Business, where he had previously worked as an instructor since 2002. Hartzell, who was born in Kansas and grew up in Oklahoma, first came to UT in 1998 to receive his doctorate in finance. In an email to the student body on Wednesday, Hartzell called his appointment “the honor of a lifetime.”
“I’ve spent nearly 25 years on the Forty Acres,” he wrote. “So I know, as one alum told me recently, that you never bet against Texas. I can’t wait to see all that we are able to achieve in the months and years ahead.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas Republicans sue to stop Gov. Greg Abbott's extension of early voting period during the pandemic (Texas Tribune)
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is facing a lawsuit over his extension of early voting for the November election from prominent members of his own party — including state party Chair Allen West, Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and members of the Texas Legislature.
In July, Abbott added six days to the early voting period, moving the start date up to Oct. 13 from Oct. 19, citing the coronavirus pandemic. In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday with the state Supreme Court, Abbott's intraparty critics say the move defied election law that requires early voting to start on the 17th day before the election.
It is the latest legal challenge to Abbott's emergency powers, which he has wielded aggressively in dealing with the pandemic.
"Governor Abbott seems to have forgotten that the Texas Constitution is not a document that he consults at his convenience," Jared Woodfill, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in a statement. "It is an uninterrupted charter of governmental structure that limits the Governor Abbott’s ability to act as a king."
The plaintiffs argue Abbott needs to consult the Legislature before making such decisions and that "if ever a special session was justified, now is the time.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Unreliable Texas COVID data spotlights ‘decades worth of underfunding’ (Houston Chronicle)
At the height of the coronavirus outbreak this summer, Texas health officials were scrambling to overcome data backlogs and inconsistencies that clouded the toll of the virus and eroded trust among local leaders. But while the Department of State Health Services says it has worked through the most pressing issues, many of its struggles run deeper — the result of years of underfunding, a fragmented public health system, and reluctance from agency officials and lawmakers to modernize the state's disease reporting system, according to interviews with current and former state and local health employees. Today, Texas spends among the least per capita on public health of any state, less than a quarter of what is spent in California and New York.
“You can't underfund public health chronically and then, when a major pandemic occurs, say well why don't you have this right?” said Vinny Taneja, public health director in Tarrant County. “That is decades worth of underfunding in an area that is critical, critical infrastructure.” The state has one of the most decentralized public health systems in the country, delegating near complete control to 57 local jurisdictions. Public health experts said that usually works because Texas is large and geographically diverse. But in similar states, and in cities such as Houston, officials have opted to purchase their own disease reporting systems, which they say make it easier to adapt to new diseases and gather data in real time.
Texas is the only largely populated state still using the free, entry-level reporting system provided by the federal government, commonly called NEDSS. At the beginning of the pandemic, it had no way of electronically tracking case investigations or conducting contact tracing, where close contacts of those infected are tracked down and advised to self-isolate. In April, the health agency rushed to build a separate system for those critical operations, called Texas Health Trace, which they have so far paid $1.1 million to develop. Months later, some local health departments are still working to sync their databases with it… (LINK TO STORY)
Dallas City Council cuts overtime for police but resists push for broader defunding (Texas Tribune)
The Dallas City Council voted Wednesday to approve an annual budget that increased spending on its police department, but only after amending the spending plan to cut $7 million from the $24 million that would have been marked for overtime pay for police.
Much of the overtime cuts were reallocated for other purposes in the department, including more than $3.8 million to hire nearly 100 civilian workers. Other new spending will go toward addressing root causes of crime and improving street lighting.
The exact amount that the police budget went up was not immediately clear Wednesday night due to amendments made to the budget late in the council meeting. Dallas’ current police budget includes more than $500 million.
Dallas’ vote came amid a political battle over police spending after a summer of unrest and protests across Texas and the nation against police brutality and racial injustice. Protests against police brutality have been happening in Dallas and across the nation for months, and as the council discussed the budget, a group was protesting outside City Hall… (LINK TO STORY)
Dallas Love Field soars to best large airport in North America, while DFW slides a spot (Dallas Morning News)
Dallas Love Field is North America’s best large airport, while its “mega”-sized counterpart DFW International Airport is the sixth-best in its category, according to rankings released Wednesday by J.D. Power. Love Field, home to Dallas-based Southwest Airlines, pulled in the top award for airports its size. Love Field placed second in the category in 2019. DFW fell one spot to sixth after Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport leaped from seventh to No. 1 this year.
“DAL has been on the rise in our rankings for the past few years,” said Mike Taylor, J.D. Power’s travel intelligence lead, in a statement about Love Field. “They’ve completed the vast majority of their internal construction and really exemplify the positive trends in airport design. The experience at DAL is more like an upscale shopping mall with some planes parked outside.”
