BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 22, 2022)
[BG Podcast]
Episode 151: 2022 Public Safety Update with Selena Xie, President, Austin EMS Association
Today’s episode features Selena Xie, President of the Austin EMS Association.
Selena and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the anniversary of Winter Storm Uri, in addition to Selena updating on EMS's needs going into 2022.
(The Austin EMS Association is a Bingham Group client)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Tornadoes damage multiple homes and businesses in Williamson County (KUT)
Gov. Greg Abbott said the state is standing "shoulder to shoulder" with the residents of Williamson County after severe weather damaged multiple homes and businesses Monday.
"We know that you have faced a devastating storm — can even label it storms — with multiple tornadoes ripping through Williamson County alone," Abbott said at a news conference with County Judge Bill Gravell.
Officials say no major injuries have been reported.
Abbott said the state will help the county in its recovery and that people who have suffered property damage should use the state’s assessment tool to report it.
Gravell said the county could not quantify the damage until daylight and that he would likely issue an emergency declaration. The National Weather Service said it would be surveying damage from the storms Tuesday morning.
He said two tornadoes were confirmed in Williamson County, but that number could rise. One tornado began in Round Rock, passing in front of the Kalahari Resort and damaging some cars. He said the tornado then traveled up toward Granger, touching down at different times.
A second tornado hit northwest of Jarrell, he said, damaging some homes and other buildings.
Gravell said electricity would be shut off Monday night from Round Rock to the eastern part of the county to protect first responders fixing downed power lines… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Downtown court relocation plans draw mounting criticism (Austin Monitor)
Resistance appears to be growing to a slate of resolutions on the agenda for Thursday’s City Council meeting that would lead to the permanent relocation of the Downtown Austin Community Court to a circa-1800s municipal building on West Eighth Street.
The resolutions would follow action taken in February on the proposed move, allocating $27 million to renovate the three-story building and selecting the design-build method as the framework to begin seeking bids for the work.
One of the loudest voices against the move to the West Eighth location has been the Downtown Austin Alliance. In recent weeks, the organization has proposed using mobile courthouses to house the court, which has temporarily operated out of One Texas Center since losing its longtime lease on East Sixth Street due to redevelopment plans for the site.
The community court was created in 1999 to address class C misdemeanor offenses not requiring imprisonment, while also providing case management and housing-focused services for those experiencing homelessness. The nature of the court’s clientele makes a downtown location key, and the passage of Proposition B in 2021, which reinstated many penalties related to homelessness, has made the court’s role more critical than ever.
In a recent post for Austin Towers, Bill Brice, a DAA vice president, wrote that residents and businesses that oppose the relocation to West Eighth Street argue “the location is neither appropriate to address the complex and profound needs of the court’s target population nor proximal to treatment and service providers that serve the court’s clients,” while also calling into question the cost to renovate the structure.
The prospect of roughly three dozen daily visits by homeless or distressed clients in the area adjacent to prominent businesses and high-dollar residential projects such as the Brown Building Lofts has drawn resistance from residents. Some of that criticism also comes because of the city’s decision in May 2020 to designate the entire West Eighth site as being eventually converted to use for creative and nonprofit space… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Activists remain wary of new jet fuel storage facility plans (Austin Monitor)
Activists and homeowners are protesting the proposed location for a new jet-fuel storage facility at the airport on the northbound side of U.S. Highway 183. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring for the project, which will include two storage tanks, each with the capacity to store 1.5 million gallons of jet fuel just 488 feet away from the homes of some Southeast Austin residents.
District 2 Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, who represents the area including the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, is taking the lead on the issue, proposing a resolution to relocate the facility and have an environmental justice analysis conducted alongside “robust community engagement.” City Council will hear the resolution at its upcoming meeting on April 7.
“Although the selection of the site underwent the required permitting through federal, state and local processes, I have serious concerns about how they took place,” Fuentes wrote on the City Council Message Board. “Specifically, the initial environmental assessment for the proposed site was selected without public input. The draft was not available to the public before finalizing and publishing and the assessment failed to conduct a substantive environmental justice analysis that took into account the surrounding residents. … There needs to be corrective action and new expectations for the public engagement process. We are at a pivotal point.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin City Council member pushing to relocate proposed jet fuel farm near airport (KVUE)
An Austin City Council member is calling for the Austin airport to relocate its proposed jet fuel farm. Councilmember Vanessa Fuentes is calling on her fellow councilmembers to approve a resolution to relocate the proposed site. The jet fuel facility, "Jet-A," is part of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport's master plan for growth, which was approved by the city council in 2018. It's needed to keep up with increasing airline and passenger demand.
Fuentes is asking the city council to direct the airport to move the jet fuel farm somewhere else. She's also requesting that it require an environmental justice analysis to be performed along with "robust community engagement."
The airport did host an information session on Jan. 29, which was attended by concerned residents in the area… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Gov. Greg Abbott brags about his border initiative. The evidence doesn’t back him up. (Texas Tribune)
Thomas King-Randall had been waiting for two hours to drop his daughters off at his ex-girlfriend’s apartment in Midland. It was 10:30 on a school night in August and it was her turn to care for the two girls.
