BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 18, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
EVENTS // Thursday, October 28 (6PM - 10PM0, A Night In Verde Presented by St. David’s Healthcare - benefiting the 4ATX Foundation (Austin FC’s non-profit arm).
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin voters could put hundreds more police officers on the streets after last year’s budget cuts (Texas Tribune)
After Austin officials slashed the city’s police spending amid nationwide protests over police brutality last year and drew the ire of Gov. Greg Abbott, Austin’s voters could wind up putting hundreds of new police officers on the streets.
If passed on Nov. 2, Proposition A would compel Austin officials to drastically increase the ranks of its police force — more than a year after the city first embarked on a mission to re-examine its police department in the wake of the fatal shooting of Michael Ramos, an unarmed Black and Hispanic man, by an Austin police officer and George Floyd’s murder by a white officer in Minneapolis, which sparked a summer of protests in Texas cities and across the nation.
The fight over Prop A is shaping up as a referendum on Austin’s new scaled-down approach to policing — and a test for Texas’ most liberal major city amid a surge of homicides.
Cries of “defund the police” at protests inflamed the national culture wars as several major cities cut their police spending in one way or another. Nowhere in the country were the cuts as deep as in Austin, the only major Texas city that cut huge sums from its police budget — albeit temporarily.
Among the results were a state law that punishes cities that cut police spending and now a petition drive that could force Austin to spend millions more on policing indefinitely.
Leaders of Save Austin Now, a group that successfully pushed a referendum that restored the city’s ban on homeless encampments in May, forced the issue by gathering enough signatures to add Prop A to the November ballot — betting that residents across the political spectrum will force city officials to hire more officers as homicides increase along with police response times… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Environmental, neighborhood groups call for ‘rewilding’ Zilker Park (Austin Monitor)
One of the city’s main environmental groups hopes to increase biodiversity and reduce the impact of visitors to Zilker Park by pushing for more natural growth of trees and other plant life in the popular central city park.
The Save Our Springs Alliance recently released a report from restoration ecologist and park planner Elizabeth McGreevy that calls for “rewilding” 75 acres of Zilker’s 350 total acres, which would reduce mowing and other maintenance that clears the parkland. Instead, the alliance and three neighborhood groups want more trails, woodlands and water features to replace areas that have been planted as lawns and used for festivals, sports and other gatherings.
In tandem with the report, the Zilker Neighborhood Association has put out its vision plan for the park. Its 10 points include protection of water features, establishing and enforcing capacity limits on visitors, reducing parking and vehicle impacts, and reducing the number of events on park grounds.
The call for rewilding the park comes as the Parks and Recreation Department is set to hold its third virtual meeting to gather feedback that will lead to the creation of the first-ever vision plan for Zilker Park.
Bill Bunch, executive director of SOS Alliance, said issues such as erosion, overuse by pet owners and the lack of action related to securing the Butler Landfill located on the property need to be addressed.
“Nature is resilient and some parts of the park are pretty nice. The water is still beautiful and clean and that is the most critical element of the park, but a lot of it is hammered and the maintenance practices are not well managed or thought out and it could be so much more,” he said. “It’s a lovely place to go and the setting is spectacular at the confluence of Barton Creek and the river, but it could be so much more and we need to be a lot more for the community, with our exploding central city population and parklands not expanding to meet that challenge.”
There will be two more feedback sessions after Tuesday’s meeting, with the city expected to present a final vision for the park by April 2022… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
HAAM names new CEO (Austin Business Journal)
Paul Scott was named the new CEO for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians on Oct. 13.
HAAM is a nonprofit that connects Austin musicians with affordable health care, a mission central to the city's artistic identity that took on special importance during the pandemic.
Scott was previously vice president of engagement with Vivent Health, which helps people with AIDS. He had been president and CEO of AIDS Services of Austin when it merged with Vivent in 2020.
Prior to that, Scott was executive director at Equality Texas and has also worked at Resource Center Dallas. Originally he was a trial attorney, with a practice focused on insurance defense, workers compensation and contracts, according to HAAM.
Scott starts in November, replacing Reenie Collins, who had led HAAM since 2013. She was recently named one of Austin's Best CEOs.
