BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 28, 2021)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW // BG Episode 126: Building a Texas Political Community with Pink Granite
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CITY OF AUSTIN
THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE
LINK TO FILED HOUSE BILLS (1,556)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin's COVID-19 outlook is slowly getting better (KUT)
Coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the Austin area are slowly decreasing. The city’s interim health authority says the change is happening because residents are reducing transmission by wearing masks and staying home as much as possible.
Dr. Mark Escott said the numbers are declining slowly, but nonetheless it’s a move in the right direction. The number of daily new cases peaked 10 days ago, and hospitalizations peaked more than two weeks ago.
“All the measures this week show significant improvements in our COVID-19 situation in Travis County,” Escott told a joint session of county commissioners and Austin City Council members Tuesday.
Austin Public Health did not see a surge in numbers as a result of New Year’s celebrations as had been expected. Escott said he believes part of that can be attributed to local officials taking steps to enforce a curfew.
“The first day of declining [hospital] admissions was exactly 10 days after the implementation of the curfew by the city and county,” Escott said. “That 10- to 14-day period is exactly when we’d expect to see impacts from policies on admissions to the hospital.”
APH Director Stephanie Hayden-Howard said improvements are being made to the online portal where people can sign up to check their vaccine eligibility. APH expects to deliver 12,000 more vaccine doses this week. Escott said until more vaccines are given FDA approval, doses will continue to trickle out to people slowly.
Hayden-Howard says APH continues to focus on vaccinating eligible 1A and 1B populations, including those working in close quarters with children. Hayden-Howard said she spoke with school superintendents on Monday and that APH will send a survey to child care providers to gauge how many who work in the field might be eligible for a vaccine… (LINK TO STORY)
Stonelake Capital plans 50-story Austin skyscraper after taking over downtown project (Austin Business Journal)
Plans for a large tower at the corner of Fifth and Colorado streets have dramatically changed.
Stonelake Capital Partners on Jan. 27 unveiled its proposal for a 50-story mixed-use tower at the downtown Austin site.
An affiliate of the real estate private equity firm, known in Austin for developing multiple towers at The Domain, acquired the 0.5-acre site at the southeast corner of Fifth and Colorado in September for an undisclosed price.
Austin Business Journal in May 2020 revealed plans by Ryan Companies to build a 41-story high-rise at the site, dubbed Tower 5C. But Stonelake has taken over and is now pushing ahead with a modified vision.
The working name for the new skyscraper is "5th & Colorado," though Stonelake added it would announce the project's full branding and identity at a later date. Plans call for 465,000 rentable square feet of residences and office space.
Stonelake has started the process to revise city permits. Tower 5C was permitted as an office tower, so Stonelake must update the permitting before moving forward with its plans for an office/residential project. Stonelake announced it owns 100% of the 5th & Colorado site, without an outside equity or development partner… (LINK TO STORY)
Harper-Madison named Austin's mayor pro tem for 2021 in compromise (Austin American-Statesman)
The Austin City Council named Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison its mayor pro tem on Wednesday in a vote that took on more political intrigue than expected for the ceremonial role.
Harper-Madison will be mayor pro tem for the remainder of 2021. It is a position that carries no further power beyond being Mayor Steve Adler's understudy in running council meetings in his absence. In a compromise put forward by Adler, Council Member Alison Alter will become the mayor pro tem in 2022.
"Who we select as mayor pro tem is a powerful piece of symbolism," said Harper-Madison, who represents a large swath of East and Northeast Austin and is the only Black member of the council. "I really appreciate the support of our community, my district and beyond."
The vote was unanimous. It came after more than a month of speculation about who would succeed former Council Member Delia Garza in the role. Garza left the council after winning the race for Travis County attorney, a countywide office in an election that illustrated how the ceremonial role as mayor pro tem can forecast future political fortunes.
Council Member Greg Casar, who last year weighed a run for the Texas Senate, originally signaled that he had secured enough votes to take the position in December. However, Casar's support withered in the face of pressure to elect a woman to the position, as eight of the council's 11 members are women.
Alter and Harper-Madison both sought the position, and now it appears they both will get an opportunity to be the council's leader when the mayor is not present at meetings…(LINK TO STORY)
Austin City Council votes to purchase motel to house homeless, postpones vote on another (KXAN)
The Austin City Council voted on Wednesday to purchase a motel to provide transitional housing for those experiencing homelessness.
The council approved the purchase of the Texas Bungalows & Suites on Burnet Road in north Austin for an amount to not exceed $6.7 million.
A vote to purchase Candlewood Suites on Pecan Park Boulevard in northwest Austin was postponed at the request of Council Member Mackenzie Kelly who requested an additional week to share the plan with the public.
“Yes, we have a homelessness crisis, but treating every proposal as a dire emergency to circumvent dialogue is bad policy,” Kelly said in a statement to KXAN. “The City, in a lot of ways, has lost the trust of the community regarding the homeless situation, particularly since the lifting of the camping ban was pushed through early one Austin morning.”
Kelly said she would like to create a “fresh and friendly” approach to the relationship the city has with both housed and unhoused residents in Austin, as the Feb. 4 meeting approaches to discuss the possible purchase of the Candlewood Suites.