The ex-girlfriend showed up drunk and was arguing with her new boyfriend in his truck, police later wrote in a report. King-Randall, who is Black, said in an interview that the woman’s Latino boyfriend called him a racial slur, which led to a fight.
By the end of the encounter, the woman’s boyfriend had a bloody nose and swollen eyes. King-Randall was gone, and local police issued an arrest warrant for the 26-year-old California native. A month later, Texas Department of Public Safety officers arrested King-Randall when he tried to renew his driver’s license.
King-Randall’s arrest was one of thousands used to bolster claims of success for Operation Lone Star. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched the initiative last March, citing an urgent need to stop the flow of drugs and undocumented immigrants into the state through Mexico.
But the alleged assault had nothing to do with the border. King-Randall, a U.S. citizen, was arrested more than 250 miles from the border with Mexico. Neither DPS nor the Texas Military Department, the state agencies carrying out Operation Lone Star, played a role in the investigation. And the family violence assault charge King-Randall faced wasn’t linked to border-related crime or illegal immigration… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Fort Worth city council member and former Texas House candidate gets jail in DWI probation deal (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
Fort Worth council member Cary Moon must spend two days in jail and wear an ankle monitor for four months after he reached an agreement with prosecutors before a scheduled hearing to revoke his DWI probation. Moon will report to the to the Johnson County jail for two days on May 25. The terms of his probation were amended March 11 and the hearing scheduled for Tuesday was canceled, according to court records. Moon was convicted in June 2021 of driving while intoxicated after his Oct. 17, 2020, arrest in Burleson. He was accused in October 2021 of violating four conditions of his probation. According to court documents, Moon drank alcohol, failed to submit to urinalysis testing, failed to complete community service and traveled out of state without permission.
Moon refuted the charges in November 2021, writing in a text message that he’d answered each individual allegation and that he looked forward to “disprove the administrative failings” of the court. However, on Tuesday Moon said the prosecutor offered to drop an effort to revoke his probation if he agreed to the jail time and the ankle monitor. Moon faced potentially spending the last nine months of his sentence in jail if a judge decided to revoke his probation.
“I’m going to be responsible for my actions, and do what I’m supposed to do,” he said. Moon’s ignition interlock device recorded high alcohol readings 12 times from June 2 to July 2 and five times from July 21 to Sept. 10, according to court records. He admitted to having a glass of champagne on his wedding anniversary, and traveling out of state on Aug. 27, 2021, without getting permission, to ferry back 9/11 first responders from New York for an event in Texas honoring the 20th anniversary. “I didn’t see it as out of town travel. I viewed it as 30-minutes off the ground,” Moon said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Republicans to roll dice by grilling Jackson over child-pornography sentencing decisions (The Hill)
Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are set to grill Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Tuesday over what they say is her record of leniency in sentencing people who pleaded guilty to possession or distribution of child pornography — a politically loaded charge.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who is widely thought to be eyeing a run for president, is pushing this line of questioning most forcefully. But other Republicans on the panel, such as Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), are expected to press Brown on the issue as well.
Of all the criticisms leveled at Jackson, the accusations that she’s been soft on child predators are gaining the most attention, but it’s a politically risky line of attack against the first Black woman nominated to serve on the nation’s highest court.
Republicans have promised a dignified confirmation process and they don’t want to appear that they’re ganging up unfairly on President Biden’s nominee or waging an unfair attack.
“They have to worry about the politics of race and gender. They don’t want to come across as ganging up on a Black woman or being unfair in their treatment of her,” said Darrell West, the director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has tried to turn down the political rhetoric surrounding this Supreme Court confirmation battle and even acknowledged that Jackson is qualified for the job.
“She’s clearly a sharp lawyer with an impressive resume,” he said after meeting her.
The GOP leader sees Biden’s handling of inflation, the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the administration’s lofty social spending ambitions as promising political targets and isn’t in the mood to wage a scorched-earth campaign of personal attacks against a history-making nominee.
He said “the Senate’s process should be dignified” but also advised it must also be “vigorous, exhaustive and painstaking.”
Hawley has a different set of priorities. He’s looking to boost his national political profile and isn’t afraid of taking positions that aren’t popular with the political mainstream, or even his party’s mainstream. He showed that last year when he helped lead opposition to the certification of Pennsylvania’s electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election.
Hawley last week tweeted that Jackson “has a pattern of letting child porn offenders off the hook for their appalling crimes, both as a judge and as a policymaker.”
His office on Monday provided The Hill with a list of seven cases in which she handed down sentences below or well below the federal guidelines to defendants who pleaded guilty on child pornography-related charges.
This has prompted angry pushback from the White House and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
“First, it’s not true and, second, consider the source,” he said, alluding to Hawley’s objections to Biden’s electoral victory.
“This is a right-wing, last-minute effort. We have reviewed this woman’s record — this is the fourth time we’ve gone through 600 cases, 12,000 pages of sentencing commission activity and now he’s come up with this revelation,” Durbin said, adding that the criticisms “certainly challenges” the Republican promise to hold a dignified process…(LINK TO FULL STORY)