BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 24, 2022)
Texas Capitol
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Work Session Meeting of the Austin City Council - Agenda (January 25 @9AM)
Kroll Associates, Inc.'s Phase B Report on the Austin Police Department (APD) regarding APD's public interaction, use of force, recruitment and promotions.
Council appointments to intergovernmental entities and Council Committee memberships.
Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council - Agenda (January 27 @10AM)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin is 'hottest job market in the country' as jobless rate drops again (Austin American-Statesman)
The unemployment rate in the Austin area has slipped below 3% for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, coming in at 2.9% in December as the surging local economy continued to buck the damper of the fast-spreading omicron variant of the virus.
But the latest figures from the Texas Workforce Commission did include signs that omicron could be having a negative impact on some business activity in the region — with jobs in the leisure and hospitality sector dropping slightly for the first time in five months and the labor force down by a small amount overall compared with November.
On the whole, however, economists called the sub-3% jobless rate the latest indication that the Austin area is booming and that local employers in many industries are hiring new workers as fast as they can find them.
“Austin is still the hottest job market in the country, perhaps of any major metro area," said Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business. "It is hard to imagine a major metro market with the ability to run any hotter than Austin is right now.”
The local unemployment rate, which was 3.2% in November, has fallen steadily since June after spending much of the previous 12 months bouncing around in a range of about 5% to 6%, according to figures from the Texas Workforce Commission that haven't been adjusted for seasonal factors.
Dirk Mateer, a University of Texas professor and economist, called the 2.9% rate for December "a great number" and said he thinks it could drop below 2.5% this year amid the intense demand for workers in the region, spurred by the growing presence of such major companies as Tesla, Apple, Samsung and Oracle, as well by the large number of other businesses that have been relocating here… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin's District 4 early voting wraps up with 5.4% turnout (Community Impact)
A total of 1,874 District 4 residents in Austin voted early in the ongoing special election to select Greg Casar's replacement on City Council.
The total reported by the Travis County Clerk's office represents 5.41% turnout among District 4's 34,655 registered voters. Early voting ran from Jan. 10-21, and Election Day is Jan. 25… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin Water outlines actions for dealing with the next crisis (Austin Monitor)
Since last February’s winter storm, Austin Water has taken numerous steps, both big and small, to prepare for the impact of another such emergency. Director Greg Meszaros told City Council’s Austin Water Oversight Committee last week that, with the help of a working group from the Water and Wastewater Commission, the water utility has prioritized its needs.
Austin Water was one of the departments that seemed to be taken completely by surprise by Winter Storm Uri, and was among those facing the toughest challenges. The utility has expanded its emergency management team, adding three full-time employees in the current fiscal year and an emergency plans officer to be shared with the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Department.
Meszaros told the committee he wanted to promise that his department would be “faithful” to its task of following recommendations made in the wake of the 2021 storm and the Colorado River flood of 2018. Of the “dozens of recommendations” the utility received, “I want you to know that we faithfully carried them out. They have been completed or on the way to being completed.” He noted that Council will be asked to approve new contracts that will make Austin Water more resilient in the future.
To enable it to deal with future emergencies, Austin Water has undertaken a systemwide review of its facilities. As a result, the utility has completed a new power distribution building at the Davis Water Treatment Plant and secured a secondary power source for the pump station, according to Assistant Director Shay Ralls Roalson.
Construction is underway at the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant to replace electrical equipment that was installed at the time the plant was built. Roalson said electrical gear original to the South Austin Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant Substation No. 1 is also currently being replaced… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Florida DOT secretary Kevin Thibault picked to run Orlando airport (Orlando Sentinel)
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ five appointees to Orlando’s aviation authority voted Wednesday to hire the governor’s transportation secretary, Kevin Thibault, to run Orlando International Airport.
“I stayed up late last night thinking and praying on this, ‘’ said Carson Good, chairman of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority and a governor’s appointee. “I did not get any direction on who to pick, by the way.”
Of the remaining two members of the authority, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings voted to hire the director of Seattle’s airport and Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said the Seattle airport director was his top pick but he would vote along with the majority as a show of unanimity.
Thibault has never run an airport but has years of transportation collaboration with Florida airports during his career in private and public positions. His formal hiring as chief executive officer to replace veteran Phil Brown hinges on the outcome of salary negotiations, though preliminary talks have occurred already.
“My style is management by walking around,” Thibault said during a public interview Wednesday with the seven members of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority, or GOAA, stressing his focus on empowering staffers. “It’s also not to micromanage.”
Thibault was named Florida Department of Transportation secretary three years ago by DeSantis. As soon as Thibault was named as a finalist by the aviation authority a month ago, the governor’s communications director issued a statement praising Thibault.
