BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 29, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Outgoing Huston-Tillotson president knows it's wise to 'leave the party when you're having fun' (KUT)
When Dr. Colette Pierce Burnette arrived on the Huston-Tillotson University campus in Austin for a job interview to be president in 2015, she was there for practice. Her mentor had told her it would be good experience to apply and go through the search process. But she says not long after she stepped on campus, she knew this was for real.
"The campus has a magic to it," Pierce Burnette says. "And when I met with the students — they were the third meeting of the day — I was sold."
Pierce Burnette says she went back to her home in Ohio and told her husband: "I have got to get that job."
And she did.
Pierce Burnette's first day as president and CEO of Huston-Tillotson University was July 1, 2015. Her last day is Thursday. She will next take over as president and CEO of Newfields (the Indianapolis Museum of Art) on Aug. 1. She says she was ready "to have another chapter in my life" and wanted to give the new H-T president "the opportunity to get to know the city and to most of all get to know the university" before launching a planned capital campaign… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Stream reveals details of six possible new Sixth Street music venues (Austin Monitor)
Stream Realty Partners is eyeing the possibility of turning at least six of its properties on East Sixth Street into music venues, including a plan to convert the former Buffalo Billiards space into a daytime food hall with music in the evenings.
The partial reveals came Friday at a special meeting of the Music Commission where Caitlyn Ryan, vice president of the Dallas-based company, discussed the future of the entertainment district and some of the plans for the 30-plus properties it has acquired.
While reviewing Stream’s holdings and its push to increase building heights and conduct select demolition work on some sites to create office space and hotel uses, Ryan offered some details about what’s in store for her often-stated goal of making live music a significant component of the area’s revitalization. The Buffalo Billiards space at 201 E. Sixth may be renamed the Missouri House as a nod to its original use as a boarding house in the late 1800s.
There are ongoing talks with the possible operator of three restaurant/music venue spaces in and around the former Easy Tiger location, as well as a high likelihood of a music venue opening in the former Dirty Dog space. On the 500 block of East Sixth, Ryan said there’s a good chance of a below-ground music space opening, and the longtime Austin resident said, “My goal is eventually to bring Emo’s, in any way, shape or form, back to this area because this is where they started.”
Ryan said the declining presence of music venues in the district – due in part to rising rents – was one of the main reasons she and other Stream partners began investigating opportunities on Sixth Street in the years before the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We thought, why is Sixth Street remaining as it is and why aren’t we seeing more live music there? In the last 10 years we’ve lost a huge part of the music community there,” she said. “We felt like it would break our heart if we saw somebody… come in here and turn these structures into everyday retail like Sephora or anything else that wasn’t an iconic piece of Austin’s history.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Artists added to Austin City Limits Festival 2022 lineup (KXAN)
Austin City Limits Music Festival organizers announced Tuesday more names added to the 2022 lineup.
Death Cab for Cutie
Culture Club
Tai Verdes
Adrian Quesada, of the Black Pumas, ‘Boleros Psicodélicos’
Gabriels
The Ventures
Spill Tab
Walt Disco
Danielle Ponder
The Brummies
The added acts will take the stage before headliners Red Hot Chili Peppers, P!nk, The Chicks, SZA, Kacey Musgraves, Flume, Paramore and Lil Nas X… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
City outlines plans for improvements to corridors along 11th and 12th streets (Austin Monitor)
The city has shared some of its initial plans for improving the African American Cultural Heritage District along 11th and 12th streets with place-making, entertainment options and development proposals expected in the coming months.
In a memo released last week, Economic Development Department Director Sylnovia Holt-Rabb shared three possible strategies to address some City Council directives contained in a 2021 resolution intended to strengthen the cultural fabric and economic vitality of the area just east of Interstate 35. The resolution included eight actions plus several follow-on requests for the city manager and staff, including creating an inventory of cultural assets in the district, creating an incentive program to attract and nurture creative-focused businesses, and finding ways to accelerate further investment throughout the area.
Holt-Rabb wrote that recently confirmed contracts with Sabre Development and Found Design will be used to improve the overall design and place-making throughout the district, including creation of a heritage wayfinding manual that is expected to be finished this fall. There will also be branded design work, and fabrication and installation of selected wayfinding elements completed through separate contracts.
The Sabre contract calls for identifying ways to economically enhance the district with relevant programs and policies from the city.
