BG Reads | News You Need to Know (September 28, 2021)
Nueces Street and W. 6th, Downtown Austin (Bingham Group 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council (9.30.2021 at 10AM) - AGENDA
[BINGHAM GROUP]
***NEW*** BG Podcast Ep. 146: District Organizing with Austin Justice Coalition
A.J. speaks with Austin Justice Coalition (AJC) reps João Paulo Connolly and Rockie Gonzalez about the launch of its new grassroots organizing strategy, District Organizing: Project Engage (DOPE). DOPE is a plan mobilize and build community power at the Council district level. The conversation covers the impetus and vision of the program, and how Austinites can engage. Show link here. with Austin Justice Coalition (AJC) reps João Paulo Connolly and Rockie Gonzalez about the launch of its new grassroots organizing strategy, District Organizing: Project Engage (DOPE). DOPE is a plan mobilize and build community power at the Council district level. The conversation covers the impetus and vision of the program, and how Austinites can engage. Show link here.
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]
Austin's land development code lawsuit returns to court in November (Community Impact)
Austin's appeal to a court ruling over the city's contentious and long-delayed land development code rewrite is set to move forward later this fall.
Initiated in 2012, Austin's attempt to rethink city rules for land use has moved through various forms over the past decade. A years-long development code rewrite process, CodeNEXT, fizzled out in 2018 but was followed by a new version the next year. That eventually made it weeks away from a final City Council vote—before ending up the subject of the lawsuit that has held up movement since the early days of the pandemic.
A Travis County district court judge ruled against the city in that suit last spring, leading to City Council's vote to appeal the decision weeks later. And after a year and a half, oral arguments in the city's appeal are now set to be held virtually on the afternoon of Nov. 17 before a panel of justices of the Fourteenth Court of Appeals in Houston.
In the years since city officials first announced their intent to launch a land code overhaul, the process has proven controversial across town given its potential effects on local development, traffic, displacement, neighborhood character and resident property rights. City Council was also divided on the future of the rules governing what can be built throughout Austin as it moved toward its final vote in 2020.
With those issues at the forefront of the overall process, the lawsuit filed in late 2019 centered instead on the question of whether Austin residents could object to the proposed change before its final approval. The city argued they could not, in part given the comprehensive and citywide scope of the update. The plaintiffs—19 local property owners who named City Manager Spencer Cronk and City Council members as defendants in the suit—said Austin's claim had no legal foundation and that a code revision carries the same requirements as an individual zoning case.State code holds that residents of any property up for a zoning change, or living within 200 feet of the property, must be notified before a public zoning hearing and have the chance to protest the change to a city's zoning commission—in Austin, the Planning Commission. If 20% or more of such neighborhood challenges are deemed valid, the threshold for City Council's vote to approve the rezoning is raised.
In its code revision process of 2019 and 2020, Austin did not notify all city residents when the proposed rewrite headed to the Planning Commission or allow for widespread challenges to the plan, sparking the opposition lawsuit. The city has said the state zoning rules related to hearing notices and resident protests do not apply to its sweeping code update, and that alerting everyone in Austin within 200 feet of every property set to be rezoned through the process would come with a high price tag.
Judge Jan Soifer ruled against Austin's arguments in March 2020 in Travis County district court. Her decision came just as deliberations over the code rewrite were headed toward a possible conclusion at City Hall, but were then put on the backburner given rising concerns related to COVID-19. The city appeal filed last April had since garnered amicus briefs from local groups in favor and opposed to Austin's position.
Both sides of the suit engaged in a written back-and-forth in June over a separate legal case, representing the most recent submissions related to the land code lawsuit, per state appeals court filings. The mid-November arguments were scheduled Sept. 23 and will be held via Zoom videoconference… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin ballot measure could pit police vs. firefighters (Austin American-Statesman)
If voters approve it, a ballot proposition in November to increase staffing in the Austin Police Department could come at a steep cost: somewhere between $54 million and $119 million per year, if city estimates are correct.
