BG Reads | News You Need to Know (September 17, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Work Session of the Austin Council (9.28.2021 at 9AM)
Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council (9.30.2021 at 10AM)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
CEO A.J. recently sat down with Voyage Austin for an interview on his path to lobbying and founding Bingham Group. Check it out here.
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Three-quarters of county employees to work from home for good (Austin Monitor)
The Travis County Commissioners Court is moving ahead with an unprecedented initiative to dramatically increase the number of county teleworkers, with the lofty goal of having 75 percent of county employees permanently working from home. In June, the county hired Deloitte Consulting to help smooth the process.
Travis County Human Resources Director Shannon Weidauer delivered the update to commissioners.
“As you may recall, we kicked off this effort with the ambition of the court to enable 75 percent of eligible employees to telework on a permanent basis,” Weidauer said. “The early stages are already indicating that, yes, our productivity has not decreased and in some areas is in fact increasing. So we’re going to need to take more of a deeper dive as our journey in this adaptive workplace continues.”
The county says it has already saved $1.3 million on utilities, its largest source of greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, emissions from employee commutes – the county’s second largest carbon output source – have been cut by 30 percent.
According to a presentation from Deloitte representative Mayra Marquez, some of the consultant’s recommendations include making sure teleworking employees have adequate technology and equipment and enhancing available customer service.
“I have not heard stories of any local government that has undertaken such an ambitious telecommuting program. So I think we have a really remarkable story to tell and I think we’re doing a great job,” Commissioner Brigid Shea said.
Shea also pointed out that while a common worry about telecommuting is that it decreases productivity, the county so far serves as a good counterexample to such rhetoric.
“I think the governor vetoed or refused to support telecommuting for state employees, because people claimed that the state employees would be sitting around in their pajamas watching TV at home,” Shea said. “And now we now know that that’s just ‘walls.’ People get their work done and they get it done quicker.”
Weidauer said the county is currently in the “60th percentile” toward its 75 percent telework goal.
“We are well on our way and I think there is ample room for more opportunity as we continue to build the infrastructure around this project.”
At the end of Deloitte’s review process, Deloitte and Human Resources will provide further information to guide commissioners on the issue moving forward… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Southwest Airlines will launch slew of new, nonstop flights from Austin airport next year (Austin Business Journal)
Southwest Airlines Co., the largest carrier at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, continues to double down on its investments in the Texas capital.
The Dallas-based airline plans to add nine new and returning destinations to its lineup next spring, which will bring Southwest's offerings at the Austin airport to 46 destinations with up to 105 daily departures, the company announced Sept. 16. That will represent a 57% increase in service compared to what the airline offered in March 2019, prior to the pandemic, a spokesperson said.
Beginning in March 2022, Southwest (NYSE: LUV) will add nonstop service from the Austin airport to Charleston, South Carolina; Midland/Odessa, Texas; and Ontario, California —which currently aren't offered by any other airline at ABIA — plus service to Columbus, Ohio, and Amarillo, Texas. Southwest will also add international service to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and weekly flights will return to the Florida destinations of Panama City Beach, Sarasota/Bradenton and Destin/Fort Walton Beach, according to the announcement.
ABIA will also rank No. 12 in terms of operations size among the 121 destinations Southwest serves, a spokesperson said.
The local airport has attracted a flood of new flights and major investments from airlines of all sizes since the beginning of the year. Including Southwest's new additions, more than 60 routes have been announced from airlines since the pandemic began. Many business leaders point to adding nonstop flights as fuel for the Austin-area economy, since it eases travel for executives and tourists, though some experts suggest the local airport needs to up the ante to match the intense growth happening in Austin.
Dave Harvey, vice president of Southwest Business and the airline's executive ambassador to Austin, said the key driver for the airline is the area's fast-growing population… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Proposed ‘Statesman’ PUD draws criticism (Austin Monitor)
Members of the city’s Parks and Recreation Board will be deciding in less than two weeks whether to recommend approval of the Statesman planned unit development from a parks perspective. It could prove to be a difficult decision. Parks planner Scott Grantham told board members at Tuesday’s meeting that he wasn’t sure if they would have enough information to make a decision by Sept. 28, the date the board is scheduled to vote on their recommendation. Atha Phillips, the city’s environmental program coordinator, echoed his statements.
When developer Endeavor Real Estate Group started working on the former Austin American-Statesman site at 305 S. Congress more than two years ago, it had no way of knowing it would not be any further along by the end of 2021.
The recommendation from the parks board, as well as a recommendation from the city’s Environmental Commission, will go to the Planning Commission, which ultimately decides whether to recommend the PUD to City Council. Because of its location on Lady Bird Lake and the trail along the lake, a recommendation from the parks board may carry more weight than it typically would.
