BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 27, 2021)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Downtown shootings bring plans to address violent crimes (Austin Monitor)
Just over a month since a mass shooting incident on East Sixth Street killed one person and injured more than a dozen, the state of downtown safety is receiving special attention in a pair of public sessions offering differing views on causes and possible solutions to the problem.
Last week the city’s Downtown Commission heard statistics and general context around the mixed state of downtown crime. Twenty-seven violent gun crimes were recorded through the end of June, putting the area on pace to exceed the 34 incidents that occurred in 2020 and 35 incidents in 2019. Statistics for 2020 compare somewhat poorly because of the Covid-19 pandemic, with 34 violent gun crimes recorded downtown for the whole year.
In total 22 people have been shot downtown this year, with four deaths and eight total shootings.
Austin Police Department Commander Jeff Greenwalt said it will likely take several years of analysis to determine why crime in downtown Austin is starting to rise in a way that mirrors the increases in other major cities like Houston and Baltimore. He said he and other officers often hear that a nationwide push against harsh sentencing puts many criminals back on the streets, a reality compounded by Texas’ wide allowance of personal recognizance bonds for felonies including violent crimes.
Greenwalt said, “What we’re hearing now from the criminals themselves and a lot of the confidential informants is they know they’re not being held accountable and know their competitors in the drug trades are carrying guns, so they have to carry as well,” he said. “It’s kind of a domino effect that has started with no fear of any sort of punishment from the criminal justice system. We have a dual-pronged problem of releasing violent offenders, and the bail reform push for PR bonds.”
Greenwalt also shared details of the early success of APD’s Violence Intervention Program, which started as a citywide initiative in April with a focus on repeat offenders known to carry guns. Thus far the program has resulted in 55 arrests of violent criminals and the seizure of more than 100 firearms.
That program was part of the discussion during Monday’s online forum organized by the Downtown Austin Alliance. Interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon touted the violent crimes effort and a move to shift more 911 calls toward mental health services as some of the ways police are trying to address crime and the perception that downtown is unsafe… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin narrows down police chief candidates to seven finalists (KUT)
The City of Austin has narrowed the pool of candidates for police chief down to seven.
The finalists are:
Joseph Chacon, interim Austin police chief since former Police Chief Brian Manley retired in March.
Anne Kirkpatrick, former police chief in Oakland, Calif.
Avery Moore, assistant police chief in Dallas
Celeste Murphy, deputy police chief in Atlanta
Mirtha Ramos, police chief in Dekalb County, Georgia
Gordon Ramsay, chief of police in Wichita, Kan.
Emada Tingirides, commanding police officer in Los Angeles
City Manager Spencer Cronk said he was excited about the diversity of the candidates. Four of the seven finalists are women. All candidates have served in leadership positions in police departments from Los Angeles to Miami. Some have master’s degrees in areas like law, management, criminal justice and psychology.
Cronk is expected to announce who will be the city’s next top cop by the end of August, according to a city press release.
The new chief will oversee a department that employs 1,809 sworn officers and 734 staff members, the release said. It will have a budget of $240.8 million in fiscal year 2020-2021.
"The challenges and opportunities related to this initiative alone are many. The Chief of Police will help APD and the City adapt and emerge from reimagining law enforcement in a manner that improves public safety for all who visit, live, and work in Austin," the release said.
The city received 46 applications for the job from candidates with a diversity of experience and backgrounds. Applications for the position opened three months ago.
The new police chief will take over as community groups demand changes to the department’s culture in the face of accusations of racist behavior among its leadership, concerns about how the academy trains officers and calls for racial justice sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last year… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Panelists tout benefits of growing use of public-private partnerships (Austin Monitor)
With real estate prices rising and land availability becoming more scarce throughout Central Texas, local governments and public institutions are finding more opportunities to consider public-private partnerships as a way to maximize the use of public land.
While the Mueller and Seaholm developments in Austin are two of the more high-profile projects involving P3 redevelopment in recent years, a panel hosted by Urban Land Institute Austin looked at the many other uses of this deal structure underway or in the planning phase around the area.
The popularity of P3 deals comes in part from the number of public parcels that can be put to higher use. RedLeaf development company partner Rob Shands revealed that there are more than 6,000 parcels in Travis County under public ownership, including half of the land in the central business district.
Shands said there are three common situations that bring about P3 agreements: underused public space that can be developed to create revenue; mission-driven projects to solve issues such as affordable housing shortages; and facility procurements that let private partners build a new building faster and cheaper than a government typically can.
