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BG Reads 1.19.2024

BG Reads 1.19.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - January 19, 2024

January 19, 2024

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January 19, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

✅ Actions taken by the City Council at its 1.18.2024 Meeting

✅ Austin police pay, benefits guaranteed by City Council

✅ Texas AG Ken Paxton won't contest facts of whistleblower lawsuit

✅ Trump asks Supreme Court to rule he Is eligible to hold office

Read on!

[CITY HALL WATCH]

🔎 Actions taken by the City Council at its 1.18.2024 Meeting

Click Here to Review the January 18th, 2024 Agenda

🔎 City Manager Search

The application process for Austin’s next city manager is open.

Click Here to review the posting

Applications will be accepted until February 12th.

🔎 2024 Austin Council Meeting Schedule

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Cap Metro to increase security guard presence at transit centers, Republic Square (Austin Monitor)

The Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority Board of Directors’ operations, planning and safety committee at its Wednesday meeting heard an update on the system’s Public Safety Program. The program, approved by the board in 2021, is based on a three-prong approach that includes public safety ambassadors, intervention specialists and transit police.

Darryl Jamail, senior director of public safety and emergency management at Capital Metro, said the Public Safety Ambassador program is now fully operational. The ambassadors, which started in February 2022, focus on customer and employee support, as well as system public safety.

“They’re trained by the TSA on system security for surface transit security issues, as well as de-escalation training, mental health first aid, customer service, first aid and other trainings as well,” Jamail said.

The program currently consists of three shifts of eight ambassadors and one supervisor. On average, the team receives 80 calls for service, 540 security sweeps, 5,300 customer contacts and 2,500 employee contacts... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Former City Council Member Kathie Tovo announces run for Austin mayor (KXAN)

Former Austin City Council Member Kathie Tovo has officially announced she intends to run for mayor, according to a release Thursday.

Tovo served on the city council from 2011 to 2023 as an at-large member of the council and later for District 9.

“I’m still committed to these same progressive values: equity, honest government and standing up for women, workers, immigrants and our LGBTQIA+ community. You can also count on me to fight against bad plans like the I-35 expansion and the State’s attacks on our local freedoms.

This campaign will be about engaging with Austinites throughout the city to craft a vision where every Austinite has the opportunity to succeed and thrive,” Tovo said in a release.

Tovo told KXAN in 2021 that she was “strongly considering” a run for mayor then, but ultimately did not.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson has not officially made his campaign announcement, but told KXAN in an interview last week that he intends to run… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin police pay, benefits guaranteed by City Council (FOX 7)

The Austin City Council has unanimously approved a resolution calling on the city manager to create an ordinance guaranteeing salaries and benefits for APD officers.

The city manager will now have until Feb. 1 to present the council with the new ordinance.

Austin Mayor Kirk Watson says it will also include a bonus program for incoming cadets to get more recruits to join and, in turn, help with APD's staffing crisis… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Despite uncertain future, Austin's historic Muny golf course celebrates 100 years (KVUE)

Lions Municipal Golf Course, also known as Muny, is celebrating its 100th anniversary as a national Civil rights Landmark this year.

Muny was the first racially integrated golf course in the South, but rezoning efforts and potential new plans for the land leave the course's future in limbo.

On Thursday, Austin Black community leaders gathered with representatives from the NAACP to share the significance of the course and the impact it had on the Civil Rights Movement... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

As Austin FC opens training camp, still plenty of moves, decisions to be made (Austin American-Statesman)

Full roster or not, MLS training camp is here for Austin FC.

With only 15 senior team players in town for the first week of the season, Austin FC coach Josh Wolff said Thursday in the club’s first press conference of the year that it is making do with what it has and utilizing seven Austin FC II players for training camp as it continues to form its roster.

“We’re thin on numbers, there’s no doubt about it,” Wolff said. “In order to put together 11 vs. 11 in training, there’s just a need for bodies. … We do need to get players here, but (sporting director Rodolfo Borrell) will do it in a responsible way.”…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

Click here for this week’s Austin public meeting meeting times and agendas.

[TEXAS NEWS]

“Cascading failures”: Justice Department blasts law enforcement’s botched response to Uvalde school shooting (Texas Tribune)

Law enforcement agencies across the country should immediately prioritize active shooter training, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said Thursday as he released a scathing report about the handling of the 2022 massacre in Uvalde in which lives could have been saved if training protocols had been followed.

The Justice Department’s long-anticipated report about the shooting found that “cascading failures of leadership, decision-making, tactics, policy and training” led to the bungled response, which Garland said should never have happened.

Nineteen children and two teachers were killed on May 24, 2022.

“Had law enforcement agencies followed generally accepted practices in an active shooter situation and gone right after the shooter to stop him, lives would have been saved and people would have survived,” Garland said during a news conference on Thursday.

