BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 7, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
City had data, but not follow-through, to ‘fix’ Sixth Street in 2014 (Austin Monitor)
City leaders had a pair of reports nearly a decade ago that prescribed changes to make the downtown Sixth Street entertainment district safer, yet many of those actions were never implemented despite a 2014 City Council resolution that included several of them.
Last week during discussion on a resolution that advanced some of the steps included in last year’s Safer Sixth Street initiative, Council Member Kathie Tovo said she was unaware of the studies, and only learned of them in the days following last summer’s mass shooting on Sixth Street that killed one tourist and injured a dozen others.
A June 12 Facebook post from Don Pitts, former head of the city’s Music and Entertainment Division, referenced the 2013 report from crowd behavior expert Keith Still and another created by the Responsible Hospitality Institute, and attributed the inaction on the recommendations to lack of initiative by the city’s upper management. In a comment on that post, Tovo said she would query city staff on those documents, which helped to shape the first resolution last summer and last week’s follow-up.
The Still report was drafted after input sessions with more than four dozen businesses, community groups and seven city departments, including Austin Police Department, Austin Fire Department, Economic Growth and Redevelopment Services, and Austin Transportation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
2 more towers on track to rise downtown but conversation turns to affordability concerns (Austin Business Journal)
Developers Stratus Properties Inc. and Intracorp Texas have each moved a step closer to building a new tower in downtown Austin.
Austin-based Stratus (Nasdaq: STRS) is planning a 400-foot residential tower near the Texas State Capitol, while Intracorp Texas wants to develop a 65-story hotel and condominium tower near the Austin Convention Center. Both projects would reach those heights under the city's popular Downtown Density Bonus Program, or DDBP, which is used to add height to buildings in exchange for on-site affordable housing or fees that pay for such housing elsewhere, called fees-in-lieu.
The Austin Design Commission considered the plans at its Feb. 28 meeting and agreed that Stratus' project substantially complied with the city's urban design guidelines. Intracorp's project did not receive enough votes to garner a recommendation from the commission, though it will still move on to Austin City Council next for consideration.
The proposals also come while the city is in the process of recalculating fees for the DDBP. Interim fees were adopted in May, including an $18 fee per bonus square foot for commercial developers after previously not requiring a fee at all; most residential fees also went up. Recalibrated fees are expected this year… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
UT begins $6 billion fundraising campaign, biggest ever among Texas universities (Texas Tribune)
The University of Texas at Austin announced the biggest philanthropic campaign ever undertaken by a Texas university Friday, pledging to raise $6 billion, with one-sixth of that sum to pay for student scholarships and support.
The $1 billion for students is believed to be the largest fund-raising goal for such purposes in the history of public higher education and is part of the institution’s aim to become the “highest-impact public research university in the world,” administration officials said.
“We face incredible opportunities as we pursue our goal of becoming the world’s most impactful public research university,” President Jay Hartzell said in a statement. “We will accomplish this by continuing to attract highly talented people, by taking advantage of our unique place in Austin and Texas, and by focusing on transformative pursuits.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Indicted. Under F.B.I. investigation. And still popular with Texas Republicans. (New York Times)
The race for Texas attorney general is asking Republicans to determine how many indictments and allegations of corruption are too many. The answer may be there is no limit — so long as the candidate has an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. Ken Paxton, the Trump-backed attorney general, was indicted and arrested on criminal securities-fraud charges that are still pending. He has faced calls for his resignation after several of his top aides claimed he abused his office by helping a wealthy donor. And he has been serving as the state’s top lawyer while under threat of a possible new indictment, as the F.B.I. investigates the abuse-of-office and bribery accusations. “The voters of Texas will tolerate a great deal,” said State Senator Kel Seliger, a moderate Republican who is a former mayor of Amarillo. “They think if somebody is ideologically in sync with them, that’s what matters. I would have thought in Texas that moral example is more important, but apparently it’s not.”
In the pre-Trump era, indictments and investigations by federal law enforcement could have been fatal to a Republican campaign. But Mr. Trump has instilled a deep mistrust in government institutions like the F.B.I. Mr. Paxton took the unusual step of authorizing an investigation of an F.B.I. investigation — he appointed a special prosecutor to look into the federal probe of the wealthy donor, an Austin real estate investor named Nate Paul whose home and offices were raided by federal agents. The litany of allegations against Mr. Trump has allowed acolytes like Mr. Paxton to claim that they, too, are victims of a government conspiracy. “That’s the Biden F.B.I., the Biden D.O.J.,” Mr. Paxton said in a recent interview with a Fox News reporter. “They were under investigation by my office. I don’t know what they are going to do. All I can tell you is that we were doing the right thing. We are going to continue to do the right thing. I don’t control what the Biden White House does.” Since the 2020 election, Mr. Paxton has made himself among the nation’s foremost Trump defenders, filing an audacious lawsuit with the Supreme Court seeking to delay certification of the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Fort Worth wants to sue Netflix, Disney+ and Hulu over fees (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
The Fort Worth City Council will vote Tuesday on whether to hire an outside law firm to sue video streaming services Netflix, Disney+, and Hulu. The suit is over nonpayment of “franchise fees,” which are usually charged to cable and television providers for use of city infrastructure. Streaming services have avoided paying these fees in the past because they are not technically classified as utilities, but a proposed Fort Worth City Council resolution claims these services rely on infrastructure that crosses “public right of way” and therefore should be subject to these fees.