Panel moderator Jeff Nydegger of Winstead PC said the motivation for using public land for redevelopment is evolving away from purely creating the greatest possible economic impact.
“Philsophically we’re starting to see a shift in local governments where traditionally cities would think about economic development simply in terms of job creation, growth and increasing that tax base,” he said. “That is shifting and now is not just an economic development conversation, it’s a community development conversation with a much stronger emphasis on equity, affordability, cultural preservation, arts … there’s a lot of items and sometimes the list can get too long. A lot of people think P3 can be used as a means to really deliver on those community benefits.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin's Silicon Labs sells business unit for $2.75 billion, shifts focus to Internet of Things (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin-based Silicon Labs has sold its infrastructure and automotive business for $2.75 billion to California-based semiconductor maker Skyworks Solutions. Plans for the all-cash deal was initially announced in April.
Silicon Labs primarily designs and manufactures semiconductors and other silicon devices. CEO Tyson Tuttle said the deal will allow the company to focus on its growing Internet of Things business. Internet of Things, or IoT as it is known in industry shorthand, refers to a range of non-computing devices —from kitchen devices to security systems — that connect to the Internet.
Silcon Labs' IoT business already serves tens of thousands of customers and works in thousands of applications, but the deal narrows Silicon Labs focus exclusively to that technology.
Silicon Labs' infrastructure and automotive business unit makes products such as power and isolation chips for electric cars. The deal divests the division's intellectual property and 350 employees who work with the products, the company said. It has previously estimated 770 of its 1,000 employees are based in Austin… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton gets all-important endorsement from Donald Trump over fellow Republican George P. Bush (Texas Tribune)
Former President Donald Trump has backed Attorney General Ken Paxton for reelection, passing over primary challenger George P. Bush in bestowing the highly sought-after endorsement.
"It is going to take a PATRIOT like Ken Paxton to advance America First policies in order to Make America Great Again," Trump said in a statement Monday evening. "Ken has my Complete and Total Endorsement for another term as Attorney General of Texas. He is a true Texan who will keep Texas safe—and will never let you down!"
Trump has teased an endorsement in the primary ever since the days before Bush, the land commissioner, announced he was challenging Paxton. Eva Guzman, the former state Supreme Court justice, has since launched a primary bid against Paxton as well… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas, Oklahoma officially notify Big 12 they will be leaving conference (Dallas Morning News)
Just call it Texit – with some Sooner separation for good measure. Texas and Oklahoma effectively served notice Monday to the Big 12, setting the stage for SEC membership and dealing a major blow to their former home. An 11th hour meeting Sunday with the Big 12 executive committee, including commissioner Bob Bowlsby, failed to deter Texas and Oklahoma from a plan assembled many months ago. Texas board of regents chairman Kevin Eltife was a key figure in the move. Texas president Jay Hartzell and OU counterpart Joe Harroz, each relatively new on the job, listened Sunday on the video call and were undeterred. Each school notified the Big 12 on Monday that they would not extend their media grant of rights past 2025, when the conference’s TV deals with ESPN and Fox expire. The Big 12 had sought an extension of the grant of rights through 2030.
“The University of Oklahoma and the University of Texas at Austin notified the Big 12 Athletic Conference today they will not be renewing their grants of media rights following expiration in 2025. Providing notice to the Big 12 at this point is important in advance of the expiration of the conference’s current media rights agreement,” Texas said in a statement.
