BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 1, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO]
First Monkeypox case confirmed in Travis County (City of Austin)
As an update to Austin Public Health’s (APH) initial announcement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) testing has confirmed Travis County’s first monkeypox case. APH Epidemiologists have completed an investigation and are conducting contact tracing of people who had direct close contact with the resident while contagious.
The resident continues to isolate at home. APH is also investigating five presumptive cases who have symptoms that are consistent with monkeypox. Initial case investigations indicate these persons did not have a history of international travel.
“This spread of monkeypox within our community is concerning. Anyone who believes they may have symptoms of the virus should reach out to a medical provider immediately,” said Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County Health Authority. “This virus is predominantly spread through close, intimate contact with others. You should avoid skin-to-skin contact with anyone showing rashes or sores.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
5 questions with Austin ISD's new interim superintendent, Anthony Mays (KUT)
Anthony Mays starts a new job as interim Austin ISD superintendent Friday, making history as the first Black man to fill that role.
The Huston-Tillotson and Texas State alum started his decades-long career in education as a special education teacher in Pflugerville. He has worked in Dallas ISD and Fort Worth ISD, and as the senior director of schools for the Harris County Department of Education. Mays is also an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Downtown and the University of Houston-Lone Star College Kingwood. He joined Austin ISD in October 2020 as chief of schools.
Mays is expected to serve in the interim role until next summer.
He shares his views on the milestone of becoming the first Black man to lead the district, as well as the opportunities and challenges facing AISD… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
City-funded study examines disparities in minority business contracting (Austin Monitor)
A disparity study aimed at examining the effectiveness of Austin’s women and minority business enterprise procurement program found it to be largely successful. But while the program – intended to create more opportunities for minority- and women-owned firms – has had success, the study also found that in Austin, women- and minority-owned businesses still face hardships.
The disparity study, which was set into motion after City Council approved a resolution in early 2020, was conducted by Colette Holt & Associates and took two years to complete.
“Looking at the concrete data and having an outside consultant looking at your program (and) saying, this really works well – I think that was one of the big takeaways for me,” Edward Campos, the director of Austin’s Small and Minority Business Resources Department, told the Austin Monitor. “Certainly, that doesn’t mean we’re done with conquering all the disparities that exist,” he added.
The study examined Austin’s contract data from 2013 to 2018. The researchers randomly selected 1,069 from all the city contracts available and ultimately included 1,002 contracts in their analysis. Examples of these types of contracts would be agreements between the city and construction, architectural and engineering firms.
“Although the city’s (minority-owned and women-owned business enterprise) program has been quite successful in creating opportunities for minority and woman firms, these benefits have not been spread evenly across all groups or subindustries. We find the data as a whole support the conclusion that minority and woman firms have not reached parity in all aspects of the city’s local contracting activities compared with (white male-owned business enterprises),” the study concluded… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
4 key facets of NXP's potential Austin expansion found in incentives applications (Austin Business Journal)
It's a boom time for investment in semiconductor production in Central Texas, and NXP Semiconductors NV is the latest company to come to the table with major plans.
In mid-May, the Netherlands-based company revealed that it was considering investing billions of dollars in its manufacturing capabilities in Austin, potentially creating hundreds of jobs. New details came to light in incentives applications made public June 23.
NXP (Nasdaq: NXPI) submitted two incentives applications, proposing to renovate or expand fabrication space at either of its existing campuses: a 153-acre site in Southwest Austin and a 78-acre site in far East Austin.
In return, NXP is asking for incentives under Chapter 313 of the state tax code, which allows businesses to cap property value for a portion of school taxes for manufacturing and energy projects for 10 years. The incentives program is slated to expire at the end of the year, which has resulted in a rush to apply.
Company officials suggested it is unlikely both projects will proceed. So it seems that executives are considering at least two scenarios for NXP's future in Central Texas.
Austin Independent School District trustees voted May 19 to accept NXP's applications. That started negotiations with the district, and trustees would need to vote again on a final incentives agreement. An NXP representative said discussions are still in early phases and that the company has not yet established a selection process for local companies to get involved with the project. And it remains possible that NXP elects to expand its operations elsewhere — even overseas… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Supreme Court rules Biden administration can end “remain in Mexico” policy, sending case back to a Texas court (Texas Tribune)
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the Biden administration has the right to end a Trump-era immigration policy that forces asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico as their cases make their way through U.S. immigration courts.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled against Texas and Missouri, which had argued that the Biden administration violated the law by rescinding the program, and sent the case back to the district court to determine if terminating the policy violated any administrative laws.
