BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 14, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
The Austin City Council will next meet for regular business on Thursday, July 22 to receive public comment on the city’s proposed 2022 budget.
Today, 5PM: Austin Economic Development Corporation - Regular Meeting (Agenda)
Wednesday, 9:30AM: Audit and Finance Committee Regular Meeting
Thursday, 3PM: Parks and Recreation Board - Finance Committee
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
'It's going to be a violent summer': Austin shooting highlights need for downtown EMS unit, union rep says (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin-Travis County EMS medics struggled to reach the victims early Saturday after a downtown Austin mass shooting on East Sixth Street, and the head of the EMS union worries that the same problem could happen again without a dedicated downtown team.
Medics took four wounded people to the hospital via ambulance early that morning, and Austin officers shuttled six other victims in police vehicles, EMS officials said. Three victims got to the hospital in private vehicles.
"We had a lot of trouble getting our command vehicles and ambulances where they needed to be — the streets were blocked off, the crowds were so heavy, and there was so much chaos," said Selena Xie, Austin-Travis County EMS union president. "That's why the police have mounted units (on horseback), because that is much easier to maneuver than a vehicle."
"We should never have police officers transporting victims," Xie said. "But because we don't have an established downtown group, it makes it really hard to get enough ambulances in and also get them into a position where they can transport patients."
Still, Xie and Austin fire Battalion Chief Thayer Smith said officers reacted quickly.
"Transporting in police cars is not normal, but given the situation last night, officers did a great job to get the scene under control and get those folks to care," Smith said.
Austin medics have been asking the city this year to designate a group of medics and EMS vehicles specifically for downtown.
"We know that it's going to be a violent summer — we've already seen violence increase," Xie said. "That's purely because we're coming out of the pandemic, and there's going to be a lot of activity."… (LINK TO STORY)
Victim's death marks first fatality in Austin, Texas, mass shooting (NBC News)
A man died Sunday from injuries sustained in a mass shooting in Austin, Texas, marking the first fatality in an attack that left more than a dozen people wounded, authorities said.
The victim was identified by the Austin Police Department as Douglas John Kantor, 25.
Authorities were continuing to search Sunday for one of two suspects. Investigators believe a dispute between the two prompted Saturday's early morning shooting in downtown Austin. One suspect was arrested Saturday.
Authorities said two people had been critically injured, and 12 others were in stable condition… (LINK TO STORY)
Council to adopt Project Connect TOD plans by next summer, early code fixes by year’s end (Austin Monitor)
City Council on Thursday laid out its land use planning priorities for areas near Project Connect stations, passing a resolution directing city staff to help with the Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Equitable Transit-Oriented Development (eTOD) studies.
The studies will lead to station-area plans for Project Connect’s Orange and Blue light rail lines, Gold Line bus rapid transit line, Red and Green commuter rail lines, and MetroRapid bus routes. The plans are meant to boost transit ridership by allowing denser development near stations while also preventing displacement of existing residents and creating affordable housing.
Within six months, city staff will recommend preliminary policies for Council to adopt based on their work with Capital Metro. Within 14 months, staffers will publish a comprehensive “eTOD Policy Plan,” which Council could adopt in its entirety or alter before adopting. Council hopes that including city staff in Capital Metro’s eTOD planning will lead to seamless administration of the new land use regulations.
Regulations could include zoning that allows taller and denser buildings with relaxed site development constraints like impervious cover, setback, and floor area ratio requirements. Other land use tools could include density bonus programs and decreased parking requirements, including parking maximums. The resolution makes clear that each TOD area will be different, and that neighbors will help shape the planning.
“Allowing the highest possible ridership is how we’re going to get the most out of our investment,” said Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison, who sponsored the resolution. A UCLA study, mentioned in the resolution, determined that for investment in light rail to be worthwhile, areas near stations need at least 56 residents and jobs per acre. Harper-Madison noted that such density “will also make it more likely that we get as much federal funding as possible.”
The eTOD Policy Plan will also inform how Project Connect’s $300 million in anti-displacement funding is spent. The resolution mentioned many potential anti-displacement policies, including land-banking, acquisition of existing affordable housing, tax increment financing, right to stay and right to return policies, and acquiring properties, including those partially in the light rail right of way, for affordable housing… (LINK TO STORY)
Stratus Properties, fresh off winning another proxy fight, moves ahead with hundreds more residences (Austin Business Journal)
Stratus Properties Inc., a longtime fixture on the Austin real estate scene and owner of the W Austin Hotel downtown, has had quite an eventful June so far. The publicly traded company recently secured financing to build an apartment complex in Southwest Austin and emerged victorious from a proxy fight with an overseas investor.
Two members of the Stratus team (Nasdaq: STRS) — including William "Beau" Armstrong, its CEO and chairman — discussed the construction financing and proxy fight during a recent conversation at the W.
