The BG Reads
Posts
BG Reads 4.3.2024

BG Reads 4.3.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - April 3, 2024

April 03, 2024

View this email in your browser

Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

April 3, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Austin PD sees decrease in response times from February to March

🟣 Outgoing Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax may leave early to lead Austin

🟣 For Austin-area porta potty purveyors, the total eclipse is big business

🟣 UT Austin lays off around 60 staffers to comply with Texas DEI ban

Read On!

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW CITY OF AUSTIN PUBLIC MEETINGS / AGENDAS FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 1, 2024

[BINGHAM GROUP]

✅ BG Blog - City of Austin org chart red line (as of 2/9/2024)

[AUSTIN CITY HALL]

✅ Austin City Council Regular Meeting Agenda - April 4, 2024

✅ Austin’s drinking water easily passes first round of EPA’s PFAS ‘forever chemical’ monitoring tests (City of Austin)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin Police Department sees decrease in response times from February to March, according to recent data (KVUE)

Recent data shows the Austin Police Department has been improving its overall response time to crimes across the city.

On Monday, APD shared this information during the most recent Public Safety Commission meeting.

According to the department's public safety quarterly report, city law enforcement saw an average response time of 11 minutes and 39 seconds in March, which is faster than the rest of this year thus far.

In comparison, the approximate response time in January was 12 minutes and 27 seconds, and 11 minutes and 49 seconds in February.

Even still, APD's target time is 10 minutes and 44 seconds, so the department was still one minute and five seconds behind its overall goal.

Last month, call volumes also decreased to 4,826 compared to January and February, which both reached just more than 6,500 calls each month.

Although response times have improved, APD still continues to face staffing shortages. As of February, the Austin Police Association stated it has been looking to fill approximately 350 police officer positions… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Outgoing Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax may leave early to lead Austin (D Magazine)

Outgoing City Manager T.C. Broadnax could be leaving earlier than expected, a city council committee meeting agenda appears to indicate.

After seven years with the city, Broadnax in February announced he would be stepping down after a majority of the City Council requested his resignation. In a statement to the press, several council members said that the poor relationship between Broadnax and Mayor Eric Johnson made doing city business too difficult. In his resignation letter, he said his last day at City Hall would be June 3.

That same month, Johnson tasked the Ad Hoc Committee on Administrative Affairs with most of the city manager search. That committee consists of Council Members Tennell Atkins, Cara Mendelsohn, Jesse Moreno, Paul Ridley, and Kathy Stewart. The lone item on the committee’s Tuesday agenda was a discussion to “deliberate employment of City Manager T.C. Broadnax and effective date of appointment of Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert.” The committee immediately went into a closed session.

Tolbert, who currently serves as a Deputy City Manager (Jon Fortune also has that title), has worked with Broadnax since he began in 2017. Her biography on the city’s website calls her “the City Manager’s top trusted advisor.”

In February, the Council voted 12-2 to appoint Tolbert to the interim position effective June 3, the date Broadnax originally provided as his last day at Dallas City Hall. Tuesday’s meeting is only a discussion, so any action by the full council would likely happen at an upcoming city council meeting. The draft agenda for the April 10 meeting does not yet indicate any action is planned… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

For Austin-area porta potty purveyors, the total eclipse is big business (KUT)

Cities and businesses in Central Texas expect hundreds of thousands of visitors to descend on parks and outdoor spaces next week to witness the few minutes when the moon will completely obscure the sun. At some point, all of those people will need to use the bathroom. Companies that rent portable toilets in Central Texas said they have experienced historic demand for their products as folks plan eclipse parties on ranches, in parks and even in backyards.

“We will have less available inventory [during the eclipse] than we've had any weekend in the history of our time in Texas,” said Jamie Gunderson, the Central Texas operations manager for the portable toilet rental service Honey Bucket. Representatives for several rental services in the greater Austin area told KUT they began receiving requests for porta potties and bathroom trailers from individuals and municipalities last summer, with demand exploding early this year. One company said demand had been this high only once before: during Winter Storm Uri in 2021, when much of Austin went without running water for a week.

Cap City Rentals, a service that bills itself as “the ultimate luxury bathroom rental experience,” is already completely sold out. Steve Messana, one of Cap City’s owners, said turning away potential customers from his small business has been painful, but necessary.

