BG Reads | News You Need to Know (September 29, 2021)
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]
New Austin climate plan would shave decade off city's emissions goal; target racial, economic, environmental equity (Community Impact)
City Council is set to vote on a new climate plan that aims to speed up Austin's path to reaching net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and address the disproportionate effects climate change has on lower-income and minority communities, officials and planners said.
The proposed Austin Climate Equity Plan covers more than a dozen goals in service of emissions reductions over the coming decades and could be approved by council Sept. 30.
Building off Austin's 2015 Community Climate Plan, the new climate document calls for the city to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040—a full decade ahead of the target of 2050 set by council in 2014. The city defines net-zero emissions as the point when all local greenhouse gas emissions, such as those from fossil fuels, agriculture and landfills, are removed from the atmosphere through reductions, storage or carbon offset credits.
The plan's wide-ranging goals are connected by several approaches: expanding green jobs and community environmental programs, collaborating with other local cities and counties, and moving forward on carbon reduction projects. Planners said the aims of those strategies all tie into a framework of racial equity needed to tackle climate issues locally.
“If we are not proactively addressing equity and centering it in our ability to address climate change, we, too, would be perpetuating injustice. And there isn't a world where we can fix climate change and still have equity concerns," Climate Program Manager Zach Baumer told council members during a briefing on the blueprint… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Project Connect panel looks at planning, equity concerns attached to transit system (Austin Monitor)
With the city and county moving forward on the assortment of transit and community development projects included in Project Connect, leaders involved want community members to realize the many other public and private interests that play into the multibillion-dollar effort.
The local real estate and development community who gathered for a recent Urban Land Institute Austin panel heard about how housing, health care, equity and economic opportunity will also be top of mind in the coming years.
As the three-member panel discussed the future of how the city approves and plans for transit-oriented development centers or how the $300 million dedicated toward equity and affordable housing will be used, moderator Mark Bulmash said there needs to be more talk about the full scope of factors connected to the transit expansion.
“We don’t just talk about affordable housing. We really need a systems approach here … it’s about jobs, health care, transportation and all these issues that are being interrelated,” said Bulmash, president of mixed-use and master plan development for Presidium. “All of them need to be considered because we’re applying something incredibly complicated to this city. I’m glad to hear we’re looking at so many aspects that most people don’t even think about.”
Peter Mullan, chief of architecture and urban design for the Austin Transit Partnership, characterized Project Connect as an assortment of programs including rail lines, bus system expansions and the funding allocated to prevent displacement of residents and local businesses.
Mullan said work is taking place on a variety of fronts including the planning for a new transit station at McKalla Place and environmental impact assessment on the new Orange and Blue transit lines.
While acknowledging the need to gather community feedback on what existing residents need and want around transit corridors, he said local leaders will have to listen while making decisions to keep projects on schedule and budget.
“The faster we move, the more we can build and the sooner we can provide these services to the community. We have to be able to be listening at the same time we are moving forward while incorporating these issues into our planning,” he said. “To me this is really a process of complexity management, and we have to be able to do multiple things simultaneously while letting each of those things inform one another.”
That stance drew some pushback from Nefertitti Jackmon, the city’s manager for displacement mitigation, who said historically marginalized communities shouldn’t be shut out of another wave of growth and economic opportunity.
“As we’re seeing the growth in Austin, historically Black and brown communities and vulnerable communities have been shut out of that economic growth and so we want to do something different and center the voices of the community members, to hear from them what they want,” she said.
“We deferred to them to hear what the priority purposes and places were, and what we heard was typically the Eastern Crescent where Blacks had historically been relegated to, as well as areas around the lines being created. There are priorities there where we will direct the investment.”
On the matter of possible friction between neighborhoods located near proposed transit corridors, consultant Stan Wall with HR&A Advisors said the city needs to take steps now to help forthcoming transit-oriented developments create jobs and other opportunities for those who live nearby.
“It doesn’t have to be confrontational when it comes to having density next to existing communities. Those communities might have certain desires and want a type of retail that doesn’t exist today, but the retailer doesn’t want to be there because the demographics aren’t there in terms of density. It’s connecting the needs of the community with what’s also beneficial to the developer.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Hiring ramps up at Tesla gigafactory, though experts say it's just the beginning (Austin Business Journal)
Hiring efforts are ramping up for Tesla Inc.'s future vehicle manufacturing plant east of Austin.
Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) had nearly 315 job descriptions posted on its website by publication time, which is up several dozen compared with late last month. Each description likely represents more than one job opportunity, and the positions listed on Tesla's website fell into a wide range of categories, such as engineering, manufacturing, finance, human resources, design and facility construction.
The Palo Alto, California-based electric vehicle manufacturer is expected to begin production at the end of the year, and local economic experts said the recent uptick in Tesla's talent search was expected. An even greater wave of job creation will likely hit the metro in a few months around the time production kicks off, said Ed Latson, executive director at Austin Regional Manufacturers Association.
Tesla is expected to, over the next year, catapult into the upper ranks of Central Texas' largest employers. That's left many to wonder how the metro will supply enough talent without draining workers from smaller manufacturers or importing large numbers of people. CEO Elon Musk has said the factory will need more than 10,000 people by the end of 2022.
Tesla officials could not immediately be reached for comment.
"They’re building a core production team right now, and I see their hiring ramping up in January or February to support projected production," Latson said. "We haven’t seen any major disruption to local manufacturers as of now."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
How much Texas gets from multistate, $26 billion opioid settlement hinges on how many local governments sign on (Texas Tribune)
The state's top lawyer is pressing local governments to join a multibillion-dollar legal settlement that would partially fund responses to the opioid epidemic, but also protect drug companies from future lawsuits.
In July, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced that Texas had joined a $26 billion, multistate opioid settlement with the country’s three major drug distributors — McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen — as well as drug manufacturer Johnson & Johnson. The agreement could yield the state and many of its local governments up to $1.5 billion.
The distributors, which are supposed to monitor prescription drug shipments, are accused in hundreds of lawsuits of turning a blind eye while pharmacies across the country ordered millions of pills for people over the last two decades. Johnson & Johnson is accused of downplaying the addictive properties of its opioid products to doctors as well as patients.
From 1999 to 2019, nearly half a million people died from overdoses involving opioids, including prescription drugs and illegal street opioids, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last year, opioid overdose deaths hit a record high of more than 93,000. All four companies participating in the settlement have denied wrongdoing.
“We recognize the opioid crisis is a tremendously complex public health issue, and we have deep sympathy for everyone affected. This settlement will directly support state and local efforts to make meaningful progress in addressing the opioid crisis in the United States,” Michael Ullmann, executive vice president and general counsel for Johnson & Johnson, said in a statement after the settlement agreement.
Under the agreement, the three distributors would pay up to $1.17 billion to the state and the localities that opt in to the agreement over 18 years. Johnson & Johnson would pay up to $268 million over nine years. The state has been among the leaders in negotiating the deal with the four companies.
Most of that money is targeted for opioid abatement, as the crafters of the agreement try to avoid following in the steps of 1998’s Big Tobacco settlement, in which very little of the funds were spent on smoking prevention and public health efforts.
The Texas agreement has approved uses that include treatment and prevention, such as the increased distribution of naloxone or other drugs that reverse opioid overdoses and the programs that will block the overprescription and misuse of opioids… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Coronavirus still creating worries for the Texas economy (Austin American-Statesman)
COVID-19 continues to cast a shadow over the Texas manufacturing and services sectors. That's the take-away from two new Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas surveys, which measures the pulse of executives in manufacturing as well as services, which includes retail, hospitality, professional and technical services and other businesses. In the Texas manufacturing sector, activity increased in September, but business executives say they are worried that pandemic-related supply-chain disruptions could hinder growth. A shortage of workers is also a threat to economic recovery, according to the report.
"Solid expansion continued in the Texas manufacturing sector, though the vast majority of firms note supply-chain disruptions or delays,” said Emily Kerr, Dallas Fed senior business economist. “In many cases these disruptions have been going on for months, and firms have yet to see relief — nearly 90% say supply issues are the same or worse now versus a month ago." At the same time, prices continued to increase rapidly in September, both for raw materials and finished goods, she said. The manufacturing survey received responses from 358 business executives from Sept. 14-22. According to the survey: The production index rose three points to 24.2, a reading well above average and indicative of solid output growth. The new orders index came in at 9.5, down from 15.6 but still slightly above the series average. Labor market measures indicated faster employment growth and longer work weeks. The company outlook index turned negative, a sign of a slight worsening of outlooks this month… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
'Save Chick-fil-A' case has strong implications for Texas abortion ban (Houston Chronicle)
A case that’s before the Texas Supreme Court this fall could have strong implications for the future of the state’s newly adopted abortion ban, the most prohibitive in the nation. The suit relates to a 2019 law that, like the abortion law, was authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola. Known as the “Save Chick-fil-A” law, it allows anyone to sue when they believe a governmental entity has taken “adverse actions” against a person or company based on its support for a religious organization, as Republican lawmakers believed the city of San Antonio did when excluding the fast-food restaurant from its airport. Civilian enforcement is also the key to the new state law that effectively bans abortion, Senate Bill 8 — a provision that has so far allowed it to survive a legal challenge based on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court case establishing women’s right to abortions. At issue in both cases: Can a state law grant private citizens standing to sue?
