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(Capital Metro)
CapMetro and the Austin City Council approved a scaled-down version of Project Connect on Monday, reducing the funding ask to voters by nearly one-third.
City staff will now bring forward an official tax rate proposal for the council to vote on by Aug. 7. The proposal will include an 8.75-cent property tax increase.
The city and CapMetro also approved creating a shared governing board for the project, with officials from both entities overseeing the massive transit upgrade.
"This is an exciting day to be taking a step forward," Mayor Steve Adler said. "This is both a scary time filled with uncertainties, and a time of hope as we are on the verge of real transformative change … We need to move forward to be the Austin of our aspirations, and our dreams."
The influence of the pandemic
The reduced ask came as a sharp turnaround for Project Connect—the city gave the nod to the full $10 billion plan as recently as late June. The plan approved today will be just over $7 billion, with 45% coming from the federal government and most of the rest from the planned November vote.
However, the property tax increase approved by CapMetro and the council was actually slightly higher than the reduced proposal—an 8.5-cent property tax increase—brought forward last week. The 0.25-cent increase will allow Project Connect to triple the amount of funding to help with housing displacement to $300 million.
For and against
Of the 84 people who signed up to comment on Project Connect, 68 registered in favor of the plan, with five registering against it.
The speakers who opposed the proposal called parts of Project Connect, such as the construction of an underground rail tunnel through downtown, "sketchy," poorly planned and a "fairy tale" that could easily go over budget.
"We're in the middle of a pandemic, and we don't have funds to do this sort of thing," said Caroline Reynolds, who lives near downtown and said she is drawing on her experience as an engineer.
Other residents called on the council and CapMetro to delay putting the issue on the ballot to 2022 and impressed upon the officials the possibility of the it failing during a year with such major financial crises going on.
Many spoke in support of the project, advocating for the need to work on improving public transit in the city sooner rather than later.
"I urge you all to go big on this project and support it moving forward," said Bay Scoggin, the director at Texas Public Interest Research Group.
Danielle Skidmore, a civil engineer and former candidate for City Council District 9, in Central Austin, also spoke in support of Project Connect.
"We will look back at 2020, and recognize it is the right time to begin this investment," Skidmore said. "Project Connect will define Austin in the 21st century."
Two more votes are required before the proposal can be put on the November ballot, the second of which will happen during the Aug. 12-14 City Council budget meetings.
This article was updated after the vote.
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(screenshots)
David Frost, 22, filmed Austin protester Justin Howell (left) being carried to medics after being shot in the head by an Austin police officer. Other officers then shot at the protesters as they approached, causing them to duck (right).
David Frost, 22, had never attended a protest before the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in May. Then the cell phone-wielding Austinite became a key player in a series of events that touched off major change in the Austin Police Department.
<p>When Austin police officers began using tear gas on screaming protestors to clear I-35 on May 30, Frost pulled out his phone and hit the record button.</p><p>"I wasn't originally going out there planning on filming," he said.</p><p>One video showed a group of protesters carrying Justin Howell's limp body to medics after an Austin police officer <a href="https://austonia.com/city/austin-protesters-injured-police" target="_self">shot the 20-year-old Texas State Student in the head</a> with a "less lethal" round. </p><p>His 45-second clip on social media now has more than 10 million views. Outrage over the video, and similar ones on social media, led to a ban on less lethal rounds and tear gas at Austin protests. </p><p>"The importance of documenting this stuff is, like, nobody knew Justin's name for 48 hours," Frost said. </p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="807a3ffdd002f7ef45b346698745ff34" id="3c5c4"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1267315908760010754"><div style="margin:1em 0">@arianalipkin https://t.co/ZGHtMpPj8B</div> — David Frost (@David Frost)<a href="https://twitter.com/DavidFr31601156/statuses/1267315908760010754">1590986632.0</a></blockquote></div><p>Amateur video footage has been critical to the Black Lives Matter movement since it gained national prominence in 2014 following the Ferguson unrest - and most recently in the death of George Floyd, which prompted protests around the world.