Both the Parks and Recreation Department and the Watershed Protection Department have asked Endeavor for multiple changes to its plans, though it’s not clear which if any of those requests the developer will honor… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
APD announces "No Refusal" Initiative effective Thursday-Sunday every week starting Oct. 1 (CBS Austin)
The Austin Police Department announced Thursday it will enforce a year-long "No Refusal" initiative beginning next month.
In a press release, APD said the program is "an effort to reduce the number of crashes caused by impaired drivers."
It will run beginning Oct. 1 to Sept. 2022 Thursday through Sunday every week, with added enforcement periods for holidays and special events.
“We’re not saying don’t drink, we’re saying if you do – have a plan,” said Corporal Wut Tank with APD’s Highway Enforcement command and impaired driving investigations unit.
Corporal Tank said the department measures so far this year Austin has seen 28 DWI driving fatalities through August 31st, one more than all of last year, 2020.
"No Refusal" is a strategy that allows law enforcement to obtain search warrants for blood samples from suspected impaired drivers who refuse breath or blood tests. The Austin Transportation Department (ATD) and the Austin Police Department will work together to provide, respectively, funding and strategic crash analysis to inform priority dates and locations and staff resources needed to secure the search warrants.
Given the initiation date, No Refusal will be active for the Austin City Limits music festival, March 10-20 for the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals and additional holidays throughout the year. That's more than 200 "No Refusal" days.
Austin has seen a 28 percent increase in all traffic death in Austin so far in 2021. 82 deaths so far this year, 64 in all of 2020… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Thousands of Migrants Huddle in Squalid Conditions Under Texas Bridge (New York Times)
DEL RIO, Texas — Thousands of migrants were crowded under a bridge outside the border community of Del Rio on Thursday, part of a massive surge in migration across the Rio Grande this week that has overwhelmed the authorities and caused significant delays in processing the arrivals.
The U.S. Border Patrol said that more than 9,000 migrants, mostly from Haiti, were being held in a temporary staging area under the Del Rio International Bridge as agents worked as quickly as they could to process them.
The temporary camp has grown with staggering speed in recent days, from just a few hundred people earlier in the week. The authorities and city officials said they expected thousands more to cross the ankle-deep river between Mexico and Del Rio in coming days.
The Border Patrol said it would send more agents to the region, “to immediately address the current level of migrant encounters and to facilitate a safe, humane and orderly process.” The shaded area under the bridge, the Border Patrol said, was to “prevent injuries from heat-related illness” while migrants were waiting to be taken into custody… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
State agency awards $11 million contract to oversee construction of Gov. Greg Abbott’s Texas-Mexico border wall (Texas Tribune)
State officials awarded a contract on Thursday to oversee construction of a barrier along the Texas-Mexico border to a joint venture between a design firm and an engineering firm.
The Texas Facilities Commission voted to approve the contract, worth up to $11 million, for Michael Baker International Inc. and Huitt-Zollars to manage budgets, identify state land for wall construction and find “willing private landowners to facilitate construction,” according to the request for proposal.
In June, Gov. Greg Abbott, who has been a critic of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies, announced a crowdfunding effort to pay for the wall and other barriers such as fencing. Abbott pledged $250 million in state money to start the effort… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Biden goes after top 1 percent in defending tax hikes (The Hill)
President Biden on Thursday went after big corporations and wealthy Americans while promoting his economic agenda that congressional Democrats are working to get across the finish line.
“Let me ask you this, where is it written in that all the tax breaks in the American tax code go to corporations and the very top? I think it’s enough, I’m tired of it,” he said in remarks at the White House on the economy.
The president reiterated his calls for big corporations and the wealthy to pay their fair share in taxes, saying it's “long overdue.”
“I’m not out to punish anyone, I’m a capitalist. If you can make a million or a billion dollars, that’s great. God bless you. All I’m asking is you pay your fair share, pay your fair share, just like middle class folks do,” he said.
Biden promotion of his Build Back Better agenda comes as Democrats are focused on passing the $3.5 trillion spending package without Republicans through budget reconciliation, along with the Senate-passed bipartisan infrastructure bill.
“How’s it possible that the wealthiest billionaires in the country can entirely escape paying income taxes on what they make?” Biden said. “For a long time, this economy has worked great for those at the very top. Ordinary, hardworking Americans, the people who built this country, have been basically cut out of the deal.”
He said his spending package gives the Internal Revenue Service the resources to get wealthy Americans to pay their taxes. Currently, the top one percent evades about $160 billion in taxes owed each year, he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)