BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 19, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (6,293)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,794)
Austin, Travis County move down to Stage 2 risk level of Coronavirus restrictions (KUT)
The chief medical director for the city of Austin said Tuesday the area is now at stage 2 of Austin Public Health's risk-based guidelines. The change is effective immediately.
Dr. Mark Escott said the decision was made based on the "significant decreases in cases that we're seeing."
"We feel confident we are in a place where the stage 2 restrictions are appropriate and that's thanks to the great work our community has done to continue masking, continue distancing, continue getting vaccinated. These investments are paying off," Escott said.
The new rules reflect more closely the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's coronavirus guidance, which was updated last week.
Under stage 2, Austin Public Health says fully vaccinated people do not need to wear a face covering at indoor and outdoor private gatherings.
It is still recommended that everyone wear masks when traveling or dining indoors, unless a business owner allows fully vaccinated individuals to go without a face covering.
It is also recommended that fully vaccinated individuals continue to wear a mask and maintain social distance when risk of transmission is high for people who have not been fully vaccinated.
Masks are still required at hospitals, long-term care facilities and other health care facilities.
Austin Public Health's risk-based guidelines are partly based on the seven-day moving average of new coronavirus-related admissions at the area's hospitals.
That number was 14 on Tuesday, the lowest it has been since October. It reached its highest peak in January, when the Austin area was still under stage 5 guidelines. The seven-day moving average of new hospital admissions was 91 on Jan. 10.
The decision to downgrade to stage 2 was also made after health officials considered the impact of hospital admissions from people outside Travis County on the area's coronavirus figures… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin is looking to set up camps for those experiencing homelessness. Here's where they might be. (KUT)
The Austin City Council is considering dozens of locations for city-sanctioned encampments for people experiencing homelessness.
The decision to vet the sites follows a citywide referendum reinstating a ban on public camping, limitations on panhandling, and a prohibition on resting in certain areas of Austin.
On Tuesday, the council got a list of 45 possible locations as the city rolls out the revived rules in what it calls a "phased" approach over the summer. Late last week, city staff outlined criteria for suitable sites and said they were eyeing 70 tracts of city-owned land that could accommodate encampments.
City officials say they want each site to have security, storage spaces, access to transportation and trash pickup, as well as access to water and electricity hookups. They estimate each encampment could cost $1.3 million a year for a 50-person site and nearly $1.9 million for a 100-person site.
And here's a list of most of the sites under consideration, according to a presentation to City Council on Tuesday:
• Walter E. Long Park, 11455 Decker Lake Road
• John Trevino Jr. Metro Park, 9501 FM 969
• Walnut Creek Sports Park, 7800 Johnny Morris Road
• Givens Recreation Center, 3811 E. 12th St.
• Fleet Service Yard, 8401 Johnny Morris Road
• Colony Park, 7201 Colony Look Drive
• 3511 Manor Road
• Tannehill Lane
• Onion Creek Metro North, 8652 Nuckols Crossing Road
• 7720 ½ Kellam Road
• Decommissioned wastewater treatment plant, 5400 E. William Cannon
• FM 812 at FM 973• West Slaughter Lane and 8908-9006 Cullen Road
• Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center, 2609 Gonzales St.
• South Austin Recreation Center, 1100 Cumberland Road
• Roy G. Guerrero Metro Park, 400 Grove Blvd.
• Bolm Road District Park, 6700 Bolm Road
• Edward Rendon Delgado Pavilion
• 4800-4906 Bolm Road
• Levander Loop
• 1311 Tillery St.
• Gustavo "Gus" L. Garcia District Park, 1201 East Rundberg Lane
• 7211 North Interstate 35
• 7309 North Interstate 35
• Mary Moore Searight Metropolitan Park, 907 West Slaughter Lane
• Lakeline Neighborhood Park, South Lakeline Blvd.