The range is broad because several factors are unknown at this point, including the precise number of officers who would need to be hired to bring the city into compliance with the ballot measure.
But far more certain is where much of that money might end up coming from: the Austin Fire Department.
As the second-largest consumer of the city's $1.2 billion general fund budget, the Austin Fire Department has been pulled into this election by city leaders who have said if the proposition passes the firefighters could lose hundreds of jobs and be forced to sacrifice tens of millions of dollars to the Police Department.
In response, the Fire Department's labor union is considering opposing the proposal and spending $15,000 of its own money in an effort to defeat it. Firefighters are set to vote on that this week.
"I feel this directly involves us," Austin Firefighters Association President Bob Nicks said.
Known as Proposition A, the police staffing plan is complex. It starts with requiring the city to employ two officers per 1,000 residents, a metric that as of today would mean more than 300 new hires.
But it goes deeper.
A second provision mandates that 35% of an officer's shift must be spent on uncommitted time — often referred to as community engagement time — and not responding to calls. To ensure that shifts are staffed adequately, city staffers say even more than two officers per 1,000 residents are needed. The true ratio, they say, is somewhere between 2. per 1,000 and 2.5 per 1,000.
Save Austin Now — the police-friendly political action committee that got Proposition A on the November ballot — disputes the city's cost estimates and plans to release a lower estimate before the election, co-founder Matt Mackowiak said.
Weighing police attrition rates against Austin's current population and projected growth, the city would need to hire 403 to 885 more officers in the next five years, according to the city's math. The cost to do that is $271.5 million to $598.8 million, the city says.
All of this has the Fire Department on high alert… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Report pushes police to improve training, communication with disabled Austinites (Austin Monitor)
A new report based on feedback from residents with disabilities calls on the Austin Police Department to make improvements to its training and practices concerning interactions with residents experiencing mental health issues, hearing loss or other disabilities.
The report comes from the Office of Police Oversight, which scrutinizes police activities and acts as an advocate for residents to make complaints involving the department. In six findings and other follow-up recommendations, the report highlights problems experienced by disabled residents in recent years and pushes for the department to improve engagement with those communities, including disabled students of color who are found to have disproportionately poor experiences with police.
The report’s findings come from a May community forum that included 42 community members working with city staff and officials. Forum participants examined why interactions with police officers tend to make disabled residents feel unsafe and explored ways APD can change its practices to improve those interactions.
Among the findings was the view that current police practices are not friendly to those with disabilities, and that those with physical or psychological disabilities are seen as dangerous, which can increase the chances of hostility from police.
The report said the department needs to dedicate more training resources to improving communication and community engagement with disabled residents, in order to increase officers’ understanding of the lived experiences of people with physical and mental health issues.
That awareness was also seen as having a large impact on the outcome of an officer’s interaction with a disabled person, with those showing empathy and understanding having better outcomes than those who were disrespectful and unwilling to accommodate a disability… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
San Marcos floats camping, panhandling crackdown, draws blowback from residents (San Antonio Express-News)
Hannah Durrance walked anxiously from empty campsite to empty campsite Thursday evening in an area near Highway 80 that unhoused people call home. The president of the nonprofit HOME Center in San Marcos called the names of people she’s come to know well over the last two years. But no one was home. Where was Jack, the veteran who created a “community area” with stones and sculptures for the unhoused neighbors to have Bible study? And Durrance had worried about George, who has a back injury and uses a wheelchair. “It looks like everybody panicked and took off before that council meeting,” she said, referring to last Tuesday’s discussion at City Hall about cracking down on camping and panhandling. “These people have been here for several years now, and they’re hiding out because the camping ban was expected. I tried to reassure them, but panic is setting in.” City Council on Tuesday night discussed a prohibition of camping and panhandling that isn’t enforced regularly. Ahead of the meeting, council members Shane Scott and Saul Gonzalez placed an item on the agenda whose language appeared to prepare law enforcement to crack down. Residents at the meeting weren’t having it.
