Whiplash Rulings Leave Us in Suspense Over SB 4: The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday gave Texas permission to enforce Senate Bill 4, the highly controversial new law that allows state and local police to arrest people they suspect of entering the country illegally. But shortly thereafter, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans temporarily blocked it again. The 5th Circuit held a hearing over it Wednesday morning and did not say when they will rule.
Digitizing Austin City Limits: In celebration of its 50th anniversary, Austin PBS announced Wednesday that it will digitize all 50 seasons of Austin City Limits through a partnership with Google Fiber. Hundreds of hours of concert footage will be preserved and, they hoped, shared at an unspecified later date.
Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems: Shady Austin real estate developer Nate Paul – whose reported bribing of A.G. Ken Paxton was at the heart of Paxton’s impeachment – will soon serve a 10-day jail sentence for contempt of court, the Austin Business Journal reported. It’s just one episode in a long legal saga over money the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation claims Paul owes the charity.
Just Trolling: Speaking of greedy trolls, Pease Park welcomed an 18-foot troll last week. The statue is the latest of artist Thomas Dambo’s 129 across the world. It’s made of local, recycled, and repurposed wood and was built by Dambo and several dozen local volunteers, the Austin Monitor reported.
Tax Time, Baby: The IRS launched a new, free Direct File program (directfile.irs.gov) available in 12 states including Texas. (Fun fact: Texan Dixie Warden was the first-ever user of Direct File, and she saved $400.) The Direct File website doesn’t work for gig income, but works for people with W-2s, unemployment income, Social Security income, or $1,500 or less in interest income, U.S. savings bonds, or Treasury obligations.
APD Looks for 911 Call Takers: A special report from the Office of the City Auditor revealed Austin Police Department lacks a regular process for taking 911 calls when the volume reaches high levels. The national standard says 90% of calls should be answered within 15 seconds. In 2022 and 2023, roughly a quarter of 911 calls took longer than 15 seconds to answer, the Austin Monitor reported.
Largest Wildfire Contained: Firefighters were finally able to contain the Smokehouse Creek fire in Hutchinson County last week after nearly three weeks. The wildfire is the largest in Texas history and burned over 1 million acres. Relief efforts are ongoing, The Texas Tribune reported.
Abortion Is Not Murder: A Texas prosecutor has been fined and suspended for allowing a murder charge against a woman who self-induced an abortion in 2022. The attorney reached a settlement with the State Bar of Texas to pay a $1,250 fine. His license will be suspended for one year, The Texas Tribune reported.
But When Exactly Can We Abort?: The Texas Medical Board will begin a 30-day rulemaking process on Friday to clarify the kinds of emergency exceptions that may allow a legal abortion to be performed in Texas, the Statesman reported. The decision comes after two years of requests from pregnant women, doctors, and even Gov. Greg Abbott that the board issue guidelines. TMP is one of the defendants in Zurawski v. Texas, a lawsuit asking the state to clarify the scope of the exceptions brought by Texas women who were denied abortions despite facing severe pregnancy complications.
That’s a Drag: In a not-surprising move, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to issue an injunction to prevent the president of West Texas A&M from canceling a drag show organized by students in the Panhandle town of Canyon. With the court’s refusal to validate the drag artists’ First Amendment rights, president Walter Wendler canceled the performance for the second time in a year, calling drag “a slapstick sideshow that erodes the worth of women.” According to The Texas Tribune, West Texas A&M faculty have previously condemned Wendler for “divisive, misogynistic, homophobic and non-inclusive rhetoric.”
Biden in H Town: Guess who’s in Texas this week? After private campaign events in Dallas, President Joe Biden was set to hold a campaign reception in Houston Thursday. Earlier this week, he was campaigning in Nevada and Arizona, key presidential battlegrounds this election, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Bananas Ballot Counting: Swayed by conspiracy theories about the unreliability of voting machines, Republicans in Gillespie County (county seat: Fredericksburg) counted ballots by hand in the March 5 primary. Now, according to reporting by The Texas Tribune, party officials are acknowledging that they had to fix errors in the reported and finalized results in almost every precinct, though the new numbers did not change the results in any races. “We took something that worked and now broke it,” election judge Scott Netherland told the Tribune. “What we just did is evidence that this hand count was not accurate.”
Less Parking, More Apartments: Dallas may soon toss out its parking requirements, after Austin became the largest city in the country to do so last year. According to the Texas Tribune, a subcommittee of the Dallas City Plan Commission approved a proposal to end minimum parking requirements in new developments. Portland, Minneapolis, and San Jose have also recently ended parking minimums in an effort to mitigate the housing affordability crisis. Letting developers, rather than the city, decide how much parking to build into their projects can speed development and makes more room for housing units, experts say.
Can We Get a Black Culture District?: The nonprofit East Austin Creative Coalition is organizing creatives for job opportunities and attempting to put pressure on the city to build an African American Culture and Heritage District. The plan for the district was approved by the City Council in 2021 but the district has yet to be officially recognized.
Protesters Disrupt SXSW Panel: Activists disrupted a SXSW panel that featured Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens last week to protest Atlanta’s planned public safety training center. The panel was focused on how local officials have navigated conflicting views on policy issues including police funding and election results, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.
Convention Center Coping: In anticipation of the Austin Convention Center’s four-year reconstruction, Visit Austin staff plan to aggressively market the city as part of a strategy to support the hotel and convention industry during that construction period. The strategy includes communication about space available outside the convention center and prioritizing sports business bookings, the Austin Monitor reported.
Big City Business: New-York based global real estate company Related Companies is planning three high-profile projects along and near South Congress Avenue, the Statesman reported. The privately owned company has over $60 billion in assets and major projects in cities across America. This project includes 800 housing units, a 225-room hotel and office, restaurant, retail, and grocery space.
Population De-Boom: For the first time in over 20 years, more people are leaving Travis County than moving here. According to census data reviewed by KUT News, the county lost 2,500 residents between July 2022 and July 2023. However, neighboring Williamson and Hays counties recorded large increases in population over the same study period – 20,000 for Williamson, 11,000 for Hays. City of Austin demographer Lila Valencia said Austin’s changing job landscape may be driving the trend – tech companies that fueled the job market since the early Aughts announced layoffs over the past couple of years, although we don’t know yet how many Austin tech jobs were affected.
Austin Market Cools Enough To Capture National Attention: The Wall Street Journal this week turned an eye to Austin’s cooling housing market. WSJ described Austin as the “Sunbelt city that came to symbolize the pandemic housing boom,” pointing out that home prices and rents have fallen “more than anywhere else in the country, after a period of overbuilding and a slowdown in job and population growth.”
Nobody’s Market: Texas Standard took a look at the cooling housing market this week, too. Despite lower prices, high interest rates are hurting buyers with high monthly payments. So while Austin used to be a seller’s market, now Texas Standard describes the city as “no one’s market.” KUT’s Audrey McGlinchy told Texas Standard, “It’s kind of this impasse, if you will, that we’re at. … I think people are getting used to these higher mortgage interest rates. They’re recognizing that this may be the new reality.”
Quote of the Week
“The rats are eating our marijuana. They’re all high.”
– New Orleans Police Chief Anne Kirkpatrick on how rats are getting into the evidence room and eating confiscated drugs at NOPD headquarters
This article appears in March 22 • 2024.