"I am honored to be selected as the next CEO of HAAM," Scott said in a statement. "My life's work has centered around community, and I couldn't be happier to join an organization that has such a stellar reputation in Austin. I look forward to being a part of HAAM’s growth and continued success in our community."
In the announcement, HAAM highlighted Scott's 25-plus years in the nonprofit sector and said he "considers access to affordable and quality healthcare an inherent right for everyone, and believes it is an integral component for living a successful, productive and healthy life."
Since 2005, HAAM has helped nearly 6,000 members access more than $90 million in health care services, from primary care to vision to mental health.
"We are excited to welcome Paul to HAAM," Heather Ladage, chair of the HAAM board and Austin Business Journal market president and publisher, said in a statement. "We believe Paul's record of success in non-profit organizations with a focus on healthcare make him ideally suited to help HAAM grow and thrive. Paul has deep experience with visionary leadership of large and complex organizations."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Most Austin and Travis County landlords can evict tenants again in December, with a few added steps (KUT)
A ban on evictions against tenants who owe more than three months of rent has been extended until Oct. 31. The new orders from Austin and Travis County officials also allow landlords, starting in November, to begin evicting tenants who owe more than one month of rent.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler and Travis County Judge Andy Brown extended the eviction bans as they were set to expire Friday. The two leaders intend to phase-out the bans, which have prohibited evictions of most residential renters during the pandemic, by the end of the year.
“Eviction protections save lives by stopping potential cycles of homelessness by keeping people in their homes,” Adler said in an emailed statement. “Eviction protections have helped Austinites stay housed amid economic uncertainty.”
Beginning in December, landlords in the Austin area will return to having most of the eviction rights they had before the pandemic, with a couple added steps.
A city ordinance requires landlords to give tenants a heads-up. Through the rest of October, landlords must give renters 60 days’ notice that they will be filing an eviction. Starting in November, that drops to 45 days; in December, 28 days.
These local rules apply only to residential tenants who pay no more than $2,475 a month in rent and to commercial tenants that run businesses affected heavily by the pandemic — including bars, restaurants and music venues… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
New report underscores inequities for Latinos in Central Texas (Austin Monitor)
Systemic and racial barriers have made it harder for the Latino community to excel in Central Texas, according to a new report from the Hispanic Impact Fund of the Austin Community Foundation. Building a Thriving Central Texas: Advancing Latino Futures takes a closer look at the data underlying the challenges and contributions of Latinos in the Austin area in an effort to alleviate some of the barriers and construct a brighter, more equitable future for all.
One-third of the Central Texas population is currently Latino, but that number is growing; by 2050, Latinos are projected to be the largest ethnic group in the area, surpassing the white population. But these numbers aren’t always represented in Austin society. Latinos are trailing behind other ethnic groups in many aspects of life – the report points out a palpable discrepancy in the racial wealth divide, as well as early childhood education, health and wellness, job skills and leadership development.
“It’s imperative that all of our region’s residents are able to live, work and play in the city they call home,” said Estevan Delgado, the program manager of the Hispanic Impact Fund. “Latinos are the future of Central Texas. And we need to be prepared to support their advancement across the region.”
Looking at wealth based on race, the report points out that, in the Austin metro area, about four times as many Latinos are living in poverty compared to whites. Fifty-five percent of Latinos are experiencing “liquid asset poverty,” which measures financial vulnerability, a rate comparable to the Black community, but more than double the rate for whites. The median Latino household earns almost $27,000 less each year than the median white household, making it harder to buy homes, support children and accumulate generational wealth.
This is in part because much of the Latino workforce is “confined to minimal incomes,” according to the report, whether because of job skills, educational discrepancies or unfamiliarity with English… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
With surgical precision, Republicans draw two congressional districts that dilute power of Hispanic and Asian voters (Texas Tribune)
The intensity with which Texas Republicans are struggling against demographic tides as they redraw the state's congressional districts can best be seen in their proposed maps for the Dallas-Fort Worth region, specifically its suburbs. For decades, suburban communities offered the GOP solid political ground. But census figures demonstrate the state is growing away from Republicans, with nearly all of its population gains coming within communities of color more likely to support Democrats. That shift has reached the suburbs. In a bid to hold the political turf, Republicans are zeroing in on communities with high shares of potential voters of color and grafting them onto massive districts dominated by white voters. That sort of surgical targeting is strikingly captured by the proposed changes to the 33rd and 6th congressional districts, which will diminish the influence Hispanic voters have in choosing their representatives in Congress. The proposed maps have already cleared the Senate and await a vote in the House.