Adriana Montoya, a Texas State University student, called the measure “inhumane and cruel.” It would be “unequivocally the worst way to address homelessness in our community,” she said. “There is not a single valid reason or justification for arresting and fining people experiencing homelessness, and frankly it’s shameful that certain council members even considered bringing this to be discussed at City Hall.” The council ultimately did not take action. Scott and Gonzalez said they were not trying to “criminalize homelessness.” Scott called the wording on the agenda “deceiving” and said he merely was trying to “think outside the box” to address homelessness, which has been growing alongside the city’s housed population. In the current approach, “the law enforcement side of it is limited,” he said, and “as we heard so many people say tonight, the effects of law enforcement integrated into homelessness just creates more problems.” Police Chief Stan Standridge said only three arrests had been made since January 2021 in the unhoused community—two for outstanding warrants, and one for public intoxication. “Nobody has been arrested for solicitation; nobody has been arrested for camping,” he said. “But we have to be really careful stewards with public safety, and we can’t just concede that persons can walk in and out of the roadways to solicit.” The council’s focus on the matter, which will continue at an Oct. 4 work session, on Tuesday night included discussing the possibility of allocating federal funding to begin building up resources for unhoused people… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Capital Metro moves forward with $255 million investment in electric buses (Community Impact)
Capital Metro took another step toward its goal of transitioning to zero emissions by approving the purchase of 197 electric powered buses during its Sept. 27 meeting. The board of directors unanimously approved the $255 million purchase from two manufacturers: Proterra and New Flyer.
According to a Capital Metro press release, the purchase represents the largest procurement of electric vehicles in U.S. history. The transit agency has a total of 424 buses currently, with 12 of those being electric.
The buses will roll out over the course of the next five years, according to Capital Metro documents. They will have vinyl seats with USB ports, a perimeter seating format and validators to check tickets at all doors.
Capital Metro Chief Operating Officer Dottie Watkins said the electric vehicles present numerous advantages including the reduction of greenhouse gases and air pollution.
“Recently, I was helping staff one of our Q2 Stadium events and walking down the line of buses, and immediately noticed when I was walking past the electric buses it was both cooler and quieter,” Watkins aaed. “It's a much better environment, not just for our riding public, but for our community as a whole.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Rob Kaplan to retire as Dallas Fed president after controversy over financial disclosures (Dallas Morning News)
Rob Kaplan is retiring as president and CEO of The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas after financial disclosures showed he was trading stocks last year while voting on critical monetary policy for the U.S. during the pandemic. His announcement follows Boston Federal Reserve President Eric Rosengren’s announcement earlier that he was retiring early because he qualified for a kidney transplant. He originally planned to retire in June 2022 when he hit the mandatory retirement age for bank presidents of 65. Both Fed officials, as well as nine others, had their 2020 financial stock-trading activities publicized in a September article from the Wall Street Journal. After questions about the ethics of the trades, both Fed presidents announced they would sell all their individual stock holdings by Sept. 30.
While the investments are permitted under the Fed’s rules, Kaplan, 64, said he didn’t want his financial disclosures to distract from the country’s economic recovery process. “Unfortunately, the recent focus on my financial disclosure risks becoming a distraction to the Federal Reserve’s execution of that vital work,” Kaplan said in a statement. “For that reason, I have decided to retire as President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.” Kaplan’s financial transactions, showing millions of dollars in trades in 2020, stood out from the other Fed presidents’ financial profiles, which were more modest. Kaplan had 27 stock, fund or alternative asset holdings valued at over $1 million each, including Apple, Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Tesla. He also had 22 buying or selling transactions valued at over $1 million each. Rosengren’s financial disclosures showed stakes in four separate real estate investment trusts and disclosed multiple purchases and sales in those and other securities last year… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas reduces Black and Hispanic majority congressional districts in proposed map, despite people of color fueling population growth (Texas Tribune)
Texas lawmakers on Monday released their first draft of a new congressional map that would largely protect incumbents while reducing the number of districts in which Black and Hispanic residents make up the majority of eligible voters. The map reduces the number of districts dominated by people of color even though Texas gained two additional congressional seats and the population of Asian, Black and Hispanic Texans outpaced white Texans over the last decade.
