BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 25, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 135: Discussing Austin's Apology for Systemic Racism with Mayor Pro-Tem Natasha Harper-Madison
She and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the Austin Council’s historic March 4th vote for Item 67 (sponsored by the MPT), a resolution formally apologizing for the city’s role in perpetuating racist policies that contributed to historical equity, health and wealth gaps that persist for Black Austinites.
For businesses looking at or new to Austin, this episode will provide insight into a long-standing issue touching residential and commercial land use, consumer facing business, and public safety.
You can listen to this episode and previous ones on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!
[CITY HALL MOVES]
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Austin Council Voting Session (3.25.2021 @10AM) - AGENDA
Items to watch:
Item 26 Approve a resolution appointing the Austin Economic Development Corporation board members;
Item 29 Ratify a contract with PeopleFund to administer the Austin Legacy Business Relief Grant program;
Item 37 - Establishing criteria and milestones for restarting the police academy;
Item 67 - Calls for a council and staff review of the recent winter storm response, as well as an audit and community task force; and
Item 111 - Approve a “Resilient ATX” resolution directing the City Manager to take actions regarding the spending of the American Rescue Plan federal funding.
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (5,275)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,436)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
‘Still have a ways to go’: Austin-Travis County could be downgraded to Stage 2 by mid-April (KXAN)
Austin-Travis County’s Interim Health Authority said while there’s a lot of work left to do to prevent the spread of the virus, the area could be in a position to move to Stage 2 of COVID-19 risk levels by mid-April.
Dr. Mark Escott told the Austin City Council and Travis County Commissioners Tuesday that in order to get there, the community has to continue its commitment to wearing masks and social distancing.
“We still have a ways to go to get down to Stage 2,” he said.
The 7-day rolling average of new hospitalizations is at 22 as of Tuesday morning, continuing a plateau since March 18. There were 19 new hospitalizations reported Monday. To get to Stage 2, the rolling average needs to less than 10.
Escott summarized that COVID-19 numbers in the Austin area have generally been declining since January. However, over the past six days, COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations have been relatively flat.
“Some folks are asking ‘why is Austin, why is Travis County persisting in these mandates? Why are they doing things which are more protective than other jurisdictions?'” Escott said.
“And the answer is: it’s working,” he continued.
Escott pointed to a graph showing the COVID-19 case fatality rates in areas across the state. Travis County has a rate of 73.2 COVID-19 deaths per hundred thousand people. By comparison, the average for Texas is 160 deaths per hundred thousand people… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin's strong-mayor proposal brings together business owners and labor unions (Austin American-Statesman)
If voters end up rejecting a proposal that would give more power to Austin's mayor by eliminating the city manager position, political insiders might point to an unlikely gathering of adversaries as the death knell.
Coming together for a virtual news conference Wednesday to oppose the change in governance were groups often on opposite sides of political issues: business owners and labor unions, Austin City Council members and community activists, even conservatives and liberals…
City Manager Spencer Cronk, who did not attend Wednesday's press conference and would be out of a job if Prop F passes, told the American-Statesman in January that he is against moving to a strong-mayor form of government, suggesting it dampens the voices residents and their district representatives on the city council.
Wednesday's news conference was led by Austin for All People, a coalition of community leaders who formed three months ago in opposition of the change. The group is headed by Garza, who was the city manager from 1994 to 2002, lawyer Catherine Morse, Kerbey Lane chief executive Mason Ayer, Pastor Joseph Parker, and civil rights activists Nico Ramsey.
They are aligned financially with the political action committee Restore Leadership ATX, which is raising money to defeat Prop F this year and to defeat current city council members in the November 2022 election.
The news conference included five of the nine Austin City Council members who have come out publicly against switching to strong mayor — Vanessa Fuentes, Sabino "Pio" Renteria, Ann Kitchen, Leslie Pool and Kathie Tovo. The other council members who have said they oppose the measure are Natasha Harper-Madison, Greg Casar, Mackenzie Kelly and Alison Alter.
