BG Reads | News You Need to Know (April 16, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
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BG Podcast EP. 138: Q1 2021 Review with Veronica Briseño, Chief Economic Recovery Officer, City of Austin
On today’s episode we speak with return guest Veronica Briseño, Chief Economic Recovery Officer for the City of Austin.
Veronica and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss developments in Q1, including recent efforts by the city and Austin Council including the Economic Recovery and Resiliency Framework (bit.ly/3sbsJ6d), released last month.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (5,578)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,575)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Nefertitti Jackmon will lead anti-displacement efforts in fast-growing Austin (Austin Business Journal)
The city has hired Nefertitti Jackmon as its first community displacement prevention officer.
Jackmon will oversee the Housing and Planning Department's division of displacement prevention and will lead programming and outreach to keep vulnerable communities from being uprooted in fast-growing Austin, according to an April 14 announcement.
Displacement and affordability concerns amid gentrification have been center stage in Austin as people and companies continue to flood Central Texas and, in turn, dry out housing inventory and spike housing costs. While new development across the city can attract businesses, it can also impact established communities by raising prices and displacing longtime residents.
The $7.1 billion Project Connect transit plan will also begin to rollout over the next few years, and Jackmon will oversee anti-displacement efforts tied to the transit plan that voters approved last year. Over the next 13 years, $300 million of Project Connect tax revenue will be used to purchase property for development that will preserve or add to the amount of affordable housing near transit corridors and finance other anti-displacement strategies. City leaders and community members have also started work on an equity tool for Project Connect, which will guide the use of the funding.
A Project Connect map that shows where the new transit routes and hubs are planned can be studied here.
Jackmon joined the city's housing department in 2019. Since the start of the pandemic, Jackmon has worked to make more than $50 million in tenant stabilization services available through the city's Relief for Emergency Needs for Tenants program. She's also involved in national discussions on anti-displacement strategies and policy conversations related to gentrification, according to the announcement.
Prior to her work with the city, Jackmon was the executive director of Six Square, a nonprofit focused on preserving the cultural legacy of the African American community within Austin's Black Cultural District, according to the announcement… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin considers how to make up for millions in lost hotel tax revenue (KXAN)
City governments are starting to prepare their budgets for the next fiscal year, and some are expecting a big hit because of the pandemic — specifically because people didn’t decide to come visit.
Austin’s budget office is expected to provide a financial forecast report to council members on Friday that will include a shortfall in money from hotel occupancy tax, thanks to 2020’s drop in tourism.
“Revenues were down 90% in April of 2020,” said Vijay Patel, CEO of Humble Origins Hospitality Management.
Patel owns and manages several hotels in Austin and is also the director of the Austin Hotel and Lodging Association.
He said although traffic isn’t back to normal, it’s better.
“We probably are about 67% of our revenue of our highs of 2019, so we still got a long slow climb to get back to 100%,” Patel said.
The city expects to close out the year nearly $41 million short of Hotel Occupancy Tax, or HOT, revenue compared to last fiscal year.
It’s meant funding cuts to services like the Cultural Arts Fund, Historic Preservation Fund, Live Music Fund and the Austin Convention Center Department.
It’s also meant Visit Austin’s budget has gone from $14.5 million to $4.5 million, said its president and CEO, Tom Noonan.
“That’s concerning to me because we need to get out there and tell people that were open that, you know, ‘Come see our musicians, you know, come eat in our restaurants, stay in our hotels, fly into our airport, etc.’ And we don’t have much of a budget to do that,” Noonan said.
In a memo to the mayor and city council members this week, Austin’s city manager said they may be able to use funds from the American Rescue Plan to offset some of that loss.
“The City Council is currently engaged in an ongoing discussion about how to allocate ARP funding across many competing priorities,” a city spokesperson told KXAN News on Thursday… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin ISD risks losing $5 million in state funding if more students don’t attend final weeks of school in person (Texas Tribune)
With just seven weeks left in a school year that has been disrupted by the pandemic, Austin Independent School District Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde sent a strangely timed email to parents Tuesday with the subject “Welcoming Students Back to School.”
“It’s hard to believe we’ve only a few weeks left in the school year, and they are as important as the first week,” the superintendent wrote. “We’ve missed having your children in our schools.”
She highlighted teacher vaccinations and a lower COVID-19 positivity rate, while reminding parents that students have a better learning experience in person. At least one district principal sent a similar email, telling parents, “Time to come back to campus.”
The push to get students back in the classroom was confusing for parents and teachers who had spent the better part of the past school year being offered flexibility to do remote learning by the district… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin homeless summit sets goal to house 3,000 people in 3 years (KVUE)
As the Summit to Address Unsheltered Homelessness in Austin continues, local leaders on Thursday laid out a shared goal to rehouse 3,000 people experiencing homelessness in three years.
