BG Reads | News You Need to Know (December 1, 2021)
Circuit of the Americas (Austin, TX)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Cancelled - Work Session of the Austin City Council Agenda (12.1.2021)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Council lays out priorities for addressing Austin's housing affordability, availability crunch (Community Impact)
On Nov. 30, Austin City Council members gathered to share ideas for addressing what some have labeled a regional housing crisis.
Plans for this work session came together earlier in November, with Mayor Steve Adler and others noting a need to circle back to housing—a top council priority prior to the pandemic.
Council heard briefings on the state of the local housing market from city staff and consultants, and discussed the council members’ policy proposals.
During a midday press conference, Adler ceremonially recognized Austin Housing Affordability and Housing Supply Week. He also called attention to a need for agreement and council action after the previous land development code debates and the related citizen lawsuit that stalled that process.
“We got held up, everybody’s waiting to see what happens in the court action, and that will eventually run its due course," Adler said. "Regardless of how that lawsuit’s turned out, we can act as a council on a lot of things just by reaching consensus, by adopting those things we can adopt with a vote of nine or more members of council."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
City kicks off negations with Austin EMS Association (Community Impact)
The city of Austin and the Austin EMS Association kicked off labor negotiations Nov. 30.
The meeting was the first of several in a series of talks to renegotiate three public safety labor contracts with emergency medical, police and fire departments.
Talks with the fire and police departments are set to start in 2022.
The city’s current agreements with all three services will each expire in September 2022.
“We look forward to working cooperatively with each of the fire, police and EMS associations to reach agreements that benefit both Austin residents and our public safety employees,” said Deven Desai, chief labor relations officer for the city of Austin, in a press release. “While this will be a challenging time to negotiate from both a fiscal and COVID-19 standpoint, we remain committed to transparency and fairness.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Dell family foundation gives $38 million to 3 organizations to end homelessness (Austin American-Statesman)
The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is giving $38 million to three local nonprofit organizations that provide housing for people experiencing homelessness in Austin.
Mobile Loaves & Fishes' capital campaign will get $36.6 million to go toward the building of the third and fourth phases of its Community First Village program, which houses people who have experienced homelessness in a community of microhouses, manufactured homes and RVs.
The two phases will add 1,400 homes. Half will be in phase three on 51 acres next to the existing 51 acres with 500 homes on Hog Eye Road in Northeast Austin. The other half will be in the fourth phase, a 76-acre space on Burleson Road between U.S. 183 and McKinney Falls Parkway in Southeast Austin.
The two phases are a $150 million project, which already has raised $40.9 million, including $35 million from Travis County. The Dell family foundation funds will be matched $1 for every $2 raised from the community. If all the money is raised to meet the $36.6 million match, the project will have the needed $150 million… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The Next Austin? How About Arkansas. Seriously. (Bloomberg)
Ambitious young college graduates are looking for an affordable home base where they can build their families and careers. Here’s a place that may not (yet) be on their list: Arkansas.
For the past decade, coastal metros like New York and San Francisco dominated the landscape for the upwardly mobile, but the main story became how to cope with the high cost of living in those cities. One solution was to move into lower-cost neighborhoods, further pushing up rents and home prices. Others moved to lower-cost metros that shared some of the characteristics of those high-cost places; Austin, Texas, was one of the biggest beneficiaries of that trend.
Thanks to the accumulated impact of all that migration — accelerated by lifestyle changes during the pandemic — Austin is no longer affordable, and arguably overpriced for what it offers. That begs the question: Where should someone who’s been priced out of Austin look? I would argue the best candidate to be the next Austin is the up-and-coming region known as Northwest Arkansas… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Greg Abbott on Texas Power Grid “I can guarantee the lights will stay on” (KXAN)
“I can guarantee the lights will stay on” in Texas this winter. Governor Greg Abbott making the promise to a local station in Austin, after he was asked for his thoughts on the power grid following a devastating winter storm back in February.
Governor Abbott pointing to almost a dozen laws he signed that he says makes the power grid more effective. The Governor asserting that he has personally talked to the Natural Gas Pipeline Transmitters and they are conducting winterization that most people do not know about. He also said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) is taking steps to be proactive instead of reactive.
“I have talked to some of the natural gas pipeline transmitters, and they’ve also have been doing winterization that most people don’t know about. Most importantly is the approach ERCOT has taken this year, unlike last year. Last year they were reactive, and waited until a crisis mode before they summoned more power, more energy, now the way ERCOT works, is they work days in advance in summoning that power to make sure they will have enough power to keep the lights on.”
In June Governor Abbott signed sweeping legislation into law requiring Power Generation facilities, Natural Gas facilities and Transmission facilities to be weatherized. ERCOT is required to inspect those facilities and violations can result in a penalty of up to one million dollars. The laws also created a state wide power outage alert system… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gov. Greg Abbott dragged for claiming South African migrants are crossing border illegally (Houston Chronicle)
Gov. Greg Abbott is being criticized for tweets stating South African migrants are flowing illegally over the U.S. border. Posted Sunday and Monday on the governor's official Twitter account, Abbott's claims came in response President Joe Biden's recent ban of travelers from the country and seven other African nations in light of the new Omicron COVID-19 variant whose origins have been traced back to South Africa.
