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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We've been hearing Americans talk about their lives and work during the pandemic. Dr. Victor Trevino of the Laredo Health Authority enacted the first mask mandate in the U.S. on April 2, 2020. But for best protection, he felt he also had to look across the Rio Grande.
VICTOR TREVINO: And Laredo has always had a rich history as a border city that has always been intertwined in culture, commerce and family with its sister city of Nuevo Laredo.
SIMON: About 10,000 people cross between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, every day to work, shop, to socialize. Dr. Trevino says, during the pandemic's first year, the American side was hit hard.
TREVINO: Being that we're a 95% Hispanic community, we're disproportionately impacted. And we were disproportionately impacted because of the fact that we're medically underserved, with not enough doctors or nurses or ICU space for a community our size.
SIMON: When the vaccines rolled out, there was hope that the strain on Laredo's medical facilities would ease. But it didn't because sick people from Nuevo Laredo were coming over for care.
TREVINO: Because of this, it is very important to strive to get everybody vaccinated in the whole region. So we coined the term regional immunity.
VICTOR D TREVINO JR: Dr. Trevino thought of a unique opportunity - that if we were able to vaccinate our sister city, that we would not only reduce the amount of people landing in the hospitals, but it would also save us an incredible amount of resources that we needed here locally.
SIMON: That's Dr. Trevino's son, Victor D. Trevino Jr., an attorney who helped launch a pandemic response with his father. That unique opportunity involved getting surplus vaccine doses from around the state of Texas for residents of Nuevo Laredo.
TREVINO JR: These vaccines were slated for disposal.
SIMON: The Trevinos got support from Texas and Mexican lawmakers, from other public health officials, doctors in Nuevo Laredo and from Customs and Border Patrol. The regional immunity effort started last June. Mexicans sign up, then on a designated day, they board buses that take them to the checkpoint on an international bridge between the two cities.
TREVINO JR: We go up on the buses with a square contraption that we've created. In Spanish, it's called a chicletera. It's what you sell candy and gum from. And you see them on the borders, little kids selling - these type things. But they work very well in a closed environment inside the buses. We end up vaccinating a bus. Our average time is about 7 1/2 minutes per bus. We vaccinate the 50 to 60 people on the bus. And they go back for more people.
SIMON: Victor Trevino Jr. says the program so far has vaccinated more than 250,000 people from Nuevo Laredo. And in Laredo, Texas, it's reduced the number of hospital visits from nonlocal residents by 50%. His father, Dr. Trevino, says this work has been important, and it's been gratifying.
TREVINO: Now I know why Doctors Without Borders do what they do - because they see the need. They see that humanitarian effort is more important than anything. And that's one of the reasons I became a doctor also, to do this. But now that now we're doing this in this fashion - and people say, when are you going to stop? And I say, I have no time frame to stop it. If the need is there, we'll continue going.
SIMON: This week, Dr. Victor Trevino announced that he's leaving the city's health authority. He's going to treat patients full time again. He's missed doing that. The vaccination program will continue bus by bus over the Rio Grande.
(SOUNDBITE OF HYPE RIGHT'S "280") [POST BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this report, we incorrectly refer to an agency as Customs and Border Patrol. The correct name is U.S. Customs and Border Protection.] Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-30/to-protect-their-texas-city-doctors-vaccinated-the-sister-city-across-the-border | 2022-05-12T15:34:58Z |
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Congress is busy considering a number of measures, including latest Ukraine aid package requested by President Biden of $33 billion - also, another COVID aid package. The New York grand jury investigation into former President Donald Trump's business practices has wrapped up with no news from those proceedings. NPR's senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks so much for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: And let's begin with that New York grand jury. Does not seem to be much of a chance of an indictment, does there?
ELVING: No. The prosecutors took three years lining up what looked like key witnesses, but it never got to the point of seeking an indictment from a grand jury, which, as you say, has now expired. Now, we know that there's a new district attorney took office in Manhattan over the winter, Alvin Bragg. And he seems to have different concerns and priorities which would lead him to devote the resources of his office to other matters. Leaders of the Trump investigation have resigned, and Bragg could impanel another grand jury, but he has not said he will. And meanwhile, there's still a civil case going forward regarding the Trump Organization's business practices in New York. And a judge in that case this week held Trump in contempt for withholding information. But for now, the criminal case seems on hold.
SIMON: Another grand jury is being formed right now in Georgia to consider charging Donald Trump for his attempts to pressure state officials to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential elections in that state. What do we know?
ELVING: This case is at the opposite end of the grand jury process. In a sense, it's just getting started. We know Trump and his attorneys tried in various ways to cast doubt on the 2020 election results. One especially gaudy gambit was in Georgia, where we have that famous audiotape of Trump urging Georgia's secretary of state to find another 12,000 votes for him so he could win that state. Now, the prosecuting attorney in Georgia has said that tape is part of the case, and having a grand jury will enable the prosecution to issue subpoenas. But we don't expect those to go out until after the Georgia primary elections next month.
SIMON: President Biden wants more aid for Ukraine. Any significant opposition to it in Congress?