Combined, both motels would have added 148 units to the city’s supply.
“I think the message we need to be sending to the community is that we’re going to move with great urgency to get people out of tents and off our streets,” Mayor Steve Adler said. “I think the motel strategy is the most efficient way for us to do that.”… (LINK TO STORY)
James Bass named executive director of Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority (Community Impact)
The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority will have a new executive director for the first time in the organization’s history,
On Jan. 27, The Mobility Authority’s board of directors approved James Bass, former executive director at the Texas Department of Transportation, to replace Mike Heiligenstein as the next leader of the organization.Heiligenstein initially announced his intention to step down in early 2020 but stayed on longer than he expected to help the organization through COVID-19. He officially stepped down from his position Jan. 24 after serving as the Mobility Authority’s only executive director since his initial appointment in 2003.
According to his official TxDOT biography, Bass has worked for the state department since 1985. He became TxDOT’s chief financial officer in 2005 before being named executive director in 2016… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Food banks urge lawmakers to stop funding cuts to program assisting hungry Texans (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
The Tarrant Area Food Bank joined other nonprofits in a one-day social media and email campaign to tell state legislators to stop funding cuts to a grant program that provides fresh produce to hungry Texans. On Wednesday, the food bank launched the #StoptheCut social media blitz on its Facebook and Twitter pages, and also has a blog to track the progress of the campaign, said Michael Polydoroff, a spokesman for the Tarrant Area Food Bank. The food bank joined with Feeding Texas and 21 other food banks that oppose a 41 percent cut to the Surplus Agricultural Products Grant because of COVID-19 state budget cuts. The grant program allows food banks to procure fresh produce from Texas farmers that would otherwise go to waste.
If funds are cut to the popular grant program, hungry Texans would not receive almost 20 million pounds of fresh produce, according to a news release from the food bank. “Our community continues to rely on the Tarrant Area Food Bank to provide fresh produce as a part of the food they are receiving in this time of crisis,” said Julie Butner, President and CEO of the Tarrant Area Food Bank.
“This grant greatly benefits our neighbors in need of food and supports our local farmers by sustaining their businesses during these uncertain times,” Butner said in the news release. The program is overseen by the Texas Department of Agriculture, which cut the program earlier this year on instructions from the governor’s office to find savings. “With more Texans at risk of hunger than ever before, this is not the time to be cutting a critical source of healthy, fresh produce for our community,” said Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, the statewide network of food banks. Food insecurity in Texas jumped from 13% to 29% following the arrival of COVID-19, according to the news release… (LINK TO STORY)
COVID-19 took a toll on Dallas-Fort Worth’s construction starts in 2020 (Dallas Morning News)
Dallas-Fort Worth ranked among the top U.S. cities for commercial and apartment building in 2020. D-FW landed in fourth place, even with a 20% decline in starts from 2019 totals. North Texas trailed New York City, Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles in the annual construction survey by Dodge Data & Analytics. The D-FW area’s commercial building and apartment start total for 2020 was the smallest in more than three years thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused projects to be delayed or canceled.
“Commercial building starts lost 23% in 2020,” said Dodge Data chief economist Richard Branch. “The decline was the result of sizable pullbacks in office, hotels and parking structures. “The largest commercial building to get started in 2020 was the $135 million Epic Deep Ellum office building,” he said. “Retail construction starts were flat over the year, while warehouse starts posted a sizable gain.”
Apartment builders also hit the brakes last year around North Texas. “Multifamily housing starts in the metro area dropped 15% during 2020,” Branch said. “The largest multifamily project to get underway was the $75 million Novel Turtle Creek residential tower.” Total U.S. commercial and multifamily building starts fell by 20% last year to the lowest level in more than three years, according to Dodge Data… (LINK TO STORY)
Census delays will force Texas lawmakers into a special session to redraw political maps (Texas Tribune)
The U.S. Census Bureau has again pushed back the release of the 2020 census results — a delay that will almost certainly force Texas lawmakers into legislative overtime this summer to redraw the state’s political maps.
During an online presentation Wednesday, a bureau official revealed that the population numbers that determine how many congressional seats are apportioned to each state are expected to be released by April 30. The bureau has not finalized a timeline for the release of more detailed census results lawmakers need to actually redraw districts so they’re roughly equal in population, but the data likely won’t be available until after July.
"We hope to have a date in the near future that we can provide for when the redistricting data will come out. I cannot see that it would be before July 30 is how I would put this," said Kathleen Styles, the bureau's chief for decennial communications and stakeholder relations.
The 2021 legislative session ends May 31, but congressional and state House and Senate districts will need to be reconfigured ahead of the 2022 elections. Under the Census Bureau’s projected timeline, Gov. Greg Abbott would need to call lawmakers back for a special legislative session in the summer.