• 12101 Anderson Mill Road
• 10900 FM 2222
• Commons Ford Park, 614 North Commons Ford Road
• Walnut Creek/Havens
• Northwest Recreation Center, 2913 Northland Drive
• Sir Swante Palm Neighborhood Park East, 3rd Street
• Duncan Park, 900 West 9th St.• Patterson Park, 4200 Brookview Road
• Bull Creek Park, Lakewood Drive
• Ryan Drive Warehouse
• Circle C
• Dick Nichols District Park, 8011 Beckett Road
• 11800 FM 1826
• 9513 Circle Drive
• 4905 Convict Hill Road
• Norwood Tract
• Austin Recreation Center, 1301 Shoal Creek Blvd.Last week, multiple city departments laid out the initial criteria for the sites. The city wants locations hosting 50 people to be 2 acres, while encampments hosting 100 people should be at least 4 acres.
City staff emphasized the list is preliminary. Some possible sites are on parkland that gets a lot of use — like the Onion Creek Metropolitan, Mary Moore Seawright, Gus Garcia, Bull Creek, Patterson, Walnut Creek, Roy G. Guerrero and Palm Neighborhood parks.
Kimberly McNeeley, director of Parks and Recreation, told council the resolution that triggered the review suggested parkland could be on the table — at least for the initial list... (LINK TO STORY)
What’s the plan for American Rescue Plan money? (Austin Monitor)
After seeing a rough outline of how city staffers plan to spend $143.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to house the homeless, address food insecurity, and provide affordable child care and job training, City Council still had a lot of questions about specifics at Tuesday’s work session.
Council members Alison Alter and Kathie Tovo, in particular, indicated they might not be ready to vote to move forward with approving spending at Council’s June 3 meeting. Council Member Leslie Pool said she wanted to look at how the spending would fit in with the upcoming budget discussions.
Council Member Ann Kitchen pushed back on the idea of putting off a decision, suggesting that a special called meeting might be necessary. After several hours of discussion, Mayor Steve Adler said he would try to schedule a special meeting on the spending for next week.
So far, Austin has spent $44.3 million in ARPA funds on its Covid-19 response and $500,000 on the navigator program, which helps local businesses apply for federal assistance. The city still has $49.4 million for the current fiscal year and will receive an additional $94.2 million from the program next May, according to Chief Economic Recovery Officer Veronica Briseño.
Staffers identified possible investments for priority areas at $732.8 million, which included $515 million to address homelessness, far outstripping funding. However, Briseño said staffers were recommending spending $84 million on homelessness, $6.9 million on early childhood care, $8 million on jobs and workforce development, $3 million on food insecurity, and $22.9 million on immediate relief needs.
Chief Financial Officer Ed Van Eenoo recommended keeping 10 percent of the federal funds for contingency needs. When questioned about the necessity of such a contingency, Van Eenoo said the city might need that money for health services if we were to experience a reemergence of the Covid virus.
Although Briseño did not offer a lot of details, she made a point of saying the city should allocate $1.5 million right away to build a community health center at Colony Park, which has no nearby health facilities. She said the site is shovel-ready and the city had previously promised to build it.
Briseño also said staffers recommend putting $10 million into a fund that would replace Hotel Occupancy Tax money for cultural arts, live music and historic preservation. The city would also invest another $10 million next year in those three areas, she said. Finally, she recommended $1.4 million in rent relief for individuals and households… (LINK TO STORY)
Report pushes local philanthropies to help solve housing crisis (Austin Monitor)
Austin Community Foundation is encouraging local philanthropic organizations to get more involved in addressing the housing affordability crisis in Central Texas, considered the root cause of the area’s growing homeless population.
A recently released report, “Housing Affordability in Central Texas,” looks at the data surrounding affordability and offers 13 steps that foundations and other well-endowed charitable organizations can take to help preserve or create housing options.
The recommendations, divided into three categories – public will, place and people – include steps like building support for data and research around housing issues, offering leadership strategies to protect housing, helping to increase the operational capacity of existing affordable housing developers, helping to fund housing conservation, and funding eviction prevention and other financial assistance.