A significant portion of the Hispanic voting age population in the suburban cities between Dallas and Fort Worth is currently in TX-33, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey. The district stretches from Fort Worth in Tarrant County, across suburban communities like Arlington and Grand Prairie and into Irving’s heavily Hispanic neighborhoods on the west side of Dallas County. Despite its odd shape, TX-33 was actually drawn by a three-judge federal panel a decade ago to protect the voting rights of people of color in the area. That panel devised the district so that Hispanics made up the largest demographic group, but it offered Hispanic or Black voters an equal chance to elect their preferred candidate. Veasey won that job. A decade later, Hispanics make up a large majority of the district’s voting age population and are just shy of the majority of eligible voters, which includes citizens only. But under the Republicans’ proposed map, many of those voters would be sunk into a starkly different political reality. Republicans reconfigured part of TX-33 to shore up another neighboring GOP district, but that left behind Hispanic areas around Irving. They looked south and saw a swath of rural, mostly white counties. To connect them, they extended a bizarre finger northward into Dallas County, picked off the Democratic-leaning areas and melded them into a different district — TX-6 … (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Proposed ban on COVID-19 vaccine mandates faces obstacles at Texas Legislature (Austin American-Statesman)
With few days remaining in the special legislative session, an effort to codify Gov. Greg Abbott's COVID-19 vaccine mandate ban faces an arduous path forward. Democrats object to the effort due to public health concerns, and some lawmakers from both parties have voiced opposition to the government interfering in the decisions of business owners, who were previously allowed to mandate vaccines. Major companies based in Texas and business groups also have come out against the proposal, complicating its future at the Capitol where limited time remains for lawmakers to pass legislation. The current legislative special session ends Tuesday. "We all at some level are conflicted," state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, said Thursday. "We recognize that business people, whether they're small or large businesses, need to be allowed to run their businesses according to their conscience and serve their customers as they see fit. We also recognize that fundamental right of a person with dignity and created in God's image to make their own health care decisions."
"We're in choppy waters here, I would say," Hughes said. Two legislative committees have heard public testimony on different bills that seek the same outcome: creating a de facto ban on COVID-19 vaccine mandates by allowing individuals to claim an exemption to a vaccination requirement issued by a private entity based on numerous factors, including “reasons of conscience.” “One of the things that I believe very strongly as a physician — and I think is a cornerstone and a bedrock of the way we practice medicine in this country, it is foundational to medical ethics — is the idea of patient autonomy,” said Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress, author of House Bill 155. “That is the idea that a patient of sound mind and body has the right to accept or refuse medical advice and treatment.” Oliverson, who is an anesthesiologist, said he was vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as he was eligible. “Unfortunately, with respect to the COVID pandemic, we’ve gotten away from that foundational medical ethical principle of patient autonomy,” he said. “We’re sort of trampling all over it.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Caught in the crosshairs: AT&T political donations, deal with OAN draw it into culture wars (Dallas Morning News)
During the Donald Trump era, AT&T endured repeated shots from the president for its acquisition and ownership of CNN — the highly-watched cable news network he and his supporters regularly labeled as “fake news.” Not even a year after a White House changing of the guard, the Dallas-based telecommunications giant is in the political culture war’s crosshairs again. This time, it’s Democratic and moderate Republican activists taking aim at its financial support for burgeoning right-wing extremism in the U.S. The ire stems from newly surfaced court testimony and records suggesting right-wing broadcast network One America News Network wouldn’t exist without AT&T’s backing. A week into the festering controversy, AT&T’s only public comment is a prepared statement to The Dallas Morning News. “AT&T has never had a financial interest in OAN’s success and does not ‘fund’ OAN,” the statement said in part. “CNN is the only news network we fund because it’s a part of AT&T.”