ELVING: Ukraine aid is still broadly popular on the Hill, and this $33 billion should be no exception. There were 69 votes in the House against the Ukraine aid that was voted on last month. Most of those were Republicans. Some said they didn't like the way the aid was packaged with other things or the risks involved in escalating the conflict. Others said we needed to recalibrate our support for a country that's not even in NATO, and we needed to stop trying to be the world's policeman.
SIMON: Tell me about some talk about trying to tie this bill to another one for additional COVID spending. That has significantly more opposition, right?
ELVING: Yes. In fact, that's the real question mark for the Ukraine aid. Will it be yoked with the COVID spending, which has far less bipartisan support? In fact, some of the senior Senate Republicans have already forced this round of COVID aid to come down from a $22 billion request to 10 billion. And even that amount is in doubt if it comes to the floor by itself. That's why Speaker Pelosi would like to see Ukraine and COVID aid combined. But Republicans say we've already spent too much responding to COVID. There are billions in the pipeline yet to be spent, and fresh money could be further fuel for inflation. Still, without this aid, Scott, there will be people lacking vaccines and therapeutics, and the agencies that have been fighting this pandemic would be squeezed as well.
SIMON: We have half a minute left. What's going on with the economy?
ELVING: (Laughter) Ah, what a wild week in the world of economic forecasting and the world of the stock market. The major indices plunged on Wednesday, skyrocketed on Thursday, fell off the table entirely on Friday. And some of this may be the slowdown in the economy in the first quarter. It could be fear of inflation, higher interest rates or even a recession on the horizon. But analysts do seem to agree that the market's extreme volatility is a response to uncertainty. And weeks like this one can only add to that.
SIMON: NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving, thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-30/week-in-politics-trump-under-investigation-ukraine-and-covid-funds-up-in-the-air | 2022-05-12T15:35:04Z |
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In just about every major scandal involving this country's top political leaders in recent decades, one big question looms over it all. What did the top people know, and when did they know it? That question came back in a new and disturbing way this past week when prominent Republicans were forced to explain things they'd apparently said or wrote privately in the days after the January 6 mob attack on the Capitol which directly contradict their public statements.
In recordings released by The New York Times, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy claimed that President Trump accepted responsibility for the attack on the Capitol, contradicting previous public denials by both men. And in another tape, McCarthy expressed concern that far-right members of Congress would incite violence against other lawmakers. When House Republicans met on Wednesday, McCarthy attempted to explain himself, but he also tried to shift the focus to winning back the House in November, which is a top priority for him, as he hopes to become speaker.
Given that the stakes are so high, we thought it was important to listen back to exactly what was said and what was denied, and we want to ask what the implications of this could be for the country. For that, we called Steven Levitsky. He is a professor of government at Harvard University and the co-author of "How Democracies Die." Professor Levitsky, welcome back to the program. Thanks so much for joining us once again.
STEVEN LEVITSKY: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: Let's start with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy. In the days after the attack, he told House Republican leadership that he would ask the president to step down in the wake of another impeachment. And I'll just play that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEVIN MCCARTHY: And, yeah, I mean, the only discussion I would have with him is that I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation it should be done.
MARTIN: And of course, as we know, that this is the first time we had heard this statement about his views of the matter because in public, he'd been very publicly supportive of the former president. How do you understand this? I mean, what about this is most significant to you?
LEVITSKY: What's most significant to me is in a small-d democratic party, a political party that is committed to democracy, party leaders should be unambiguous in breaking with figures, groups, factions that either endorse violence or that seek to undermine democratic rules of the game. Anti-democratic elements should be shunned, should be expelled, denounced and shunned by mainstream political parties. That's what democratic parties do. When parties are not fully committed to democracy, they behave in exactly the way that Kevin McCarthy is behaving, trying to have it both ways, speaking out of both sides of their mouth, kind of denouncing when they need to but not really, not following up, ending up sort of condoning or tolerating or hiding under the table and remaining silent instead of expelling anti-democratic forces from their ranks.
MARTIN: The chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff, was an impeachment manager in the first impeachment trial. He wrote a book subsequently about that experience and, you know, and others. And he said very bluntly in the book and he said very bluntly in conversations after the book was published that Kevin McCarthy should never be speaker because he's a liar. And he offered certain examples of this, but clearly, he didn't have access to this particular sort of bit of information. How important is that that a public figure at this level is willing to - if these tapes are accurate - is willing to contradict - to absolutely contradict publicly what he says and apparently believed privately? How important is that?
LEVITSKY: Sure. I think it matters on two levels. First of all, any lying by public officials, by elected officials is problematic for the quality of democracy. If citizens cannot trust that their elected officials are telling the truth, that will undoubtedly undermine the public's confidence in the democratic process. But it also matters what they're lying about. I mean, it's - I'm not condoning this, but certainly the public expects that politicians occasionally fib about something about their past record or something they may have said or done 20 years ago. But here we're talking about an assault on the - our democratic republic, an assault on the Constitution. And Kevin McCarthy, potentially the speaker of the House of Representatives, a man who could potentially hold our democracy in his hands, in some respects, is lying about an assault on our democracy. There is - in terms of our constitutional system, there's little more important that he could have to speak on, and he's lying about it. So yeah, that's a devastating sign.
