BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 5, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (5,934)
LINK TO FILED SENATE BILLS (2,704)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin remains nation's fastest growing major metro (Austin Business Journal)
The population in the five-county Austin metro jumped to an estimated 2,295,303 people as of July 1, 2020, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures released May 4. That was an increase of 3% from the prior year, the fastest population growth among metros with at least 1 million people.
Since 2010, the Austin metro has gained an estimated 579,014 residents — 34% population growth, according to the data. That's like adding a city roughly the size of Albuquerque, N.M., within the metro limits.
This data shows that Austin's fast growth isn't letting up as the metro rises in the ranks of the country's biggest cities. Companies such as Tesla Inc. — which will need 10,000 people at its factory by the end of next year — continue to make major investments in the region. Austin has also been tabbed a top destination for "digital nomads" who can work completely remotely.
This kind of data from the Census bureau is helpful for business types from Realtors to site selectors, underscoring the rapid change underway in the Texas capital.
The Austin metro now ranks as the 29th largest, up one spot from the year prior, among the country's largest metros, behind Las Vegas, Pittsburgh and Sacramento, Calif.
In terms of raw population growth, the Dallas metro ranked No. 1 in the United States with an estimated 119,748 more residents as of July 1, 2020, compared with the year prior, followed by the Phoenix metro, which added an estimated 106,008 residents, and the Houston metro with 91,078 more people. Austin ranked No. 4 overall with a gain of 67,197 people, which means there was an average of 184 people added every day.
That doesn't mean mean 184 people moved to the Austin area a day. There was a natural increase — births minus deaths — of 14,111 people from mid-2019 to mid-2020, and net migration of 53,266 people. That means net migration, which accounts for people leaving Austin, averaged 146 people per day during the covered time period.
The recent data also shows that the metros in Silicon Valley were hemorrhaging people last year, as many residents have reportedly relocated to Austin. From mid-2019 to mid-2020, the San Francisco metro population dropped by 27,114 residents, and the San Jose metro declined by 14,054 people.
Many Californians have been moving to Central Texas in recent years, and it's easy to draw a direct line from Silicon Valley to Austin as tech companies continue to relocate to the area for lower taxes, fewer business regulations and relatively lower costs of living. The U.S. Census Bureau's 2020 population estimates released at the end of last year showed Texas added the most residents of any state between July 1, 2019, and July 1, 2020, while California's population slipped… (LINK TO STORY)
City seeks input on vision, plans for downtown’s Palm District (Austin Monitor)
Residents can begin offering their thoughts to the city about the future use and look of the Palm District, a section of downtown that features historic structures and is surrounded by rapid growth and development.
The city will hold a series of virtual meetings and surveys to let those interested in the district share their thoughts on matters such as the future of the historic Palm School, the expansion of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, and how the area that was once a focal point for Austin’s Latino community can better reflect its heritage.
The fate of the district has been a matter of increasing importance in recent years. Before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, city and county leaders were engaged in a highly public debate over whether the county should sell the Palm School for private development to maximize its cash value, or work with the city to convert it from office use into a community gathering place.
The city strongly desired that the county not sell the school property for private development. In spring 2019, Council adopted a resolution that attempted to set up a process for building community consensus around the future of the Palm District and several connected assets including the Austin Convention Center and the Rainey Street District.
The public input process, which includes virtual meetings on June 15-16, is part of the district’s visioning phase that will run into the summer with active planning lasting into the fall. Adoption of a formal plan for the district is expected to take place in spring 2022.
Council Member Kathie Tovo, whose district includes the Palm District area, said the city and Travis County leaders need to reopen talks on the eventual use of the school property. She said if the city were able to purchase the property from the county it would likely be converted from its office use to provide a cultural focal point for the district.
“I’m still keenly interested in seeing it remain a public building. I’d like to see a more public use in the building and those county offices move out, so whether the county continues to own it and works with the community to find a new purpose for that building, or whether they partner with the city to do something along those lines, there’s tremendous potential and a lot of community support for maintaining that building with a real vibrant, active public use,” she said.
“One very important intention is to do all this work with the primary focus on recognizing and celebrating the history of the Mexican American families who once lived in that area.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Benchmarks for 'reimagined' APD cadet academy on track ahead of City Council commencement vote (Community Impact)
A year-plus pause on the training of new Austin Police Department cadets could be nearing its end this spring, with Austin City Council set to vote on commencing APD's 144th cadet class and a "reimagined" cadet academy this week.