The call to improve the district’s entertainment and cultural offerings will rely in part on the recently created Live Music Fund Event Program, which was approved by the Music Commission in February to promote diversity while creating opportunities throughout the music industry, including live events and production of recorded music. As a whole, the Live Music Fund is expected to be launched and active in awarding grants by next summer because of short staffing in EDD and the need to hire an outside administrator… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas leaders announce $105.5 million for school safety, mental health after Uvalde shooting (Austin American-Statesman)
State officials announced $105.5 million for school safety and mental health initiatives, more than a month after a shooter entered a Uvalde elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers on May 24. The funding will support school safety and mental health initiatives through Aug. 31, 2023. The announcement stays in line with Republicans' call to focus on mental health and "school hardening" — equipping schools to prevent would-be shooters from entering and preventing shooters from entering classrooms if they do manage to enter a school — rather than legislation limiting access to guns or ammunition.
The breakdown of $100.5 million allocates almost half of the money to bullet-resistant shields for law enforcement: $50 million on bullet-resistant shields. $17.1 million for school districts to purchase silent panic alert technology; $7 million to the Texas School Safety Center at Texas State University for on-site campus assessments for safety and campus access, and $3 million to offset travel expenditures for local law enforcement agencies. Gov. Abbott already has directed the center to provide strategies for public school safety and instruct districts; $5.8 million to expand the Texas Child Health Access Through Telemedicine statewide; $5 million to the Texas Department of Public Safety to expand fusion center research and capabilities; $4.7 million to the Health and Human Services Commission to increase Multisystemic Therapy statewide; $950,000 to Health and Human Services to expand Coordinated Specialty Care statewide; The order by Gov. Greg Abbott indicates the bullet-resistant shields would be distributed to school district police officers, district-contracted officers, and other law enforcement who might respond to school safety emergencies… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Death toll rises to 50 in human-smuggling tragedy on San Antonio’s Southwest Side (San Antonio Express-News)
Forty-six immigrants were found dead Monday night in a tractor trailer on a stretch of scrubland on the Southwest Side. Four more people who were discovered still alive in the rig have since died, bringing the death toll to 50, Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard said Tuesday morning. The dead include 22 immigrants from Mexico, seven from Guatemala and two from Honduras, Ebard said in a Tweet. The rest are still being identified. The new deaths come after law enforcement officials found nearly 100 people inside a tractor trailer on Quintana Road near Lackland Air Force Base — a desolate area marred by illegally dumped trash and wrecked furniture, with at least one salvage yard close by. Forty-six were pronounced dead at the scene.
Human smugglers favor largely unpopulated areas like that section of Quintana Road to drop off immigrants. San Antonio, with Interstate 10 running east to west and Interstate 35 south to north, is a major crossroads for human smuggling. Emergency personnel transported 16 people to area hospitals for treatment — 12 adults and four pediatric patients, who were likely teenagers. Hood said the patients they treated at the scene — men and women — were “hot to the touch.” At least five of the patients remained in critical condition on Tuesday, local hospital officials said. Many of the survivors were suffering from heat stroke and heat exhaustion, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said. There were no signs of water in the truck. Temperatures in San Antonio hovered close to 100 degrees Monday. Hood said the back of the rig was refrigerated, but no air-conditioning unit was visible when emergency personnel entered. Many of the people found inside the truck were covered in steak seasoning, one law enforcement official said Tuesday, likely in an effort to disguise their scent as the smugglers were transporting them. Timothy Tubbs, who retired as the deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Laredo, said smugglers commonly use seasonings and other substances to aid their smuggling operations… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Abortions up to six weeks of pregnancy can temporarily resume in Texas, judge rules (Texas Tribune)
Abortions up to about six weeks in pregnancy can resume at some clinics in Texas for now after a Harris County District Court judge granted a temporary restraining order that blocks an abortion ban that was in place before Roe v. Wade.
In the ruling issued Tuesday, Judge Christine Weems ruled that the pre-Roe abortion ban “is repealed and may not be enforced consistent with the due process guaranteed by the Texas constitution.”
“It is a relief that this Texas state court acted so quickly to block this deeply harmful abortion ban,” Marc Hearron, senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a press release. “This decision will allow abortion services to resume at many clinics across the state, connecting Texans to the essential health care they need. Every hour that abortion is accessible in Texas is a victory… (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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