MARTIN: Let's talk about another figure whose communications were in the news this week. That's Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. She's a controversial Republican from Georgia. She's known for embracing bizarre conspiracy theories. Text messages she sent were unearthed by the House's January 6 committee that show that she suggested to a former White House chief of staff that the president invoked martial law to retain control of the White House. Given that, you know, she's not an especially kind of well-respected figure - I mean, she's been stripped of her committee assignments for, you know, previous sort of conduct, but she is a member of this body - how should we think about that?
LEVITSKY: We should think that - not that Marjorie Taylor Greene is a controversial member of Congress. Marjorie Taylor Greene is an authoritarian member of Congress. Republicans are electing authoritarian figures to higher office. It's true she's not a high-ranking Republican, but she is among the best fundraisers now among all Republican House members. She is a rock star among the Republican rank and file. And most importantly, she is a demonstrably authoritarian figure who has, at various points of time, flirted with if not embraced acts of violence or violent rhetoric and has not been expelled from the Republican Party ranks. One thing that we learned that's crystal clear from democratic breakdowns in Europe in the 1930s, from South America in the 1960s and '70s, is that when mainstream parties tolerate and accommodate anti-democratic extremists within their ranks rather than expelling them, condemning them, distancing themselves from them, democracies are in trouble.
MARTIN: You study comparative democracies. That's one of the reasons that we called you. And I'm wondering if you have a sense of where this kind of conduct lives when you see democratic institutions start to break down because I think that some of this seems kind of abstruse to people, as we know that many members of the public don't necessarily have a high opinion of elected leaders anyway. And I think some people might think that this conduct is normal.
LEVITSKY: Well, I think that the process by which the public comes to accept some of this behavior as normal is a gradual one. And to a large extent, it's the responsibility of the political elite. It's the responsibility of political party leaders - also the media - to call out this behavior and to tell the public - to tell the public, to inform the public that this is not acceptable behavior. And that, systematically, over the last - I would say it began in the 1990s but really picked up during the Tea Party period and, obviously, during the Trump presidency - we have been continually, to borrow Daniel Patrick Moynihan's phrase, defining deviancy down. We've continually been accepting sort of new lows and new extremes and new levels of violent rhetoric. And so it becomes normalized. It's accepted. It's said. It's done. People - maybe they shake their hands a little bit, but it - but politicians are not punished for this behavior. In fact, they are rewarded. Marjorie Taylor Greene will turn around and get a huge fundraising haul out of it.
MARTIN: So what should the next steps be? I mean, the fact is, if that is the case, then this isn't just a leadership problem. This is also a - I don't know what I'd say - a citizenship problem. So what should the next steps be? I mean, first, what should the next step be for the January 6 committee and after that?
LEVITSKY: I think it's very important that we build and sustain a broad, multiparty, small (inaudible) democratic coalition, coalition in defense of democracy. And what the January 6 commission has to do, first of all, is make public just how dangerous, how unconstitutional, how illegal, how anti-democratic the behavior of the president of the United States, his circle and much of the Republican Party was and get very public. But the process needs to be not a - needs not to be a progressive process or a largely Democratic Party process or a blue state process. It has to be backed by a very broad swath of society. It needs to have - there needs to be business leaders, religious leaders, conservatives and as many Republicans as possible.
I'm talking about the old Bush network, the Bush-Cheney network, which has basically hid under the table since Donald Trump became the Republican Party candidate - the time for them to crawl out from under the table and embrace this report. And then we need to think in future elections of building broad coalitions to ensure that the MAGA-led Republican Party is defeated politically because that's the only way we're going to stop them. We can't - we're not going to ban them. We're not going to fight them physically. They need - an authoritarian force in - within a democracy needs to be defeated electorally and politically. And that's going to require building a very broad coalition that extends, frankly, from AOC to Liz Cheney.
MARTIN: That was Steven Levitsky. He's a political scientist and the co-author of the book "How Democracies Die." Steven Levitsky, thank you so much for talking with us.
LEVITSKY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-30/what-the-leaked-jan-6-recordings-say-about-democracy-right-now | 2022-05-12T15:35:10Z |
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The school year is winding down, but parental anxiety isn't. That's because after a tough two years dealing with all the fallout of the COVID pandemic, we're also learning just how much children and youth are struggling with mental health issues, even as the pandemic-related restrictions ease. In their 2022 trend report, the American Psychological Association called the situation a crisis. But our next guest says that this crisis isn't new, that in fact, children and youth have been struggling for years now, and that the toxic politics tying the issue to the COVID pandemic isn't helping. Judith Warner, a journalist and author who's written extensively about mental health issues, wrote about all this recently for The Washington Post Magazine in a piece titled "The Children's Mental Health Crisis Didn't Start With the Pandemic." And she's with us now to tell us more. Judith Warner, thanks so much for joining us.
JUDITH WARNER: Oh, thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So when did it start? If it didn't start with the pandemic, is there a timeframe that you could point to, to suggest when, you know, this really became a concern?
