Headlines / Quote of the Week
Fri., Aug. 23, 2024
Sure, Why Not Run: In a race where current Mayor Kirk Watson has a huge leg up, another challenger has emerged. Last-minute candidate Jeffery Bowen entered the mayor’s race just ahead of Monday’s 5pm deadline, KUT reported. He owns a small construction company, is a member of the Austin Neighborhoods Council, and serves on the city’s Board of Adjustment.
DPS Dodging Reckoning: The Department of Public Safety continues to dodge responsibility for the deadliest school shooting in Texas history, which ended the lives of 19 children in Uvalde. The Texas Observer reports that by reinstating Texas Ranger Christopher Ryan Kindell in early August, DPS seems to have once and for all avoided a public reckoning over the agency’s role in the failed law enforcement response.
Heat On The Way Out: Meteorologists predicted this week could be the hottest of the summer. Reminder that global warming is at fault for Austin’s increasingly hot summer days and nights: Since 2000, Austin averages about 37 triple-digit days each year, compared to about 11 triple-digit days annually in the 1900s, KUT reported.
Is There a Poet on Board?: The Texas Commission on the Arts is now accepting nominations for the 2025 and 2026 Texas Poets Laureate, Texas State Musicians (classical and nonclassical genres), and Texas State Artists. Nominations are open through Oct. 15 and any Texan can submit a nomination at txoriginal.com.
Driver Down: A North Texas UPS driver crashed Friday after allegedly passing out from heat exhaustion, the Statesman reported. The incident sparked criticism from the Teamsters Local 767 union, which said the driver had called in to report heat symptoms and UPS, allegedly against its own guidelines, told the driver to drive themselves in. “This is UNACCEPTABLE,” Teamsters posted on social media, with the hashtag “#Peopleoverpackages.”
Free Speech Spurned: Texas is facing a new lawsuit from a free speech advocacy group challenging a state law that requires parental consent for kids’ social media accounts. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued A.G. Ken Paxton to block the new Texas law taking effect Sept. 1. Two tech industry groups also sued last month, The Texas Tribune reported.
Presumed Innocent, Jailed Over State Lines: The Texas Tribune took a look this week at the practice in Texas of shipping inmates out of the county or even out of the state when jails are overcrowded. “Every day across Texas, counties as large as Harris and as small as Sabine struggle to properly house the people held in their jails. So they spend millions in tax dollars transporting inmates, many of whom have yet to stand trial and are legally considered innocent,” the Tribune wrote. Laws that prevent some people from being released without paying bail contribute to the problem, as do guard hiring problems.
SOS Sues City Council Again: The Save Our Springs Alliance (SOS) is back at it with another lawsuit against City Council for allegedly violating the state’s Open Meetings Act. They won another suit claiming violation of the Open Meetings Act earlier this year. Now, they allege that Council violated the public’s right to speak by lumping all 13 of the proposed charter amendments into a single agenda item, the Austin Monitor reports.
AISD Administrator Back After Charge: Austin ISD’s chief financial officer, Ed Ramos, is back on the job after a pause over criminal charges unrelated to his work at Austin ISD, but will leave the district in good standing Friday. The Williamson County District Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute Ramos for the insurance fraud charges against him, KUT reported.
Phones Are a No-Go: Lake Travis ISD, an Austin-area school district, has banned cellphones to prevent bullying, KUT reported. Though the ban was announced last month, Superintendent Paul Norton said the district had been thinking about managing phone use for a couple of years. Violations depend on the number of uses: The first time, the school will take the phone away for the school day. The second time, they’ll take the phone away and a parent will have to pick it up. The third time, a student may get detention or in-school suspension.
Preventing Displacement: Project Connect, the long-awaited public transportation effort, also carries the risk of displacing folks along the routes. So the city has dedicated $300 million to anti-displacement efforts. The city has so far spent a little under half of that amount, targeting purchases and partnerships within 1 mile of rail or bus lines, and working to preserve existing affordable units, the Austin Monitor reports.
More Houses, We Hope: The controversial land use code change that allows builders to construct single-family homes on much smaller plots of land than ever goes into effect Friday, KUT reports. Theoretically, a landowner with an 8,000-square-foot lot (which is about average here) could break it up into four pieces of land with four houses.
GOP Making Inroads with Urban Latinos: Potentially roadblocking Democrats’ path toward turning Texas into a blue state, the political ideologies of Latino voters in urban areas in Texas are leaning more rightward, The Texas Tribune reported Monday. The trend of Latino Texans toward the Republican party has been more pronounced in South Texas, but polling and also Republican spending indicate its a statewide phenomenon.
Sprung a Leak: Leaky decommissioned oil wells contaminate groundwater. Now, a legal fight over legacy oil industry pollution is mounting in West Texas, the Observer reports. The “first of its kind” lawsuit claims Chevron and other companies failed to adequately plug and decommission wells on private property.
Gas Makes the Ground Shake: Scientists at Southern Methodist University have tied earthquakes in Texas before 2017 to oil and gas wastewater, The Dallas Morning News reported. Recently, North Texans have felt the aftershock of several earthquakes coming from about 250 miles west of Dallas, and while the cause isn’t yet determined, a scientist with the United States Geological Survey said that they were likely induced by oil and gas operations, too.
Quote of the Week
“Who’s going to tell him that the job he’s currently seeking might just be one of those 'Black jobs?’”
– Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention, referencing Donald Trump’s campaign and use of the phrase “Black jobs”
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