Future cadet training was halted by council in 2019 after complaints of a toxic culture within the department were released, sparking both internal and external reviews of APD and eventual budget cuts aimed at cadet training through city officials' 2020 push to reimagine public safety. Most recently, a review of the APD academy including recommendations for its revival by the risk solutions firm Kroll Associates has shaped an ongoing overhaul of training and instruction leading up to the program's potential reboot.
Council members, city staff and representatives from Kroll and APD discussed the ongoing process during a May 4 council work session, ahead of council's May 6 consideration of a resolution that would kick off a pilot reimagined cadet training academy June 7 if approved. While funding for new cadet training this year had been removed through the city's original fiscal year 2020-21 budget, a $2.17 million transfer for the relaunch within the budget would facilitate the process, according to a city staff overview of the initiative.
Leading up to that potential start date, the academy is in the process of being redesigned in line with the latest guidance from Kroll to pivot away from its previous "stress-oriented, military-style" training in favor of an "adult learning" model. Interim Police Chief Joseph Chacon said that shift will move academy instruction away from a time when "lecture and listen" was the standard approach and toward lessons involving more student feedback and interaction.
"I can tell you when I went through the academy, that is not how it was. It was very structured and very disciplined, and we are going to be allowing people to ask those questions, to understand the ‘why,'" Chacon said. "That ... is really going to produce a better police officer."… (LINK TO STORY)
Council wants Project Connect TOD plans in place ‘pronto’ (Austin Monitor)
The city is set to overhaul its transit-oriented development policies to allow denser, more equitable development near future Project Connect stations as soon as possible.
“We need to be ready from the word ‘go’ to let areas near our transit system be able to grow in a way that maximizes ridership potential,” Mayor Pro Tem Natasha Harper-Madison said.
“At the same time, we cannot, we must not and will not let our residents who currently depend on transit lose access to it once it becomes a first-class service.”
City Council is likely to pass a resolution Thursday proposing a comprehensive equitable transit-oriented development (eTOD) plan for Project Connect’s Orange and Blue light rail lines, Green regional rail line, Gold bus rapid transit line, and MetroRapid bus routes.
“The end goal is to have a policy plan in place that serves as a guide to make necessary changes to avoid potential displacement, maintain affordability and provide for more opportunities for more people of all income levels to live and work near these transit investments,” Harper-Madison said.
Council expects a complete eTOD policy plan within 14 months, and interim policy recommendations within seven months.
Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority will lead the work, having already begun eTOD studies for parts of the Orange and Blue line corridors with funds from the Federal Transit Administration. A separate Capital Metro TOD study for the Green Line, funded by a 2018 FTA grant, is also nearing completion. City staffers from other departments will play key roles, as will consultants, neighborhood groups and other community members.
Once these policy recommendations come back, Council will discuss and potentially amend them before putting them into the Land Development Code… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas economy has ‘accelerated,’ prompting Comptroller Glenn Hegar to sweeten his outlook (Dallas Morning News)
Comptroller Glenn Hegar on Monday issued a revised revenue estimate that gives lawmakers several billion more dollars to spend as they wrap up the next state budget this month. Hegar cited improved performance of the state economy, as COVID-19 restrictions began to be lifted over the past two months and immunizations improved consumer confidence. “There’s a lot of built-up [demand by] people that want to get out and engage in the economy, which is good, as we’ve seen our case counts go down and hospitalizations go down,” Hegar said during a virtual news conference, called to explain his update of his January revenue estimate.
The estimate sets the ceiling on what lawmakers can spend in the budget. Under the state Constitution, the budget is the only bill the Legislature must pass before the session ends May 31. And a “pay as you go” provision, approved by voters in the 1940s, limits lawmakers to spending only those revenues forecast by the comptroller. Hegar noted he sees an additional $3.1 billion in general-purpose revenue for the 2022-2023 cycle. And for the first time since the pandemic began, his tallies now put the current cycle’s budget in the black – a turnaround of nearly $1.7 billion since January, and more than $5 billion since July.