WARNER: I'm sure there was no point in time when kids didn't have mental health issues. I mean, it just wouldn't make sense because adults have them. And most mental health issues begin by early adolescence. But certainly there's been an acceleration over the past ten years. I think that there isn't any debate about that, especially when it comes to depression and anxiety.
MARTIN: Well, you know, there is one disturbing statistic that 1 in 6 high school students revealed they had created a suicide plan in the previous year. This is according to a 2019 CDC report. And that's a 44% increase since 2009. So in that timeframe that you're telling us about, why might that be?
WARNER: You know, there are so many theories about it. And the most popular theory is always that it has to do with the advent of smartphones. And, you know, there's no doubt that life online has had an impact. Social media has had some kind of impact. But none of the experts I've spoken with have ever been willing to just simplify it down to one thing. I don't think it's ever just one thing. And at this point, you know, I think there's always the issue of reporting that with each successive generation of parents. We have parents who are increasingly aware of mental health issues, grew up with people talking about them, you know, bring less stigma to it than in generations before. I really see that with younger parents now compared to my own cohort, let's say. So that's of course part of it. But this has also been a really stressful time in our country, you know, for quite a while now. And so I think that you can't separate out what's happening with kids from what's been happening with all of us.
MARTIN: So I guess with - when you look at all of that, do you sense any consensus among adults that this really is a crisis? I know that mental health practitioners are saying that it is. A lot of parents are saying that it is. A lot of school officials are saying that it is. Do you see any broader public consensus that this is a crisis that needs to be focused on?
WARNER: Yes, I think that there is a broader social consensus now that this is a crisis that needs to be focused on. And one thing that is, I don't know, frustrating, ironic about that is that for such a long time, the opposite narrative was the consensus. That kids were being overdiagnosed, you know, that kids were being over pathologized and that, you know, we were doing harm to our kids in the process. And it's - I guess there's still some of that rhetoric in all of the special snowflake talk, you know? Oh, this generation is so sensitive that they react to everything. I've always, you know, hated that. And especially now, I think it's something that people really ought to call into question, because it's clear that, you know, this younger generation is suffering and they have good reasons to be suffering. And, you know, we can't minimize what they've - what they're going through. It's been a really ugly and difficult time.
MARTIN: But is there then any sort of larger social consensus about what we should do about it? Do you see any consensus around a direction that this country could take to address these matters?
WARNER: I think that when you look at what the experts say - the expert organizations - the American Psychological Association, et cetera - there is a consensus among experts about what has to happen. And it turns around access and affordability and also diversifying the mental health workforce, the school counseling workforce. I mean, you see this over and over again. I also think there is a consensus in that expert community around the fact that something has to happen really fast and that you need to bring help to kids where they are. So you need to increase work that can be done in schools around giving them the tools basically to remain mentally healthier, you know, to deal with really high levels of distress. And the problem is, I am not in any way convinced that any of that is going to happen. I mean, you know, one of the things that parents who are, you know, yelling at school board meetings are now yelling about is social emotional learning, which somehow has been turned into a vector for so-called critical race theory, none of which makes any sense. But if they're already pushing back on social emotional learning, then what's going to happen, you know, when you step it up a bit and say, well, you have to actually do some psychological skill building?
MARTIN: This sounds actually very discouraging. It sounds like a really discouraging picture. So can we leave people with some thoughts about what they can do if they are concerned about this, particularly for parents?
WARNER: Well, yeah. And I also think it's funny - (laughter) because I'm such a negative person - but I don't think it's all that discouraging in that, solutions do exist. Solutions that work, that aren't terribly expensive and that can be put into place really quickly and easily. Meaning, you know, these school-based interventions, these trainings, and I think that, you know, for parents to be aware of that, it would be a very important and potentially powerful thing. You know, if they're demanding it, if they're demanding that there's funding for that, that time is being spent on that, rather than, as is often the case, complaining that school time should just be used for academic subjects.
MARTIN: Judith Warner is a journalist and bestselling author who has written extensively about youth mental health. Her latest book is "And Then They Stopped Talking to Me: Making Sense of Middle School." The article that we're talking about, about children's mental health appears in The Washington Post Magazine. Judith Warner, thanks so much for joining us.
WARNER: Thank you so much, Michel.
MARTIN: And if you or someone you know may be considering suicide, we hope you'll contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or the crisis text line by texting HOME to 741741. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-30/why-the-childrens-mental-health-crisis-isnt-new | 2022-05-12T15:35:16Z |
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
Biopics are a staple of entertainment - the royal family, Elizabeth Holmes, Tammy Faye Bakker, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. HBO's new series about the 1980s LA Lakers, "Winning Time: The Rise Of The Lakers Dynasty," has gotten direct criticism from some of the people it portrays, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson and Jerry West. The champion player became the team's coach, later its general manager. They say the series is not only just not true, but defamatory. Here's a scene in which Jerry West tells new owner Jerry Buss he doesn't want to sign Magic Johnson because he says his own career proves that being a star player doesn't mean you can lead a team to a championship.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WINNING TIME: THE RISE OF THE LAKERS DYNASTY")
JOHN C REILLY: (As Jerry Buss) And Johnson's a star.