“The problem isn't just about equipment availability, but a concern for being able to move around Central Texas and make the deliveries, pick-ups and service the units, as from the sound of it, the traffic may be debilitating,” he said in an email. “Many of our customers requesting rentals are in places like Llano, Wimberly, Hye, Fredericksburg and Burnet, which are difficult places to get to without the predicted influx of traffic.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

UT Austin lays off around 60 staffers to comply with Texas DEI ban (KUT)

UT Austin has eliminated multiple staff positions focused on diversity, equity and inclusion in the latest effort to comply with Texas' anti-DEI law.

Around 60 staffers were laid off Tuesday, according to the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors and the Texas NAACP.

Senate Bill 17, which bans Texas public universities from having DEI programs and trainings, went into effect Jan. 1. At the beginning of the year, UT Austin closed its Multicultural Engagement Center, which housed student groups like Latinx Community Affairs, the Asian Desi Pacific Islander American Collective, and Queer and Trans Black Indigenous People of Color and Allies. It also shut down Monarch, a program that offered support and scholarships to undocumented students. Members of these groups say they have struggled to continue their organizations' work on campus.

On Tuesday, the university went a step further and announced it is closing the Division of Campus and Community Engagement and laying off some employees who worked on DEI… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS]

Senate Education Committee is warning universities to comply with anti-DEI law. Here's why (Austin American-Statesman)

The Texas Legislature last year banned Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offices and initiatives at public universities and colleges; now the Senate Committee on Education is calling to the carpet the administrators of the institutions of higher education to prove how the schools are complying with Senate Bill 17.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who wrote the anti-DEI law, warned university system chancellors and regents in a March 26 letter that lawmakers can take legal action and even freeze state funding if they do not comply with the law.

“While I am encouraged with the progress I have seen from many institutions of higher education in implementing SB 17, I am deeply concerned with the possibility that many institutions may choose to merely rename their offices or employee titles,” he wrote. “This letter should serve as notice that this practice is unacceptable.”

The Senate Education Committee is holding a hearing in May for university system chancellors and general counsels to lay out how their institutions are ensuring that there are no DEI offices or training, no diversity statements in hiring and only merit-based employment offers with no considerations for race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Feds rely on novel legal argument in Colony Ridge lawsuit, claiming ‘reverse redlining’ (Houston Landing)

A novel legal argument is at the heart of a federal lawsuit against the sprawling Colony Ridge housing development in Liberty County that could prove a test case for similar claims around the country, experts say. The lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in December is one of two initiated against Colony Ridge that claim the developers misled property buyers.

The federal government’s case may pose a more serious threat to Colony Ridge than the action brought by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in March because of its argument that the developers use language barriers as a tool to deceive customers and aim that deception at a protected class of people.

“In this case, it was very clear that they were targeting and identifying immigrants that come from specific countries and speak specific languages, so it shows an intent to target a particular group,” said Nicole Cabañez, a Skadden Fellow at the National Consumer Law Center who studies market access for those with limited English proficiency. The federal government is attempting to interpret federal laws for housing and credit access to prove a theory of “reverse redlining” that argues Colony Ridge is harming a protected group by offering credit under unfavorable terms. The two, separate lawsuits represent the best opportunity for restitution for the former Colony Ridge residents who say they were duped into buying property at sky-high interest rates that have caused thousands to default on their loans, experts say… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[NATION/WORLD NEWS]

Israeli strike killing 7 World Central Kitchen members sparks international outrage (PBS News)

There have been few incidents in six months of war in Gaza that created the level of outrage that leaders across three continents expressed Tuesday. It comes after an Israeli strike killed seven members of Chef Jose Andres' World Central Kitchen aid organization, including one American-Canadian dual citizen. Israel called the killings unintended and vowed to investigate. Nick Schifrin reports… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Strongest earthquake in 25 years rocks Taiwan, killing 9 people (Associated Press)

The strongest earthquake in a quarter-century rocked Taiwan during the morning rush hour Wednesday, killing nine people, sending some scrambling out windows of damaged buildings and halting train service throughout the island. A tsunami warning was triggered but later lifted.

The quake was centered off the coast of rural, mountainous Hualien County, where buildings were left leaning at a 45-degree angles, with their ground floors crushed. Just over 150 kilometers (93 miles) away in the capital, Taipei, tiles fell from older buildings, and schools evacuated their students to sports fields, equipping them with yellow safety helmets. Some children covered themselves with textbooks to guard against falling objects as aftershocks continued.

Television images showed neighbors and rescue workers lifting residents, including a toddler, through windows and onto the street, after doors fused shut in the shaking. All appeared mobile, in shock but without serious injuries... (LINK TO FULL STORY)