Republicans constructed the map with incumbent protection in mind — a strategy that focused on bolstering vulnerable GOP seats rather than aggressively adding new seats that could flip from blue to red. However, the map does in fact strengthen Republican positioning overall in Texas, going from 22 to 25 districts that would have voted for Donald Trump in 2020. The number of congressional districts that voted for Joe Biden would have shrunk by one, from 14 to 13.
While many incumbents appear safe in these maps, others were drawn into districts that overlap with one another — for example, the proposed map pits Houston Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw against Democrat Rep. Sylvia Garcia. It also pits two Houston Democrats — Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee — against each other.
Democrats, who have been out of power for decades, have attempted to make state elections more competitive but the redrawing of congressional maps gives the GOP an opportunity to lock in their advantage for another decade.
Texas' current 36-seat congressional delegation is made up of 23 Republicans and 13 Democrats. Under the new map, Texas will have 38 congressional seats and 40 electoral votes in future presidential contests. The two new seats were drawn in Austin and Houston… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Cities become pawns in redistricting game (The Hill)
For decades, since the U.S. Supreme Court modernized the redistricting process in the 1960s, the city of Nashville has had its own representative in Congress. That member has often represented some neighboring suburbs — today, Rep. Jim Cooper’s (D) district includes parts of Cheatham and Dickson counties — but the vast majority of his constituents live within the Nashville city limits.
That might change this year, as Republicans who control the new mapmaking process consider dividing Nashville between different districts for the first time in memory.
Around the country, the decennial redrawing of political boundaries is putting a spotlight on cities, often the major Democratic vote centers in any state. As legislators jockey for position and political advantage, they are increasingly considering ways to carve up those cities, either to dilute their influence or to bolster their power.
The phenomenon — and the outrage it has generated among minority parties in the states at play — is bipartisan.
“Republicans will oftentimes split cities in order to dilute the votes of Democratic voters in districts that will be heavily Republican, so they want a little piece to bury under the votes of people who vote the other way,” said Kathay Feng, national redistricting director at Common Cause, a government watchdog organization. “Democrats, on the other hand, want to split cities because they can vote in solid Democratic patterns and they want to use them as anchors in as many districts as possible.” … (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Crunch time is here for players who oppose Covid-19 vaccinations (Wall Street Journal)
Media day for the Brooklyn Nets was billed as a potentially explosive spectacle in which leading scorer Kyrie Irving might set out his reasons for not being vaccinated against Covid-19 and signal whether he was willing to miss every Nets practice, home game and potential playoffs this season in order to maintain that position.
In the end, Irving spoke from an undisclosed location on Zoom because the 29-year-old guard wasn’t allowed to enter the Barclays Center. Then he declined to address how or whether he would comply with New York City’s requirement to prove vaccination in order to be in an indoor sports arena.
“I just would love to just keep that private, and handle it the right way with my team, and go forward together with a plan,” he said. “Obviously, I’m not able to be present there today. But that doesn’t mean that I’m putting any limits on the future of me being able to join the team.”
Crunch time has come for some of the most high-profile vaccine opponents in sports. Unvaccinated athletes, some who make many millions of dollars per year, are facing decisions on whether they will bow to vaccine mandates. In some cases, like Irving’s, they’re already finding they have to sit out while they figure out what to do.
For months, sports organizations encouraged—but did not require—athletes to get the shot. They offered the advice of their medical professionals, organized listening sessions, and created incentives for players, such as looser masking and distancing restrictions. They even emphasized competitive advantages for individuals and whole teams. But like many employers across the country, the leagues always stopped short of a mandate.
That’s all changing now. Litigation continues over a vaccine mandate for New York City public school teachers and other school workers. Meanwhile, federal workers are staring down October and early November deadlines to schedule their vaccine appointments. Federal government contractors have to be in compliance by December… (LINK TO FULL STORY)