This strategic plan will include a system-wide and equitable approach to rehousing those in need, organizers say, including investment in local infrastructure to support the plan's interventions.
“Today is a turning point for people in Austin experiencing homelessness as well as for the community as a whole,” said Lynn Meredith, chair of the coalition’s Core Leadership Planning Group and ECHO Board member. “For the first time, we have a strategy that is based on a shared vision for how to accelerate our response to unsheltered homelessness in Austin. It’s a culmination of the work done during the summit, but also reflects the many years of input from dedicated citizens and leaders, and community conversations that have occurred – including many forums, hearings and panels that have taken place over the past several years.”
This virtual summit has been meeting since March 23. It includes a diverse set of city leaders, advocates, service providers, business groups and philanthropists with a goal to develop a comprehensive implementation plan. They are also working to set periodic benchmarks to measure their success and to ensure that Austin stays on course to meet long-term goals… (LINK TO STORY)
Both of Austin’s Covid-19 vaccine ‘hub’ providers are struggling to fill appointments (Austin Monitor)
UT’s Dell Medical School (along with UT Health) and Austin Public Health are reporting issues getting people signed up to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
Both organizations were designated by the state as “hub” providers. The state created the hub model so larger organizations – a couple dozen across Texas – could vaccinate a lot of people at once.
APH and UT were getting thousands of vaccines shipped every week, while other providers, like pharmacies and stores, received much fewer. But lately, both groups say there has been a decrease in demand.
On Monday, APH officials opened 14,000 appointment slots, but filled only about 3,400.
Susan Hochman, associate director for assessment, communications and health information technology at UT Austin’s University Health Services department, said UT is facing similar issues.
“We are seeing a decrease in demand (not filling all appointment slots) but not to the same degree as APH had indicated,” she wrote in an email to KUT. “We are going to be making some changes to our operations soon to improve access, such as offering more walk-up opportunities. The details are still being fleshed out.”
APH officials said they are also looking at changing their system.
State health officials said Thursday that providers across Texas are asking to be shipped fewer doses.
Imelda Garcia, an associate commissioner with the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the state is still vaccinating a lot of people week by week, but some providers are having a harder time signing people up.
“As we have seen different providers tell us that they would like reduced allocations or no allocations for a couple of weeks, we are honoring those requests,” she said… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas House gives initial approval to "constitutional carry," which would allow people to carry a gun without a license (Texas Tribune)
The Texas House on Thursday gave an initial OK to a bill that would allow handguns to be carried without a permit, marking a win for gun rights activists who have for years pushed the measure at the Legislature but a blow to El Paso Democrats who have been fighting for gun safety measures since the 2019 massacre in their hometown.
The 84-56 vote came after several hours of some of the most emotionally charged debate yet this legislative session, with Democrats pleading to their colleagues to reconsider their position on the legislation.
House Bill 1927, spearheaded by state Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Tyler, would nix the requirement for Texas residents to obtain a license to carry handguns if they’re not prohibited by state or federal law from possessing a gun. Texans under current state law must generally be licensed to carry handguns, either openly or concealed.
“This bill should be called common-sense carry,” Schaefer said as he laid out the bill Thursday. He described a scenario in which two women — one who had time and resources to obtain a license to carry and another who did not — went for walks in different neighborhoods, arguing that the latter did not feel safe or well-equipped to protect their family… (LINK TO STORY)
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson backs City Council challenger over incumbent in District 5 (Dallas Morning News)
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson endorses Yolanda Faye Williams to represent District 5 over incumbent Jaime Resendez and two other challengers in the May 1 election, Williams’ campaign announced Thursday. The endorsement — the mayor’s only one of 14 contested council races thus far — comes less than a week before early voting starts and follows some recent indicators of the mayor’s support for several challengers in three City Council races featuring incumbents. Johnson declined comment earlier this month when asked by The Dallas Morning News if he supported bids by Williams, Donald Parish in South Dallas’ District 7 and John Botefuhr in East Dallas’ District 9. The News uncovered that several of the mayor’s past donors gave to all three this year, and Johnson appears to almost exclusively favor the trio on social media.