The census is running far behind schedule after the coronavirus pandemic delayed the timetable for tallying the once-a-decade count by several months. Under a typical timeline, the first set of numbers would have been produced by Dec. 31. Texas would have expected to receive the second set of numbers as early as mid-February while lawmakers were in Austin for their regular legislative session… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
‘Dumb Money’ Is on GameStop, and It’s Beating Wall Street at Its Own Game (The New York Times)
A real estate salesman in Valparaiso, Ind. A former line cook from the Bronx. An evangelical pastor and his wife in Huntington Beach, Calif. A high school student in the Milwaukee suburbs.
They are among the millions of amateur traders collectively taking on some of Wall Street’s most sophisticated investors — and, for the moment at least, winning. Propelled by a mix of greed and boredom, gleefully determined to teach Wall Street a lesson, and turbocharged by an endless flow of get-rich-quick hype and ideas delivered via social media, these investors have piled into trades around several companies, pushing their stock prices to stratospheric levels.
Some of the names are from an earlier business era. BlackBerry’s shares are up nearly 280 percent this year. Stock in AMC, the movie theater chain, has surged nearly 840 percent. But the trade that captures the David-versus-Goliath nature of the moment involves GameStop, the troubled video game retailer that was once a fixture in suburban malls.
On Wall Street, individual investors are often derided as “dumb money,” destined to lose against the highly compensated analysts and traders who buy and sell stocks for a living. But in recent days, individual investors — many of them followers of a popular, juvenile, foul-mouthed Reddit page called Wall Street Bets — have upended that narrative by banding together to put the squeeze on at least two hedge funds that had bet that GameStop’s shares would fall.
While the hedge funds and other professional money managers had been shorting GameStop’s shares, betting that its stock was doomed to further decline, the retail investors — online traders, mom-and-pop investors, small brokers and others — have been pushing the other way, buying shares and stock options. That caused GameStop’s market value to increase to over $24 billion from $2 billion in a matter of days. Its shares have risen over 1,700 percent since December. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, the market value rose over $10 billion.
The tribal framing online, as a kind of team sport pitting plucky upstarts against well-heeled Wall Streeters, has been especially helpful in motivating more investors to participate. This week, Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, fueled the trading by posting about the Reddit page on Twitter. And speculation is growing that other investors are seeing fresh opportunities to push the stock even higher.
Ben Patte, 16, a high school student in Wisconsin who said he made $750 off GameStop stock, said the campaign felt like vindication for himself and fellow young traders. “It’s a good opportunity to make money and stick it to the hedge funds,” he said. “By buying GameStop, it’s kind of like beating them at their own game… (LINK TO STORY)
DHS warns of 'Heightened Threat Environment' from domestic violent extremists (NPR)
The Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin on Wednesday warning of a continued threat from domestic violent extremists.
The bulletin did not cite any specific threat but described "a heightened threat environment across the United States, which DHS believes will persist in the weeks following the successful Presidential Inauguration."
"Information suggests that some ideologically-motivated violent extremists with objections to the exercise of governmental authority and the presidential transition, as well as other perceived grievances fueled by false narratives, could continue to mobilize to incite or commit violence," the bulletin said.
DHS typically issues one or two security bulletins a year. The bulletins describe current developments or general trends regarding threats of terrorism. Its last such notice was about a year ago when DHS warned of potential cyberattacks from Iran.
Homeland Security and the FBI issued no such bulletin in advance of the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., despite chatter online that suggested violence could occur that day. The bulletin posted on Wednesday said some extremists may be "emboldened" by the attack on the U.S. Capitol… (LINK TO STORY)
The greatest gift Biden ever received was Trump getting booted off Twitter (Politico)
As he entered his first week in office, President Joe Biden was handed a priceless gift: the blissful sound of former President Donald Trump’s Twitter silence.
Gone are the pre-dawn tirades, the all-caps declarations, the “Sleepy Joe” mocking, the Fox News-driven agitations and the general incitements. Instead, Biden debuted a flurry of executive orders without ever having to deal with what surely would have been rapid-fire antagonism from the man whose legacy he was dismantling.
Inside the White House, officials insist that their communications strategy hasn’t changed simply because Trump is both gone and silent.
“The President spent two years ignoring Trump’s distractions and staying focused on the message he wanted to deliver, and it paid off with a commanding win,” a White House official said in a statement to POLITICO on Wednesday. “Whether or not Trump slinks back into public view or opens up a Parler account isn’t going to make a difference in how we communicate with the American people.”
But even if the strategy would have remained the same, Biden’s team also concedes that the absence of Trump and his Twitter feed has been a pleasant addition to the job it’s doing.
“Not having to deal with a deranged new tweet every hour? They feel blessed,” an outside adviser said.
Indeed, Twitter’s suspension of Trump’s account has seemed to realign the political universe, minimizing diversions and interruptions as the broader conversation over Biden’s agenda played out. Trump wasn’t there to demand a popular uprising against Biden’s federal mask-wearing mandate. His Twitter megaphone wasn’t hyping the construction job losses that could come when Biden ended the Keystone XL pipeline project. Trump wasn’t calling Biden a “loser” for his Covid-19 vaccination plans, or attacking Anthony Fauci as a failure he should have fired when the nation’s leading infectious disease expert spoke out about how difficult it was for scientists to operate in the Trump administration… (LINK TO STORY)