BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 26, 2021)
One American Center (LoneStarMike, Wikimedia Commons)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Some board and commission meetings may stay virtual (Austin Monitor)
Will the future of city board and commission meetings be in-person or virtual? Based on discussion at Wednesday’s Audit and Finance Committee, perhaps both.
The committee decided to further study the feasibility of allowing hybrid or entirely virtual meetings after hearing testimony from City Clerk Jannette Goodall and Community Technology and Telecommunications Commission Chair Nehemiah Pitts. City Council has met virtually since the beginning of the pandemic, as have all city boards and commissions.
Council members returned last week from their summer break with a hybrid in-person and virtual setup – their first appearance in City Hall since early 2020. Future Council meetings are planned to take place in person as before.
The impetus for the discussion came from the state, which has moved to bring back in-person meetings. Gov. Greg Abbott, responding to a request from Attorney General Ken Paxton, declared that exceptions to the Texas Open Meetings Act during the pandemic to allow all-virtual meetings and audio testimony will end in September, meaning the presiding officer of a board or commission must again be physically present. Public testimony must also be in person or submitted via live video from a designated city-owned location, most commonly a library.
The city may be able to request a waiver from the state for some of these requirements, but Goodall said she needed to consult with the city’s Law Department to verify the waiver policy.
There are a few reasons that the city is exploring hybrid meetings – or if possible, completely virtual meetings for some groups – instead of mandating everyone come back in person. First, City Hall and other city buildings have limited space to accommodate in-person boards and commissions. Keeping some meetings mostly or entirely virtual would alleviate this longtime space crunch. Virtual meetings are also more environmentally friendly since people won’t have to drive to City Hall or elsewhere… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
US men’s soccer team to visit Q2 Stadium this fall (Community Impact)
After the U.S. women’s national team christened the new Q2 Stadium earlier this spring, the men’s team is set to play its first game in the North Austin venue this fall.
Austin FC announced July 22 the men’s national team will host Jamaica for a FIFA World Cup qualifier game Oct. 7. According to the team’s news release, this will be the first time the men’s national team has ever played a World Cup qualifying match in Texas.
“For Austin to be the first place in Texas to host the U.S. men's national team for a World Cup qualifier is a great achievement for our city,” Austin FC Sporting Director Claudio Reyna said in the July 22 news release.
During his playing career, Reyna was selected to four World Cup squads for the U.S. men’s team.
The Oct. 7 tilt against Jamaica will be the U.S. men’s team’s fourth match of its World Cup qualifying campaign. The national team will play a total of 14 games against seven other CONCACAF opponents for one of three automatic qualifying spots to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin announces new policy to release video footage of police shootings within 10 business days (KUT)
The Austin Police Department says it will try to release video footage of incidents where police seriously injure or kill someone more quickly than in the past.
Previously, the department’s policy was to release this footage within 60 days; the new policy announced Friday shortens that to 10 business days.
“I truly believe that it’s the right thing to do. Our public deserves answers more quickly,” APD Interim Chief Joseph Chacon told KUT. “That transparency is what’s going to help rebuild any trust that might have eroded over the past few years.”
Chacon acknowledged that the department had failed to make good on its previous promise to release dashboard and body camera footage of critical incidents within 60 days. (Under the department's policy, a critical incident includes shootings where an officer is involved, a case where someone is seriously injured or killed by police, or when someone dies in police custody.)
Data analyzed by KUT found the department took an average of 99 days to release video footage from four critical incidents since April 2020. For instance, it took 94 days for police to release video footage of a police officer shooting Mike Ramos in Southeast Austin.
“That’s just not good for the public to be waiting for months on end to get some information on something that happened several months ago,” Chacon told KUT.
He said he expects police to be able to meet this shorter deadline because the department is ditching much of the production work involved in these videos. In the past, videos have included a scripted introduction by a member of the police department, along with additional context that strings together clips.
Chacon said any explanation surrounding the videos will be much shorter moving forward. He said the Office of Police Oversight will still be involved in reviewing these videos before they are released.