For a company that traces its history to Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone in 1876, it’s an uncomfortable spotlight that’s only widened since the OAN revelation. Progressive PAC American Bridge, co-chaired by former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards, called on AT&T to take a stand against Texas’ restrictive new abortion law with a recent ad blitz calling out the company’s contributions to conservative lawmakers in its home state. Anti-Trump Republican PAC The Lincoln Project is labeling the company in attack ads as a supporter of white nationalism and calling for a boycott. The group’s reach is broad: It has more than 2.7 million Twitter followers and 785,000 YouTube channel subscribers. NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson said the organization was “sickened” by the revelations about AT&T and OAN. The Congressional Black Caucus slammed AT&T’s reported support of OAN as being “in direct opposition to its claims of embracing and valuing diversity, equity, and inclusion.” John Oliver, who hosts Last Week Tonight on AT&T-owned HBO, criticized the company, saying “you do bad things and you make the world worse.” In the week following the Reuters report, the hashtag #BoycottATT — harnessed mostly by democratic political organizations — has reached 2.5 million users via hundreds of posts on Twitter, Instagram and other platforms, according to social media research firm Brandmentions… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Mayor of Southlake responds to teachers being told to include “opposing” views of Holocaust (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Southlake Mayor John Huffman spoke out, in a Facebook post on Saturday, on his community’s school district curriculum, and the media’s response to it. Carroll ISD recently made national news — and sparked outrage — over instructions to teachers to offer books with “opposing” views of the Holocaust.
In his post addressed to the Southlake community, Huffman said Southlake will always stand with its Jewish neighbors and friends, and there was no room for vagueness on the subject of the Holocaust. “I know I speak for the entire Southlake community when I say that the idea that there could be two sides to the historical fact of the Holocaust is unthinkable,” Huffman said. “There simply aren’t opposing viewpoints on the issue of condemning that monstrous evil, and I don’t know anyone who thinks there are.” Huffman also criticized national media outlets for using the incident as a way to “tear down” the city. He said the criticisms hurt its citizens and business owners who want to feel pride in Southlake. “It is our job to continue to elevate the positive stories around us, even if the national media only seeks to highlight our mistakes,” he said. “Let us celebrate the things that make us unique and diverse.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
The political fight over vaccine mandates deepens despite their effectiveness (NPR)
The science is clear: Vaccines are a safe and effective way to prevent serious illness, hospitalization and death from the coronavirus, and vaccine mandates are an effective tool in promoting widespread vaccinations. Still, the battle to inoculate the nation against the coronavirus has reached a fever pitch in recent months. President Biden has focused on getting as many Americans as possible vaccinated against the coronavirus, most notably rolling out wide-reaching vaccine mandates for government employees and for businesses with more than 100 workers. But Republicans have grown increasingly hostile to the notion of mandatory vaccines — despite vaccine mandates existing in the background in parts of the United States since the 19th century — and have parlayed the fight against COVID-19 into a political battle, with vaccine mandates as the latest frontier in the great American defense of freedom and liberty.
These lawmakers decry the Biden administration's actions as government overreach, but now themselves are telling employers they can't impose mandates even if they want to. Take for example Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, who earlier this week issued an executive order banning mandatory vaccines within private companies. "No entity in Texas can compel receipt of a COVID-19 vaccine by any individual, including an employee or a consumer, who objects to such vaccination for any reason of personal conscience, based on a religious belief, or for medical reasons, including prior recovery from COVID-19," Abbott wrote in his order. The order notes that vaccines are "encouraged" for those who are eligible but should remain "voluntary." Abbott is himself fully vaccinated against the virus and survived a brush with COVID-19 this summer. Florida's Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — also vaccinated against the virus — has vowed to sue the Biden administration over its federal vaccine mandates. So far, he has made good on his promise to keep such orders out of Florida, having previously fined a county in the state $3.5 million for imposing vaccine mandates on its employees. "We're going to make sure people are able to make their own choices. We're not going to discriminate against people based on those choices, and you're going to have a right to operate in society," DeSantis said, painting the issue of vaccines as a matter of civil liberties… (LINK TO FULL STORY)