BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 4, 2021)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
City failed to meet its affordable housing goals in 2020 (Austin Monitor)
Not one City Council district met its affordable housing production goals for 2020, according to the most recent annual scorecard released by nonprofit HousingWorks Austin. The report comes as soaring rents and home prices drive the need for more affordable housing in the city.
The nonprofit, in a joint press release with the city’s Housing and Planning Department, acknowledged that the city is “progressing slowly” toward meeting its goals outlined in the Austin Strategic Housing Blueprint, a 10-year plan that sets a goal of creating 60,000 units priced for those making 80 percent of the median family income or less.
Since Council adopted the plan in 2017, 7,010 total units have been built – only 12 percent of the 10-year goal – meaning the city is nearly 11,000 units behind where it should be.
This is the third scorecard released so far. The scorecards from 2019 and 2018 can be found here. Scorecards also include data on the units produced across different levels of affordability, showing that the city is furthest behind on units affordable to those making less than 30 percent MFI.
While the city itself produces only a fraction of all affordable housing in Austin, it plays a big role in how much affordable housing can be built. Council has purview over many policies that affect affordable housing production, such as land use regulation, and various city departments implement these policies and help decide how to spend money that goes toward affordable housing.
Not everyone thinks the blueprint’s goals are reasonable. Council Member Alison Alter, who represents District 10 in West Austin, called the annual targets “aspirational” in a statement to the Austin Monitor. “I believe the goals for my district were never grounded in a reasonable assessment of the number of units we could create with our existing tools,” she said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin to expedite review of projects with permanent supportive housing for the homeless (Austin Business Journal)
Austin leaders want to incentivize the creation of housing for people experiencing homelessness by promising to reduce city review times for such projects.
City staffers have been asked to establish a program that expedites and prioritizes residential development projects with a "significant" amount of permanent supportive housing units. That will include review time for a project site plan and permit. Austin City Council unanimously approved a resolution at its Sept. 30 meeting to kickstart the process, which comes as city and county leaders attempt to tackle top issues facing the region: homelessness and affordability.
City Manager Spencer Cronk will report back to Council with recommendations by Dec. 9, according to city documents, meaning the reduced wait times won't be implemented just yet. It's also not clear how much time stands to be shaved from lengthy city reviews, which developers have called out in a plea for a streamlined development process.
Many developers have said that it takes two years from purchasing land to putting a shovel in the ground. Changing site zoning makes the timeline even longer. That's because the permitting process takes roughly four months, and site development or subdivision plan approvals can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months. Some said they've waited two years for a site development plan, which makes it difficult to nail down funding and bring projects online in a timely manner… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin area crosses Stage 3 threshold but health leaders aren't ready to shift guidelines yet (Austin American-Statesman)
The Austin area heads into the first weekend of October with its lowest seven-day average for daily hospital admissions for COVID-19 since mid-July, signaling major progress toward ending the region's most recent surge in coronavirus cases.
Only 35 patients were newly admitted to the hospital Friday for COVID-19, lowering the rolling seven-day average that Austin Public Health uses to determine how the most medically vulnerable can protect against the coronavirus. The new average, 29, was the lowest since July 18, when the average was also 29.
It's also the first time since July 18 that the Austin area crossed the threshold for Stage 3 of Austin Public Health's risk-based guidelines, indicating a lower risk of community spread of the virus.
Austin Public Health entered Stage 4 of the agency's recommendations — which occurs when the rolling average stays between 30 and 50 — on Tuesday, after more than 50 days in Stage 5, which indicates the highest threat level for community spread.
