BG Reads 6.18.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - June 18, 2024

June 18, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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June 18, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Police identify two people killed during Juneteenth celebration in Round Rock (KUT)

🟣 Planning Commission wants housing for older adults on city land near transit lines (Austin Monitor)

🟣 Texas lawmakers turn on cryptocurrency industry after learning of high power demand projections (Houston Chronicle)

🟣 A water war is looming between Mexico and the US. Neither side will win (CNN)

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

MEMO DROP:

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Police identify two people killed during Juneteenth celebration in Round Rock (KUT)

Round Rock police on Monday released the names of two people killed during a shooting on Saturday in Old Settlers Park.

Lyndsey Vicknair, 33, from Manor, and Ara Duke, 54, from Pflugerville, were shot and killed after a fight broke out between two groups during Round Rock's annual Juneteenth celebration, police said.

Police said neither Vicknair or Duke were involved in the fight.

Fourteen others were taken to the hospital with gunshot wounds as a result of the shooting. As of Sunday night, most had been released from the hospital, and those still receiving treatment were in stable condition, police said.

The Austin Bar Association released a statement about Vicknair on Monday, identifying her as one of its members.

"Austin Bar and AYLA member Lyndsey D. Vicknair of The Chapman Firm was killed at the Round Rock Juneteenth concert. Our prayers go out to her husband, Kevin, and their three children," the statement read.

Duke was an employee of IDEA Public Schools, working at the organization's Rundberg campus. The school posted a letter to social media on Sunday night, informing families of her death… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Planning Commission wants housing for older adults on city land near transit lines (Austin Monitor)

The Planning Commission wants City Council to prioritize creating senior and disabled-accessible housing units on city-owned land located near transit corridors, with a priority given to equitable transit-oriented developments, or ETODs, throughout the area.

At a meeting last week, the commission voted in favor of a resolution that is related to policy involving ETODs and city property. The resolution notes the anticipated shortfall of housing suitable and affordable for older adults in the coming decades and it points out that in the Austin-Round Rock area, 38 percent of people 65 and older are housing cost burdened – defined as paying more than one-third of their income on housing – and 85 percent of older adults cannot afford assisted living.

It also specified limited-equity cooperative projects as the preferred organizational structure for such housing in ETODs, with residents purchasing a share of the entire development rather than individual dwellings. The rationale for that structure is it would be more flexible to allow for roommates or caregivers to live on-site without excessive oversight… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

UT Austin lays off communications staff amid 'crises' following protests, DEI changes (KUT)

UT Austin has let go nearly two dozen employees responsible for communications and marketing after a turbulent academic year, according to multiple sources who described the news as abrupt. Their last day is Aug. 31.

A vice president informed affected employees in the University Marketing and Communications department of the layoffs two weeks ago, saying they were necessary so the university could focus on “managing reputational issues and crises.”

This is according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the changes. They asked to remain unnamed because they worried about future job opportunities or weren’t authorized to speak about the layoffs. Sources said 19 to 20 people were laid off — about a quarter of the department, according to an online list of employees… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Statesman names veteran journalist Courtney Sebesta as new executive editor (Austin American-Statesman)

Courtney Sebesta, a homegrown journalist who has risen from an entry-level newsroom position to top management at the Austin American-Statesman, will lead the publication as its new executive editor. Gannett, Co. Inc., owner of the Statesman, which is part of the USA Today network, announced Sebesta’s promotion Monday following a national search. She will become the Statesman’s top editor effective July 1.

Sebesta, a graduate of the University of Texas School of Journalism and Media, will oversee all aspects of the Statesman’s editorial operations, including developing content strategy and innovation as well as efforts to reach new audiences.

“Courtney has an extensive and impressive track record as a journalist and longstanding member of the Austin community,” said Gannett Media Chief Content Officer Kristin Roberts.

“Her talent and expertise will further our mission to deliver impactful, relevant news and content to her fellow Texans.” The Statesman staff broke into applause when executives made the announcement. Michael Anastasi, Gannett’s vice president of local news, said Sebesta emerged as a front-runner for the job among a competitive field of applicants nationally.