JASON CLARKE: (As Jerry West) So was I, a [expletive] star. Do you know what - you want to know what it got me? It got me [expletive]. It got me this, a [expletive] movie project. Here it is. Oh-ho-ho - Jerry [expletive] West, MVP, the most valuable [expletive] loser award - winning and [expletive] losing.
REILLY: (As Jerry Buss) Hey, listen. I used to drink a lot of bourbon. I switched to vodka. You can smell it less. Just a tip.
SIMON: Jason Clarke as - oh, my word - Jerry West. John C. Reilly as Jerry Buss. Eric Deggans joins us.
Boy, that sounds like our editorial meetings, doesn't it, Eric?
(LAUGHTER)
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: If only they were that exciting.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: That's right. Jerry West, along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, have objected. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a wonderfully pointed piece in which he says it could hurt his charitable work for children. How so?
DEGGANS: Well, the show depicts him filming the movie "Airplane." And he was working with a child actor there. And it shows that when the cameras weren't filming and the child asked him for an autograph, he told him to F off.
SIMON: Oh, my.
DEGGANS: (Laughter) And Kareem, of course, said that he didn't do that. And, you know, when I watched it, it struck me because, you know, Kareem is known for his religious values. And it just seemed kind of at odds with his sort of rigid moral approach that he would curse at a child.
SIMON: And Jerry West, who's been very open about mental and other challenges in recent years, says in his letter to HBO that the series portrays him as an out-of-control, intoxicated rage-aholic. Is he just forgetting what he once was?
DEGGANS: Well, not according to a lot of people who knew him at the time. He's received some backup. There's a lot of people out there saying that this portrayal isn't fair. Now, one of the things I will note - I have watched every episode of the first season. It's been picked up for a second season by HBO. And the portrayals of these men soften and get more complex as the episodes unfold. And I think people were reacting to the first few episodes, which are very sort of jarring and shocking, and they try to sort of almost grab the viewer and really get them involved in the story. As it goes on, West is portrayed more sympathetically.
SIMON: HBO says, look, it's not a documentary. But, of course, real people are involved. And you and I can only guess about how hurtful it must be to see yourself portrayed that way on screen.
DEGGANS: Yeah. Well, we're talking about two different things here. You know, one of the things we're talking about is the fact that people tend to watch these shows that are based on real events, and they come away feeling like they've learned something about the event from watching the limited series. So people are going to watch this, and they're going to think these people acted like this in - during the time that was portrayed. And as much as HBO wants to say that this is fictionalization - you know, people are going to do that. But there's also kind of a legal standard.
And, you know, getting to the point where you can prove that their image was distorted enough that a public figure can say this was defamatory - I think that's going to be really difficult. And, you know, HBO actually released a statement that it gave to The Hollywood Reporter, where it said, quote, "HBO has a long history of producing compelling content drawn from actual facts and events that are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. 'Winning Time' is not a documentary and has not been presented as such."
SIMON: I feel moved to ask a certain question. I mean, I've sometimes interviewed public figures over the years, have seen themselves portrayed in some kind of miniseries. And I remember one man - who was a former government official - who said, you know, they came over to my house. They talked to me. They tried to get my accent. They tried to get the way I dressed. They even asked me to take out old clothes. They got all of that right. What they didn't get right was what actually happened.
DEGGANS: (Laughter) Right. Well, what's that saying? Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. I think when you watch "Winning Time," especially, what you see is that the things that they did that the participants say, you know, didn't happen are things that were done to accentuate and accelerate and intensify the story. The problem is that people are going to watch all of this, and they're going to assume all of this stuff happened. And, you know, if I was Jerry West and they showed me taking my MVP trophy...
SIMON: Yeah.
DEGGANS: ...And throwing it through a window and breaking it, and you didn't do it, you know, that would make me upset.
SIMON: NPR's TV critic Eric Deggans - however, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much for being with us.
DEGGANS: That's right. You don't have to worry about me throwing any awards through a window.
(LAUGHTER)
SIMON: Oh, good.
DEGGANS: Thanks a lot. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-04-30/winning-time-portrays-the-rise-of-the-l-a-lakers-its-subjects-call-it-defamatory | 2022-05-12T15:35:22Z |
Two Democrats and two Republicans have filed for the June 14 special election to replace former U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, in a South Texas congressional seat that the GOP wants to flip.
The filing deadline was 5 p.m. Wednesday, and the candidates are Democrat Dan Sanchez, a Harlingen attorney; Republican Mayra Flores, the current GOP nominee for the seat in the November general election; Republican Juana "Janie" Cantu-Cabrera, one of Flores' competitors from the March primary; and Democrat Rene Coronado of Harlingen, who listed his occupation as "city civil service director."
The special election was triggered by Vela's resignation last month to take a job with Akin Gump, a prominent law and lobbying firm. He had already announced he was not seeking reelection.
The winner of the special election will only get to finish Vela's term, which extends until January. But Republicans are eager to capture the seat as they try to gain new ground in South Texas, and the special election is happening under the previous, more competitive boundaries of the 34th District. The November election for a full term in Congress will be held under new district boundaries that were redrawn during last year's redistricting process.