Meagan Longley, vice president of community impact for Austin Community Foundation, said the report was created in partnership with St. David’s Foundation, National Instruments and JP Morgan Chase in an effort to start conversations with philanthropic leaders about ways they can impact affordability without directly building projects.
“Historically, foundations have been a little wary of affordable housing projects because it’s so capital intensive. You think about having a limited philanthropic budget, even if you have millions of dollars to use, housing is expensive, and foundations have chosen to use their resources more on issues tangential to the housing issue like support services or case management,” she said. “Our goal with the report was to present actionable things that foundations can do without building an apartment complex.”
Austin’s Strategic Housing Blueprint calls for building 60,000 homes priced at rates that are affordable for families earning less than 80 percent of the area’s median family income of $75,000 for a family of four. The blueprint calls for 20,000 of those homes to be affordable for households at 30 percent of MFI, 25,000 to be affordable for households at 31-60 percent of MFI, and 15,000 to be affordable for those earning 61-80 percent of MFI… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin airport adds two nonstop flights to Mexico (Austin Business Journal)
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport will soon have a pair of new nonstop routes to Mexico.
A twice-weekly, year-round route to Monterrey will begin June 19, while a twice-weekly seasonal route to Mexico City will begin June 20.
The flights will be offered by low-cost Mexican carrier Viva Aerobus, according to a May 17 announcement, in what the company calls "direct response to customer demand."
“It is wonderful to be able to welcome our partners from Viva Aerobus to Austin, bringing increased travel options to Mexico City and a fantastic new route to Monterrey,” Jacqueline Yaft, CEO of Austin-Bergstrom, said in a statement.
Air traffic through Austin-Bergstrom rebounded a bit in March, jumping up 4.9% year-over-year, and tons of new flights are coming to the Texas capital.
"We look forward to providing a convenient and easy connection between these important destinations, linking our business sectors, bringing closer our Hispanic communities and a great leisure offer for our tourists," Juan Carlos Zuazua, CEO of Viva Aerobus, said in a statement… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Greg. Abbott says no public schools or government entities will be allowed to require masks (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that public schools can no longer require masks on their campuses starting June 5. The decision was part of a new executive order that bans government entities in Texas — like cities and counties — from mandating masks in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
Starting Friday, any government entity that tries to impose a mask mandate can face a fine of up to $1,000, according to the order. The order exempts state supported living centers, government-owned or -operated hospitals, Texas Department of Criminal Justice facilities, Texas Juvenile Justice Department facilities, and county and municipal jails.
The order is arguably the most consequential for public schools. After Abbott ended the statewide mask requirement in early March, school systems were allowed to continue with their own mask-wearing policies unchanged. But after June 4, "no student, teacher, parent, or other staff member or visitor may be required to wear a face covering," according to Abbott's new order… (LINK TO STORY)
Economists pan Gov. Abbott's decision to cut $300 federal boost for the unemployed (Houston Chronicle)
Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision Monday to prematurely roll back federal unemployment checks was welcome news to the business community, which has struggled lately to draw Texans back to work even as millions are inoculated against the coronavirus. But for some economists, the move carries a huge amount of risk. “I’m still nervous that we’re bowing out of this program before the labor market is fully healed,” said Dietrich Vollrath, an economics professor at the University of Houston. “The bad consequences of doing too much is limited,” he said, “but the bad consequences of doing too little can really be detrimental.” About 800,000 Texans were receiving federal jobless assistance at the end of April, according to the most recent data. Nearly half of them — the self-employed or other gig economy workers — will lose all of their benefits at the end of June, when the governor is ending the additional aid. The rest will see a steep drop in their weekly checks.
The aid was the first major piece of federal legislation passed under Democratic President Joe Biden, and was set to run through early September. Abbott joined more than 20 other GOP governors in rejecting the added payments. While the Texas economy has largely rebounded from the height of the pandemic, when the unemployment rate topped 12 percent, companies across the state are still firing employees at two to three times the normal rate, according to Vollrath.
