BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 16, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Chamber of Commerce offers rosy jobs report (Austin Monitor)
Austin has once again come out as a top city in the country economically, as shown by a new report on job growth and unemployment from the Austin Chamber of Commerce. Researchers at the chamber found that Austin ranked number one among the top 50 metro areas in the U.S. based on regaining pre-pandemic jobs and adding new ones.
Austin had an estimated 1,142,500 jobs in February 2020. But the city lost 137,100 jobs, or 12 percent, in March and April of that year. By May 2021, the city had recovered significantly, regaining those jobs and adding more.
As chamber president and CEO Laura Huffman said Tuesday, “The highlight of the report is we’ve made up the 2020 pandemic-related job losses … and there are now 58,000 more jobs” than in February 2020 when the pandemic began.
She added, “So all indications are that the economy has recovered and is growing. I think that’s demonstrated a level of resilience that Austin has shown over and over again – when there’s either a downturn in the economy nationally, a natural disaster, now a pandemic, Austin has proven to be very resilient. And I think these numbers show that.”
Austin gained 58,100 “non-farm” jobs or 5.1 percent over the two-year period, for a total of 1,200,600 jobs, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. Dallas ranked just behind Austin, adding 3.8 percent during the same time frame. No other Texas cities ranked within the top 10. Fort Worth and San Antonio ranked 12 and 13, while Houston lost 2.1 percent of its jobs over the past two years and ranked 22.
Austin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for both January and December was 3.2 percent… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
58-story tower the latest addition to Austin's downtown building boom (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin's high-rise building boom just won't slow down.
Joining a recent spate of new tower announcements, a partnership between two developers says it has started work on a 58-story, 675-foot-tall skyscraper that will bring more apartments, offices and retail space to downtown Austin.
The project, named 321 West after its location at 321 W. Sixth St., is being developed by Tishman Speyer, a global real estate developer based in New York, and Minneapolis-based Ryan Companies.
The project is due to be completed in late 2024. It is being built on a site that formerly housed a drive-thru BBVA bank and the Maiko Sushi restaurant, both of which have been demolished… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Dirty Martin's owner speaks up about potential closure (Austin Business Journal)
Beloved burger joint Dirty Martin’s Place, which opened in 1926 as Martin’s Place, is under threat of shutting down due to Capital Metro’s Project Connect — but it's not as imminent as some on social media think.
Plans for Project Connect — which would revamp Austin transit with new train routes and bus lanes — have not been finalized. Still, Dirty Martin’s Place owner Mark Nemir said he was approached by Capital Metro last fall, and it has him coming to terms with the fact that the restaurant won't always be around. Project Connect's forthcoming light rail, labeled as the orange line, would go through Nemir’s property. That path would leave only a small space equivalent to one or two parking spots, he said. Dirty Martin's is located at 2808 Guadalupe St.
The orange line will be approximately 21 miles, connecting North and South Austin along the North Lamar/Guadalupe corridor.
“It was Oct. 13; it’s a day that you never forget,” Nemir said, “and they told me that their intention was to take the property. So, I’ve just kind of been in a daze.”
A local blog recently published that Dirty Martin's has received an eminent domain letter, indicating the process to take the property for public purposes has already begun. But Nemir clarified to ABJ that he has not received an eminent domain letter. Still, the blog post was shared widely on social media, with at least a few influential Austinites expressing sadness and a willingness to help save the restaurant if they can. Nemir generally stays off of social media and only recently got word from his CPA that Dirty Martin’s rumors were gaining steam online.
To be safe, Nemir has contacted eminent domain lawyers to learn more about the situation. His lawyer said that voters could potentially overturn the plan… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas National Guard troops were dispatched to wealthy ranches with private security as part of border mission (Texas Tribune)
Earlier this year, about 30 Texas National Guard members were ordered to stand watch outside some of the wealthiest private ranches in South Texas, more than an hour’s drive away from the Mexico border, as part of Gov. Greg Abbott’s highly touted mission to curb illegal immigration.
Placed at spots along U.S. Route 77 running north to Corpus Christi — including the sprawling and renowned King Ranch and the GOP-connected Armstrong Ranch — the troops were ostensibly meant to deter migrants and smugglers who might cross through private ranches to avoid detection at the U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint near the city of Sarita.
But service members with firsthand knowledge of the mission told The Texas Tribune that troops rarely saw migrants from their posts nearly 80 miles away from the border and were unable to give chase because they were not authorized to enter the private ranches if they saw migrants cutting through… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas is studying its chronic teacher shortages, but some experts already have a fix: Pay them more (San Antonio Express-News)
As the Texas Education Agency studies chronic teacher shortages in Texas, experts say teachers need better pay, not just easier ways into the profession. Gov. Greg Abbott announced a 28-member task force last week after months of reported staff shortages and recruiting challenges in Texas schools. The group, which is comprised of mostly administrators plus two working teachers, will meet every two months for the next year.