“We are looking forward to the journey ahead,” he said. “The way we look at it, we are just getting going.” Ray Rivera, vice president of news for Gannett’s Middle America Region, called Sebesta a digitally savvy editor and strategic thinker who will lead the storied newsroom to new heights of audience growth. He added that Sebesta’s connection with the newsroom stands out with “the compassion she exudes for everyone she works with and how everyone she works with feels the same about her.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

A water war is looming between Mexico and the US. Neither side will win (CNN)

Tensions are rising in a border dispute between the United States and Mexico. But this conflict is not about migration; it’s about water. Under an 80-year-old treaty, the United States and Mexico share waters from the Colorado River and the Rio Grande, respectively. But in the grip of severe drought and searing temperatures, Mexico has fallen far behind in deliveries, putting the country’s ability to meet its obligations in serious doubt. Some politicians say they cannot give what they do not have. It’s a tough argument to swallow for farmers in South Texas, also struggling with a dearth of rain.

They say the lack of water from Mexico is propelling them into crisis, leaving the future of farming in the balance. Some Texas leaders have called on the Biden administration to withhold aid from Mexico until it makes good on the shortfall. Both countries are staring down the prospect of another long, hot summer and many are pinning hopes on a storm to swell Mexico’s drought-stricken rivers. Yet experts say the pray-for-rain approach is a risky, short-term strategy in the face of a knotty long-term problem.

The conflict underscores the immense difficulties of navigating how to share shrinking water resources in a hotter, drier world. Under a 1944 treaty, Mexico is required to send 1.75 million acre-feet of water to the US every five years from the Rio Grande, and the US to send 1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico from the Colorado River each year. One acre-foot is enough water to flood one acre of land a foot deep. It adds up to an enormous amount of water exchanged between the two countries: around 490 billion gallons from the US annually and 570 billion from Mexico each five year period. Mexico is falling far behind in its obligations, said Maria Elena Giner, the US commissioner of the International Boundary and Water Commission, the bi-national body that oversees the treaty.

“We’ve only gotten about a year’s worth of water and we’re already well into our fourth year,” she told CNN. The current cycle ends in October 2025. The Rio Grande — called the Río Bravo in Mexico — is one of North America’s longest rivers and flows roughly 1,900 miles from Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, weaving through three US and five Mexican states before ending its journey in the Gulf of Mexico… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas lawmakers turn on cryptocurrency industry after learning of high power demand projections (Houston Chronicle)

Spooked by projections of how much electricity Texas could need by 2030, lawmakers have soured on the growth of cryptocurrency mining after years of welcoming the industry to the state. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s grid operator, said in April that Texas could need 152 gigawatts of electricity by the end of the decade, compared with a record 85.5 gigawatts set by the grid last summer.

This forecast is approximately 40 gigawatts greater than what ERCOT expected last year, with around 60% of that new demand coming from potential cryptocurrency mines and data centers, regulators told lawmakers this week during legislative hearings about the power grid.

The Permian Basin alone is expected to see 24 gigawatts of added power demand, about half from electrification of oil and gas operations and half from data centers and cryptocurrency mines, ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas told lawmakers.

This unprecedented growth could further strain Texas’ power grid and would require significant new infrastructure, such as transmission lines to move electricity across the state. Lawmakers, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, expressed concern that Texas residents would ultimately bear the costs. “I’m more interested in building the grid to service customers in their homes, apartments, and normal businesses and keeping costs as low as possible for them instead of for very niche industries that have massive power demands and produce few jobs,” Patrick wrote in a post on X. “We want data centers, but it can’t be the Wild Wild West of data centers and crypto miners crashing our grid and turning the lights off.”

Transmission costs make up 30% to 40% of the average customer’s electric bill each month, according to Courtney Hjaltman, chief executive of the Office of Public Utility Council, which represents residential and small commercial customers in rate cases. That portion of the bill has been rising as utilities upgrade equipment to withstand extreme weather and build new lines to accommodate demand growth...  (LINK TO FULL STORY)

131 college scholarships put on hold or modified due to Texas DEI ban, documents show (Dallas Morning News)

For Richard Oliver, the night of June 3, 2014, was a parent’s worst nightmare. His daughter Devin Oliver and her classmate Aubree Butts, players on the women’s basketball team at Texas A&M University at Commerce, were killed in a car crash in rural Paris, Texas. The community mourned and celebrated Oliver and Butts by creating a memorial scholarship. “I appreciated the fact that that scholarship was targeted specifically for that demographic type — Black female athlete, and particularly basketball — because that’s who my daughter was,” Richard Oliver told The Dallas Morning News.

Now the Devin Oliver and Aubree Butts Memorial Scholarship — and 130 others across Texas — are frozen or being modified as the state’s public universities implement a new state law, according to documents obtained by The News through open records requests. The affected scholarships comprise 80 at Texas A&M University institutions, 45 at University of Texas-affiliated campuses and six at three other public universities. Known as Senate Bill 17 and authored by state Sen.

Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, the law is a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, programs at public universities in Texas and went into effect Jan. 1. The definition of DEI can be vague, but the law generally says colleges should not have programs designed for students of specific races or genders. When SB 17 was debated at the Capitol, the focus was on shutting down diversity training and departments that oversee diversity initiatives. Scholarships were not significantly discussed by lawmakers.

Creighton did not speak to The News after his office was contacted requesting an interview about the legislation’s effect on scholarships. He said in an emailed statement that several campuses have saved money by closing “DEI bureaucracies.”

Many of the scholarships affected by the DEI law were administered by schools but funded through donations — not taxpayer dollars — including memorial scholarships created to support students with similar interests and backgrounds to the person being honored or remembered. A Texas A&M at Commerce spokesman confirmed that the frozen scholarship was intended for women’s athletics, though the most recent recipients included students of color outside of the athletic program. The scholarship was endowed after a charity dinner in 2015.

Three students received the scholarship in 2023, according to Sam Butts, Aubree’s father. “The scholarships do not have anything to do with that diversity program or the state law,” Butts said. “We’re disappointed because that scholarship was set up to help minorities.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

Surgeon general asks Congress to require warning labels on social media, saying platforms have ‘not been proved safe’ (PBS)

The U.S. surgeon general has called on Congress to require warning labels on social media platforms similar to those now mandatory on cigarette boxes.

In a Monday opinion piece in the The New York Times, Dr. Vivek Murthy said that social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people.

“It is time to require a surgeon general’s warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.

A surgeon general’s warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe,” Murthy said. “Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behavior.”

Murthy said that the use of just a warning label wouldn’t make social media safe for young people, but would be a part of the steps needed.

Social media use is prevalent among young people, with up to 95 percent of youth ages 13 to 17 saying that they use a social media platform, and more than a third saying that they use social media “almost constantly,” according to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center.

Last year Murthy warned that there wasn’t enough evidence to show that social media is safe for children and teens. He said at the time that policymakers needed to address the harms of social media the same way they regulate things like car seats, baby formula, medication and other products children use… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Here’s what the Christian right wants from a second Trump term (Washington Post)

Donald Trump’s presidency delivered to Christian conservatives some of their most coveted goals: Hundreds of sympathetic judges joined the federal bench. The U.S. Embassy in Israel moved to Jerusalem. And the center of gravity on the Supreme Court shifted firmly to the right. Since Trump lost his reelection bid, they have claimed additional successes, with Republican-run red states enacting legislation that restricts transgender care and limits the books that can be taught in school or borrowed from the library. The Supreme Court in 2022 ended the legal right to abortion.

Last year, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), an evangelical Christian who has said his worldview is the Bible, became speaker of the House. But far from declaring victory, those who advocate for a more pronounced role for hard-line conservative Christian doctrine in American public life are actively planning to enact a fresh wave of changes in a second Trump term. Should Trump reclaim the presidency in November, they say, it would represent a historic opportunity to put their interpretation of Christianity at the center of government policy.

To advocates for civil, women’s and gay rights, the proposals represent something else: a threat to basic freedoms and a dangerous blurring of boundaries between church and state.

Among the proposals being pushed by the Christian right’s various groups and leaders: Removing the words “gender” and “abortion” from federal program documents, as well as the related funding; Imposing new restrictions on abortion pills, perhaps through the authority of the Food and Drug Administration; Carving out greater exemptions to anti-discrimination laws intended to protect LGBTQ people; Establishing a more visible role for Christianity in public schools, including more prayer led by both teachers and students.

Trump advisers have stressed that outside groups and allies do not speak for the campaign and its policy plans. But Trump has made politically conservative Christians a bedrock of his base and has signaled he remains attuned to their priorities, even as many in the community appear prepared to back him no matter what specific promises he makes.

In 2016, Trump had to overcome the suspicion of conservative Christian leaders that came with being a twice-divorced celebrity who had publicly backed abortion rights and had never exhibited any particular religiosity. He picked Mike Pence, the evangelical Indiana governor, as his running mate in part to assuage worries he wasn’t sufficiently committed to their cause… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[2024 Austin City Council Race Watch]

This fall will see elections for the following Council Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and Mayor.

Declared candidates so far are:

Mayor

District 2

District 4

District 6

District 7 (Open seat)

District 10 (Open seat)

_________________________

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