A spokesperson for the office said she supported the new policy change… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Reimagined Austin Convention Center expansion would require complete demolition of existing facility (Austin Business Journal)
More details surrounding the proposed expansion of the Austin Convention Center have come to light, including plans to completely demolish the existing facility.
Since Austin Convention Center Department officials and nearby property owners reached an impasse on a westward expansion, plans are being reshaped to expand the facility on its current site, director Trisha Tatro told the Downtown Commission on July 21. That could include building below and above the current facility.
But what came as a shock to commission members is that the department plans to completely tear down the existing facility at 500 E. Cesar Chavez St. on the east side of downtown.
"It would be completely demolished," Tatro said. "The existing convention center itself wasn't built to support any additional weight on the ceiling, and in order for us to accomplish the square footage we need, we would need to either in phases or in a single phase completely tear down the existing convention center and build it in its existing footprint."
Several commissioners were concerned by these plans, while others questioned whether Austin needs a bigger convention center post-Covid, especially with other facilities under construction already such as the Moody Center. The commission unanimously approved a postponement and will reconsider discussion of the Convention Center Department's briefing in August.
Current redevelopment plans for the convention center include building 360,000 square feet of exhibit space, 180,000 square feet of meeting space and 185,000 square feet of ballroom/flex hall space. The current facility offers 247,000 square feet of exhibition space, 65,000 square feet of meeting space and 64,000 square feet of ballroom space, according to the July 21 presentation.
The convention center was built in 1992 and was expanded in 2002… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Beto O’Rourke won’t rule out running for governor, but is keeping focus on voting rights fight (Dallas Morning News)
Beto O’Rourke might very well become a candidate for governor, but he wants to keep his focus on his work with grassroots civic engagement organizations for now. “I’ve committed myself to this fight for the right to vote and preserving our democracy in America,” he said Friday. “We are in really the final hours of this fight, and there’s not much time left for us, and I want to make sure I’m giving this 100% of my focus and my effort.” While he hasn’t announced his candidacy for anything, he hasn’t ruled out a run for governor, a move that has left much of the Democratic field frozen in place.
“I want to see this through, and then afterwards I really do want to see how I can best serve Texas,” said the former El Paso congressman, who came closer than any Democrat since 1994 to winning a statewide contest when he held U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz below 51% in 2018. “That might very well be as a candidate for office, and it might be continuing the work I’m doing with Powered by People, which is registering Texans to vote all across the state.” While the Republican gubernatorial primary is getting crowded, Democrats have largely kept quiet. The party’s establishment is waiting to see if O’Rourke, a widely popular activist and organizer who came within 2.6 percentage points of Cruz, will pull the trigger. Abbott already faces primary challenges from conservative political commentator Chad Prather, wealthy real estate developer and former state Sen. Don Huffines, and former state GOP chair Allen West, a one-term Florida congressman. Another factor sure to play a role in who runs is redistricting. Potential candidates — including incumbents — are waiting for the Legislature to redraw boundaries for congressional and state House and Senate districts this fall to determine whether to run again, retire or jump to a different office… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Tighter rules for Texas power grid are a shift for Gov. Greg Abbott, GOP (Austin American-Statesman)
When Gov. Greg Abbott issued a directive to the regulators of Texas' power grid earlier this month, he did something that that could be considered unthinkable for a state chief executive who might have his eyes on a higher office in Washington. Abbott called for more — not less — government regulation of the state's electricity market. His orders to the Public Utility Commission of Texas signaled a move away from Texas' wild west energy market and indicated that Abbott wants Texas' energy market to have more government-controlled levers. "It's really a very odd, strange dynamic where you have folks who have traditionally been very pro-free market deregulation really moving quite in the opposite direction," said Doug Lewin, an Austin-based energy consultant.