<br/></p><p>Austin police have even recognized the amateur videographers as valuable, frequently calling on citizens to send in their footage to help - including in the cases of Howell and Brad Levi Ayala, 16, who suffered brain damage after being hit with a bean bag round that same weekend.</p><p>"I have been filming," Frost said. "And I have noticed a lot more people filming as well." </p><p>Local activists are using video footage not only to capture and post isolated incidents but also to record protests, rally support and investigate misconduct. </p><p>"I'm seeing new tactics as well as new platforms being deployed," said Professor Dhiraj Murthy, who researches social media activism at the University of Austin at Texas. </p><p>It fits into a broader trend of the public watching the police, he said, a practice known as "sousveillance." </p><p>"It's the idea that you can monitor how the police are treating people," he said. </p><p><strong>Crowdsourcing footage </strong></p><p>When Brendan Walsh, another newcomer to protests, saw video clips of the Austin protests in late May, he described it as "warfare on Austin citizens." </p><p>Walsh scoured the internet for clips showing Ayala being hit. His goal: To identify the officer who fired the weapon.</p><p>Reddit has a strict anti-doxxing policy, due to its users wrongly accusing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/magazine/should-reddit-be-blamed-for-the-spreading-of-a-smear.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&" target="_blank">an innocent 22-year-old of being one of the Boston bombers</a>. So Walsh created the Instagram account @justice4ayala, where he posted updates on his investigation.</p><p> Last week, <a href="https://www.texasmonthly.com/news/brad-levi-ayala-shooter-identified-austin-police/" target="_blank">APD confirmed to Texas Monthly</a> what Walsh had already discovered: The officer's name was Nicholas Gebhart.</p><p>"There's a reason people are interested in my work," Walsh said. "They feel that this officer might not be held accountable."</p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="436a5994c80f80e0d098092684e3ae15" id="57f28"><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-version="4" style=" background:#FFF; border:0;
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</div></blockquote></div><p><strong>Backlash</strong><br/></p><p>Murthy says the actions of these amateur investigators tend to incite those who believe they're vigilantes.</p><p>"There have been plenty of incidents where the people filming footage have had abuse online leveled at them and that has resulted in real threats against them," he said. </p><p>Walsh said some protesters have sent footage to him instead of APD because they fear officers will ask why they were searching through their social media accounts.</p><p>Hiram Gilberto Garcia, an independent journalist who interviewed Austin protester Garrett Foster on camera the night he was shot and killed by an Uber driver, has documented being arrested by APD and discouraged comments that "initiate disagreement or discord."</p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><iframe allow="encrypted-media" allowtransparency="true" frameborder="0" height="211" scrolling="no" src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FImHiram%2Fposts%2F160257025717637&width=500" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" width="500"></iframe></div><p>In spite of of that, however, Walsh hopes more people follow his lead, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/07/22/javier-ambler-michael-ramos-margaret-moore/" target="_blank">especially as official inquiries drag on</a>.<br/></p><p>"This only took me 25 to 30 hours by myself to get a significant amount of progress," he said. "And now it has pushed from something that was just kind of an online project to what I feel is real change."</p>
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Everything we do is designed, built and supported to make the user experience excellent and effortless from day one. After more than fifteen years of developing conference room systems, wireless meeting room presentation devices, video conferencing apps and the global cloud network that ties it all together, we don't settle for anything less than amazing.
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'We have only begun to fight': Save Austin Now seeks legal help in battle over no-camping petition
5h
(Kevin Ludlow)
The petition, if validated and approved by voters this November, would have reinstated a city ban on public camping.
The group behind a petition to put a citywide public-camping ban on the November ballot in Austin said Thursday that they were "engaging a highly respected local Democratic litigator" in their efforts to fight a city ruling earlier in the week that their petition did not enough valid signatures.