Mayor Steve Adler and council member Paige Ellis have not announced a position on the proposal… (LINK TO STORY)
Major League Soccer releases 2021 schedule for Austin FC (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin FC learned the details of three regular season games when the Major League Soccer released the home opener schedules two weeks ago. The first-year club travels to face LAFC on April 17 and the Colorado Rapids on April 24. Austin FC opens Q2 Stadium on June 19 when the San Jose Earthquakes comes to town. Wednesday, Austin FC officials learned the rest of the club's 2021 schedule.
The schedule is set for 34 games, including 11 nationally televised matches. Games not available nationally will be televised regionally in the Austin metro area on The CW Austin, KXAN, or KBVO. Information on additional broadcast option will be released at a later date.
"Today was a big day and another milestone for our club. We are looking forward to the challenges ahead," Austin FC sporting director Claudio Reyna said. "This dials it up another level for our players and our staff. It was a special day for entire club and for our supporters.
Austin FC will play intrastate competition FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo three times each with 32 of the 34 matches scheduled against Western Conference opponents. The first-ever matchups between Austin FC and the two other in-state franchises takes place during Heineken Rivalry Week with Houston visiting Austin on Aug. 4 and Austin FC traveling to face FC Dallas on Aug. 7.
"It is good to see our schedule in its full form. We're in the Western Conference and there are a lot of good teams and great coaches," Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff said to the media on Zoom. "There are a lot of challenges and we're excited to go against the league's best."
Austin FC will play intrastate competition FC Dallas and Houston Dynamo three times each with 32 of the 34 matches scheduled against Western Conference opponents. The first-ever matchups between Austin FC and the two other in-state franchises takes place during Heineken Rivalry Week with Houston visiting Austin on Aug. 4 and Austin FC traveling to face FC Dallas on Aug. 7.
"It is good to see our schedule in its full form. We're in the Western Conference and there are a lot of good teams and great coaches," Austin FC head coach Josh Wolff said to the media on Zoom. "There are a lot of challenges and we're excited to go against the league's best."… (LINK TO STORY)
Law firm Vinson & Elkins to move Austin office to downtown high-rise (Austin Business Journal)
In another sign of life for the office market, law firm Vinson & Elkins has committed to 50,273 square feet at Indeed Tower, which is on pace to be delivered in early summer.
Vinson & Elkins will shift its Austin headquarters and operations to the entire 25th floor of the 36-story office high-rise at 200 West Sixth St. The Houston-based law firm will also occupy a portion of the 26th floor. Length of the lease was not disclosed.
The firm plans to expand its renewable and sustainable energy and infrastructure practice in Austin, according to an announcement.
“We spent a number of months in early 2020 assessing the Austin market and then reimagining what an office of the future looks like to improve our ability to serve our clients and hire top talent,” Milam Newby, co-managing partner of V&E’s Austin office, said in an email. “While a challenging market, we felt we needed to be back in the CBD, and after evaluating a number of options, narrowed our focus before completing the lease at Indeed Tower.”
The office submarket has been slow since the start of the pandemic, as many companies consider how and when to bring employees back to the workplace. But a handful of larger leases are beginning to pop up, and a prominent law firm moving downtown is certainly a signal of continued interest in the gleaming towers of the Central Business District…(LINK TO STORY)
Uproar over update of plumbing, mechanical codes (Austin Monitor)
Every four years, the city’s Development Services and Austin Code departments go through a process of updating their technical codes related to plumbing, heating and air-conditioning design, installation and inspection. And with those updates comes a renewal of the battle between proponents of two different codes in each area – the International Plumbing Code vs. the Uniform Plumbing Code, and the International Mechanical Code vs. the Uniform Mechanical Code.
The city’s Mechanical and Plumbing Board will hold a hearing at 9 a.m. Friday to consider comments on adoption of changes proposed by city staffers to the current regulations. Sometime after that, City Council will hold a hearing and make a decision on any changes.
According to plumber Robert “Chap” Thornton, business manager for Local 286 of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, the city adopted the Uniform Plumbing Code as early as the mid-1970s. Thornton, who serves as vice chair of the Mechanical and Plumbing Board, told the Austin Monitor that local plumbers prefer the uniform code. He described it as “more prescriptive” and therefore easier to use than the international code. “I can size a proper system all out of that one book,” he said.