Abbott's mandate— along with the implementation of three GOP-led laws passed out of the Legislature this year — goes against the anti-regulation ethos that led to the creation of Texas' energy-only market. As the market currently operates, utilities generally buy electricity from power-generating companies at rates that are dictated by the push and pull of supply and demand. It's a system engineered by the state's political leadership that has been dominated by Republicans since the late 1990s. During a recent Senate hearing, Public Utility Commission Chairman Peter Lake called Texas' energy market a "crisis-based business model" — one that pushes utilities to keep the grid on the edge of its capacity. While designed to keep electric bills low, Texas' power market is more exposed to vulnerabilities created by extreme weather events or power plant failures. Miscalculations and unplanned outages can force the grid operator to shut wide swaths of Texas down, as it did during the February freeze, and neared during a mid-June power squeeze. Abbott, who did not respond to requests for comment on this story, has said he wants to encourage the construction of more natural gas-, coal- and nuclear-generated power in Texas. Because they do not rely on the whims of Mother Nature, they are considered more reliable… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
The most influential spreader of coronavirus misinformation online (New York Times)
The article that appeared online on Feb. 9 began with a seemingly innocuous question about the legal definition of vaccines. Then over its next 3,400 words, it declared coronavirus vaccines were “a medical fraud” and said the injections did not prevent infections, provide immunity or stop transmission of the disease. Instead, the article claimed, the shots “alter your genetic coding, turning you into a viral protein factory that has no off-switch.” Its assertions were easily disprovable. No matter. Over the next few hours, the article was translated from English into Spanish and Polish. It appeared on dozens of blogs and was picked up by anti-vaccination activists, who repeated the false claims online. The article also made its way to Facebook, where it reached 400,000 people, according to data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned tool. The entire effort traced back to one person: Joseph Mercola.
Dr. Mercola, 67, an osteopathic physician in Cape Coral, Fla., has long been a subject of criticism and government regulatory actions for his promotion of unproven or unapproved treatments. But most recently, he has become the chief spreader of coronavirus misinformation online, according to researchers. An internet-savvy entrepreneur who employs dozens, Dr. Mercola has published over 600 articles on Facebook that cast doubt on Covid-19 vaccines since the pandemic began, reaching a far larger audience than other vaccine skeptics, an analysis by The New York Times found. His claims have been widely echoed on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The activity has earned Dr. Mercola, a natural health proponent with an Everyman demeanor, the dubious distinction of the top spot in the “Disinformation Dozen,” a list of 12 people responsible for sharing 65 percent of all anti-vaccine messaging on social media, said the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. Others on the list include Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, and Erin Elizabeth, the founder of the website Health Nut News, who is also Dr. Mercola’s girlfriend. “Mercola is the pioneer of the anti-vaccine movement,” said Kolina Koltai, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online conspiracy theories. “He’s a master of capitalizing on periods of uncertainty, like the pandemic, to grow his movement.” Some high-profile media figures have promoted skepticism of the vaccines, notably Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham of Fox News, though other Fox personalities have urged viewers to get the shots… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Fauci says vulnerable populations may need vaccine booster shots (The Hill)
Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that it was likely vulnerable populations who have already been vaccinated would need COVID-19 booster shots.During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Jake Tapper mentioned a study published by Israel’s Health Ministry last week that estimated the Pfizer vaccine had a 39 percent overall effectiveness at preventing coronavirus infections in a study conducted over the last month.
Tapper noted that the study’s data was preliminary but cited CNN reporting that said the Biden administration expected that some vulnerable populations in the country might need a third shot.
“What changed?” Tapper asked Fauci.
“Well, I think it's a dynamic situation. It's a work in progress. It evolves like in so many other areas of the pandemic,” Fauci said.
“You have got to look at the data. And the data that's evolving from Israel and from Pfizer indicates that it looks like there might be some diminution in protection. And when you have that, the most vulnerable people are the ones that you were talking about a moment ago, namely, people who have suppressed immune systems, those who are transplant patients, cancer chemotherapy, autoimmune diseases, that are on immunosuppressive regimens,” Fauci continued… (LINK TO FULL STORY)