BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 4, 2021)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Last residential house on Rainey cleared for demolition by landmark commission (Austin Monitor)
In 2019, a KUT report introduced Austinites to John Contreras, then known as “The Last Man on Rainey Street.”
Rainey Street, historically a residential neighborhood, has become one of the city’s most prominent centers for nightlife and large-scale development.
Contreras’ story was noteworthy because unlike many current Rainey Street residents, he didn’t live in an expensive condo and he wasn’t new to the neighborhood. Contreras lived in a small house at 71 Rainey St. that had been in his family since the 1940s. While many of the neighborhood’s residents have moved away in the past few decades, Contreras stayed.
Eventually, Contreras sold the property and the old house fell into disrepair. It was this level of deterioration that persuaded the Historic Landmark Commission to approve a demolition permit for the home last week.
Kalan Contreras with the Historic Preservation Office told the commissioners that the demolition proposal was only considered “due to life safety concerns.” The property has also received code violations related to its structural integrity and lack of general maintenance over the years. Photos of the home’s interior submitted to the city show that the house is leaning to one side… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin raises property tax exemption for older, disabled homeowners; gives initial approval for citywide break (KUT)
The Austin City Council on Thursday unanimously approved an increase to the amount that older and disabled homeowners can reduce from their property taxes.
The amount people with disabilities and those who are 65 or older can exclude from property taxes went up from $88,000 to $113,000.
Speaking before the vote, Council Member Ann Kitchen said it was important to address the affordability challenges that older and disabled homeowners face.
A speaker in favor of homestead exemption increases told council Thursday that his property taxes are now higher than his mortgage payments.
“This situation has become untenable,” especially for retirees and people on a fixed income, the speaker said.
Council members also gave preliminary approval on another homestead exemption measure — one that would reduce the taxable portion of every Austin homeowners’ property values. The measure was approved on first and second reading, but a final vote is still needed.
That ordinance would increase the tax-exempted portion of a home’s value from the current level of 10% to 20%, the maximum allowed by state law. That means homeowners would not have to pay property taxes on one-fifth of the value of their primary home.
If it's approved, city staff estimate the owner of a home valued at $400,000 would save about $141 a year on the city portion of their property taxes. The savings could change, though. City of Austin leaders will decide later this summer whether to raise property tax revenue and by how much… (LINK TO STORY)
With Council approval, DSD to add 41 new workers (Austin Monitor)
City Council on Thursday approved a staff request to hire 41 new reviewers and inspectors in the Development Services Department starting in July, with a goal of having those new employees trained and ready to work by the end of the year. The vote was 10-0, with Council Member Mackenzie Kelly absent from the meeting.
City staffers told Council at Tuesday’s work session that the department simply does not have enough employees to handle the ever-increasing volume of work.
As an enterprise department, DSD is funded by fees paid by developers and contractors needing project reviews and approvals. According to information provided by staffers, the department now has sufficient funds to pay for the new employees for the current fiscal year. They plan to include funding of more than $4.4 million for these new positions in the Fiscal Year 2021-22 budget. This funding “will be fully offset with a revenue increase by the same amount due to permit application volume increases, resulting in a net zero impact to DSD. To this end, the department is projecting to add the positions to meet the higher workload demands without increasing fees.”
Council Member Alison Alter, who had many questions for DSD both at Tuesday’s work session and in writing, said she understood that the department believes it will have sufficient funds to cover the new employees without the fee increase. “Therefore I wanted to be on the record that I’m going to expect DSD to deliver on making these positions work without increasing fees further. I understand the anticipation is for no fee increases this fiscal year. If a request is made for a fee increase next fiscal year or the year after, I’m going to want evidence that the fee increase is not related to this action today.”
She added that she was supporting the item because she regularly hears complaints from DSD customers about their frustrations getting projects permitted, “and this is one action we can take to address those concerns.” However, she added that she often hears complaints about receiving conflicting information from different staff members and adding new staff will not solve that problem.
Council Member Ann Kitchen added an amendment to the motion approving the new positions directing staff to “evaluate the permit review times identified for SMART Housing projects and develop a recommendation for Council consideration which would apply a prioritized review time frame for other applicable affordable housing projects, such as Affordability Unlocked and Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects.”
Kitchen also directed staff to look at staffing in other departments involved in doing permit reviews and approval of site plans and subdivisions to make sure that those departments have sufficient staffing “to meet the recommended affordable housing prioritized review time frame.” In her motion, Kitchen asked staff to report back to Council as part of the city’s budget conversations, “no later than September 2.”
Council Member Kathie Tovo asked Assistant City Manager Rodney Gonzales to explain why DSD needs authorization to add the new employees this summer rather than waiting until next year’s budget is approved.