“The universities intend to honor their existing grant of rights agreements. “However, both universities will continue to monitor the rapidly evolving collegiate athletics landscape as they consider how best to position their athletics programs for the future.” After having given notice, Texas and Oklahoma are positioned to accept the golden ticket to the SEC. Eleven of the 14 schools have to approve membership, which shouldn’t pose a problem. Only Texas A&M has voiced any opposition to the move and the Aggies softened their tone this past weekend. The result will be a college juggernaut, a 16-team super-conference designed to generate maximum TV revenue and dominate multiple sports, especially football. Texas and Oklahoma are expected to bump SEC per team revenue to more than $60 million. The Big 12 is expected to pay out about $40 million in 2021-22. For the Big 12, this is potentially an extinction-level event, if not now then in a few years with massive potential consequences for Texas Tech, Baylor and TCU. By exiting the Big 12, Oklahoma and Texas are departing the conference they helped found in 1996. The figure of the Big 12 is now uncertain with just eight remaining schools, none of which have the market value and brand of the Longhorns and Sooners… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The Texas election bill contains a new obstacle to voting that almost no one is talking about (Texas Monthly)
There’s a problem buried inside Texas’s latest election bill, and it’s not one of the headline-grabbing restrictions that have torn the Legislature apart during the special session. Nonetheless, it could disenfranchise a significant number of the state’s voters. Amid all the fighting, most lawmakers have apparently overlooked a provision that would force counties to automatically reject some mail-in ballot applications. Here’s why: The Republican-authored legislation would require voters to submit either their driver’s license number or a partial Social Security number when applying to vote by mail. That number would then be cross-checked with the state’s voter-registration database. Most applicants would be fine, because almost 90 percent of all registered Texas voters have both their Social Security number and driver’s license number in the database. However, 1.9 million voters—about 11 percent of the total—have only one of the two numbers on file with the state. During late-night testimony to a committee of the Texas House on July 10, Chris Davis, the elections administrator for Williamson County, explained that most of the voters with only one number on file wouldn’t remember which number they filed, often many years earlier, and would have to guess.
“You have a 50 percent chance of the voter guessing wrong,” said Davis. Guess wrong and your application would be rejected, even if it’s been twenty years since you used your Social Security or driver’s license number to register to vote.
“I challenge any person on the committee: do you remember what you filled out when you got your voter registration? I certainly don’t. And I’m in the business of this. And if [the numbers] don’t match, we’re rejecting.” Some 11 percent of Texas voters cast their ballots by mail in 2020, so if that percentage held up in future elections, 209,000 of the 1.9 million voters with only one ID number on file with the state would be requesting mail-in ballots. If most of those voters are guessing which ID number to cite on their application, and they have a 50 percent chance of guessing correctly, then 104,500 of them would have their applications rejected. Some of these voters might find other ways to vote, including in person. But some with serious disabilities, or those who have to be out of state during the period when polls are open, would be out of luck. Ever since the special legislative session began this month, a handful of local and state officials have tried in vain to call attention to the problem. But their pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears. The night of the hearing, none of the fifteen House committee members—including six Democrats—asked Davis a question about the risks of ID-matching. Instead, they voted the bill out of committee with no changes. Two days later, the full Senate adopted a nearly identical companion bill, also with no discussion and no changes to the provision… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
4 officers who responded to Capitol riot will deliver 1st testimonies to new panel (NPR)
Four law enforcement officers who responded to the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol will deliver testimony Tuesday to the House select committee investigating the melee.
Their remarks will be the first heard in front of the new, Democratic-led panel.
The four officers are:
Harry Dunn and Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police;
and Michael Fanone and Daniel Hodges of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department.
Dunn, who is Black and describes himself on his Twitter profile as an "insurrection stopper," has spoken openly about his experience in trying to suppress the violent, and at times racist, mob.
"Tomorrow I'll be testifying before congress, and while I don't think I'm nervous, I am definitely anxious," Dunn wrote in a Monday tweet, requesting that his supporters watch the broadcast and send him "good vibes" ahead of his testimony.
Also scheduled to testify is Sgt. Gonell, who was one of dozens of officers physically injured during the pro-Trump riot. (One officer died of natural causes after the attack, and two others have died by suicide.)… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
'Sellout’: Anti-vax conservatives come for DeSantis (Politico)
Florida’s Covid crisis has wedged Gov. Ron DeSantis between two competing forces: public health experts who urge him to do more and anti-vaxxers who want him to do less.
The Republican governor has come under attack from the medical community and Democrats as the Delta strain of Covid-19 sweeps through Florida, turning it into a national coronavirus hotspot. The state recorded more than 73,000 infections last week — four times as many as the start of July — leading to overcrowded hospitals and more than 300 deaths in the most recent seven-day period. Florida is now home to one in five new cases of Covid-19 in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But as DeSantis encourages vaccinations — he said “vaccines are saving lives” — he is facing a backlash from the anti-vaccination wing of his political base. It’s the same group that praised him and helped thrust him onto the national stage for his hands-off approach to the virus. DeSantis, with 2024 presidential ambitions, has to walk the line between keeping his conservative base satisfied and keeping his state from becoming more of a disease hot spot.
“Don’t let political correctness get in the way of health choices,” former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said recently of DeSantis’ comments, speaking on “The Right Side with Doug Billings,” a conservative radio host and podcaster… (LINK TO FULL STORY)