BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 3, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW // BG Podcast Ep. 127: The Anatomy of a Digital Disinformation Campaign
On today’s episode we speak with Robert Matney, Managing Director of Government Affairs at Austin-based Yonder A.I. The firm’s software discovers the hidden groups who control and amplify online narratives, so companies can navigate an unpredictable, ever-evolving internet with confidence.
CITY OF AUSTIN
THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (1,690)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin's proposed ban on homeless camping wouldn't include legal consequences (Austin American-Statesman)
The Austin City Council is poised to ban camping in four areas of the city that have been overtaken by people experiencing homelessness – but will try to make it happen without any of the tools typically used to enforce such a ban.
In a watered-down amendment to a heftier proposal to get people off the streets and into supportive housing, Council Member Ann Kitchen made clear Tuesday that policing and citations are no longer on the table as potential punishments for disobeying the ban.
The removal of potential legal consequences represented a shift by Kitchen and five council members who co-sponsored her plan. Kitchen unveiled it last month to mixed reviews, with community members saying they are weary over the city's growing crisis and activists saying it's cruel to punish someone on the basis they cannot afford a home and have to sleep outside… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin population growth slows as suburbs continue to boom, says report (CultureMap Austin)
This year could be the last year in your lifetime that the city of Austin’s population climbs by more than 2 percent. However, the same cannot be said of the city's suburbs.
New projections from the Austin Housing and Planning Department envision the city’s population will be 1,026,833 on April 1, up 2 percent from the same point in 2020. But the projections further indicate population growth of less than 2 percent a year through 2050. From 2022 through 2026, for instance, the forecast points to annual population growth of anywhere from 1.25 percent to 1.45 percent in the city.
From 2006 to 2017, the city’s annual population increases ranged from its lowest (2.1 percent in 2008) to its highest (3.13 percent just a year later in 2009), according to the Housing and Planning Department. The City of Austin measures population growth from April of one year to April of the next year.
Despite the influx of new companies moving into Austin, the department actually expects the Austin metro area’s population to rise 2.8 percent in 2021 (to 2,363,245 as of April 1), down from the 3.05 percent in 2020. Moving forward, the population is predicted to climb anywhere from 2 percent to 2.75 percent through 2050.
In recent years, suburban population growth has exceeded urban population growth in the region as high costs inside the Austin city limits have pushed away some renters and homebuyers. From 2010 to 2019, Cedar Park (44.2 percent) and Round Rock (33.3 percent) ranked among the 15 fastest-growing large cities in the country, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“I think we’ve seen suburbs surge because the price of closer-in housing has vaulted out of reach for many relocating to the area,” says Vaike O’Grady, regional director in Austin for housing data provider Zonda. “While everyone wants to live ‘in Austin,’ sometimes Pflugerville or Buda is close enough. And there’s much more mid-priced housing stock there.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Dell Technologies Match Play golf tournament returning to Austin in 2021 with limited fan access (Austin Business Journal)
Austin will get its professional golf tournament back in 2021 after the coronavirus pandemic scuttled last year's WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.
The tournament is scheduled for March 24-28 at Austin County Club, although there will be no general public access. Instead, access "will be extremely limited to ticketed hospitality guests," Jordan Uppleger, the tournament's executive director, wrote in a Feb. 2 blog post.
That means many of the hospitality tents usually set up at ACC for Dell Match Play, usually prime locations for socializing and even doing business, won't be constructed this year. And attendees "will be required to adhere to local health and safety guidelines," Uppleger wrote.
But even a scaled-back event will be welcome by many in the business world. Dell Match Play debuted at Austin Country Club in 2016. Prior to that, Austin has not hosted a PGA-level event since 2009, according to past Austin Business Journal reporting.