<p>Matt Mackowiak, a cofounder of <a href="http://saveaustinnow.org/" target="_blank">Save Austin Now</a>, <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homeless-camps" target="_self">the group behind the petition</a>, stopped short of saying the group was planning to file a legal contest—but he did put out a call for donations in a post on Facebook. </p><p>Mackowiak, who is also chairman of the Travis County Republican Party, said <a href="https://www.facebook.com/SaveAustinNow/posts/164372638497514" target="_blank">in a Facebook post</a> that the group has called "a highly respected local Democratic litigator to review the facts, help us determine what additional information is needed, and consider our legal options." </p><p>"Put simply: This is expensive and we need your support right now," he wrote. "We have only begun to fight."</p><p><span></span>Austin City Clerk Jannette Goodall's <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-texas-homeless-petition" target="_self">ruling yesterday</a> was the first time since 2002 that the city invalidated a petition because of lack of signatures, she told Austonia on Thursday.<br/></p><p>The struggle has intensified <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-homeless-problem-camp" target="_blank">as residents report growing camps near neighborhoods</a> while a consultant hired by the city is advising that moving the encampments won't solve the city's homelessness issue.</p><p>Goodall used a random sampling method that the city adopted in 2002 in her review, according to a city spokesperson. State law allows cities to use any reasonable sampling method in determining whether citizen-led petitions contain the required number of signatures.</p><p>While Mackowiak was not specific about plans to file, local attorney and activist Fred Lewis—who has spearheaded other citizen-initiated petitions, including one last year that opposed an expansion of the Austin Convention Center— said he would expect the group to file very soon, likely with the state district court.</p><p>This is because the last day for the city to order a referendum in the November election is Aug. 17, according to the state election schedule. </p><p>"You're talking two or three weeks this has got to be decided - at most," Lewis said. "The court may not be able to decide it in that time." </p><p>Save Austin Now filed the petition on July 20, with 24,598 signatures—well over the 20,000 required to put their initiative on the ballot. If validated, it would have allowed voters to decide whether to roll back a year-old city ordinance allowing camping, panhandling, sitting and lying in public spaces. </p><p>But in her review, Goodall discovered several issues: some signers asked to be removed; there were duplicate names; and a second version of the petition was detected, which invalidated others. </p><p>Ultimately, the clerk estimated that there are 19,122 valid signatures on the petition.</p><p>"The probability that checking all 24,201 submitted signatures would find a total of at least 20,000 valid signatures is less than 3 in one billion," Goodall wrote in her ruling. </p><p>Some welcomed the news.</p><p>Chris Harris, director of criminal justice programs at <a href="https://www.texasappleseed.org/" target="_blank">Texas Appleseed</a> and who was involved in a local effort to decriminalize homelessness, called the clerk's ruling "phenomenal" in a tweet on Wednesday. </p><p>"Republican efforts to re-criminalize homelessness & use homelessness as a wedge to turn out conservative voters in November has failed," he wrote.</p><p>Save Austin Now co-founder Cleo Petricek is a self-proclaimed local Democrat. </p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c4f919f489f18a61a73cb2732faf74c5" id="dec2d"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1291114147581747201"><div style="margin:1em 0">PHENOMENAL news #ATX!!!
Republican efforts to re-criminalize homelessness & use homelessness as a wedge to turn ou… https://t.co/Nouy3uT91r</div> — Chris Harris (@Chris Harris)<a href="https://twitter.com/chrisharris101/statuses/1291114147581747201">1596660575.0</a></blockquote></div>
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(Facebook)
Austin physicians and staff lined the halls of Ascension Seton Medical Center to celebrate the recovery and release of a COVID-19 patient in a "Code Sunshine" video posted this week on the hospital's Facebook page, bringing light to a tough time when hospitals are overrun with COVID-19 cases.
<p>The patient was released last month from the Austin hospital after a battle with the illness, though no other details were released for privacy reasons. </p><p><a href="https://www.kwtx.com/content/news/Local-hospital-celebrates-discharge-of-first-COVID-19-patient-to-recover-569527181.html" target="_blank">"Code Sunshine"</a> and the attendant celebratory videos have become ubiquitous in the national social media conversation about the pandemic, providing success stories among a rising death toll both in Texas and nationwide. </p>
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(The 19th*)
CEO of The 19th* Emily Ramshaw (left) will be interviewed by the Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle (right) next week.
The Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle is taking her turn at being the interviewer, putting Austinite Emily Ramshaw—a longtime local journalism trailblazer and co-founder and CEO of The 19th* news organization—in the hot seat at the organization's virtual summit event next week.