Together, those positive developments should allow lawmakers to continue the enhanced funding of teacher salaries and public schools that they began in 2019, and consider other steps, he said. Both chambers already have passed budgets for the next cycle. However, the new revenue estimate could enable House-Senate budget negotiators, who’ve just begun to meet, to make late-hour spending increases for both state workers’ pension fund and higher education, some analysts predicted… (LINK TO STORY)
Bill to prevent Texas cities from banning natural gas heads to Governor’s desk (KUT)
It's unclear whether any Texas cities have banned natural gas hookups in buildings. But now they won't be able to — if a bill approved by the state Senate on Tuesday becomes law.
House Bill 17 by state Rep. Joe Deshotel, D-Beaumont, was initially written in response to California cities banning natural gas use in new buildings to fight climate change. With the support of the natural gas industry, Oklahoma and Louisiana have already preemptively passed laws to ban local natural gas bans.
But Deshotel’s legislation got a rebranding in Texas when it was included on the list of bills prioritized in response to the February blackout. In explaining the bill to fellow lawmakers, Deshotel said "gas played an important part in helping a lot of people” during the blackout.
“I know in my own home, I was able to keep things going because we had a generator that kicked on and ran on natural gas,” he said in a hearing of the House’s State Affairs Committee this spring.
HB 17 went on to gain approval by the state House. Now that it has also cleared the Senate, it's expected Gov. Greg Abbott will sign it into law.
In Texas the plan is opposed by environmental groups who worry it is written so broadly it could end local incentives for going green. But it’s also under scrutiny for another reason.
Some say it would actually increase the likelihood of another large-scale blackout by pushing more natural gas to new homes and less to power plants that need it during cold spells.
“This bill absolutely, unequivocally, would make the problem worse,” Doug Lewin, an energy efficiency advocate and president of the consulting firm Stoic Energy, told KUT in March.
HB 17 is not the only gas-friendly bill that’s been pitched as a blackout fix. Another, already approved by the state Senate and up for a hearing in the House on Thursday, would raise the cost of renewable energy.
Adding extra cost to wind and solar power has been a long-term goal of the fossil fuel industry and its allies at the state legislature. But opponents, including a group of companies like Amazon, General Electric and Goldman Sachs, say it could slam the brakes on Texas’ booming wind and renewable sector.
As far as the ban on the gas ban is concerned: It’s hard to find a city in Texas that has tried to implement such a policy. The City of Austin may have come closest when it considered phasing out new gas hookups in 2030 as part of its long-term climate plan.
But that proposal never made it out of draft form. The city softened its approach to natural gas after intense lobbying by the industry… (LINK TO STORY)
Ken Paxton tells The New York Times he doesn't support Greg Abbott for reelection — then tweets that he does (Texas Tribune)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a New York Times story published Tuesday that he does not support Gov. Greg Abbott, a fellow Republican, as Abbott runs for reelection, the latest — and most revealing — sign that some state GOP leaders are on a collision course ahead of the 2022 election.
“The way this typically works in a primary, is it’s kind of everybody running their own race,” Paxton told the Times. “I don’t think he supports me; I don’t support him.”
Within hours of the story's publication, Paxton bashed it as "fake news" and insisted he supports Abbott. "He's a great Governor and a Great Texan," Paxton tweeted.
Abbott is up for a third term in 2022, and for months he has faced heat from some on his right, most notably over his response to the coronavirus pandemic. Paxton told the Times that he wished Abbott had reopened the state "a little bit earlier."
A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released Tuesday found that 43% of Texas voters said they approve of the job Abbott is doing, compared to 45% who said they disapprove. His approval rating was 77% among Republicans, a number that has slowly ticked down throughout the pandemic. It was 88% in April 2020.
Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and Texas GOP Chairman Allen West have not ruled out challenging Abbott. Miller has also raised speculation that he could run against Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. And Land Commissioner George P. Bush is looking at a bid against Paxton.