Top Republicans have already consolidated behind Flores. She has been endorsed for the special election by Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas GOP chair Matt Rinaldi, Texas GOP vice chair Cat Parks and the Congressional Leadership Fund, the leading super PAC aligned with House GOP leadership.
Sanchez, a former Cameron County commissioner, has the support of Vela, as well as U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, who is currently the Democratic nominee for the full term in the 34th District. He declined to run in the special election.
The other Republican, Cantu-Cabrera, previously faced Flores in the March 1 primary for the full term in the 34th District. Cantu-Cabrera came in last in the four-way primary, getting 7% of the vote to 61% for Flores.
Early voting for the special election starts May 31. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-elections/2022-04-14/two-democrats-two-republicans-will-compete-in-special-election-for-south-texas-congressional-seat | 2022-05-12T15:35:28Z |
Beto O’Rourke had called for an end to Title 42 for months.
He said the emergency health order from the federal government, which allows officials to turn away migrants at the border to control spread of COVID-19, was ineffective and has led to mass repeat crossings which overwhelm an already overworked Border Patrol staff.
But earlier this week, O’Rourke raised some eyebrows. He called on the White House not to end the health order until it had laid out a plan to help border communities deal with the increase of migrants expected after its end in May.
O’Rourke’s comment confused and confounded some immigrant advocates who are typically on his side.
“[Beto O’Rourke], buddy, Border Patrol processed 10,000 Ukrainians in a week!” tweeted RAICES, the Texas nonprofit that provides immigration legal services. “Should they have waited in Mexico while you try and figure out a plan for them?”
Mario Carrillo, the campaigns manager for the progressive pro-immigration group America’s Voice, said it sounded like O’Rourke wanted to keep Title 42 in place.
“If his position is that we should eliminate Title 42 — and he has expressed that before … we certainly support him in that,” Carrillo said. “I think it’s important that Democrats are clear on the fact that Title 42 has not worked and it, in fact, has led to more chaos.”
O’Rourke has since clarified that he firmly supports ending the pandemic-era health order, even as his opponents have cast him as a flip-flopper. But the responses to his position illustrate the challenge O’Rourke faces as he tries to take on the issues of border security and immigration, which have taken center stage throughout his run for Texas governor.
For Gov. Greg Abbott, the border is an easy issue to campaign around, as it regularly ranks as the top priority for Texas voters, especially Republicans. Abbott has for months focused his political capital on the border, initiating construction of a state-funded border wall, deploying thousands of members of the Texas National Guard and most recently, requiring state inspections of commercial vehicles passing into Texas, which has snarled trade with Mexico.
But for Democrats, especially in Texas, tackling these issues is more difficult. O’Rourke has had to distance himself from President Joe Biden’s border policies, while going after Abbott’s.
“I’m from the border. I understand this,” said O’Rourke, who is from El Paso and represented the area in Congress for six years. “The people from Texas understand this and I know that we're all looking for a real solution. We’re not getting it from Greg Abbott. We’re not getting it from the Biden administration either. What we need is leadership.”
Cal Jillson, a political scientist at Southern Methodist University, said Republicans have an advantage in talking about border security because the majority of their party agrees that there should be stricter enforcement. But among Democrats, there is a wider variety of thought. Some Democrats on the border want to be tougher on the issue, but there are many in the party’s coalition who advocate for more humane treatment of migrants and against any stricter enforcement of immigration laws.
In his recent comments, O’Rourke is trying to advocate for both, which is a difficult message to pull off, Jillson said.
“His message is about as good as it can be for a Democrat but it's complex and has to be explained in a couple of paragraphs, and by that time people get confused and they're not sure exactly what you said,” Jillson said. “The ideal policy position for a political race is bumper sticker in length where people can understand you by the third word and are nodding with you.”
Biden is doing O’Rourke no favors. Polls show the president remains unpopular in Texas, and often his approval rating among voters on the border is worse than his overall approval rating.
Only 31% of Texas voters approved of Biden’s handling of the border in a mid-February poll from the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler. Fifty-six percent disapproved. Meanwhile, 50% of voters approved of Abbott’s performance on the border and 40% disapproved.
On the first day of his campaign, O’Rourke gave a TV interview criticizing Biden on the border, saying it is “not enough of a priority for his administration.” But the border was otherwise not a large part of his first weeks as a gubernatorial candidate. He did not mention the topic in his launch video, and his stump speeches often centered on other, less polarizing issues, like expanding Medicaid and legalizing marijuana.
But in late December, O’Rourke took an interest in the failures of Abbott’s highly touted border mission, Operation Lone Star, where military news outlets were reporting pay problems and suicides that appeared tied to the mission.
“Gov. Abbott is the commander-in-chief of the Texas National Guard. If he chooses to deploy those under his command, it is his duty to pay them, deliver the benefits he promised them, and ensure they receive proper mental health support in order to prevent the kind of tragedy we’ve seen in recent months,” he wrote in an op-ed to El Paso Matters. “And if he can’t justify their deployment, he owes it to them and their families to send them home.”