This is Williams’ fifth time seeking election. Parish is among eight candidates in the District 7 race along with incumbent Adam Bazaldua. Botefuhr is one of three in a race that also features incumbent Paula Blackmon. Johnson, who lives in District 9, had not officially endorsed anyone else for the May 1 election as of Thursday morning. Resendez, Bazaldua, Blackmon and Johnson were all elected in 2019. The City Council vote last fall to decrease the police department’s overtime budget by $7 million has been a point of contention for Johnson, who has repeatedly voiced frustration with the decision. The idea was backed by most council members, including Resendez, Bazaldua and Blackmon. Ultimately, the police department actually got more money. Resendez said he wasn’t surprised by Johnson’s endorsement of Williams in the Southeast Dallas district but pointed out that she was overlooking “severe personality flaws” in the mayor by accepting his support. The council member also accused the mayor of engaging in a misinformation campaign about the police overtime budget… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas voting bills target Democratic strongholds, just like Georgia's new laws (Houston Chronicle)
After major corporations criticized Georgia for adopting voter restrictions in the wake of Democratic wins there, the spotlight is shifting to Texas as Republican lawmakers advance similar legislation. And just as Georgia Republicans sought to rein in Fulton County — a heavily Democratic county that includes the city of Atlanta — Texas Republicans are targeting large counties run by Democrats with measures that provide possible jail time for local officials who try to expand voting options or who promote voting by mail. That same push is happening in Arizona and Iowa, said Lawrence Norden, director of the Election Reform Program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law. “All of these bills share a common purpose: to threaten the independence of election workers whose main job should be to ensure fair elections free from political or other interference,” Norden said.
The Senate is particularly intent on preventing a repeat of 2020, when the interim Harris County clerk, Chris Hollins, promoted novel approaches such as 24-hour voting sites and drive-thru polling places as safe alternatives to indoor voting amid the coronavirus pandemic. The Democrat-leaning county saw historic turnout that helped Joe Biden come within 5.5 percentage points of the incumbent, Republican Donald Trump. “Out of thin air they decided on drive-in voting,” charged Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a conservative Republican who runs the Senate and has been a leading voice in urging lawmakers to tighten voting laws in the name of preventing fraud. Harris County officials, on the other hand, say drive-thru voting was preapproved by administrators at the Texas Secretary of State’s office. “In 2020 we did everything we could within the bounds of the law to ensure that we were going to have a free, a fair, a safe and an accessible election in Harris County,” Hollins said. House Bill 6, which passed out of a committee and will next go before the full Texas House, would open up election officials to felony charges if they were to solicit a voter to fill out an application for an absentee ballot… (LINK TO STORY)
What to know about the San Antonio native tapped to lead U.S. Census Bureau (San Antonio Express-News)
When Rob Santos ran for president of the American Statistical Association last year, he pitched himself to colleagues as “just a kid (albeit much older) from a San Antonio barrio with two career passions — statistics and helping people.” His next job pitch will likely be to a roomful of U.S. senators as President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the U.S. Census Bureau. Santos, who is Mexican-American, was selected by Biden on Tuesday. If confirmed, he would be the first person of color to lead the the federal government’s largest statistical agency full-time.
“Thanks to everyone for their support in reaction to the White House intent to nominate me for director of the U.S. Census Bureau, an institution whose mission and staff I have always admired, and whose work I greatly value,” Santos, who was unavailable for an interview, tweeted Wednesday morning. “I find myself both humbled and honored as the nominations process unfolds.” Santos’ nomination will come at a critical moment, as federal officials work through the 2020 Census data that will inform state and federal redistricting processes across the nation. The agency is expected to deliver the data to all states by Sept. 30. He would also lead an agency re-evaluating the terms, check-boxes and methods it uses to accurately gather and report information about communities of color — a subject that Santos cares deeply about. “When I fill out the census form, I check the Latino-Hispanic-Mexican American box,” Santos told KERA in 2019. “And when it comes to race, I mark ‘other’ and insert ‘mestizo’ because that’s how I feel about race and ethnicity.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Democrats unveil long-shot plan to expand size of Supreme Court from 9 To 13 (NPR)
Liberal congressional Democrats unveiled a proposal Thursday to expand the number of seats on the U.S. Supreme Court from nine to 13 — a move Republicans have blasted as "court packing" and which has almost no chance of being voted on after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she has "no plans to bring it to the floor."
The measure, the Judiciary Act of 2021, is being co-sponsored by Reps. Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee; Hank Johnson of Georgia; Mondaire Jones of New York; and Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
"We are not packing the Supreme Court, we are unpacking it," Nadler said at a news conference in front of the Supreme Court.
In a statement, Nadler, a congressman from New York, said the bill would "restore balance to the nation's highest court after four years of norm-breaking actions by Republicans led to its current composition."
At issue is the makeup of the Supreme Court, where conservatives now have a 6-3 majority. Democrats and liberal activists say this ensures the high court will strike down almost any legal challenge to the Biden administration's legislative priorities… (LINK TO STORY)