While Abbott has taken hits from his right recently, Paxton has his own political problems. He has been indicted on state securities fraud charges for most of his time as attorney general, and the FBI is reportedly investigating allegations he used his office to benefit a wealthy donor. Paxton has denied wrongdoing in both cases… (LINK TO STORY)
In South Texas, Hispanic Republicans try to cement the party’s gains (New York Times)
The front door of the Hidalgo County Republican Party’s office is covered with photographs of high-profile politicians in the party: Gov. Greg Abbott, Senator John Cornyn and former President Donald J. Trump. Nearly all of them are white men. Step inside, and you’ll see a bulletin board with pictures of local Republican leaders: Adrienne Pena-Garza, Hilda Garza DeShazo, Mayra Flores. Nearly all of them are Hispanic women. Hispanic Republicans, especially women, have become something of political rock stars in South Texas after voters in the Rio Grande Valley shocked leaders in both parties in November by swinging sharply toward the G.O.P. Here in McAllen, one of the region’s largest cities, Mr. Trump received nearly double the number of votes he did four years earlier; in the Rio Grande Valley over all, President Biden won by just 15 percentage points, a steep slide from Hillary Clinton’s 39-point margin in 2016. That conservative surge — and the liberal decline — has buoyed the Republican Party’s hopes about its ability to draw Hispanic voters into what has long been an overwhelmingly white political coalition and to challenge Democrats in heavily Latino regions across the country.
Now party officials, including Mr. Abbott, the governor, have flocked to the Rio Grande Valley in a kind of pilgrimage, eager to meet the people who helped Republicans rapidly gain ground in a longtime Democratic stronghold. One of those people, Ms. Pena-Garza, the chair of the Hidalgo County Republican Party, grew up the daughter of a Democratic state legislator. As was common for most Hispanic families in the area, she said, voting for Democrats was a given. But after her father switched parties in 2010, Ms. Pena-Garza soon followed, arguing that Democrats had veered too far to the left, particularly on issues like abortion and gun control.
Ms. Pena-Garza said she was called a coconut — brown on the outside, white on the inside — and a self-hating Latino, labels that have begun to recede only in recent years as she meets more Hispanic Republicans who, like her, embrace policies that they view as helping small business owners and supporting their religious beliefs. Now, she says, the political choice is a point of pride. “You can’t shame me or bully me into voting for a party just because that’s the way it’s always been,” she said. One of the lingering questions of the 2020 election is just what drove this region — and other heavily Hispanic areas of the country — toward Republicans. The shift appeared to be particularly acute among women who call themselves conservative, according to a post-mortem analysis by Equis Labs, a Democratic-aligned research firm that studies Latino voters… (LINK TO STORY)
Opinion: Eric Johnson might hold the title mayor but his power vanished Saturday (Dallas Morning News)
It’s one thing to lose in politics, as Mayor Eric Johnson did spectacularly Saturday. Serious politics requires risk, and if you’re going to be in it, you’ve got to roll the dice at some point. Johnson’s problem, though, is that he took a huge political risk this year with a low-to-nil probability of success. Anyone with any sense of the Dallas political landscape could see from the outset that Johnson was not going to accomplish what he hoped - to unseat strong incumbent council members and replace them with people more willing to follow his agenda. So with failure all but assured, why did he plow forward? It’s an interesting question, and we could speculate on the answer all day. Johnson didn’t respond to an email or a message to his office for this column. What seems clear is that he either totally misread the Dallas political dynamic or just decided to throw caution to the wind and take his chances.
What might be more important than why he did it, though, is what’s left for Johnson as mayor at this point. With two years left in his term, he will return to City Hall more isolated and more dis-empowered than he was before this election. And that’s saying something. Since he took office, Johnson has struggled to work with the council and with city management. A mayor in Dallas might be able to fight with one or the other. Taking on both is a recipe for failure, another political truism Johnson ignored. Meanwhile, his style of governing has diminished into either parliamentary wrangling at the council horseshoe or social media pronouncements or selective interviews, often with right-wing media. Johnson-backed candidates -- and candidates who echoed his message that the council had defunded the police -- largely failed in this election. Johnson’s endorsements of Donald Parish Jr. in South Dallas/Fair Park and Yolanda Williams in Pleasant Grove appeared to carry no weight. Neither could manage to get into a runoff… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Reaching ‘herd immunity’ is unlikely in the U.S., experts now believe (New York Times)
Early in the pandemic, when vaccines for the coronavirus were still just a glimmer on the horizon, the term “herd immunity” came to signify the endgame: the point when enough Americans would be protected from the virus so we could be rid of the pathogen and reclaim our lives. Now, more than half of adults in the United States have been inoculated with at least one dose of a vaccine. But daily vaccination rates are slipping, and there is widespread consensus among scientists and public health experts that the herd immunity threshold is not attainable — at least not in the foreseeable future, and perhaps not ever. Instead, they are coming to the conclusion that rather than making a long-promised exit, the virus will most likely become a manageable threat that will continue to circulate in the United States for years to come, still causing hospitalizations and deaths but in much smaller numbers.
