BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 31, 2022)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
Join us in wishing Bingham Group Founder and CEO A.J. a Happy 39th Birthday!
A.J. age 5
[HEARINGS]
Today, 5/31
Wednesday, 6/1
[AUSTIN METRO]
Council eyes possible trimming, merging of some boards and commissions (Austin Monitor)
City Council appears ready to take a comprehensive look at the makeup and purpose of the many boards and commissions currently advising Council on city policy, with the possibility of dissolving or merging some of the groups.
At last week’s meeting of Council’s Audit and Finance Committee, a recommendation passed unanimously to have Council vote to keep the Economic Prosperity Commission organized as an active board even though it had failed to make quorum for more than six months prior to holding a successful meeting in May. That vote came with the push from Council Member Kathie Tovo to conduct the first hard look in roughly 10 years at the roster of boards and commissions, and the staff and telecommunications resources needed to support them.
The city website currently lists more than four dozen boards, commissions and committees that have been active in recent years – and many more task forces, advisory boards and other less formal groups – though there is no readily available information on their present state of activity.
Earlier this year Council voted to keep the Tourism Commission active after it also had a long string of meetings canceled because of inability to make quorum.
“I would suggest we as a Council have a conversation about the different commissions, because ultimately all of our commissioners are providing recommendations to Council … and 10 years is a long time and some of the commissions have been here that long,” Tovo said. “If some of those commissions are no longer relevant to the work that Council is doing, then we should really consider whether we should continue them.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin pushing to effectively decriminalize abortion ahead of ruling on Roe (Politico)
The city of Austin is attempting to shield its residents from prosecution under a Texas law that would criminalize almost all abortions if Roe v. Wade is overturned — the first push by a major city in a red state to try to circumvent state abortion policy.
Councilmember Chito Vela is proposing a resolution that would direct the city’s police department to make criminal enforcement, arrest and investigation of abortions its lowest priority and restrict city funds and city staff from being used to investigate, catalogue or report suspected abortions.
“This is not an academic conversation. This is a very real conversation where people’s lives could be destroyed by these criminal prosecutions,” said Vela, who shared the details of the resolution first with POLITICO. “In Texas, you’re an adult at 17. We are looking at the prospect of a 17-year-old girl who has an unplanned pregnancy and is seeking an abortion [being] subjected to first-degree felony charges — up to 99 years in jail — and that’s just absolutely unacceptable.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin Community College aims to bolster manufacturing workforce with latest bachelor's degree (Austin Business Journal)
In an effort to support one of the region’s most promising industries, Austin Community College has opened enrollment for its new bachelor's degree in manufacturing engineering technology.
The program, the third bachelor’s degree to be offered by the district that serves more than 70,000 students at 11 campuses, aims to move workers already in manufacturing into more advanced roles and help fill growing workforce gaps in the industry. It comes at a time when major employers including Samsung and NXP Semiconductors NV seek to expand and newcomers such as Tesla begin operations.
The Texas comptroller reports the manufacturing sector directly employs more than 900,000 Texans and contributed $241 billion to Texas' gross domestic product in 2019, representing 13% of the state's total economic output.
“The goal of this degree is to support the companies in our area,” said Laura Marmolejo, ACC department chair for manufacturing. “Through this program, we are going to teach you how to be a leader, how to oversee operations and how to understand the supply chain. We know you are already an expert in your field and now we are going to add the missing parts that lead you to the next step in your career.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
A new Austin ISD superintendent won’t be hired until next summer (KUT)
The Austin Independent School District will hire an interim superintendent for the next school year after Stephanie Elizalde leaves June 30.
Elizalde has been named the lone finalist for the superintendent job in Dallas ISD.
“After the interim superintendent is hired, the board and community will prepare for the deep work of identifying the next superintendent,” a statement the district released Thursday night said.
In the statement, the district offered a rough timeline of their search process. They will look for a superintendent search firm to hire in January 2023 and aim to hire the new superintendent by summer 2023.
It's unclear if the interim superintendent will be someone already working for the district or an outside hire.
Elizalde has served as superintendent for two years, after being hired in August 2020. She led the district through the first full school year after the pandemic began. She also made the controversial choice of ignoring Gov. Greg Abbott’s direction that schools couldn’t mandate masks, and she said masks were required when this school year began… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
History suggests attention on gun policy will fade well before the November elections (Texas Tribune)
Time is the enemy. A week has passed since 21 people were murdered in an elementary school in Uvalde, an atrocity still at the center of public and private attention and concern.
Gov. Greg Abbott and other politicians bound to gun culture are squirming, but history tells us public attention will subside, that voters will move on to other issues and that the Texas pols can relax into their ardent deregulation of guns, the No. 1 cause of death by injury for kids in the U.S.
The elected officials who have done little to protect Texans and other Americans after any of the mass shootings that came before Uvalde have something in common with the dumbfounding inaction of the 19 first responders who idled in a hallway at Robb Elementary for more than an hour last Tuesday while a gunman killed 21 children and teachers… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gov. Abbott falsely claims background checks would not have prevented Sutherland Springs shooting (Texas Public Radio)
In an effort to correct his misinformed statements about the shooting that claimed the lives of 19 children and two adults at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott again misinformed the public — this time about another mass shooting in Texas. On November 5, 2017, a gunman stormed the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs — killing 26 people and wounding 22 others. In a response to a question about background checks at a Friday press conference, Abbott said he believed background checks wouldn't have prevented Sutherland Springs from happening. “Look at what happened in the shooting at Sutherland Springs. There was a background check that was done. It was done in a flawed way that allowed the shooter to get a gun,” he said.
A lawyer for the Sutherland Spring victims said Abbott’s characterization that the events of Sutherland Springs prove background checks are not a viable solution is misleading. "That is not true. The opposite is true,” attorney Jamal Alsaffar told TPR. “The federal court found after hearing months of evidence — thousands of pages of documentary evidence that, in fact, the federal government was liable in the Sutherland Springs case because background checks would have worked." Moments after hearing Abbott's take on Sutherland Springs, Alsaffar was inundated with calls asking him to correct the record. Intentional or not, Alsaffar said Abbott is again misinforming the public. Earlier this year, Federal Judge Xavier Rodriguez found the government liable for $230 million in damages from the Sutherland Springs shooting because the Air Force failed to send the criminal record of the shooter — a former airman — to the FBI. The case itself revealed a systemic problem within the Air Force and other government agencies of not supplying that data to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 158: Managing Growth in the City of Kyle - A Discussion with Council Member Dex Ellison
Today’s episode (158) features City of Kyle Council Member Dex Ellison. He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the growth and associated challenges with one the fastest growing cities in Texas.
According to the U.S. Census, the city grew from a populations of 5,000 in 2000, to just over 52,300 (and growing) in 2020.
First elected to Kyle City Council in November 2019, Council Member Ellison was re-elected in November 2019. -> EPISODE LINK