“The standing issue in the case is essentially the same,” said Jason Steed, a Dallas-based appellate lawyer and court watcher who is not involved in the case. “That’s what’s interesting about it is that the court could decide that standing issue and whatever they decide about that issue would have direct implications for SB 8.”
The plaintiffs’ Chick-fil-A case is being argued by Jonathan Mitchell, former Texas solicitor general — who played a central role in crafting the novel legal approach in SB 8. Mitchell did not respond to a request for comment. The case is set for oral arguments on Oct. 28. Hughes said he worked with Mitchell, a former law clerk to the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in writing the “Save Chick-fil-A” bill. They modeled the legislation after the Texas Medicaid Fraud Prevention Act, which similarly allows private citizens to bring suits alleging fraud and collect a share of any money recovered.
“It was not our intent at the time to set the table for the heartbeat bill, but when we began putting the heartbeat bill together, it did make it easier since we’d already done it in the Chick-fil-A bill,” Hughes said. Hughes and state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, who sponsored the legislation in the House, in April wrote an amicus brief on behalf of 62 Republican members of the Legislature backing the plaintiffs and encouraging the Texas Supreme Court to take up the case. “It’s definitely a case we’re following,” Hughes said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Ex-Houston police chief Art Acevedo now under investigation amid wild feud with Miami commissioners (Houston Chronicle)
For years, Art Acevedo's bravado and big personality endeared him to residents across Houston and to many of its leaders. In Miami, it's landed him in a heap of trouble. Houston's former top cop appears to be fighting for survival in Miami, where he has clashed repeatedly with city leaders angered by his surprise hiring six months ago and his off-the-cuff, unrestrained style. Charles McClelland, Acevedo's predecessor in Houston, said police chiefs have internal and external challenges at every department they lead.
"In general, police chiefs across the country fare better in the challenges of their job if they can keep politics out of their job," he said. "In my experience I've found it to be that member of communities don't like their police chiefs to be politicians or media celebrities." Others weren't surprised that some Miami leaders were souring on Acevedo. Ashton Woods of Black Lives Matter-Houston remarked, "He talks a lot of good stuff, and then he opens his mouth and shows who he really is." Asked if he had any comment about the most recent developments in Miami, Houston Police Officers' Union President Douglas Griffith said, "Nope, thats their problem, not mine." The matter came to a head earlier this week when powerful city commissioners held a special meeting to torch Acevedo's hiring. It has been a sore point with commissioners almost from the moment that Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced the move, calling Acevedo the "Michael Jordan" of police chiefs… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
A racist conspiracy theory goes mainstream (AXIOS)
A growing number of elected Republicans are openly promoting "white replacement theory," a decades-old conspiracy theory that's animated terrorist attacks, including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
Why it matters: This mainstreams what once was the sole provenance of white supremacists.
What it is: "White replacement theory" posit the existence of a plot to change America's racial composition by methodically enacting policies that reduce white Americans' political power.
The conspiracies encompass strains of anti-Semitism as well as racism and anti-immigrant sentiment.
Driving the news: Fox News host Tucker Carlson has for years alluded to elements of replacement theory. Former President Trump emboldened some believers, as well, including by retweeting accounts that identified themselves as believers in "white genocide."
Carlson's recent defiance, in the face of the Anti-Defamation League's calls for him to resign, have put these conspiracies back into the spotlight, along with the pronouncements of some high-profile elected officials.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) last week tweeted an explicit endorsement of WRT. Gaetz later tweeted that he doesn't think of replacement "solely on race/ethnicity terms," blaming "the Left" for taking him out of context… (LINK TO FULL STORY)