<p>"She asked if she could interview me on 'storytelling that lifts up those who are too often underrepresented in the media,' and 'what it means to build a media outlet with gender equity, diversity and community at its core,'" Ramshaw wrote on Twitter on Thursday.</p><p><br/></p>
<div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="316fd074948110ce8e4d6b9da4ed2554" id="d0a31"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-partner="rebelmouse" data-twitter-tweet-id="1291373727331082240"><div style="margin:1em 0">She asked if she could interview me on “storytelling that lifts up those who are too often underrepresented in the… https://t.co/GaDLEw8DyR</div> — Emily Ramshaw (@Emily Ramshaw)<a href="https://twitter.com/eramshaw/statuses/1291373727331082240">1596722463.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br/></p><p><span></span>The interview closes out the 19th* Represents 2020, a week filled with events commemorating the suffrage centennial, on Friday, August 14. The summit includes conversations with prominent women in politics, civic engagement, journalism and the arts. The <a href="https://summit.19thnews.org/speakers" target="_blank">lineup of speakers</a> includes Kamala Harris, Melinda Gates, Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams and Meryl Streep, to name a few.</p><p>The 19th*, a new nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom focused on <a href="https://19thnews.org/2020/08/americas-first-female-recession/" target="_blank">gender and politics</a>, launched its <a href="https://19thnews.org/" target="_blank">news site</a> this week. The organization is named after the 19th amendment, in which women were given the right to vote—but the asterisk stands for the "unfinished business" of the amendment, as voter suppression is still happening today. </p><p>Ramshaw is also former editor-in-chief at the <a href="http://texastribune.org" target="_blank">Texas Tribune</a>, another groundbreaking nonprofit journalism organization based in Austin.</p><p>In an interview with <a href="https://www.glamour.com/story/meghan-markle-the-19th-represents-summit-interview-emily-ramshaw" target="_blank">Glamour Magazine</a>, Ramshaw described what it was like to keep Markle's booking a secret over her young daughter's desperate desire to spread the news: </p><p><em>"Just as Ramshaw was gearing up for the site's debut, she and her husband made the decision to send their daughter back to daycare "because we couldn't get across the finish line with her at home," Ramshaw says. "So she walks straight in, bursts into the room, and declares, 'My mommy is going to talk to a princess!' Thank god no one believed her."</em></p>
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(Magnolia Network/Instagram)
HGTV stars Chip and Joanna Gaines are bringing back "Fixer Upper" but on their new network soon to launch.
"Fixer Upper" stars Chip and Joanna Gaines are casting Season Six of their beloved Waco-based home-improvement show, slated to return to your screens on their new cable channel, Magnolia Network, early next year.
<p>News of the popular show's return to the screen comes after a two-year hiatus, with Season Five ending in April 2018. <a href="https://magnolia.com/network" target="_blank">Magnolia Network</a> will be replacing Discovery's DIY Network and is set to launch early 2021.</p><p>Want to know if your home qualifies for a Fixer Upper treatment? For starters, you need to own your home (or be in the closing stages of it) within 30 miles of Waco and have a $50k renovation budget. </p><p>Learn more about the casting <a href="https://magnolia.com/network#" target="_blank">here.</a><br/></p><p>The network will also debut a new show, "Self Employed," starring Fort Worth, Texas-based entrepreneur Jonathan Morris.</p><p>"Self Employed" will be one of 10 shows to premiere on the network. In the show, Morris will travel across the U.S. and share the stories of small-business owners. The first season will likely focus on Texas towns within driving distance of Fort Worth, <a href="https://deadline.com/2020/08/fixer-upper-reboot-chip-joanna-gaines-revival-launch-magnolia-network-2021-series-ordered-brian-patrick-flynn-jonathan-morris-1203003219/?fbclid=IwAR0Q3shZiut1VjrT0BzvyTM7XRVQxPElpUhPSN1DaqyAiQRMW5Tv6e8DwPU" target="_blank">Deadline reports</a>.</p><p>"All I want to do is champion the people, places and ideas that push culture forward," Morris said in a recent Instagram post.</p><div class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="08c47ecf486e28dcf3fdaca61381d32b" id="3eb29"><blockquote class="instagram-media" data-instgrm-captioned="" data-instgrm-version="4" style=" background:#FFF; border:0;
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Austin Mayor Adler talks COVID, inequity, homelessness and policing in 'State of the City' address
05 August
(City of Austin)
Austin Mayor Steve Adler delivered his annual "State of the City" address Wednesday—virtually.