If the Austin area can stay between 15 and 29, Austin Public Health would consider moving back to Stage 3, where health leaders under current rules say it would be safe enough for anyone fully vaccinated to again shop, dine and gather outdoors without wearing a mask. Even those who are at high-risk for severe symptoms of COVID-19, but are fully vaccinated, could safely shop and gather outdoors without a face covering, according to the Stage 3 guidelines… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
JPMorgan Chase says Texas law punishing banks is hurting its business (Bloomberg)
The largest U.S. bank says it’s being shut out of underwriting municipal-bond deals in Texas after the state enacted a law banning government work with banks that limit business with the firearms industry. Due to the legislation, JPMorgan Chase & Co. won’t bid on business with public entities in Texas, a key market where the bank underwrote $3.6 billion of municipal debt sales in 2020. Texas-based borrowers sold more than $58 billion of bonds in 2020, the most of any state after California, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. As part of bond offerings, borrowers often hire banks ahead of time and pay them a fee for underwriting the sales. It’s one of the first signs of fallout from the Texas GOP’s effort to punish Wall Street banks for restrictive gun policies, with politicians in the gun-friendly state seeing it as a way of retaliating against them for weighing in on America’s fraught culture wars.
The law prohibits governmental entities from working with a business that “discriminates” against firearm and ammunition businesses or organizations, according to Republican Governor Greg Abbott, who has touted the legislation. “While our business practices should permit us to certify, the legal risk associated with this ambiguous law prevents us from bidding on most business right now with Texas public entities,” Patricia Wexler, a spokesperson for the bank, said in an emailed statement. The law was enacted as part of a flurry of GOP legislation, such as a law that restricts abortion rights and another that punished cities that defund their police departments. As part of Senate Bill 19, companies have to provide a written verification that they comply with the law, which applies to a contract that has a value of at least $100,000.
JPMorgan was ranked as the seventh-biggest underwriter of deals out of the state, which is one of the biggest markets for the muni-bond business thanks to its fast-growing population. This legislation could be detrimental to municipal issuers in Texas, depending on ultimately how many banks are “captured” by the new law, said Martin Luby, a professor of public affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. “There is a concern that the state and local governments wont have access to as many investors if the big banks aren’t participating in these transactions.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
As winter nears, tensions rise over how to prevent Texas blackouts from happening again (Houston Chronicle)
After a winter storm left millions of Texans without power for days last February, Texas lawmakers and energy regulators vowed they would take whatever steps necessary to ensure there wouldn’t be a repeat. But with another winter bearing down, state and federal officials are still struggling to agree on how to shore up the power grid against cold weather while maintaining the state’s historically low energy costs. The tension erupted in a hearing before the Texas Senate on Tuesday, when senators lashed out at officials from the Texas Railroad Commission over a loophole that would allow natural gas producers to avoid weatherizing their operations by paying a $150 exemption fee — a provision written into the power reform legislation that passed earlier this year. State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, told Wei Wang, executive director of the Railroad Commission, that the agency was not moving fast enough to shore up the state’s natural gas fields, adding, “Your job ought to be at stake.”
At the same time, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is pressuring state energy officials to enact far-reaching reforms to the grid, some of which goes beyond what was passed by the Legislature. Chairman Richard Glick said FERC will intervene if necessary under its authority to maintain the reliability of the nation’s power plants. In a recent preliminary report, FERC, an independent bipartisan agency with authority over the nation’s power and natural gas systems, called on states affected by the storm to create financial incentives for power plants to weatherize, among other guidelines. Under Texas’ deregulated system, however, power companies’ revenues come almost entirely from the electricity they generate, providing incentives to keep costs low, delay upgrades and maintain only the most profitable plants. Unlike most U.S. power markets, Texas companies receive no payments for maintaining backup generating capacity that can be called on during emergencies and tight supply conditions.
The Public Utility Commission of Texas, under orders from the Legislature, is weighing an overhaul of the state’s market structure. A spokesman for the commission said regulators were considering “some type of compensatory structure for establishment of reliable generation service in extreme weather.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Dallas ethics reform among biggest issues facing city this fall (Dallas Morning News)
National, state and local officials are busy these days, and for varying reasons. Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and members of the City Council are on the verge of approving the most significant ethics reform package in the city’s history. Here’s a look at where things stand.