The vast majority of at least 380 officers from about two dozen local, state and federal agencies who responded to the school had never trained together, “contributing to difficulties in coordination and communication,” the report stated…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas AG Ken Paxton won't contest facts of whistleblower lawsuit central to his 2023 impeachment (KHOU 11)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sought to end a whistleblower lawsuit by former top staff members on Thursday, announcing his agency would not contest the facts of the case and would accept any judgment.

The lawsuit was brought by a group of former top deputies. They alleged they were improperly fired for reporting Paxton to the FBI on claims he was misusing his office to protect a friend and campaign donor, who in turn was helping Paxton conceal an extramarital affair.

The allegations in the lawsuit were among the impeachment charges brought against the Republican last year by the state House of Representatives, of which he was ultimately acquitted after a Senate trial. Republicans hold large majorities in both chambers.

Paxton's attempt to push the lawsuit to closure comes as he faces the likelihood of having to sit for a deposition and answer questions under oath. Paxton did not testify during his impeachment trial.

“There is clearly no length to which Ken Paxton will go to to avoid putting his hand on a Bible and telling the truth, including confessing to violating the whistleblower act and opening up the states’ coffers to an uncontested judgement,” said TJ Turner, lawyer for David Maxwell, one of the former assistants who sued Paxton... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Money flows into Texas House GOP primary battles this season (Texas Tribune)

Money is flowing in from both allies and enemies of Texas House Republicans that could fuel a brutal primary season, campaign finance reports filed this week show.

Earlier this week, elected officials, candidates and political action committees had to reveal their finances for the past six months. For some of them, it was the first time they had to disclose anything since July.

A lot of new political grudges have formed over that period. The Senate acquitted Attorney General Ken Paxton in his impeachment trial in September, and Gov. Greg Abbott’s yearlong crusade for school vouchers crashed and burned in November.

Now Paxton and Abbott are on a warpath in the primary, determined to unseat House Republicans who crossed them… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Trump Asks Supreme Court to Rule He Is Eligible to Hold Office (New York Times)

Former President Donald J. Trump urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to reverse a ruling barring him from the primary ballot in Colorado and to declare him eligible to seek and hold the office of the presidency.

Mr. Trump’s brief, his main submission in an extraordinary case with the potential to alter the course of the presidential election, was a forceful recitation of more than half a dozen arguments about why the Colorado Supreme Court had gone astray in ruling him an insurrectionist barred from office by the Constitution.

“The court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots,” the brief said.

The case will be argued on Feb. 8, and the court will probably decide it quickly, perhaps by March 5, when many states, including Colorado, hold primaries.

The case turns on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Adopted after the Civil War, it bars those who had taken an oath “to support the Constitution of the United States” from holding office if they then “shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Congress can remove the prohibition, the provision says, but only by a two-thirds vote in each chamber.

The Colorado court ruled that Section 3 covers Mr. Trump in light of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election that culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

China’s Strongest Ally in Taiwan Is Weaker Than Ever (The Wall Street Journal)

Beijing’s closest political partner in Taiwan is fighting to remain relevant in an island democracy where voters increasingly see a future that is detached from an authoritarian China.

The Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, once governed China and had dominated Taiwanese politics for decades. It is now on its longest losing streak in presidential elections since this self-ruled island started choosing its leader by popular vote, consigned to a third straight term in opposition.

Whether the century-old party can get back on its feet has ramifications for Taipei’s rocky relationship with Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its territory and considers the KMT a useful partner in efforts to assimilate the island. The prospect that Taiwanese voters might never elect a Beijing-friendly government again could tilt China toward harsher methods to seek unification, including military force.

KMT leaders have put on a brave face, saying they still have the clout to keep Taiwan’s ruling party in check over the next four years. But many members worry that, without decisive changes, one of Asia’s oldest political parties could fade into irrelevance, as more Taiwanese embrace a local identity separate from China and reject the KMT’s perceived coziness with Beijing… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Rifts emerge among top Israeli officials over how to handle the war against Hamas in Gaza (Associated Press)

Rifts are emerging among top Israeli officials over the handling of the war against Hamas in Gaza. A member of the country’s War Cabinet cast doubt over the strategy for releasing hostages, and the country’s prime minister rejected the United States’ calls to scale back its offensive.

Only a cease-fire deal can win the release of dozens of hostages still held by Islamic militants in Gaza, and claims they could be freed by other means was spreading “illusions,” said former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, one of four members of the War Cabinet, in his first public statements on the course of the war.

Eisenkot’s comments late Thursday were the latest sign of disagreement among political and military leaders over the direction of Israel’s offensive on Hamas, now in its fourth month… (LINK TO FULL STORY)