The 182-apartment development, known as The Saint June, will be located at 5321 Barton Creek Blvd., in the Amarra subdivision of the Barton Creek master-planned community.
The roughly $30.3 million construction loan is for the limited partnership — The Saint June LP — that will own the project. The loan will cover more than half the estimated $55 million in project costs, according to Stratus. The deal was finalized June 2, according to a regulatory filing.
The loan was closed by Texas Capital Bank NA and the lender was not identified.
Equity funding from Stratus and a private investor will pay for the rest. Armstrong identified the investor as Dallas-based International Capital LLC.
Stratus — for its share of the investment and in exchange for the land, development costs and project management — will receive about 34% of the limited partnership equity.
Groundbreaking is expected to take place before the end of this month. The first residents are expected to move in before the end of 2022.
The Saint June’s 182 units will be spread out over 10 buildings. The first phase would be done within 12 months, with the entire development expected to be completed within 18 months.
The development overlooks a portion of Fazio Canyons Golf Course at Omni Barton Creek. The Saint June sits on a 35-acre site, but the development would only cover five acres — meaning there will be plenty of green space surrounding the units.
Each unit comes with parking underneath. There are no retail, office or commercial uses attached to Saint June. (LINK TO STORY)
Austin is a world-renowned tech capital. Why can’t the city get it right? (Austin Chronicle)
The city of Austin's Communications & Public Information Office is, among other things, in charge of the content on the city's website. Another department, Communications & Technology Management, is, among other things, in charge of providing technical support for the website. Both CPIO and CTM employ web developers and other in-house technical experts. However, neither department created APH's COVID-19 vaccine portal. Instead, the city contracted with third-party vendors using software from Salesforce, the Fortune 500 tech giant that dominates the customer relationship management market.*
The Chronicle interviewed a dozen former and current tech workers with the city to compile this report, many of whom preferred to speak off the record. They say that the vendors implementing the Salesforce platform did not test the vaccine portal to see how many users it could handle before the site went live. So when thousands tried to sign up for vaccines, it crashed. This failure to "load test" the portal, our sources say, was one of several serious blunders made in its design.* But the workers share the conviction that though a vendor built the vaccine portal, its failure is the responsibility of city leaders.
As one said, "If you're going to use a vendor, you still need to tightly control the process." City leaders have shown no eagerness to embrace responsibility for what happened on March 15, or before, or since. Chris Stewart, the chief information officer of CTM, made it clear after a prior crash in February that though he is the city's top technology manager, he wants no blame for the malfunctions. After KXAN ran a critical news piece on the February crash, Stewart sent memos to the City Manager's Office and to his workers, both obtained by the Chronicle… (LINK TO STORY)
'It’s an opportunity to walk the walk': State senator from Travis County on running for Texas land commissioner (WFAA)
Not long after the current commissioner of the Texas General Land Office announced he’d be running for attorney general, Sen. Dawn Buckingham said she’d be running to take over his job. The Republican from Travis County is off to a strong start fundraising, with $2 million already in her campaign bank. She anticipates a $5 million race, so it will be expensive.
Buckingham said she spoke to the lawmakers who were rumored to be interested in the position before announcing, so she doesn’t think she’ll be running against any colleagues. “As the first agency in the state of Texas, it is the tip of the spear, literally, to defend the land we walk on,” Sen. Buckingham said on Inside Texas Politics. “I think it’s an opportunity to walk the walk, you know, and not just talk the talk.” Senator Buckingham will not have to give up her Senate seat while running for commissioner of the Texas General Land Office. She became the first Republican from Travis County to be elected to the Texas Senate in 2016 and the first woman ever elected to represent Senate District 24… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
A judge has thrown out a lawsuit brought by hospital workers over a vaccine mandate (NPR)
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by 117 employees at Houston Methodist Hospital who were suing the hospital system over its COVID-19 vaccine requirement.
In a five-page ruling issued Saturday, U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes upheld the hospital's vaccination policy, saying the requirement broke no federal law.
"This is not coercion," said Hughes. "Methodist is trying to do their business of saving lives without giving them the COVID-19 virus. It is a choice made to keep staff, patients, and their families safer."
The decision marked the latest development in a standoff that began in April when Houston Methodist announced that all staff would be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by June 7. The hospital says that nearly all of its roughly 26,000 employees agreed to the policy, but suspended nearly 200 staff members without pay for refusing to comply.The 178 employees suspended by the hospital argue that the vaccines are unsafe and even "experimental." The hospital has responded by saying that hundreds of millions of vaccine doses have been safely administered after a vetting process that included three rounds of clinical trials… (LINK TO STORY)
White House to Congress: Leave border wall funding to Texas, at up to $46M per mile (Houston Chronicle)
A day after Gov. Greg Abbott said the state of Texas would pick up where former President Donald Trump left off building a border wall, the White House urged Congress to cancel billions of dollars in funding for the wall — making it clear that Texas will likely be left to cover the tab on its own. And according to the White House, it will be a costly endeavor. The Biden administration said Friday that Trump spent as much $46 million per mile on some segments of the wall. The administration completed a review of border wall projects Friday and made clear it doesn’t plan to build more. Officials said the administration will return $2 billion to military construction projects that the Trump administration had raided to fund the wall — including sending $22 million to build dining halls at Camp Bullis outside San Antonio.