Gonzales reiterated what he said at Tuesday’s work session – that failure to bring more staff on board right away and train them now would increase the department’s backlog. He said he wants to make sure that “by the end of the year we would have every available resource to address the increase in permit applications. But we do forecast that without additional resources that we’ll have a general backlog – not just for our affordable housing projects, but for every single housing project across the city.”
Tovo said the city is experiencing “a large number of tree permit violations in several districts, including mine.” She added an amendment requiring DSD tree review staff, whose numbers will increase as a result of the added employees, to report to Council and to the Environmental Commission about how the new employees were improving that situation.
Finally, Tovo asked for an explanation of the duties of a departmental equity and inclusion program manager. She wanted to know why that person would be acting outside the city’s own Equity Office, which she said was doing “a wonderful job working with departments across the city.”
DSD Director Denise Lucas explained that the city’s equity officer had determined that “in order to make sure that our customers have an equitable experience when they engage with us … we need to enlist an equity expert to help us look at our processes to make sure that all of our customers have an equal outcome, not just those that are more affluent and have access to more resources.” She explained that the person in that position would receive guidance from the city’s equity officer, who would provide training and help the new DSD employee develop a strategy to get customers the support they need… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin City Council waives $4M in fees to help expand community for chronically homeless (KXAN)
Austin City Council voted Thursday to waive around $4.3 million in development fees to help expand the Community First! Village in northeast Austin.
The village is run by Mobile Loaves & Fishes and provides permanent housing for those experiencing chronic homelessness.
More than 220 people who once were homeless live there now, according to the City of Austin.
Mobile Loaves & Fishes wants to expand the village by adding 1,400 new micro-homes across a combined 127 acres. This vote helps that effort.
“Imagine having a donor walk into your operation and basically write a four-plus million dollar check. That’s what’s happening,” said Mobile Loaves & Fishes Founder and CEO Alan Graham. “If what you see out on our street corners and on our medians and under our bridges touches your heart, and you want to do something about it, we want you to come up alongside us.”
The expansion will happen in two phases, according to the city.
Phase 3 will expand the community onto a piece of land connected to its current location on Hog Eye Road. Phase 4 will expand the community in a new location off Burleson Road between McKinney Falls Parkway and U.S. 183.
Fees waived by the Development Services Department relate to the development review process, inspections, plumbing and electrical fees.
The city said Austin Water and Austin Energy will help out by providing more infrastructure and support for the community’s water, wastewater and electric services.
Graham said groundbreaking is still dependent on the permit process being approved. But once that occurs, shovels will be in the dirt around this time in 2022.
Fundraising for the next two phases will likely begin in the fall and will be a heavy undertaking. Graham estimates the development will need around nine figures to get the job done.
“Bringing them into the village isn’t an overnight success. But over the 5.5 years we’ve been open, we’ve been able to build trust,” Graham said. “Housing alone will never solve homelessness. But community will.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas power-grid operator should enhance emergency units, former regulators say (Wall Street Journal)
Texas needs to revamp the procurement of “black start” resources—the power generation that would be needed to jump start the grid in the event of a collapse—five former members of the Public Utility Commission of Texas said Thursday.
The former officials made the suggestion as part of a broader package of recommendations they said are needed to harden the Texas grid against future stresses and protect residents against extreme weather.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that more than half of these black-start emergency generators for the Texas power grid weren’t working properly during a devastating freeze in February. The article cited official data showing that 15 of 28 emergency generators were unavailable at times during the winter emergency, because they had technical difficulties or couldn’t get fuel.
Pat Wood III, a former chairman of the Texas commission and one of the authors, said he has been in discussions with state officials and there is recognition that flaws in the black-start program need to be fixed. “We ought to demand more of black start and we ought to pay more for it,” Mr. Wood said in an interview with the Journal.
Across the U.S., black-start providers have a financial problem. They can end up spending more setting up and fueling black-start units than they receive in payment for them..
Another recommendation of the newly issued advisory report is for Texas to put more money into programs that help people insulate their homes. The report said 60% of Texas homes are heated with electricity. Yet, millions of homes are uninsulated, which greatly adds to electricity demand during extreme heat and cold and jeopardizes the health of residents.
Mr. Wood, who also served as chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said legislation headed to the governor’s desk will require power generators and pipelines to weatherize their equipment. But more needs to be done to protect people. He said he and the other former officials were offering their thoughts because they all played a role in the deregulated energy system that now exists in Texas. “We owe it to our fellow citizens to speak the truth, as unbiased and factually as we can,” he said. “We all wear some of the blame.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas Republican leaders promised action on gun safety after the El Paso shooting. Instead, they passed permitless carry. (Texas Tribune)
There was hope in the air when state lawmakers from El Paso arrived in Austin for the 2021 Texas Legislature. For them, this was going to be the year they passed substantive firearm restrictions in gun-loving Texas — an unreachable, unfathomable goal for any other Legislative session.