The tournament has each spring trained the national sporting spotlight on Austin — a city coming into its own in that regard, with Austin FC about to kick off in Major League Soccer and NASCAR coming to town in May — and attracted the attention of major golf companies, such as TaylorMade. Dustin Johnson, currently No. 1 in the world golf rankings, is expected to compete. He won the Dell Technologies Match Play tournament in 2017.
"Although our footprint will be reduced, we are steadfast in our charitable mission in the region and are grateful for the continued support from the Austin community," Uppleger wrote. "Throughout the pandemic, giving back has remained at the heart of everything we do, and we are proud to have maintained a charitable presence in support of the Dell Children’s Medical Center and The First Tee of Greater Austin."… (LINK TO STORY)
What we could be seeing on a May ballot (Austin Monitor)
Austin voters will likely have a lot to think about before going to the polls on May 1. City Clerk Jannette Goodall has already certified two petitions – one from Austinites for Progressive Reform and another from the Austin Firefighters Association – to revise Austin’s City Charter.
APR is asking voters to approve a charter amendment that would change Austin’s Council-manager form of government to a strong-mayor form of government, plus three other changes. The firefighters are seeking a provision in the City Charter creating a binding arbitration process for labor contract negotiations.
Both groups filed their petitions with the expectation that voters would be given an opportunity to weigh in on the requests on the next uniform election day, May 1. However, under state law, it would be possible to wait until November 2022 to hold those elections.
A third group, Save Austin Now, is not looking for a charter change, but gathered petitions in support of an ordinance prohibiting people from sitting, lying or camping in most parts of the city. The ordinance is similar to one City Council repealed in 2019. If that petition is certified as having the required 20,000 signatures, the proposal would be on the ballot this spring.
At Tuesday’s work session, Council heard from its legal staff about those petitions and some of the ways they would change how the city conducts business. A number of Council members expressed their opposition to both the strong-mayor proposal and another proposal, called “democracy dollars,” presented by APR.
Under APR’s proposal, the mayor would appoint the city attorney and would have veto power over ordinances approved by Council. City Council would be able to override the veto within 45 days with a two-thirds vote or eight members, or a three-fourths vote or nine members if a three-fourths vote was required to approve the ordinance.
Council Member Kathie Tovo said the strong-mayor proposal envisions “a huge transformation of our government structure. This is not something I would want to undertake without extensive community conversations.” She pointed out that in the past, Council has appointed a Charter Review Commission that had extensive hearings before making any proposals for charter changes. APR states that it had the same kinds of meetings with citizens about its proposals.
But that lack of a city-sponsored process, along with giving the mayor veto power over Council’s actions and a host of duties involving operation of all the city’s functions, represents a huge departure from the current system, Tovo said. She said she was not sure about when the matter should be on the ballot and asked whether mayoral candidates would be required to have any special qualifications. The answer was no, aside from residency requirements.
Tovo said she was looking forward to having another work session discussion on the matter before putting it on the ballot.
Attorney Jim Cousar, who has provided legal advice to Austinites for Progressive Reform, told the Austin Monitor that a 1997 law gives the city a choice on most charter amendments.
“They can hold the election on the next uniform election day or they can wait until the next general election,” he said, adding, “I think it would be really be an abuse of discretion … on the part of the city … to make the (APR) charter amendment wait until November 2022 because there is going to be an election” for the firefighters’ provision and the camping ordinance. So the city would not be saving any money by postponing the APR election…(LINK TO STORY)
After delay, construction on new Broadmoor train station in North Austin will begin in spring (Community Impact)
Modifications to stations along Capital Metro’s Red Line in North Austin are scheduled to begin this year following delays in the fall.
According to the transit planning agency, groundbreaking for construction on the new Broadmoor station on the Red Line is now scheduled to take place in the spring. Previously, groundbreaking on the new station was supposed to happen in September.
“The groundbreaking will take place closer to construction starting. We are working through permitting and design refinement now, and construction is expected to start in spring 2021,” said Jenna Maxfield, communications specialist for Capital Metro, in an email to Community Impact Newspaper.