For the past three decades the Dallas City Council has been marred by public corruption scandals and weak ethics policies. But it could get much tougher for crooks to operate in city government and its political arena. An 18-page report released last week contained 25 recommendations for ethics reform, including the appointment of an Inspector General to find, investigate and issue rulings on cases of alleged fraud, waste, abuse, campaign finance violations and other ethics misconduct. That alone would be a vast improvement because currently ethics complaints are not independently investigated and are developed through mostly ineffective channels. Johnson appointed Dallas lawyer Tim Powers as the city’s ethics czar. Powers led the committee that developed the report. “We’ve seen too many clear instances of corruption that have undermined our efforts to build a safer, stronger city,” Johnson said last week. “We’ve heard far too many questions about how business gets done here in the city without being able to provide the public with clear answers.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
States and cities slow to spend federal pandemic money (Associated Press)
As Congress considered a massive COVID-19 relief package earlier this year, hundreds of mayors from across the U.S. pleaded for “immediate action” on billions of dollars targeted to shore up their finances and revive their communities. Now that they've received it, local officials are taking their time before actually spending the windfall. As of this summer, a majority of large cities and states hadn't spent a penny from the American Rescue Plan championed by Democrats and President Joe Biden, according to an Associated Press review of the first financial reports due under the law. States had spent just 2.5% of their initial allotment while large cities spent 8.5%, according to the AP analysis. Many state and local governments reported they were still working on plans for their share of the $350 billion, which can be spent on a wide array of programs.
Though Biden signed the law in March, the Treasury Department didn't release the money and spending guidelines until May. By then, some state legislatures already had wrapped up their budget work for the next year, leaving governors with no authority to spend the new money. Some states waited several more months to ask the federal government for their share. Cities sometimes delayed decisions while soliciting suggestions from the public. And some government officials — still trying to figure out how to spend previous rounds of federal pandemic aid — simply didn't see an urgent need for the additional cash. “It’s a lot of money that’s been put out there. I think it’s a good sign that it hasn’t been frivolously spent,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer said. He was president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors when more than 400 mayors signed a letter urging Congress to quickly pass Biden's plan. The law gives states until the end of 2024 to make spending commitments and the end of 2026 to spend the money. Any money not obligated or spent by those dates must be returned to the federal government. The Biden administration said it isn't concerned about the early pace of the initiative. The aid to governments is intended both "to address any crisis needs” and to provide "longer-term fire power to ensure a durable and equitable recovery,” said Gene Sperling, White House American Rescue Plan coordinator. "The fact that you can spread your spending out is a feature, not a bug, of the program. It is by design,” Sperling told the AP… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Fate of abortion access looms over new Supreme Court term (The Hill)
The Supreme Court is slated to hear a number of hot-button issues in the new term that starts Monday, but one case looms largest: a clash over a Mississippi abortion law that directly challenges Roe v. Wade.
Conservatives and anti-abortion activists hope the case will mark the culmination of nearly five decades of their concerted effort to narrow the constitutional right to abortion first recognized by the court in 1973.
Mississippi officials have made no secret of their goal. The state’s Republican attorney general in a court brief filed over the summer explicitly urged the justices to use the dispute over Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban as a vehicle to overrule Roe and related rulings, calling the court’s precedent on abortion “egregiously wrong.”
“This Court should overrule Roe and Casey,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) wrote, referring also to the court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. “Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. They have proven hopelessly unworkable. … And nothing but a full break from those cases can stem the harms they have caused.”
A dozen Republican governors also asked the justices in a court filing to eliminate federal abortion protections in order to allow states to regulate the procedure.
Abortions rights advocates have warned that if the Supreme Court were to dramatically undermine the constitutional right to abortion then “chaos would ensue.”
“The fallout would be swift and certain,” abortion providers argued in their court brief opposing Mississippi's law, which has been put on pause during litigation. “As abortion bans are enforced — or the threat of enforcement looms — large swaths of the South and Midwest would likely be without access to legal abortion.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)