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- BG Reads 12.6.2024
BG Reads 12.6.2024
🟪 BG Reads - December 6, 2024
Bingham Group Reads
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December 6, 2024
➡️ Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Austin Police Association comments reignite debate on mental health crisis calls (CBS Austin)
🟪 Public safety departments show progress in recruitment efforts (Austin Monitor)
🟪 Austin mobility projects advance; timeline for spending bond dollars lengthens (Community Impact)
🟪 Austin leaders promote HOME policy, recent land-use reforms to Boston City Council (Community Impact)
🟪 A 2006 study found undocumented immigrants contribute more than they cost Texas. The state hasn’t updated it since. (Texas Tribune)
🟪 Biden White House is discussing preemptive pardons for those in Trump’s crosshairs (Politico)
Read On!
[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🟪 The Austin Council has one (1) regular meeting left in 2024:
🟪 MEMO: City of Austin Executive Leadership Team and Organizational Announced (Effective November 4, 2024)
In an October 30 memo, City Manager T.C. Broadnax announced several key additions to the city leadership team, effective November 4.
You can view the memo here: CITY OF AUSTIN MEMO: Executive Leadership Team and Organizational Announcements. An org chart is included on page 3.
We particularly wanted to flag the creation of a Grants Division within the Intergovernmental Relations Office to focus on creating a centralized grant funding strategy and governance for the City that advances City Council’s strategic priorities, leverages local resources, and targets investments for Austin.
The memo notes “the City lacks a centralized grants function causing us to potentially leave federal and state funding on the table. Staff from across the organization are currently being identified for potential reassignment to the Grants Division.”
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
➡️ Austin Police Association comments reignite debate on mental health crisis calls (CBS Austin)
Recent comments from the Austin Police Association have renewed the debate over how mental health calls are handled, a debate that harkens back to 2020.
After the 2020 deaths of Mike Ramos and George Floyd and the protests that followed, the city started looking at what they called 'Reimagining Public Safety.' If you ask the Texas Municipal Police Association though, this conversation goes even further back: for as long as policing has existed and will exist.
"In a strange turn of events, the Austin Police Association and the Austin Justice Coalition agree on something, right?" Chas Moore with the Austin Justice Coalition said.
Moore says since his group's inception, they've called for community alternatives to policing.
"We've always said that police do too much," Moore said. "We've always said that they are not best equipped to help every call that comes through 911."… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Public safety departments show progress in recruitment efforts (Austin Monitor)
White males continue to make up the majority of Austin sworn public safety personnel, but police, fire and emergency medical services appear to be making strides in recruitment and diversification efforts.
That was the assessment of some Public Safety Commission members after hearing brief updates from the three departments on Monday. It was the first such update provided in about two years. Commission Chair Nelly Paulina Ramirez suggested having more regular briefings on the departments’ diversity initiatives and retention strategies.
Austin Police Department reported concentrated recruiting at college campuses, especially historically Black colleges and universities such as Texas Southern University in Houston and Huston-Tillotson University in Austin.
APD recruiters are expanding their reach with trips planned to New York, New Jersey and Puerto Rico, where they are now able to perform testing... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Austin mobility projects advance; timeline for spending bond dollars lengthens (Community Impact)
Austin is still rolling out more than $1 billion in mobility improvements citywide following votes in favor of several major transportation bonds since the mid-2010s.
Funding from mobility bonds approved in 2016, 2018 and 2020 is going toward major regional transportation projects, local streetscape and sidewalk upgrades, safety improvements, trails and more.The city now expects most of the $1.34 billion voter-approved bond dollars won't be used up until the late 2020s, beyond the original timelines set for each of the packages. The three programs cover scores of projects across Austin.
The first and largest of the packages, the $720 million 2016 bond, included a large chunk of funding for work along dozens of miles of Austin's busiest roadways. About two-thirds of that bond was set aside for the Corridor Mobility Program, with the remainder being reserved for other local and regional projects... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Congress Avenue transformation plan gets support from Urban Transportation Commission (Austin Monitor)
The Urban Transportation Commission has voted to support the proposed transformation of most of the downtown portion of Congress Avenue, turning much of the street into a pedestrian- and multimodal-focused corridor and removing almost all vehicular traffic. The recommendation to City Council was approved at the commission’s meeting earlier this week.
The Congress Avenue Urban Design Initiative (CAUDI) reimagines Congress Avenue from Cesar Chavez Street to 11th Street, with a public plaza between Seventh and 11th streets and enhancements for bike lanes, sidewalks and public spaces south of Seventh Street. If approved by City Council, the $130 million plan would be completed in phases beginning with two blocks between Seventh and 11th streets using $22 million in funding available from the 2020 mobility bond.
That budget allows for focusing on the 900 and 1000 blocks for full reconstruction and tactical enhancements on the 700 and 800 blocks. Laura Dierenfield, manager of the active transportation and street design division, told the commission the Transportation and Public Works Department plans to use an incremental approach, utilizing nimble contracting methods to address sections of the avenue while minimizing disruption.