O’Rourke has continued to hammer Abbott over Operation Lone Star and has also criticized as political stunts his decision to bus migrants to Washington, D.C., and bring international trade to a halt through commercial vehicle inspections. On Friday, Abbott announced he’d made agreements with the last of the four Mexican governors whose land borders Texas to bring the inspections to an end.
But Abbott’s team has hit right back. This week, the governor’s campaign blasted O’Rourke for his change of tune on Title 42.
“Beto continues to take different positions on issues depending on which part of the state he happens to be in,” Abbott campaign spokesperson Mark Miner said in a statement. “‘Both Ways Beto’ strikes again!”
O’Rourke has said he wants to support Border Patrol agents who are seeing large numbers of migrants at the border by working together with law enforcement agencies in border communities. But he also wants them to work with nonprofits that aid migrants and to make it easier for asylum-seekers to go through the process.
He’s also suggested pushing for a guest worker program at the national and federal level and said border issues shouldn’t be limited to immigration. He wants to provide economic development to border regions by investing in infrastructure to facilitate the kind of international trade that has been stalled by Abbott’s order to inspect every commercial vehicle that crosses the ports of entry.
Republicans scoff at the idea that O’Rourke can gain anything politically from the border in the current environment. Those Republicans include former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Helotes, a moderate who went on a famous road trip with O’Rourke in 2017. When he was in Congress, Hurd represented a district that covered hundreds of miles of Texas-Mexico border.
Hurd flatly said no Tuesday when asked after an appearance in San Antonio whether Abbott was giving O’Rourke an opening to compete on border issues due to some of Abbott’s policies.
“The Republicans are going to have near — if not record — turnout in Latino communities because Democrats have been absolutely idiotic when it comes to border security,” Hurd said.
Hurd said that after the midterms, Republicans could control as many as four out of the five congressional seats on the Texas-Mexico border. One of them is already held by a Republican, Rep. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio, while national Republicans are targeting three more in November.
“It’s unprecedented,” Hurd said, “and so no Democratic official at any level in this next cycle is going to be able to use the issue of border security in their favor.”
In taking on border issues so prominently, O’Rourke is trying to change the narrative around his party and set out his vision for how Texas Democrats should tackle the issue with himself as the leading voice, said Sharon Navarro, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
But that is a difficult task in a Democratic Party that is stubbornly divided over border security.
“The Democrat border stance can't be ‘You all come,’” said Jillson. “There has to be more nuance to it, but that nuance then draws criticism from the part of the Democratic coalition most concerned about immigrant rights.”
Some South Texas Democrats, like U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen, had urged Biden to keep Title 42 in place. State Rep. Eddie Morales of Eagle Pass — a Democrat who represents the largest stretch of the border in the House — also opposes the end of Title 42.
In the top Democratic primary runoff this May in South Texas — for the 15th Congressional District — the candidates disagree on Title 42. Michelle Vallejo has advocated against it, while Ruben Ramirez has said it is “premature” to end it.
O’Rourke has emphasized he is listening to local leaders when it comes to border issues. But what about the South Texas Democrats who disagree with him on Title 42?
“I’m reaching out to them,” O’Rourke said in a recent interview, naming Morales as one of the people he was talking to. “Even though he and I are both from border communities, there’s a lot I can learn from him about Eagle Pass and about Del Rio … and we may not agree on every given policy proposal, but we both agree that we want to see border rule of law, people who come to this country following our laws and then we would love to see the country take the lead in rewriting our laws” on immigration.
Texas Democrats, though, cannot even agree there is a problem on the border — and if there is, the extent of it.
“There was no ‘border crisis’ until Governor Abbott went and created one himself,” state Rep. Erin Zwiener of Dripping Springs said in a tweet Thursday that was later deleted.
Ramirez, the congressional candidate, told a local media outlet that “we have an immigration crisis and we need to be honest with ourselves and call it what it is.”
O’Rourke himself has avoided labeling the situation a “crisis” and has said National Guard troops are being sent to address “a solution in search of a problem.” Abbott’s campaign has highlighted that comment in near-daily news releases this month under the headline, “Beto’s Big Border Denial.”
And in an interview, he said he disagrees with the notion that Democrats are divided over the issue and said voters appreciate a nuanced policy.
“That’s part of the problem we have with American politics,” he said. “So many people assume that voters are dumb. I don’t. They’re very smart [and are] looking for real answers. They want real answers and real solutions.” | https://www.keranews.org/2022-elections/2022-04-18/beto-orourke-carefully-threads-needle-on-border-policy-as-democrats-grapple-with-the-issue | 2022-05-12T15:35:34Z |
Because mailing in a voter registration form could potentially take several days, a voter’s best bet is to register in person at the appropriate county elections office. A list of those offices is here.
There’s no online voter registration in Texas, although people can update addresses online.
A person who voted in the March 1 statewide primary must stick with the same political party, but someone who did not vote in the initial primary can vote in the runoff.
Early voting in the primary runoff starts on May 16 and lasts five days. Election day is May 24.