The Homeland Security Department, meanwhile, announced it would spend the rest of remaining border wall funding to address “urgent life, safety and environmental issues resulting from the previous administration’s wall construction,” including repairs on the Rio Grande Valley flood protection system that officials say was damaged by crews working to build the wall. The department also announced it will review the eminent domain actions taken by the previous administration for wall construction and return the land it does not use to its prior owners. The agency said it will begin discussions with owners of land it deems is still necessary for “life, safety, environmental or other remediation work.”
The news comes after the Republican governor said he will detail his plans to have the state build the wall next week, so little is known about the scope of his plan or how he proposes to pay for it. “Long term, only Congress and the president can fix our broken border. But in the meantime, Texas is going to do everything possible, including beginning to make arrests, to keep our communities safe,” Abbott said at an event billed as a border security summit in Del Rio. “We are going to do everything we can to secure the border, and it begins immediately.”… (LINK TO STORY)
State Rep. James White, an East Texas Republican, won't seek another term in Texas House (Texas Tribune)
State Rep. James White, R-Hillister, will not seek reelection, a decision he first announced to East Texas TV station KLTV.
He’s considering a statewide run, as long as “the people want me to pursue that,” he told the Texas Tribune on Sunday.
Though he did not disclose which state-level seat he would run for, he said “we believe that we’re qualified, and we’re competitive. We will definitely consider joining the statewide field.”
For now, he says his focus will be on the upcoming special election this summer which Gov. Greg Abbott has said he plans to order and when White expects to bring back a GOP priority bill that would tighten Texas’ election laws.
White is the chairman of the House Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee, and is the only Black Republican in the Texas House. He represents solidly Republican House District 19 in East Texas… (LINK TO STORY)
Republicans think they can take South Texas — especially after a win in McAllen (Texas Tribune)
George P. Bush’s first trip outside Austin after he announced his campaign for attorney general wouldn’t surprise anyone watching Texas politics these days: Like many other ambitious Republicans, he visited South Texas.
The state’s current land commissioner, who is seeking to unseat incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton, spoke with members of the Border Patrol union along the Rio Grande, met with high school students in San Juan and helped clean beaches on South Padre Island.
It was part of a flurry of GOP activity in the heavily Hispanic region this month. Nearly a year ago, Republicans’ relative success in the areas along the Texas-Mexico border helped them fend off the strongest challenge to their political dominance by Texas Democrats in decades. Now the GOP wants to take the fight to the Democrats in next year’s midterm elections and attack one of the state’s most reliably blue regions… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Netanyahu Is Out: Naftali Bennett Sworn In As Israel's New Prime Minister (NPR)
For the first time in more than a decade, Israel has welcomed a new prime minister. Naftali Bennett was sworn in on Sunday after a new coalition unseated longtime Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu.
The newly elected prime minister was appointed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament, in a 60-59 vote, with one minister abstaining.
Shortly after the votes were tallied, the now former-Prime Minister Netanyahu approached his opponent and the two shook hands. Not long after that, he took to Twitter, instructing his supporters to hold their heads high and keep the faith; vowing to return.
"I ask you: do not let your spirit fall," he said. "We'll be back - and faster than you think."
President Joe Biden released a statement congratulating Bennett and the new Israeli government. "Israel has no better friend than the United States. The bond that unites our people is evidence of our shared values and decades of close cooperation and as we continue to strengthen our partnership, the United States remains unwavering in its support for Israel's security," he said… (LINK TO STORY)
Forget going back to the office—people are just quitting instead (Wall Street Journal)
More U.S. workers are quitting their jobs than at any time in at least two decades, signaling optimism among many professionals while also adding to the struggle companies face trying to keep up with the economic recovery.
The wave of resignations marks a sharp turn from the darkest days of the pandemic, when workers craved job security while weathering a national health and economic crisis. In April, the share of U.S. workers leaving jobs was 2.7%, according to the Labor Department, a jump from 1.6% a year earlier to the highest level since at least 2000.
The shift by workers into new jobs and careers is prompting employers to raise wages and offer promotions to keep hold of talent. The appetite for change by employees indicates many professionals are feeling confident about jumping ship for better prospects, despite elevated unemployment rates… (LINK TO STORY)