The Republican leader called Biden's action "hypocritical" and associated the move with the handling of the ongoing migrant crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, which he has frequently criticized in recent months.
"Immigrants have recently been apprehended crossing our border illegally from South Africa," Abbott tweeted Sunday. "Biden is doing nothing to stop immigrants from South Africa entering illegally. Pure politics and hypocrisy.
On Monday, Abbott tweeted again about the travel ban, claiming that more than 50 illegal immigrants from South Africa and "other South African countries" have been apprehended by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in 2021, including 18 in the month of November. The CBP did not respond to a request for comment as of the time of this writing.
Meanwhile, U.S. Border Patrol data shows a total of 62 South African nationals have been apprehended crossing the southwest border between 2007 and 2020, out of the 6.8 million apprehensions made in that time period. Only six such apprehensions are listed for 2020. The number is so small that the department does not include the nation in monthly updates on its website… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
UT Southwestern to pay millions for lax opioid oversight (Dallas Morning News)
UT Southwestern Medical Center must pay $4.5 million for failing to properly guard dangerous medications, including fentanyl that two nurses overdosed on inside one of its hospitals.
The penalty, imposed by federal law enforcement officials, is the second-highest of its kind against a hospital nationwide and the biggest in Texas, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
A Dallas Morning News investigation in 2018 found the nurses died from fentanyl likely intended for patients. Our reporting triggered a federal hospital inspection and a separate probe by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas.
“For years prior to our investigation, UT Southwestern exhibited an almost shocking disregard for its obligations under the Controlled Substance Act,” U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham said in a statement Tuesday. “The serial compliance failures we uncovered warranted a multi-million-dollar penalty and a stringent corrective action plan.”
Drug thefts at hospitals are typically met with requirements to improve record-keeping, DEA Dallas Special Agent in Charge Eduardo Chávez said in an interview. High-dollar penalties are rare, he said, and reflect the scope of UT Southwestern’s failures.
Investigators reviewed more than five years of records at UT Southwestern and found thefts of opioids such as fentanyl at Clements University Hospital, where the nurses died, and Zale Lipshy University Hospital, a smaller facility on campus. Some employees stole the medications for significant periods of time, investigators found… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
GOP infighting just gets uglier (The Hill)
House Republicans can’t seem to stop fighting with each other, despite potentially being less than a year out from winning the majority in the 2022 midterm elections.
Just two weeks ago, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urged Republicans to stop attacking each other after 13 moderate GOP lawmakers were marked as traitors by some of their conservative colleagues over their votes for the bipartisan infrastructure bill championed by President Biden.
McCarthy, the odds-on favorite to be the next Speaker if the GOP does win back the House next year, said his conference should focus instead on their opposition to Democrats’ social spending and climate package.
Weeks later, conservative and ultraconservative lawmakers are again making headlines with schoolyard insults on Twitter.
The GOP drama on Tuesday was the nasty Twitter fight between Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), with Greene calling the swing-district lawmaker “trash” for condemning Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.). Mace fired back by using emojis to label Greene as “batshit crazy.”
The battle between the two centered on Boebert, who herself was called “TRASH” days earlier by Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the anti-Trump Republican from Illinois who has increasingly taken on the most far-right of his party. He was criticizing Boebert for invoking Islamophobic tropes by suggesting Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) could be a terrorist.
If McCarthy does become Speaker, the infighting offers a preview of just how challenging his job could be — and of the difficulty a divided House GOP might have in governing. The more narrow the margin, the tougher McCarthy’s job likely would be… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
U.S. Commander calls for more aircraft carriers in Pacific to deter China (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. Seventh Fleet’s commander called for an expanded presence by U.S. and allied aircraft carriers in the Pacific to persuade China and Russia that “today is not the day” to start a conflict.
Vice Adm. Karl Thomas spoke Tuesday as the U.S., Japan, Australia, Canada and Germany completed a 10-day naval exercise led by Japan in Pacific waters. Media were invited to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to watch F-35 jet fighters take off and land.
The exercise followed another in October in which two U.S. aircraft carriers—the Carl Vinson and the USS Ronald Reagan —joined the U.K.’s HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier as well as a Japanese ship on which helicopters can land.
Although those combined forces represent “an incredible amount of power,” allies should go further, Adm. Thomas said. “When we think about how we might fight, it’s a large water space, and four aircraft carriers is a good number, but six, seven or eight would be better,” he said.
The U.S. Navy’s carrier fleet, once little challenged in the Pacific, faces a growing threat from China, which commissioned its first domestically built aircraft carrier in 2019 and expects its second carrier to enter service by 2024, according to the Pentagon.
Recent signs point to steady progress on the construction of Beijing’s third aircraft carrier, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and satellite imagery suggests China has built a mock-up of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the desert, presumably for target practice… (LINK TO FULL STORY)