When DSD reached out for input on proposed changes to the two codes, many of the responses involved rejection of the Uniform Plumbing Code and adoption of the International Code. Andrew Boyer, spokesperson for the International Code Council, told the Monitor via email, “While it has been recommended by multiple industry stakeholders, including staff from the city of Austin’s Development Department and third-party consultants, for the City Council to approve the adoption of the International Code Council’s International Plumbing Code, Austin has adhered to the Uniform Plumbing Code, which is developed by the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials.”
Austin and Houston still adhere to the uniform code, but the majority of Texas cities have adopted the international code. Boyer argues that adopting the international code will positively impact the affordability of housing in Austin. The Real Estate Council of Austin and the Austin chapter of the Associated General Contractors told DSD in written comments that they supported adopting the international codes and opposed continued use of the uniform codes… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Alcohol to go from restaurants gets closer to becoming permanent as Texas House gives initial approval (Texas Tribune)
The Texas House gave initial approval Wednesday to legislation that would allow restaurants to sell alcohol to go beyond the coronavirus pandemic.
The chamber signed off on House Bill 1024 to permanently allow beer, wine and mixed drinks to be included in pickup and delivery food orders and secure a revenue stream made available to restaurants in the last year in an effort to help those businesses when they closed their dining areas.
The House will need to give the bill another vote before it’s sent over to the Senate, where a version of the measure must still be approved by a committee before it can be considered by the full chamber.
Gov. Greg Abbott originally signed a waiver last March to allow to-go alcohol sales. The waiver was originally to last until last May, but it was extended indefinitely. As lawmakers began their work during the current legislative session, expanding Texans’ access to booze picked up rare bipartisan support.
HB 1024 was filed by Republican state Rep. Charlie Geren, a restaurant owner in Fort Worth, and co-authored by Democrats. Geren has said his restaurant would not benefit from the measure he is pushing because it lacks the mixed beverage permit the legislation requires of restaurants wanting to pursue to-go sales. His wife, Texas lobbyist Mindy Ellmer, has been paid for lobbying work by the Texas Restaurant Association, which is backing the legislation. Geren and Ellmer previously said they didn’t discuss her restaurant lobbying, and Ellmer said there was “no conflict” because Geren’s restaurant doesn’t have a mixed beverage permit.
Texas has historically been restrictive with alcohol. Since the repeal of Prohibition, the state has banned selling alcohol on Sundays in liquor stores, and distilleries have limits on the amount of bottles a person can buy, among other limitations.
The new, permanent alcohol-to-go option could benefit the restaurant industry after it has faced an excruciating year during the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Texas Restaurant Association, 700,000 restaurant employees in Texas lost their jobs in the early days of the pandemic, and thousands of Texas restaurants have closed… (LINK TO STORY)
Houston City Council votes to ban electric-powered scooters on sidewalks downtown, other areas (KHOU-11)
The City of Houston is kicking electric-powered scooters off the sidewalks after City Council determined they're dangerous to pedestrians.
On Wednesday, council members voted to ban people from riding them on the sidewalks downtown and in other business districts like the Galleria and Greenway Plaza.
You can still ride them in the street.
The ordinance also bans scooter rental companies from taking up space in public parking spots… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Amid growing challenges, Biden to hold 1st news conference (Associated Press)
President Joe Biden held off on holding his first news conference so he could use it to celebrate passage of a defining legislative achievement, his giant COVID-19 relief package. But he’s sure to be pressed at Thursday’s question-and-answer session about all sorts of other challenges that have cropped up along the way.
A pair of mass shootings, rising international tensions, early signs of intraparty divisions and increasing numbers of migrants crossing the southern border are all confronting a West Wing known for its message discipline.
Biden is the first chief executive in four decades to reach this point in his term without holding a formal question-and-answer session. He’ll meet with reporters for the nationally televised afternoon event in the East Room of the White House.
“It’s an opportunity for him to speak to the American people, obviously directly through the coverage, directly through all of you,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters aboard Air Force One on Tuesday. “And so I think he’s thinking about what he wants to say, what he wants to convey, where he can provide updates, and, you know, looking forward to the opportunity to engage with a free press.”
While Biden has been on pace with his predecessors in taking questions from the press in other formats, he tends to field just one or two informal inquiries at a time, usually in a hurried setting at the end of an event or in front of a whirring helicopter.
