BG Reads | News - July 29, 2022
[HEARINGS/MEETINGS]
Today
[AUSTIN METRO]
Local campaign contribution limits to rise ahead of November election (Austin Monitor)
Inflation isn’t only driving up mortgage interest rates, gas prices and the city’s living wage. It’s also behind proposed increases to the city’s campaign contribution limits, which cap how much money City Council candidates can accept from individual and out-of-town donors.?
The campaign contribution limits are tied to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index and are adjusted each year as part of the city’s budget process, Assistant City Attorney Caroline Webster told the Ethics Review Commission?Wednesday.?
The following increases are expected to take effect when Council approves the 2022-23 budget in mid-August:?
Individual contributors, excluding the candidate and small-donor political committees, may contribute a maximum of $450 per election, up from $400.
Candidates and their campaign committees may accept a maximum of $44,000 in aggregate contributions from non-Austin voters per regular election, up from $41,000. For runoff elections, they may accept a maximum of $30,000, up from $27,000…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin City Council votes to put $350 million affordable housing bond on November ballot (KUT)
As Austinites see a?sharp rise?in the cost of living, voters will have a chance to approve a $350 million bond for affordable housing this November.
City Council members approved a measure Thursday to put the proposition — the largest in Austin's history — on the ballot. If the measure passes, the bond money will go toward building affordable housing, repairing homes for low-income people and acquiring more land for homes.
Austinites will also be voting for mayor in the election.
Advocates say the bond is crucial for low-income residents and people experiencing homelessness to live in the city.
“It’s obvious to everyone that we’re in the middle of a housing crisis,” said Jo?o Paulo Connolly, a community organizer with the Austin Justice Coalition. “If we want Austin to be an inclusive city where working-class people, low-income people and people from all walks of life have a chance to live and thrive, then we need this bond in order to continue building deeply affordable housing.”…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas drought reaches 10-year peak as Austin closes hottest July ever (Austin American-Statesman)
As this month draws to a close, Texas finds itself in drought conditions unseen in a decade. Austin prepares to end not just one of its hottest Julys on record, but also one of its hottest months ever — and the city's main weather station has gone more than a month without measurable rainfall. Mother Nature's one-two punch of extreme heat and a lack of rainfall has kept Austin and Central Texas fire crews on their toes. Just this week, area firefighters mustered in multiple counties to battle brush fires fueled by tinder-dry vegetation:
Near Buda in northern Hays County on Wednesday, firefighters battled a blaze that burned 89.5 acres but was 75% contained Thursday; Earlier Wednesday, a brush fire in East Austin, off FM 969 in eastern Travis County, a blaze the Texas A&M Forest Service dubbed the Hound Dog fire, had burned about 35 acres but was 75% contained Thursday; All but one of four other fires in Caldwell County, each burning fewer than 15 acres, were all 100% contained by Thursday afternoon; The largest fire in the past week, the San Gabriel fire in Williamson County near Lake Georgetown, burned 445.7 acres over the weekend, but it was 100% contained and no longer active on Thursday…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin ISD names Wayne Sneed as new police chief (KXAN)
Wayne Sneed has been named as Austin ISD’s new police chief. The announcement was made at Thursday’s board work session by Austin ISD interim superintendent Anthony Mays.
Sneed is the first Black chief to serve the district. He’ll start leading the department of 76 officers on Aug. 1 at a time in which school safety is a high priority.
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He’s been with the Austin ISD Police Department for the last ten years, most recently leading the mental health and community engagement unit. He also teaches law enforcement at Texas State University.
Wayne Sneed has been named as Austin ISD’s new police chief. The announcement was made at Thursday’s board work session by Austin ISD interim superintendent Anthony Mays.
Sneed is the first Black chief to serve the district. He’ll start leading the department of 76 officers on Aug. 1 at a time in which school safety is a high priority.
He’s been with the Austin ISD Police Department for the last ten years, most recently leading the mental health and community engagement unit. He also teaches law enforcement at Texas State University…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin-area office rental rates increasing as vacancies decrease (Community Impact)
Across the Austin area, average rental rates continue to rise in commercial office spaces despite some market stabilization and decreases in vacancies in the past few months, according to the latest?Austin office market report?released July 25 from commercial real estate firm Aquila.
The report for the second quarter of 2022 shows Class A and B office spaces have an average full-service rental rate, which includes the base lease rate and all operations costs in one payment, of $52.77 per square foot. The direct and sublease vacancy rate, which determines which properties are available to rent out the spaces, has stayed relatively the same since the first quarter at 14.5%…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas AG Ken Paxton ready to assist local DAs in prosecuting abortion providers (Dallas Morning News)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Wednesday said his office will help local prosecutors enforce the state’s abortion ban. “We stand ready to assist any local prosecutor who pursues criminal charges,” Paxton, a two-term Republican, said in an advisory. Abortion has been effectively outlawed in Texas since July 1, when the state Supreme Court ruled that a nearly century-old ban on the procedure could be enforced. The modern-day trigger ban Texas lawmakers passed last year, which allows abortions only in life-threatening situations, officially goes into effect in August. Pregnant women cannot be prosecuted, but the law makes it a first-degree felony to knowingly perform or induce an abortion, or a second-degree felony to attempt an abortion. The penalties for the first-degree offense are five years to life in prison and a fine of $100,000. On Wednesday, Paxton said local prosecutors can “immediately pursue criminal prosecutions” based on the decades-old abortion laws, but that assertion has been the subject of legal debate.
His office can only enforce civil penalties, and criminal enforcement is expected to vary from county to county. Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot has declared he will not enforce laws criminalizing abortion, while Tarrant County District Attorney Sharen Wilson has said she will. Abortion clinics in Texas stopped performing the procedure within days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe vs. Wade in June. Some plan to relocate to neighboring states with more permissive abortion laws. Though Texas’ abortion ban includes an exception if a pregnant person’s life is in danger, there’s been widespread confusion about when doctors can legally intervene to end dangerous pregnancies. Some providers have delayed until women develop infections or other serious health complications. Lawmakers who wrote the bans have said that approach is wrong, and the Biden administration recently reminded hospitals that federal rules dictate they must provide abortion services if the life of the expectant mother is at risk…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Calling busing of migrants from Texas a “humanitarian crisis,” Washington mayor asks for help from National Guard (Texas Tribune)
Warning that her city’s services have been overwhelmed, the mayor of Washington, D.C., has asked the Biden administration for the National Guard’s help in assisting migrants being bused to the nation’s capital by Texas and Arizona.
Mayor Muriel Bowser, in two letters sent last week to the Department of Defense and the White House, said that she empathizes with the recently arrived people but that the city needs help processing and housing the migrants until they reach their final destinations.
“The pace of the arriving buses and the volume of arrivals have reached tipping points,” Bowser wrote in a July 19 letter to the office of the U.S. secretary of defense. “Our collective response and service efforts have now become overwhelmed.”…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
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