Approximately 94 parking spaces, or 0.27 percent of downtown’s total parking supply, would be disrupted by the changes. Dierenfield said accessible parking spaces could be relocated near intersections on cross streets to meet federal standards… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Austin leaders promote HOME policy, recent land-use reforms to Boston City Council (Community Impact)
A delegation from Austin City Hall traveled to Boston in early December to tout recent land-use reforms as officials in both cities seek solutions to their housing supply and affordability challenges.
Austin Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool, council members Zo Qadri and Chito Vela, and several council staff were invited to a Boston City Council planning hearing Dec. 3 to outline the series of development policy updates Austin leaders have recently overseen. Boston council members requested the hearing earlier this fall, saying they could learn from Austin's approach as both cities have faced affordability crises.Boston council member Sharon Durkan said Austin's zoning updates should be explored, even if they won't be directly copied in the Northeast given the differences between both cities. She also credited Austin's "swift and impactful" response to boost local housing production and stabilize housing costs after years of record highs, noting it now has a relatively lower homebuying price-to-income ratio and share of rent-burdened households.“A Boston that can get closer to these levels on these metrics to start will give our families and households a chance to breathe after years of suffocating housing cost burdens," she said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
➡️ A 2006 study found undocumented immigrants contribute more than they cost Texas. The state hasn’t updated it since. (Texas Tribune)
In 2006, Texas State Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn set out to assess the impact undocumented Texans have on the state economy and found that they contributed more to Texas than they cost the state.
“This is the first time any state has done a comprehensive financial analysis of the impact of undocumented immigrants on a state’s budget and economy,” Strayhorn, a Republican, wrote at the beginning of the report.
It was also the last time Texas did such a study.
The state has not updated Strayhorn’s analysis or conducted a similar review since it was issued 18 years ago. But a series of reports released by nonprofits and universities have confirmed what Strayhorn’s office found.
Those findings contradict notions that undocumented immigrants strain state resources — a common argument made by some state Republican leaders in interviews and lawsuits challenging the federal government’s immigration policies… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ “City Hall must listen”: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson assesses state of the city (Dallas Morning News)
In the council chambers on Thursday, flanked by 14 of his peers on the Dallas City Council, Mayor Eric Johnson began his assessment of the city’s track record with an emphasis on 4 P’s: public safety, parks, potholes and property tax relief.
“These four pillars are essential to Dallas remaining a city of opportunity for everyone,” Johnson said. He also announced he will release the city’s “first-ever comprehensive public safety policy” in the coming months — though it’s unclear what that entails.
Johnson’s state of the city address, a tradition mandated by the city’s charter, echoed much of what he’s said before. The speech is generally a roadmap of what the city government has accomplished and wants to accomplish. This year’s edition comes exactly a month after the November elections, where the passage of propositions S and U was widely seen as a “wake-up call” for municipal government.
The passed propositions waive government immunity and open the city up to lawsuits if it doesn’t adhere to the charter. They direct half of any new revenue year after year to the police and fire pension system and other public safety initiatives and also mandate the city figure out a way to hire nearly 900 more police officers.
“These calls from our residents for greater public safety and stronger government accountability could not be more clear,” Johnson said. “And City Hall must listen.”
The opposition to these propositions came from a big bipartisan coalition of former mayors and council members. Several saw these amendments as legal mandates that could negatively affect city operations. Almost immediately after the propositions passed, Moody’s Ratings, a top credit rating firm, downgraded the city’s debt outlook from “stable” to “negative” due to the passage of Proposition U.
The firm said the proposition lowers the flexibility the city has when it comes to its expenses and in the world of stocks and bonds, that type of an assessment can impact a lender’s confidence in the city’s management of its debt. Johnson was absent from the public effort… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US and World News]
➡️ Biden White House is discussing preemptive pardons for those in Trump’s crosshairs (Politico)
President Joe Biden’s senior aides are conducting a vigorous internal debate over whether to issue preemptive pardons to a range of current and former public officials who could be targeted with President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, according to senior Democrats familiar with the discussions.
Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments, a sense of alarm which has only accelerated since Trump last weekend announced the appointment of Kash Patel to lead the FBI.
Patel has publicly vowed to pursue Trump’s critics. The White House officials, however, are carefully weighing the extraordinary step of handing out blanket pardons to those who’ve committed no crimes, both because it could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump’s criticisms, and because those offered preemptive pardons may reject them.
The deliberations touch on pardoning those currently in office, elected and appointed, as well as former officials who’ve angered Trump and his loyalists.
Those who could face exposure include such members of Congress’ Jan. 6 Committee as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming. Trump has previously said Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!” Also mentioned by Biden’s aides for a pardon is Anthony Fauci, the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The West Wing deliberations have been organized by White House counsel Ed Siskel but include a range of other aides, including chief of staff Jeff Zients. The president himself, who was intensely focused on his son’s pardon, has not been brought into the broader pardon discussions yet, according to people familiar with the deliberations. The conversations were spurred by Trump’s repeated threats and quiet lobbying by congressional Democrats, though not by those seeking pardons themselves. “The beneficiaries know nothing,” one well-connected Democrat told me about those who could receive pardons… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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