The shortages are concentrated in rural areas and in schools that serve students coming from less wealthy families, as well as in more specialized teaching fields including science, technology, engineering and math, as well as special education, according to the agency and education experts. The COVID-19 pandemic has also disrupted the supply of substitute teachers in particular. There is no unified tracking system of teacher vacancies across districts in Texas, so it’s unclear exactly how widespread the problem is. “There is a real worry — and I think there’s good reason to be concerned — that with all these stressors of this COVID year that we could see a bigger wave of teachers leaving the workforce, more so than we’ve typically seen,” said Michael Hansen, a labor economist and education policy fellow at the Brookings Institute. “We haven’t seen it yet, but that’s not to say it’s not coming.” The task force will set out to better understand the shortage, evaluate policy solutions and explore more flexible hiring processes… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
‘Once-in-a-generation opportunity’: Bexar County is ‘re-imagining’ public health with $60 million investment (Washington Post)
Up to $60 million in federal pandemic aid will be set aside to serve economically disadvantaged communities in outlying Bexar County, officials announced Tuesday. The county is forming a public health division under its University Health system. County leaders also will re-examine and coordinate some 15 health-related services currently provided by several departments. A nine-member public health advisory board will be created, and the county will build on partnerships with Texas A&M University-San Antonio and local school districts to develop a trained health care workforce to serve the South Side. The county’s investment “is about no longer allowing a person’s ZIP code to determine his or her health outcomes,” said Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores, who represents the South Side.
She said the initiative, announced by Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff and supported by all four county commissioners, will empower the community by tackling health inequities tied to income and education that the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed. The virus has been linked to the death of some 5,300 county residents in the past two years. Many had diabetes, heart disease and other risk factors. “We have to understand how educational opportunities, racism, poverty and other social determinants contribute to the health, both physically and mentally, of students as they grow into adulthood,” Clay-Flores said. A portion of the $388 million provided to the county through the federal American Rescue Plan Act will be allocated for the initiative as commissioners continue discussions on other uses of the funds, including affordable housing, mental health services, domestic violence treatment and prevention, and financial stabilization following revenue losses from the pandemic. The county has until the end of 2026 to spend the money… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
The Senate approves a bill to make daylight saving time permanent (KUT)
The Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would make daylight saving time permanent across the U.S. beginning in 2023. The so-called Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 was approved by unanimous consent, but would still require House approval and President Biden's signature to become law.
For those wishing for an end to annual clock shifting, this most recent push in Congress is perhaps better late than never.
"We don't have to keep doing this stupidity anymore. And why we would enshrine this in our laws and keep it for so long is beyond me," Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the sponsors of the bill, said on the Senate floor.
"Hopefully, this is the year that this gets done. And pardon the pun, but this is an idea whose time has come," he added.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer's office tells NPR that there are no immediate plans to vote on daylight saving time, but they note the House Committee on Energy and Commerce had a hearing on it last week and there's bipartisan support for it.
Daylight saving time began as a bid to pack more hours of sunlight into the day during the summer months and cut down on energy use, though critics question how effective it's been toward that goal… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Ukraine war may lead to rethinking of US defense of Europe (Associated Press)
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and his push to upend the broader security order in Europe may lead to a historic shift in American thinking about defense of the continent. Depending on how far Putin goes, this could mean a buildup of U.S. military power in Europe not seen since the Cold War. The prospect of a bigger U.S. military footprint in Europe is a remarkable turnaround from just two years ago. In 2020, President Donald Trump ordered thousands of American troops out of Germany as part of his argument that Europeans were undeserving allies. Just days after taking office, President Joe Biden stopped the withdrawal before it could start, and his administration has stressed NATO’s importance even as Biden identifies China as the main long-term threat to U.S. security.
Then came Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “We are in a new era of sustained confrontation with Russia,” says Alexander Vershbow, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and former deputy secretary-general of NATO. He argues that the United States, in cooperation with NATO allies, will need to establish a more muscular stance to deal with a more threatening Russia. That is especially so in Eastern Europe, where Russia’s proximity poses a problem for the three Baltic nations that are former Soviet states. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was flying to Europe on Tuesday for his second recent round of Ukraine consultations at NATO headquarters in Brussels. He also will travel to two Eastern European NATO countries — Slovakia, which borders Ukraine, and Bulgaria, which does not. After a NATO meeting last month, Austin visited two other allies on the eastern flank — Poland and Lithuania. In just the past two months, the U.S. presence in Europe has jumped from about 80,000 troops to about 100,000, which is nearly as many as were there in 1997 when the United States and its NATO allies began an expansion of the alliance that Putin says threatens Russia and must be reversed… (LINK TO FULL STORY)