But this wasn’t just any session. It was lawmakers’ first gathering since 2019, when 30 people were killed and dozens more were injured in back-to-back mass shootings in El Paso and Midland-Odessa. The tragedies were so earth-shattering that they moved Texas’ Republican leaders at the time to express an uncharacteristic openness to some gun control measures backed by Democrats.
Gov. Greg Abbott swore to do “everything we can to make sure a crime like this doesn’t happen again,” proposing a slew of policies to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and other people who should not possess them. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick famously said he was “willing to take an arrow” from the National Rifle Association in order to pursue stronger background check laws.
What happened instead was a whiplash-inducing pivot in the opposite direction. The Legislature, which ended its work Monday, passed House Bill 1927, allowing Texans to carry handguns without a license or training — an expansion of gun rights so divisive Republican leaders in previous years refused to touch it. Law enforcement groups vocally opposed the measure, worried it would endanger officers and citizens and make it easier for criminals to get guns.
Abbott touted that the bill was “the strongest Second Amendment legislation in Texas history.” For El Paso lawmakers who spent days with Abbott, Patrick and others brokering gun safety compromises in the weeks following the attack on their hometown, it was a slap in the face… (LINK TO STORY)
Raises for state employees in new budget? Only for select law enforcement and correctional officers (Dallas Morning News)
When the newly passed state budget takes effect in September, practically the only state workers who will receive pay bumps are several thousand law enforcement officers and some prison guards – just a fraction of the more than 200,000 Texans whose jobs depend on the budget. Once again, the Legislature provided no across-the-board salary increases in the $248.6 billion, two-year appropriations bill. Last week, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1 and sent it to Gov. Greg Abbott. The Republican governor has until June 20 to veto the budget, make line-item vetoes, approve the bill or let it become law without his signature. It takes effect Sept. 1. On Thursday, a leader in the state employee union and a disability rights activist lambasted the budget as miserly, especially to thousands of community care attendants who help elderly Texans and those with disabilities stay in their homes. The state sets their pay through the Medicaid program – $8.11 an hour. And they’re contract employees, and get no benefits.
“It’s a disgrace,” said Dennis Borel, executive director of the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities. Still, lawmakers favored select groups of state employees: · Correctional officers working in the 23 maximum-security units at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice would receive a one-time raise of 3%; and · Law enforcement officers at the prison system, the Department of Public Safety, Parks and Wildlife, the Alcoholic Beverage Commission, the attorney general’s office and the Insurance Department also would receive pay bumps. How much is not entirely clear.
But for some, it’s substantial – as much as $8,000 or more for experienced officers. Last year, there were just under 58,000 state jobs in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington labor market, according to Texas Workforce Commission unemployment insurance data. That includes some not paid by the budget, such as in higher education. Statewide, not counting higher education, there were just more than 146,000 state employees in fiscal 2020, according to the State Auditor’s Office. The Texas State Employees Union says for most state workers, it’s been a long drought. “The last actual ‘take home’ pay increase from the Texas Legislature was the $100/month that was given out over fiscal years 2013 and 2014,” the union said in flyers it distributed as this year’s legislative session began. Some 6,200 state workers make so little money, they qualify for – and indeed draw down – food stamps, said the union, an affiliate of the Communications Workers of America… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Facebook to end a longtime exception made for politicians who break its rules (Politico)
Facebook plans to announce Friday that it will no longer automatically give politicians a pass when they break the company’s hate speech rules, a major reversal after years of criticism that it was too deferential to powerful figures during the Trump presidency.
Since the 2016 election, the company has applied a test to political speech that weighs the newsworthiness of the content against its propensity to cause harm. Now the company will throw out the first part of the test and will no longer consider newsworthiness as a factor, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because that person was not authorized to speak publicly.
But Facebook doesn’t plan to end the newsworthiness exception entirely. In the cases where an exception is made, the company will now disclose it publicly, the person said — after years of such decisions being closely held. And it will also become more transparent about its strikes system for people who violate its rules… (LINK TO STORY)
High School valedictorian swaps speech to speak out against Texas' new abortion law (NPR)
The speech that high school valedictorian Paxton Smith pulled from inside her graduation gown was not the one she had shown the school. So she took a deep breath before launching into it, wondering whether she would be allowed to share her thoughts about Texas' new restrictive abortion law.
"I cannot give up this platform to promote complacency and peace, when there is a war on my body and a war on my rights," Smith said in her speech at the graduation ceremony for Lake Highlands High School in Dallas.
Despite swapping her text, Smith finished her speech and got a rousing cheer from her classmates and staff. In the days since her address on Sunday, video of the event has gone viral, and Smith has been praised for speaking her mind. (You can read a full transcript of her speech below.)
"I have dreams, and hopes and ambitions. Every girl graduating today does," Smith said. She later added, "And without our input and without our consent, our control over that future has been stripped away from us.”… (LINK TO STORY)