This story has been updated to include quotes from the mayor's speech.
Austin Mayor Steve Adler delivered his annual "State of the City" address Wednesday evening, in which he discussed the coronavirus pandemic, police funding, the local economy, homelessness, transit and equity issues.
<p>Usually delivered to a crowd at City Hall, tonight's address was—as are all things Council these days—virtual.</p><p>"This could have been a speech only about COVID-19," Adler said. Instead, much of his 25-page address focused on the opportunities presented in this moment. </p><p>"Perhaps only at times such as these, where our routines and inertia are so utterly disrupted, can we be freed and forced to dream and act big," he said. "So let's do big things. Let's end homelessness. Let's bring real mobility to Austin. Let's reimagine how we keep one another safe. Let's address race and do something about correcting centuries of injustice because it is the fundamental injustice that fuels so many others." </p><p>Below are some quotes, excerpted from a transcript shared in advance. </p><p><strong>On the coronavirus</strong> </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"We all want the local economy—and our lives—back as we knew them. But the governor's decision to reopen before we had sufficient testing and tracing in place and before our numbers were low enough compounded the challenge. … Truth is, the virus was never gone. <a href="https://austonia.com/testing-asymptomatic-austin" target="_blank">It just hides</a>, waiting for us to invite it back into our lives." </p><p><strong>On the economy</strong></p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"Unemployment is at unimaginable levels. Businesses have shuttered - some temporarily and some lost forever. Many of our neighbors don't know how they're going to feed their families or whether they'll be evicted from their homes. Tenants struggle with rent; homeowners and landlords struggle with mortgage payments. Our hospitality and creative workers and industries, so great a part of our economy, are reeling. For many, it's already too late." </p><p><strong>On homelessness</strong> </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"To the people <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-texas-homeless-petition" target="_blank">that signed on to the petition</a> because they were desperate for a solution for people experiencing homelessness, I want to say that I share your impatience. Having chosen this more just path, though, and having rejected the false promise of cosmetic fixes, our work is incomplete unless we follow through with the commitment to house the homeless. This will require us to do a better job of inclusively managing shared public spaces." </p><p><strong>On transit</strong> </p><p style="margin-left: 40px;">"Project Connect is <a href="https://austonia.com/transportation/project-connect-austin" target="_blank">a bold transit plan</a> for the just and accessible city we aspire to be. It certainly addresses traffic, but it will do so much more. … Project Connect will connect our entire city, creating new opportunity for Austinites, reducing our dependence on expensive personal vehicles, and save lives." </p><p><strong>On police funding</strong> </p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"I want to address police department leadership. … We need not only an openness to consider change but a keen desire to move past the status quo and to look at public safety more broadly than [ever,] mainly focusing on ensuring we're best equipped to deal with unsafe moments when they occur. We need more than just a willingness to accept change <a href="https://austonia.com/austin-city-council-police-policy" target="_blank">if it happens</a>; we need a champion for change at its best."</p><p><span></span>Want to read the whole speech? Here's the transcript. </p><p class="pdf-loader"><a class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bdab21c224a6f214f9ee5a4066743481" href="https://roar-assets-auto.rbl.ms/documents/6988/SOTC 2020 FINAL.pdf">SOTC 2020 FINAL.pdf</a></p><p>Make it a game! Adler invited residents to use this bingo card to mark off every topic mentioned in the speech. Can you get to bingo? Share it on social media with #ATXSOTC.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="6b0e4c3e305d794e5a8d90586202a727" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="99d54" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUzNzU2OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1Njg4NTY1NH0.wzAmDm1N9F0NflybdxcR9O5shzZ_8EsH-H8Dhs40ywM/img.png?width=980"/>
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">(City of Austin)</small></p>
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