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Abbott attacks Austin's police budget cuts, camping policy—again

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's public safety priorities for the current legislative session include making it "fiscally impossible" for municipalities to defund their police departments and a statewide plan to address homelessness that will include a ban on public camping. Both are clear rebukes to recent policy changes enacted by local elected officials.
"We cannot and will not allow Austin to defund the police," Abbott said during a press conference on Thursday. "Texas must set the example for the United States of America, not only to support law enforcement but to fully fund law enforcement agencies."
Austin City Council voted last August to cut the Austin Police Department budget by around 5% in the wake of mass protests against police brutality and racial injustice. Council members also approved putting around 30% of the budget into transition funds while they decide which traditional police duties could be moved out of the department's control.
Abbott did not elaborate on what such legislation might look like during a press conference on Thursday. But a few bills have already been proposed that might provide insight.
State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, filed a bill that would prohibit municipalities from passing annual budgets that reduce funding for public safety agencies. And State. Rep. Steve Allison, R-San Antonio, filed a bill that would require a referendum in cases where municipalities passed budgets with more than a 5% cut to public safety spending.
The Texas Legislative Council, a nonpartisan agency that helps lawmakers draft legislative, has also drawn up a proposal that, if filed and approved by state lawmakers, would put APD under state control—while remaining fully funded by the city of Austin. Abbott signaled his support for the draft on Twitter, writing that it had arrived "just in time for Christmas."
The main impact of the APD budget cuts was the cancellation of three planned cadet classes. APD's training academy has come under fire in recent years following allegations of racism, hazing and a paramilitary culture. Multiple reports commissioned by the City Council have recommended that it be put on hold until these issues can be resolved.
The most recent one—a community review of APD's training videos that was published on Monday—found "dangerous racial and class sterotypes;" limited representation of women, trans and non-binary people; a warrior mentality that pitts police officers against the community members they serve; and "constant refinforcement … that every encounter is potentially life-threatening," which could encourage excessive use of force.
Abbott said he "fully support(s) training reform" but is staunchly opposed to cuts.
Austin City Council Member Greg Casar, who spearheaded the recent push to cut APD's budget, said the governor was standing in the way of accountability.
"In the wake of unjustifiable shootings and violence by police, our community has pushed the city to make much needed change," he said in a statement. "Now, Gov. Abbott is supporting proposals to protect departments that do the wrong."
In addition to police funding, Abbott also announced a forthcoming statewide plan to address homelessness, which he said would include a ban on public camping.
Austin City Council voted in 2019 to overturn a camping ban, which prompted intense pushback from concerned residents, business owners and state officials, including the governor. Two council members faced conservative challengers in runoff elections last month who ran on reinstating the camping ban. Incumbent Jimmy Flannigan lost his race to Republican Mackenzie Kelly; Alison Alter narrowly defeated her opponent Jennifer Virden.
Earlier this week, Save Austin Now, a local campaign led by Travis County GOP Chairman Matt Mackowiak, submitted thousands of signatures in support of a petition that, if validated, will allow Austin voters to decide whether to reinstate the campaign ban. It is the group's second attempt to do so after an earlier batch of signatures was ruled invalid before the November election.
Abbott called Austin "the front door for the state of Texas" and said such a ban is important for the city's appeal to visitors. "When they come into this community, they need to know that they're going to be safe."
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(Pexels)
If you are a committed, grunge-wearing resident of the Pacific Northwest, it is easy–almost automatic–to look at Texas as an extraordinarily dry, hot and culturally oppressive place that is better to avoid, especially in the summer. Our two granddaughters live with their parents in Portland.
Recently we decided to take the older girl, who is 15, to Dallas. Setting aside the summer heat, a Portlander can adjust to the vibes of Austin without effort. So let’s take Texas with all of its excesses straight up. Dallas, here we come.
Our 15-year-old granddaughter and her sister, 12, have spent summer weeks with us, usually separately so that we could better get to know each individually. In visits focused on Austin and Port Aransas, the girls seemed to be developing an affection for Texas.
Houston and Dallas are two great American cities, the 4th and 9th largest, each loaded with cultural treasures, each standing in glittering and starchy contrast to Austin’s more louche, T-shirts and shorts ways.
Three hours up I-35, Dallas loomed before us as a set of gray skyscrapers in a filmy haze, accessed only through a concrete mixmaster of freeways, ramps and exits. I drove with false confidence. Be calm, I said to myself, it will all end in 10 minutes under the hotel entrance canopy. And it did.