But the justices determined that the government’s cancellation of the Migrant Protection Protocols, referred to as MPP and also called “remain in Mexico,” did not violate a section of immigration law that Texas and Missouri had used to argue that the Biden administration illegally ended the program… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
In Uvalde, a House panel takes quiet testimony as city officials endure emotional barrage (San Antonio Express-News)
In just 24 hours, Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr. went from secret questioning by a Texas House committee to being a target of an emotional outpouring of grief and anger at a City Council meeting Thursday. After his appearance at the closed-door hearing on the May 24 mass shooting here, with invitation-only witnesses who including school and civic officials and law enforcement, the mayor had counted himself among residents angry and chafing at the pace and direction of various investigations. Then, during a 90-minute free-for-all, some of those residents chafed at him, at other council members and the city’s lawyers. The council members, who have been warned not to comment publicly about the shooting, sat and endured the public raging and didn’t try to limit it.
“These kids were obliterated. My sister was obliterated. It was a closed casket. I couldn’t hug her,” Velma Lisa Duran, 50, of San Antonio told the council, referring to Irma Linda Garcia, a teacher killed at Robb Elementary School. “You sit here and say, ‘I don’t know. I have no control’… Enough is enough. This is ridiculous. It is frightening to be a teacher now. Now they want to arm teachers. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. You need to do something! “Blood is on your hands because you failed to do anything,” she said “There’s body cameras, there’s surveillance, there is audio, there’s surviving kids, there’s a surviving teacher. You have facts!” Tina Quintanilla Taylor, 41, whose daughter was at the school that day but was unhurt, said families were going to get “a million excuses on why we can’t answer the questions, why we can’t provide this, why we can’t provide that.” “But what we need here is to know that y’all have our backs, because you know, right now we feel like none of y’all -- I mean, it’s scary. It’s scary to be on this side,” she said. The council heard a similar outpouring last week, but Thursday’s crowd was even more vocal. McLaughlin himself has been an outspoken critic of the various investigations into what police were doing as 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School. He has complained, along with anguished citizens, at the lack of answers… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas asks top state court to allow abortion prosecutions sooner (Bloomberg)
Texas urged the state’s highest court to vacate a temporary restraining order that is preventing the criminal prosecution of abortion providers in the weeks before the procedure is fully banned. The state’s so-called trigger law was designed to take effect 30 days after the federal right to abortion was overturned, which the US Supreme Court did last week. But medical professionals who perform abortions during that window should still be prosecuted under the trigger law, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement Thursday.
Paxton, a Republican, said he asked the Texas Supreme Court to immediately put the restraining order on hold so that prosecutions can go forward as needed. The 2021 trigger law purports to have a criminal provision dating from the 1920s, which the American Civil Liberties Union argues is invalid. Paxton said the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade was an “erroneous decision” that has kept Texas from prosecuting abortions “for many decades.” “Let there be no mistake: the lower court’s unlawful order does not immunize criminal conduct, which can be punished at a later date once the temporary restraining order is lifted,” Paxton said in a statement. “My office will not hesitate to act in defense of unborn Texans put in jeopardy by plaintiffs’ wrongful actions and the trial court’s erroneous order.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Smugglers exploited shift change at border checkpoint to evade detection (San Antonio Express-News)
Smugglers who drove a tractor-trailer from the Laredo area to San Antonio with dozens of dead or dying migrants inside timed its passage through a federal immigration checkpoint to take advantage of a shift change, according to a source close to the investigation. The timing, which was likely intentional and based on the smugglers’ own surveillance, made the Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 35, about 26 miles north of Laredo, especially vulnerable, the source said. Details released by U.S. and Mexican authorities show that the smugglers picked up the immigrants in Laredo, and that the rig went through the checkpoint between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Monday U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, told the Express-News that the vehicle was “waved through” the checkpoint because traffic was backing up. Migrants were inside the trailer at the time, Cuellar said.
At least 53 migrants from Mexico and Central America died in the suffocating heat of the trailer, which was abandoned near JBSA-Lackland later Monday. Temperatures in San Antonio approached 100 degrees that day. It wasn’t the first time smugglers have exploited a chink in the same checkpoint’s effectiveness, with tragic results. In 2017, an x-ray machine at the checkpoint wasn’t working the night a Kentucky trucker passed through with human cargo in the back of his sweltering tractor-trailer. That driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., was later found with 39 immigrants in his rig in the parking lot of a Walmart on San Antonio’s South Side. Eight were dead when police arrived; two more died at hospitals. Bradley was sentenced to two concurrent life sentences with no parole. Those who died in the latest tragedy included 22 Mexican nationals, seven from Guatemala, two from Honduras and 17 others of unknown origin. Some of the deceased may have been from El Salvador. Authorities identified the driver as Homero Zamorano Jr., 45, of Palestine in East Texas. Zamorano tried to disguise himself as one of the migrants before he ran away, investigators said. Police apprehended him in a field. Several factors can hamper the ability of Border Patrol agents to detect illegal cargo at checkpoints, including the sheer volume of traffic… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 160: Talking Public Relations, Career advice, and Austin with Kristin Marcum, CEO of ECPR
Today's special weekend episode (160) features Kristin Marcum, owner and CEO of ECPR, Austin's preeminent public relations firm.
Kristin and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss her path into PR and her career leading to the C-suite and ownership of the firm.-> EPISODE LINK
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