The new $24 million Broadmoor station, to be located across from The Domain at 11501 Burnet Road, will serve the upcoming mixed-use Broadmoor development. Currently, office towers, an apartment building, a grocery store and a luxury hotel are all planned at that development, which is set to break ground in early 2021, according to promotional documents from developer Brandywine Realty Trust.
Brandywine and Capital Metro will contribute $12 million each to construction of the new station… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Even in poorer neighborhoods, the wealthy are lining up for vaccines, including in Dallas (New York Times)
Although low-income communities of color have been hit hardest by Covid-19, health officials in many cities say that people from wealthier, largely white neighborhoods have been flooding vaccination appointment systems and taking an outsized share of the limited supply. People in underserved neighborhoods have been tripped up by a confluence of obstacles, including registration phone lines and websites that can take hours to navigate, and lack of transportation or time off from jobs to get to appointments. But also, skepticism about the shots continues to be pronounced in Black and Latino communities, depressing sign-up rates.
Dallas County’s rollout plans for the vaccine included an inoculation hub in a neighborhood that is largely African-American and Latino. But when the sign-up website went live, the link speedily circulated throughout white, wealthier districts in North Dallas. “Instead of getting a diverse sampling, we had a stampede of people who were younger and healthier than those who had initially gotten the links,” said Judge Clayton Jenkins, head of the Dallas County Commissioners Court. Observers told commissioners that those in line were overwhelmingly white. The county commissioners quietly contacted Black and Latino faith leaders in South Dallas, who encouraged constituents to show up for shots without appointments, as long as they offered proof that they were 75 and older… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Demand pushes home prices higher in Texas metros (Houston Chronicle)
Houston-area home prices registered a 5.7 percent gain in December from a year earlier as low interest rates and a slim supply of homes on the market fueled demand across the nation, according to a CoreLogic report. The Houston appreciation rate was below national increase of 9.2 percent in December, the largest year-over-year gain in more than six years, according to CoreLogic, a global property information firm based in Irvine, Calif.
“At the start of the pandemic, many braced for a Great Recession-era collapse of the housing market,” CoreLogic CEO Frank Martell said in an announcement. “However, market conditions leading into the crisis — namely low home supply, desire for more space and millennial demand — amplified the rapid acceleration of home prices.”
Among Texas cities, home price rose most in Austin, up 10.5 percent, followed by Fort Worth, 8.1 percent; Dallas, 6.8 percent; and San Antonio, 5.8 percent, according to CoreLogic's U.S. Home Price Index. Home prices rose in other large metro areas: Boston, up 5 percent; Chicago, up 7.4 percent; Denver, up 8.4 percent; Las Vegas, up 7.4 percent; Los Angeles, up 7.8 percent; Miami, up 5.7 percent; Phoenix, up 13.7 percent, San Diego, up 10.4 percent and Washington, D.C., up 8.8 percent. On an annual basis, home prices grew by an average of 5.7 percent in 2020, according to CoreLogic, compared to a 3.8 percent gain in 2019. The shortage of homes may lead to higher prices in 2021, according to CoreLogic. Nationally, home prices are projected to go up by 2.9 percent by December 2021. In Houston, prices are projected to fall by 1 percent… (LINK TO STORY)
Gov. Greg Abbott open to reforming his emergency powers after months of criticism from both parties (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott said Tuesday he is open to reconsidering his executive powers during state emergencies, a point of contention among some fellow Republicans during the coronavirus pandemic, and that his office is "offering up some legislation ourselves on ways to address this going forward."
"What we are working on — and we've already begun working with legislators — is approaches to make sure we can pre-plan how a response would be done, but it has to be done in a way that leaves flexibility to move swiftly," Abbott said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.