The pool at the Crescent Court Hotel in Dallas. (Crescent Court Hotel)
We stayed three nights at the Crescent Court Hotel ($622 a night for two queens), a high-end hotel in Uptown, patronized by women in white blazers, business people in suits, and tall, lean professional athletes, their shiny Escalades and Corvettes darting in and out, and other celebrities like Bill Barr, the former attorney general who shoe-horned his ample self into a Toyota.
Each morning as I walked to Whole Foods for a cappuccino, a fellow identified by a bellman as Billy the Oilman arrived in his Rolls Royce Phantom. Where does he park? “Wherever he wants to. He likes the Starbucks here.”
We garaged our more modest set of wheels for the visit. We were chauffeured for tips by Matt Cooney and Alfonza “The Rev” Scott in the hotel’s black Audi sedan. They drove us to museums, restaurants and past the enclaves of the rich and famous. In Highland Park, The Rev pointed out the homes of the Dallas Cowboys' Jerry Jones and Troy Aikman along with the family compound of the Hunts, oil and gas tycoons.
The Dallas Museum of Art’s “Cartier and Islam” exhibit (until Sept. 18) attracted an older crowd; the nearby Perot Museum of Nature and Science was a powerful whirlpool of kids’ groups ricocheting from the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the oil fracking exhibit. Watch your shins.
A Geogia O'Keeffe oil painting called "Ranchos Church, New Mexico" at the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art. (Rich Oppel)
For us, the best museum was the Amon Carter Museum of Modern Art in Fort Worth, a 50-minute, madcap drive away via a 75 mph toll lane along I-30. Don’t try it during rush hour. The Carter has an exquisite collection of Remington paintings and sculptures and an excellent array of 19th and 20th-century paintings as well. Pick one museum? The Amon Carter. Peaceful, beautiful, uncrowded, free admission and small enough to manage in two hours.
The Fort Worth Stockyards, a place of history (with a dab of schmaltz), fun and good shopping, filled one of our mornings. The 98 acres brand the city as Cowboy Town, with a rodeo and a twice-daily (11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.) cattle drive. We shopped for boots, drank coffee and watched the “herd” of 18 longhorns. So languid was their progress that if this were a real market drive the beef would have been very tough and leathery before it hit the steakhouse dinner plate.
The cattle drive at the Fort Worth Stockyards. (Rich Oppel)
But we could identify: the temperature was 97. “I saw a dog chasing a cat today,” said the emcee, deploying a very old joke. “It was so hot that both were walking.”
With limited time, we chose three very different restaurants:
- Nobu, in the Crescent Court Hotel; Jia, a modern Chinese restaurant in Highland Park; and Joe T. Garcia’s in Fort Worth. Nobu’s exotic Japanese menu set us back $480, with tip, for four (we had a guest), but it was worth it.
- Jia was an ordinary suburban strip mall restaurant, but with good food and a reasonable tab of $110 for four.
- Joe T.’s is an 85-year-old Fort Worth institution (think Matt’s El Rancho but larger), a fine Mexican restaurant where a meal with two drinks was $115.
Sushi at high-end restaurant Nobu. (Crescent Hotel)
It was all a splurge for a grandchild’s visit. Now we will get back to our ordinary road trips of Hampton Inns, where a room rate is closer to the Crescent Court’s overnight parking rate of $52. And to corner cafes in small towns.
Did Dallas change our 15-year-old’s view of Texas? “Yes. I think it’s a lot cooler than I did. The fashion, the food.” So, not only Austin is cool. Take Texas as a whole. It’s a big, complex, diverse and wonderful state.
(Tesla)
Giga Texas, the massive Tesla factory in southeast Travis County is getting even bigger.
The company filed with the city of Austin this week to expand its headquarters with a new 500,000-square-foot building. The permit application notes “GA 2 and 3 expansion,” which indicates the company will make two general assembly lines in the building.
More details about the plans for the building are unclear. The gigafactory has been focused on Model Y production since it opened in April, but the company is also aiming for Cybertruck production to kick off in mid-2023.
While there is room for expansion on the 3.3 square miles of land Tesla has, this move comes after CEO Elon Musk’s recent comments about the state of the economy and its impact on Tesla.
In a May interview with Tesla Owners Silicon Valley, Musk said the gigafactories in Berlin and Austin are “gigantic money furnaces” and said Giga Texas had manufactured only a small number of cars.
And in June, Musk sent a company wide email saying Tesla will be reducing salaried headcount by 10%, then later tweeted salaried headcount should be fairly flat.
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