Pressure had mounted on Biden to hold a formal session, which allows reporters to have an extended back-and-forth with the president on the issues of the day. Biden’s conservative critics have pointed to the delay to suggest that Biden was being shielded by his staff.
West Wing aides have dismissed the questions about a news conference as a Washington obsession, pointing to Biden’s high approval ratings while suggesting that the general public is not concerned about the event. The president himself, when asked Wednesday if he were ready for the press conference, joked, “What press conference?”
Behind the scenes, though, aides have taken the event seriously enough to hold a mock session with the president earlier this week. And there is some concern that Biden, a self-proclaimed “gaffe machine,” could go off message and generate a series of unflattering news cycles.
“The press conference serves an important purpose: It presents the press an extended opportunity to hold a leader accountable for decisions,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, presidential scholar and professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania. “A question I ask: What is the public going to learn in this venue that it couldn’t learn elsewhere? And why does it matter? The answer: The president speaks for the nation.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Asian Americans faced biggest rise in online hate in 2020, survey finds (The Hill)
Asian Americans experienced the biggest rise in severe online hate and harassment in the past year in comparison to other groups, a new survey released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) found.
According to the survey, which was released on Wednesday, 17 percent of Asian Americans polled said they experienced sexual harassment, stalking, physical threats, swatting, doxing or sustained harassment over the past year — a 6 percent from those who said the same the prior year.
Half of Asian American respondents who said they were harassed also said they were harassed due to their race or ethnicity.
The new data comes despite recent efforts made by social media companies to combat hate speech, and as the nation has seen a surge in anti-Asian attacks reported since the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the United States a year ago.
Last week, lawmakers raised alarm over the spike in such attacks in the wake of a shooting spree in Atlanta that left eight people dead, including six Asian women.
In the aftermath of the shooting, a few Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), called out former President Trump in particular for using terms like “Chinese virus” and “Kung flu” to refer to the coronavirus, saying the charged rhetoric helped contribute to a rise in anti-Asian attacks.
In its recent report, the ADL said that the rise in physical violence against Asian-Americans in the nation was “whipped up in large part by bigotry and conspiracy theories that grew online, fanned by national leaders,” including what it referred to as Trump’s “incendiary rhetoric blaming China for the pandemic” and his use of the controversial terms for the coronavirus.
The ADL also said the survey found “a sharp rise in online harassment of African-Americans based on their race, from 42 percent attributing their harassment to their race last year to 59 percent in this year’s survey.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Zoom wants you to Zoom even when using other companies’ apps (The Wall Street Journal)
After a year in which Zoom Video Communications Inc.’s ZM -7.30% software became the go-to video-call app for many people stuck at home, the tech company now is trying to get other businesses to adapt it as their own.
Zoom said Monday that it would start selling its videoconferencing technology so other companies can embed it in their own products, Chief Technology Officer Brendan Ittelson said. The calls would still run over Zoom, he said, but wouldn’t carry the company’s brand. The San Jose, Calif.-based company so far has relied largely on users making calls via Zoom’s app.
Businesses that opt for the new arrangement would pay Zoom for calls made on a per-minute basis, with the first 10,000 minutes each month free, Mr. Ittelson said. Packaging its service directly into customer apps is an approach that puts Zoom more directly in competition with services offered by others such as Amazon.com Inc., AMZN -1.61% which also offers videoconferencing technology that businesses can embed in their software tools.
Selling the technology for others to integrate would enable healthcare providers to more directly offer patients virtual checkups, Mr. Ittelson said. A social-media company could add live streaming to its app, he said.
“We’re looking to definitely expand our business and move into a platform that offers solutions to businesses with various needs,” Mr. Ittelson said in an interview. “This is really expanding the menu to meet business needs.”
Zoom has been among the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic-era shift to remote work, gaining popularity among schools and individual users as well as companies that use its paid service to connect with staff and customers.
Zoom this month posted record annual sales, which quadrupled to $2.65 billion in 2020, and forecast that revenue would rise more than 41% this year.
Its success fueled a meteoric rise in Zoom’s stock. Shares peaked in October at $588.84, up from $65 when the company started public trading in 2019, giving Zoom a market valuation topping $170 billion… (LINK TO STORY)