“He has a proven track record of working across the aisle in all levels of government, and if selected, his expertise would be a great benefit to not just GOAA, but the entire central Florida community,” Taryn Fenske said in the statement.
Thibault spent part of his career in transportation engineering services for several states, including Florida, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Indiana and California. For more than 16 years and during three separate stints, he has worked for Florida’s transportation department.
Along with Thibault, the aviation authority interviewed airport leaders Lance Lyttle of Seattle, Mark Thorpe of Ontario, Calif., and Jacqueline Yaft of Austin, Texas.
All four candidates stressed similar themes of focusing on ensuring a smooth opening of Orlando International Airport’s new terminal later this year, on emphasizing the airport’s “Orlando Experience” brand and on establishing ties with the region’s industries and leaders… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Attorney General Ken Paxton defies county official’s order to release records related to Jan. 6 Trump rally (Texas Tribune)
Attorney General Ken Paxton said the Travis County district attorney's determination that Paxton violated open records laws by withholding information related to his trip to Washington, D.C., on the day of the Capitol insurrection was "meritless" and that his office had fulfilled its obligation under the law.
Last week, the district attorney's office gave Paxton four business days to turn over communications requested by the state's leading newspapers relating to his trip or face a lawsuit.
On Friday, Austin Kinghorn, a lawyer for the attorney general's office, dismissed the district attorney's findings, saying that office had provided no provisions under the state's open records law that had been violated and implied that the newspapers had made the requests to publish stories about them… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas eviction filings among the nation's highest as millions of rent relief dollars go unspent (Texas Tribune)
Eviction filings in several Texas cities are among the highest in the nation — even as millions of federal dollars aimed at helping struggling renters have sat unspent so long in some counties that the federal government is taking the money back.
Landlords in the Houston area filed more than 2,000 eviction cases last week, according to Eviction Lab, a research center based at Princeton University that tracks eviction filings — the highest number there since the pandemic began. Among the 31 cities that Eviction Lab tracks, Houston had the most eviction filings in the country for the week, with Dallas and Fort Worth also in the top five along with Phoenix and Las Vegas.
As the omicron surge is again forcing many workers to choose between a paycheck and the risk of COVID-19 exposure, the U.S. Treasury Department seized $1.9 million in unspent rent relief from five Texas counties — Jefferson, Brazoria, Hays, El Paso and Nueces — as well as the city of Laredo because local officials didn’t spend the money fast enough, the agency said earlier this month… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Yeti’s billion-dollar strategy: No celebrities, no pandering (Wall Street Journal)
Yeti—the Texas maker of rugged coolers and drinkware—has transcended its outdoorsy roots to become a pop culture juggernaut and an accidental status symbol. When brothers Roy and Ryan Seiders set out to create a superior cooler for their hunting and fishing adventures in 2006, they could not have anticipated that their products would be carried and posted to social media by A-list celebrities like Matt Damon, Reese Witherspoon and Kim Kardashian, given shoutouts in songs like Chris Janson’s “Buy Me A Boat” (148 million views on YouTube since 2015) or become the unofficial mascot of tailgate parties and beach hangs everywhere. Its trendy logo hats are worn by fashion types and sorority members alike. On social media, Yeti obsessives display massive collections of products, and share photos of their “YOTD” (Yeti of the day).
But while most brands embrace influencer culture, Yeti is not taking the bait.
Instead, the brand is doubling down on what it calls “the tip of the spear,” hardy fishers, hunters, rodeo wranglers, back-country snowboarders and the like. “We build our products for those people,” said Paulie Dery, Yeti’s vice president of marketing, who is based at the company’s Austin, Texas, headquarters. “If it’s good enough for those folks, it’s definitely good enough for the picnic.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Fed-up Arizona Democrats censure Sen. Sinema (Associated Press)
U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is growing increasingly isolated from some of her party’s most influential officials and donors after playing a key role in scuttling voting rights legislation that many consider essential to preserving democracy.
Leaders of the Arizona Democratic Party voted Saturday to censure Sinema, citing “her failure to do whatever it takes to ensure the health of our democracy″ — namely her refusal to go along with fellow Democrats to alter a Senate rule so they could overcome Republican opposition to the bill. While the rebuke is symbolic, it is striking given that only three years ago, Sinema was heralded for bringing the Senate seat back into the Democratic fold for the first time in a generation.
Donors are threatening to walk away. Several groups are already collecting money for an eventual primary challenge, even though she’s not on the ballot until 2024. Young activists are holding a second hunger strike to draw attention to Sinema’s vote.
The moves offer a preview of the persistent opposition Sinema will likely face within her own party in the two years before she next appears on a ballot. The independent streak that has given her tremendous leverage over the agenda in Washington has enraged many Democrats back home who are intent on preventing her reelection… (LINK TO FULL STORY)