He said that’s a sign the recovery remains fragile. Labor experts already have some preliminary findings on the impacts of increased benefits during the pandemic. Economists at Yale University found that the $600 unemployment checks approved early on under the Trump administration did not significantly deter unemployed people from reentering the workforce. Belinda Román, an assistant economics professor at St. Mary’s University, said ending the payments could backfire and instead drive people further into poverty. If it does work, she said, it may force at least some people into underpaid jobs that they have decided are no longer worth the time or health risk. “My perspective is, pay better and that probably incentivizes a lot of people to come to work,” she said… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas ‘heartbeat’ bill and Roe v. Wade at stake as Supreme Court agrees to weigh Mississippi abortion ban (Dallas Morning News)
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to weigh a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, with implications for an even more restrictive Texas law – and the potential to overturn the 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. The Texas Legislature passed a bill this month banning abortion the moment a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is as early as 6 weeks, and often before women even know they are pregnant. Gov. Greg Abbott has said he will eagerly sign it into law. Monday’s unsigned order granting a hearing in the Mississippi case left no doubt that Roe, a case that originated in Texas, is in the crosshairs. Justices invited arguments on the core dispute: the constitutionality of bans on abortion before the point of fetal viability.
It’s the first major abortion case to reach the court since liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died in September. Then-president Donald Trump replaced her with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, shifting the court to a 6-3 conservative majority. Barrett’s writings suggest she’ll be a reliable vote to overturn Roe and allow sweeping restrictions on abortion. Abortion rights activists sounded the alarm Monday, lamenting that Trump’s legacy of stocking the courts with conservatives – one of his top selling points to Republicans who found him lacking in other ways – is bearing fruit. Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, noted that it’s a “direct challenge to Roe v. Wade” and that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, shepherding Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination, “mocked us...for claiming that legal abortion was in jeopardy. They knew. They lied.” Anti-abortion groups quickly cheered the court’s latest move.
“This is a landmark opportunity for the Supreme Court to recognize the right of states to protect unborn children from the horrors of painful late-term abortions,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, which works to elect anti-abortion politicians. “It is time for the Supreme Court to catch up to scientific reality and the resulting consensus of the American people as expressed in elections and policy.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Pittsburgh votes out mayor in primary election (Politico)
Pittsburgh’s incumbent mayor conceded the primary election Tuesday to challenger Ed Gainey, who would become the city’s first Black chief executive if he wins the general election in November.
Bill Peduto, a Democrat, had been seeking a third term against three primary challengers but instead called to congratulate Gainey, a five-term state representative.
“Wishing him well,” Peduto tweeted late Tuesday.
Gainey seems all but assured of a victory in November in the heavily Democratic city. He had consistently made the campaign about equality for Black and poor residents, and accused Peduto of failing to ensure equity in policing, housing and other areas. At one point, he called Pittsburgh “a tale of two cities.”… (LINK TO STORY)
New York says probe into Trump Organization now a criminal inquiry (NPR)
The New York State Attorney General's office has widened its probe into the Trump Organization to include an examination of potential criminal wrongdoing, according to the office's spokesman.
Previously, the office was investigating former President Donald Trump's namesake company in a solely civil matter, with New York Attorney General Letitia James focusing on whether the company improperly valued its assets for loan and tax purposes.
However, now the state's investigation has entered "a criminal capacity," spokesman Fabien Levy confirmed to NPR late Tuesday.
"We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the organization is no longer purely civil in nature," Levy said in a statement. "We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA."
Levy said additional details couldn't be shared at this time. It was not immediately clear whether the former president himself, or members of his family, were part of this latest criminal investigation. It's also unclear when the attorney general notified the Trump Organization of the broadening scope of the probe.
The expanded state case against the Trump Organization means the company and former president could face two criminal cases from separate prosecutors… (LINK TO STORY)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 139: Q1 20201 Review: COVID-19's Impact on the Built Environment with Michael Hsu
On today’s episode we speak with return guest, Austin-based Michael Hsu, Principal and Founder of Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. catch up from their June 2020 show, updating on impacts to the design/built environment sector through Q1 2021.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!