How much smaller is uncertain and depends in part on how much of the nation, and the world, becomes vaccinated and how the coronavirus evolves. It is already clear, however, that the virus is changing too quickly, new variants are spreading too easily and vaccination is proceeding too slowly for herd immunity to be within reach anytime soon. Continued immunizations, especially for people at highest risk because of age, exposure or health status, will be crucial to limiting the severity of outbreaks, if not their frequency, experts believe.
“The virus is unlikely to go away,” said Rustom Antia, an evolutionary biologist at Emory University in Atlanta. “But we want to do all we can to check that it’s likely to become a mild infection.” The shift in outlook presents a new challenge for public health authorities. The drive for herd immunity — by the summer, some experts once thought possible — captured the imagination of large segments of the public. To say the goal will not be attained adds another “why bother” to the list of reasons that vaccine skeptics use to avoid being inoculated. Yet vaccinations remain the key to transforming the virus into a controllable threat, experts said. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top adviser on Covid-19, acknowledged the shift in experts’ thinking…(LINK TO STORY)
U.S. births drop to levels not seen since 1979 (Wall Street Journal)
The number of babies born in America last year was the lowest in more than four decades, according to federal figures released Wednesday that show a continuing U.S. fertility slump.
U.S. women had about 3.61 million babies in 2020, down 4% from the prior year, provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics shows. The total fertility rate—a snapshot of the average number of babies a woman would have over her lifetime—fell to 1.64. That was the lowest rate on record since the government began tracking it in the 1930s, and likely before that when families were larger, said report co-author Brady Hamilton. Total births were the lowest since 1979.
Because the Covid-19 pandemic emerged in March, the figures capture just a short period at year’s end when the unfolding health and economic crisis could be reflected in women’s decisions about getting pregnant. Women typically have fewer babies when the economy weakens. Fears of getting sick, making medical appointments and delivering a baby as a deadly virus spread also dissuaded some women from pregnancy.
“The fact that you had this coincide with the time the pandemic hit is certainly cause for suspicion,” said Dr. Hamilton, a federal statistician and demographer. He added that it was too soon to gauge the exact impact of the pandemic on fertility.
Demographers say the data suggests that more fundamental social and economic shifts are driving down fertility. Births peaked in 2007 before plunging during the recession that began that year. Although fertility usually rebounds alongside an improving economy, U.S. births fell in all but one year as the economy grew from 2009 until early 2020.
“It’s not just Covid. It’s the fact that the birthrates never recovered from the Great Recession,” said Kenneth Johnson, senior demographer at the University of New Hampshire. “I’ve been waiting for years to see a big jump in fertility to women in their 30s and it hasn’t happened.”
Prof. Johnson estimates that about 7.6 million fewer babies have been born as a result of lower fertility rates since 2007. He said separately released provisional monthly data from the CDC showed births declined about 7.7% in December. That shows a drop that was already under way before the pandemic and accelerated once the pandemic took hold.
Millennials, born between 1981 and 1996, now account for the majority of women having children. In seeking to explain their lower fertility rates, researchers have pointed to the fact that they are marrying later in life, getting higher levels of education and are less financially secure than previous generations when they were the same age.
Provisional birthrates fell for all women ages 15 to 44 last year. That included women ages 40 to 44, whose birthrates declined 2%. The rate for that age group had risen almost continuously from 1985 to 2019, by an average of 3% a year.
The sharpest fertility declines in 2020 were among women in their late teens and early 20s. Since peaking in 1991, the teenage birthrate has fallen 75%… (LINK TO STORY)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 139: Q1 20201 Review: COVID-19's Impact on the Built Environment with Michael Hsu
On today’s episode we speak with return guest, Austin-based Michael Hsu, Principal and Founder of Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. catch up from their June 2020 show, updating on impacts to the design/built environment sector through Q1 2021.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!