If successful, the city says it could add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the tax rolls annually. The companies would be required to pay a 5% tax on any money generated in a local market. Fort Worth would join 14 other Texas cities suing Netflix and other video streaming services over not paying these franchise fees since 2007. The others are Dallas, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Allen, Amarillo, Sugar Land, Mesquite, Plano, Waco, Abilene, Carrollton, Frisco, Garland, and New Boston. The council will vote on a resolution to hire the law firms Mckool Smith, P.C., Ashcroft Sutton Reyes LLC, and Korein Tillery, according to the proposed resolution. These are the same firms hired by the other Texas cities. A federal judge threw out New Boston’s lawsuit in September 2021 saying Texas law gives authority to the state’s public utility commission to regulate these fees, not municipalities. Representatives for Fort Worth, however, said in an email the city is confident it can win. Representatives for Netflix and Disney did not respond to requests seeking comment Friday afternoon. The council vote will take place during its regular meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gov. Abbott’s problem attracting far-right voters shows up in the reddest Texas counties (Houston Chronicle)
As dominating as Gov. Greg Abbott’s GOP primary victory on Tuesday looked at first blush, a closer look at the results shows a nagging problem within his own party that could ultimately cost him in his race against Democratic nominee Beto O’Rourke. Although two-thirds of the Republican Party voters statewide backed Abbott for a record-tying third term as governor, some of the most important GOP counties in Texas signaled the continuation of a mini-revolt against him. In fast-growing Montgomery County, Abbott won 56 percent of the vote. That’s a strong number in most counties, but in rock-solid red Montgomery it’s eyebrow raising. No county was more important for former President Donald Trump in Texas in 2020 than Montgomery. He won 71 percent of the vote there — the biggest win of any county with at least 100,000 voters in Texas. And in Collin County, a GOP suburban stronghold north of Dallas with a strong tea party contingent, Abbott hit 60 percent. Again good, but well behind the 70 to 80 percent he won in places like Bexar, Cameron on the border and Potter County in the Panhandle.
The results hint at a problem other Republicans have been talking about for months. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller said there is a contingent of voters within the Republican Party who are very angry with Abbott over the way he handled the pandemic and who might just skip the race. “There’s no way they’ll ever vote for Beto, but they aren’t going to vote for Abbott,” Miller said. Despite the 56 percent vote percentage in Montgomery County, Abbott’s campaign doesn’t see it as a long-term problem. “No chance in hell that they are going to sit this one out,” said Dave Carney, Abbott’s top political adviser. He said the campaign will spend big to spread the message that O’Rourke is a danger to Republican values and Texas as a whole. “We’re going to take the wood to this guy,” Carney said of O’Rourke. The anti-Abbott sentiment was evident in The Woodlands back in January when an influential GOP group called the True Texas Project packed a church for a candidates forum for the primary challengers to Abbott. The leader of the statewide group, Julie McCarty, made clear the mission. “As an organization, we are very firmly, anyone but Abbott,” McCarty said to a roar from a crowd of more than 300 people at Grace Woodlands… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
U.S. hunts for options to get Polish combat planes to Ukraine (The Wall Street Journal)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the U.S. government is actively pursuing ways to address Ukraine’s request for combat jets and to replenish Poland’s arsenal should it hand over Soviet-era planes to its besieged neighbor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday made an impassioned plea to Capitol Hill for assistance in obtaining more lethal military aid, especially Russian-made jet fighters that Ukrainian pilots can fly. Ukraine’s military has largely relied on surface-to-air missiles to challenge Russian military planes flying over the country, with some apparent success.
“We are looking actively now at the question of airplanes that Poland may provide to Ukraine and looking at how we might be able to backfill should Poland choose to supply those planes,” Mr. Blinken said on Sunday.
Mr. Blinken said the U.S. is working with Mr. Zelensky and other Ukrainian officials to get an “up-to-the-minute assessment of their needs.” The U.S. and partners will then assess what can be provided, he said a day after meeting Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba during a brief gathering at the Polish-Ukrainian border at which Mr. Kuleba asked the U.S. to do more to aid its country militarily.
“I can’t speak to a timeline, but I can just tell you that we’re looking at it very, very actively,” Mr. Blinken told reporters during a stop in Moldova as he traveled across Europe to reassure allies there about U.S. support in the wake of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials are pushing Western governments for a swift provision of combat jets—or, alternatively, a no-fly zone—saying either would help save lives at risk as Russia continues to bombard cities in the nearly two-week-old war. “If we keep this decision process going, more casualties will happen,” a Ukrainian government official said.
Yet European governments worry that donating jet fighters at this stage risks retaliation from Russia, potentially dragging Poland—and with it, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance—into the war… (LINK TO FULL STORY)