Dallas Love Field, with its smaller size and fewer flights than DFW, has its pluses and minuses for passengers. A year ago, traveler website The Points Guy ranked Love Field close to the bottom of its ranking of the 50 largest airports, while rating DFW as 11th best. In that ranking, Love Field ranked low because of its size and amenities. But the size and amenities can be considered a plus for convenience compared to DFW, the world’s fourth-largest airport. While Love Field may not have all the designer stores and restaurants like DFW, it does have Texas-based favorites such as Whataburger, Jason’s Deli and Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, along with other staples such as Chick-fil-A and Starbucks.
“We’re thrilled that our customers have given this honor,” said Dallas Love Field spokesman Chris Perry. “Even through the pandemic, our score went up 18 points from last year.” The mega category includes the country’s 20 busiest airports by passenger volume while the next 27 are in the large category. Dallas Love Field served about 16.8 million passengers in 2019, compared to more than 75 million at DFW. J.D. Power does not release the data behind the rankings… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Trump says he wants 9 justices in case Supreme Court must decide 2020 election (AXIOS)
President Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that part of his urgency to quickly push through a replacement for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is that he believes the Supreme Court may have to decide the result of the 2020 election.
Why it matters: Trump claimed at the Republican National Convention that the only way he will lose the election is if it is "rigged," and he has declined to say whether he would accept the results of November's election if he loses to Joe Biden.
What he's saying: "And then you have after the election, too. But in terms of time, we go to January 20th. But I think it's better if you go before the election. Because I think this scam that the Democrats are pulling, it's a scam, this scam will be before the United States Supreme Court," he told reporters on Wednesday without evidence… (LINK TO STORY)
Kentucky grand jury indicts 1 of 3 officers in Breonna Taylor case (NPR)
Following months of outrage, activism and anticipation, a Kentucky grand jury has decided to indict one of the three Louisville Metro Police Department officers involved in the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor in March.
Brett Hankison, who was terminated in June, has been charged with three counts of wanton endangerment over shooting into neighboring apartments. Bond was set at $15,000.
The grand jury did not announce charges against Jonathan Mattingly and Myles Cosgrove, the other two officers involved. None of the three faces state charges directly over Taylor's death.
The announcement comes six months after Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical technician, was killed in her home during a botched narcotics raid.
At a Wednesday afternoon press briefing, Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron said Mattingly and Cosgrove, who were first fired upon by Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, "were justified in their use of force."
Walker has maintained he did not hear the officers announce themselves before entering the home. He has said he mistook them for intruders and fired a warning shot, which hit Mattingly in the leg. Then officers opened fire… (LINK TO STORY)
Fauci scolds Rand Paul during tense exchange at hearing (The Hill)
A seemingly irritated Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, scolded Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) at a congressional hearing on Wednesday after the senator claimed that COVID-19 cases might not be rising in New York because of herd immunity.
Fauci, the country's top infectious diseases doctor, told Paul he was wrong to make the suggestion, and he said Paul had also been wrong in other public comments about the concept of herd immunity.
"No, you've misconstrued that, senator, and you've done that repeatedly in the past," Fauci said.
Fauci also appeared to single out Paul for criticism over comments about the coronavirus, which as of this week has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States.
"If you believe 22 percent is herd immunity, I believe you're alone in that," Fauci told Paul during the hearing, referring to the number of New Yorkers thought to have had COVID-19.
The exchange took place during a Senate Health Committee hearing where Fauci and others are testifying about the pandemic.
Paul, who has frequently criticized lockdowns aimed at preventing the spread of the coronavirus while questioning their effectiveness, asked Fauci if he had second thoughts over his support for such measures given statistics in other countries.
He claimed mitigation measures like closing movie theaters, bars and limiting restaurant capacity had no impact, because the New York tri-state area had the highest coronavirus death rate in the country.
"It's important that we the people not simply acquiesce to authoritarian mandates on our behavior without first making the nanny state prove their hypothesis," Paul said. "What we do know is that New York and New Jersey and Connecticut and Rhode Island still allowed the highest death rates in the world."… (LINK TO STORY)
With warnings of socialism, Trump seeks to boost support among young Florida Latinos (NPR)
Greg Fischer, the mayor of Louisville, Ky., said Tuesday he has declared a state of emergency for the city "due to the potential for civil unrest."
Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron is poised to announce whether his office will bring charges against the police officers who fatally shot 26-year-old Breonna Taylor during a botched narcotics raid at her home on March 13.
The mayor reiterated he has no insight about when Cameron's decision will be announced, but he said the city must be prepared.
"Our goal is ensuring space and opportunity for potential protesters to gather and express their First Amendment rights after the announcement," Fischer said in a statement. "At the same time, we are preparing for any eventuality to keep everyone safe."
The move comes a week after Fischer announced the city would pay Taylor's family $12 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit as well as to institute several police reforms… (LINK TO STORY)