Abbott spoke with The Tribune the day after his State of the State speech in which he laid out his agenda for the 2021 legislative session, which started last month. As the pandemic has dragged on, some GOP lawmakers have grown uneasy with how aggressively Abbott has used his executive authority, particularly when it comes to business shutdowns and mask mandates. In the speech, Abbott promised to "continue working with the Legislature to find ways to navigate a pandemic while also allowing businesses to remain open."… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Biden administration to begin shipping vaccine doses directly to pharmacies (Politico)
The Biden administration said Tuesday it will begin distributing a limited number of Covid-19 vaccine doses directly to retail pharmacies across the nation.
Many pharmacies are already administering vaccine doses that have been allocated to states. Under the new program, the federal government would ship doses directly to pharmacies. The new pharmacy initiative — which is aimed at broadening access to vaccines generally — is separate from an ongoing federal program to have Walgreens and CVS vaccinate residents of long-term care facilities.
White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters that the government will ship only about 1 million doses per week to about 6,500 pharmacies through the new program at first. The vaccine sent directly to pharmacies starting next week will be in addition to the weekly shipments to states, which this week will total roughly 10.5 million doses.
Vaccinations through the federal partnership will start on Feb. 11, according to the White House.
“The Centers for Disease Control, which has quite a bit of experience working with pharmacies, is making sure that we are picking pharmacies in that first phase that are located in areas that are harder to reach to ensure that we have equitable distribution of the pharmacy doses,” Zients said… (LINK TO STORY)
Inside the craziest meeting of the Trump presidency (AXIOS)
Four conspiracy theorists marched into the Oval Office. It was early evening on Friday, Dec. 18 — more than a month after the election had been declared for Joe Biden, and four days after the Electoral College met in every state to make it official. "How the hell did Sidney get in the building?"
White House senior adviser Eric Herschmann grumbled from the outer Oval Office as Sidney Powell and her entourage strutted by to visit the president. President Trump's private schedule hadn't included appointments for Powell or the others: former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne, and a little-known former Trump administration official, Emily Newman. But they'd come to convince Trump that he had the power to take extreme measures to keep fighting.
As Powell and the others entered the Oval Office that evening, Herschmann — a wealthy business executive and former partner at Kasowitz Benson & Torres who'd been pulled out of quasi-retirement to advise Trump — quietly slipped in behind them. The hours to come would pit the insurgent conspiracists against a handful of White House lawyers and advisers determined to keep the president from giving in to temptation to invoke emergency national security powers, seize voting machines and disable the primary levers of American democracy… (LINK TO STORY)
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to give up CEO title he’s held for 30 years (Associated Press)
Jeff Bezos, who founded Amazon and turned into an online shopping behemoth, is stepping down as the company’s CEO, a role he’s had for nearly 30 years. He’ll be replaced in the fall by Andy Jassy, who runs Amazon’s cloud-computing business. Bezos, 57, will then become the company’s executive chair. In a blog post to employees, Bezos said he plans to focus on new products and early initiatives being developed at Amazon. And he said he’ll have more time for side projects: his space exploration company Blue Origin; the newspaper he owns, The Washington Post; and his charities.
Amazon is one of the last of the biggest tech giants to have a founder as CEO. Google’s co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin relinquished their executive positions in parent company Alphabet in 2019. Oracle’s Larry Ellison stepped down as CEO in 2014. Bill Gates was Microsoft’s CEO until 2000, kept a day-to-day role at the company until 2008 and served as its chairman until 2014. Gates left the board entirely last year to focus on philanthropy.
Launched in 1995, Amazon was a pioneer of fast and free shipping that won over millions of shoppers who used the site to buy diapers, TVs and just about anything. Under Bezos, Amazon also launched the first e-reader that gained mass acceptance, and its Echo listening device made voice assistants a more common sight in many living rooms. As a child, Bezos was intrigued by computers and interested in building things, such as alarms he rigged in his parents’ home. He got a degree in electrical engineering and computer science at Princeton University, and then worked at several Wall Street companies…(LINK TO STORY)