Watson Wins (Officially): Carmen Llanes Pulido has formally ended her mayoral campaign, which cemented Mayor Kirk Watson as the outright winner of the Nov. 5 election. He will now serve a four-year term beginning in January. Last week, Llanes Pulido requested that the city of Austin conduct a recount of ballots cast in the 11 voting precincts located in the Williamson County portion of Austin. The city rejected the request, according to Watson’s campaign, because a “partial recount” is not allowed under state law. Llanes Pulido did not amend the request, ending her recount bid and campaign.
San Marcos Considers Four-Day School Week: San Marcos residents want a four-day school week for the community’s K-12 students, and the school district may oblige. The San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District sent out a survey last week asking the public whether they liked the idea. Almost 85% of respondents, including 87% of kids, said they did. School districts across Texas are considering four-day weeks to help recruit teachers and boost attendance.
MoPac Toll Lanes: You have complete confidence that the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority – one of our region’s toll road czars – values your opinions and will listen to your input. So you may feel moved to provide feedback (deadline: Dec. 29) on their latest plan to build two toll lanes in each direction on MoPac in South Austin, from Cesar Chavez to Slaughter Lane. The project is the latest iteration of CTRMA’s MoPac South, which environmentalists have fought for years as it would require building over the Edwards Aquifer.
Death Threats Against DA: District Attorney José Garza, who will soon begin his second term, said death threats have escalated in the last year, since his office secured a murder conviction against Daniel Perry, found guilty of killing Black Lives Matter demonstrator Garrett Foster in 2020 and pardoned by Greg Abbott a year later. Garza released a photo of one of the threats, which reads, “Resign by end of June, or we will kill you. Executing a communist piece of shit such as yourself is always a pleasure.”
Another Texas Death Blamed on Anti-Abortion Laws: ProPublica has identified another Texas woman who has died following the state’s abortion ban. Reporters Lizzie Presser and Kavitha Surana tell the story of Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother of two who experienced prolonged bleeding after a miscarriage in 2023. Ngumezi took a drug called misoprostol at the behest of an emergency room physician rather than a procedure known as dilation and curettage (D&C). A medical examiner said Ngumezi bled to death.
UT for Free: UT will offer free tuition and waive fees for students whose families make less than $100,000 a year. Last week, UT’s Board of Regents approved the initiative, which will go into effect next fall. Needless to say, the plan is enraging some Texas Republicans. Rep. Brian Harrison complained that the vote would “make Texas more socialist than California.”
Preserving Austin Heritage: The city of Austin is replacing its 40-year-old historic preservation plan in an effort to better protect its cultural heritage and beloved businesses. The plan, adopted last Thursday, will also use preservation tools to prevent displacement and promote energy efficiency, city officials said. “We can’t freeze Austin in time, but we can preserve and capture the ethos of what makes our city so special,” City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said of the plan’s adoption.
Bible Stories in TX Schools: Texas kids can now skip Sunday school and get all their Bible stories at their regular public school classrooms. Last week, the State Board of Education approved a new elementary school curriculum that incorporates numerous Biblical references, from stories about King Solomon to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (assuming it doesn’t get tagged as a Marxist manifesto). The vote to approve the curriculum was 8-7, with several Republicans joining Dems on the losing side. Critics say the new curriculum offers little coverage of other major religions.
Statesman Union Scores Contract: After a bitter three-year fight that included two strikes and a trip to arbitration, journalists at the Austin American-Statesman have finally secured a labor contract with parent company Gannett. According to the Austin NewsGuild, the union that represents the daily’s staff, the two-year contract includes guaranteed annual raises for all staffers, a 20% pay increase for the paper’s lowest-paid employees, and rules limiting Gannett’s ability to use artificial intelligence to supplant the work of journalists living and working in Austin.
Price of I-35 Plan Soars: Why does the price go up every time there’s another story about the I-35 expansion? Last Thursday, KUT reported that the cost to bury the highway on its course through Downtown and cover it with parks and public spaces – a plan known as cap and stitch – had soared by 61% since its last estimate, from $868 million to $1.4 billion. As a result, City Council members are being provided with plans that scale back the project, mainly by diminishing the size of the caps. The city must vote on the extent of the project by Dec. 12.
Controlling Abortion Drugs: Republicans in the Texas House are proposing to reclassify abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone, used to treat a wide range of gynecological conditions, as controlled substances. If approved, House Bill 1339 would make it harder for people to order mifepristone and misoprostol online. The bill is similar to one passed in Louisiana which, advocates say, has had little effect on the numbers of women seeking abortions but has created confusion and fear among doctors.
A Conspiracy Against the Conspiracy Theorist: Alex Jones is claiming, without evidence, that court documents prove the CIA is behind the sale of his conspiracy theory platform, Infowars, to The Onion. And guess what? – he “needs funds.” So Jones is suing the satirical faux-news site and the Sandy Hook families to try to stop them from turning Infowars into a parody of itself. He also wants the court to stop The Onion from using his likeness if the sale does go through.
Austin Skips Fall: Since when does Austin have “fall color”? According to KUT it typically does, but this year’s hot and dry autumn has caused a lot of trees to drop their leaves, with fewer turning shades of orange and red. Trees need rain and cold to reveal fall color, Texas A&M’s Karl Flocke told KUT, and there simply hasn’t been much of that this year.
Texas Facilitates Deportation Plans: Texas is offering Trump the use of a 1,400-acre ranch along the Rio Grande as a site to build detention centers for use in his plan to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, a plan which, if successful, would remove a large percentage of those working in Texas’ construction industry, among others. Tom Homan, Trump’s choice for border czar, told reporters the administration will “absolutely” use the land.
Paxton Avoids Testifying: We knew that Trump was above the law, but Paxton too? The Texas Supreme Court ruled last Friday that the state’s attorney general will not have to sit and answer questions in the wrongful termination lawsuit brought by four of his former senior aides, who were fired after telling the FBI that their boss was accepting bribes. It’s the latest victory for Paxton, who has avoided testifying about a series of allegations of corruption.
Quote of the Week
“There is no price tag.”
– Trump talking to NBC News about his mass deportation “plan”
This article appears in November 29 • 2024.