There are many important races on the ballot in the runoff. Both parties have runoffs for Attorney General. There’s a runoff for Democratic candidates for Lieutenant Governor, a powerful job. There’s also a runoff for the GOP nomination for Railroad Commissioner, which regulates the oil and gas industry.
But before the primary runoff, there are votes on local races and state constitutional amendments. Voting in those contests ends on May 7.
Check out this page with voter resources and information from the League of Women Voters of Texas.
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/2022-elections/2022-04-22/monday-is-voter-registration-deadline-for-texas-primary-runoff | 2022-05-12T15:35:41Z |
Alexis Allison | Forth Worth Report Health & Wellness Should medical errors be criminalized? This Fort Worth medical school offers another way Alexis Allison | Forth Worth Report The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine requires its medical students to take a patient safety certification exam. | https://www.keranews.org/alexis-allison-forth-worth-report | 2022-05-12T15:35:53Z |
Amal Ahmed | The Texas Tribune Energy & Environment In Texas, thousands in fines paid by oil and gas polluters benefit the fossil fuel industry Amal Ahmed | The Texas Tribune The state allows a portion of fines to be directed to projects that remediate environmental harm. Some of those projects benefit the companies that are being penalized. | https://www.keranews.org/amal-ahmed-the-texas-tribune | 2022-05-12T15:35:59Z |
“From the Artist” video series
Fort Worth artist Victor Manuel, under the name UNO, looks at a blank canvas and begins every painting with a line.
He believes sketching, freedom and playing with lines sparks creativity when he paints; the color palette is an afterthought. This ideology functions as the basis for his work.
The Graffiti Abatement Program provides labor assistance to remove graffiti as requested by affected property and city areas, according to the city of Fort Worth website.
Even though the program focuses on removal of graffiti, it also helps property owners cover up graffiti by painting murals at no charge.
“That project took about 400 hours,” UNO said. “I didn’t sketch. I experimented right there on the spot.”
Born and raised in Mexico City, UNO immigrated to Brooklyn, New York, in 1987. Living in Brooklyn, UNO’s interest and curiosity for art came from the bright and colorful graffiti he saw throughout the city, he said.
“I started going to museums and educating myself,” UNO said. “Coming from Mexico City, I didn’t want to fall into traditional Mexican art. Art is a universal language.”
In 1991, UNO moved to Fort Worth and began to make his own art.
UNO believed the best way to start his career was by sculpting the human figure. He sculpted for over 10 years, but saw it as an excuse and a limitation to creating, he said. This led to his transition into painting, drawing influences from his time in New York.
“I just love color. That’s the thing that I love about creating art,” UNO said. “I want my work to be famous, not me.”
In the accompanying video, UNO sat down with the Fort Worth Report to discuss his work and share his experience painting the murals in Trinity Park.
Our new video series showcases local artists across Fort Worth and Tarrant County. It highlights each artist’s career, diving into their inspirations, creative process, artistic style and contributions throughout the city. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-14/from-the-artist-uno-reflects-on-his-murals-painted-beneath-lancaster-bridge | 2022-05-12T15:36:05Z |
This story is part of a series from Texas Public Radio called “Running Red-Lights.” The podcast and additional reporting focuses on the history of sex work in San Antonio and the women who ran the industry, but who weren’t allowed to make history.
The first time Evan Jones heard about Mary Volino was in a United Methodist confirmation class in 1989.
She was a well-known and successful madam of a San Antonio brothel in the late 19th century. One day, she decided to change her business into a rescue home. Travis Park Church — where Jones was confirmed — teaches her story as a part of its history to demonstrate the power of religious faith, Jones said.
Yet for years, the church didn’t even know Volino’s first name. All they had was an initial.
It wasn’t until Jones — a former member of the church — earned his master’s degree in theology from the Perkins School of Theology at Southern Methodist University. One of his final projects was simple: write a paper about any topic in United Methodist history.
“I was in my last semester of seminary and I was done like, I was ready to be out. So to be very honest, if we're all going to be real honest, my goal was to write the easiest four-page paper you could ever imagine and just be done with this class,” he said.
He thought back to his experience in the church, and he remembered the story he was taught about a brothel-owner who was saved by the church.
The original intent was to figure out her first name. In the decades of telling this story, the church only referred to Volino as M. or M.L. Volino. Jones turned to Bexar County Court records and almost immediately found her. She had been arrested for prostitution.
But once he found her name, Jones wanted to know more about Volino. He discovered a new detail he had never been taught: Volino was in serious debt.
There are actually two versions of the Mary Volino story Jones heard growing up. The first is the one he heard in his confirmation class that had been passed down for generations: A madam of a large brothel heard a street preacher and attended a revival at Travis Park Church the following day, where she confessed Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior, and then converted her brothel into a home for “wayward” women.
In the other story, her conversion was made possible by a member of the congregation, a woman named Sarah Ostrom.
Ostrum had already forged a friendship with Volino and encouraged her to attend the revival. This telling of the story is where Jones says he might get in trouble as a member of the clergy.
“The truth of the matter is in the Methodist Church, the power is with the laity, the power is with the people, not with the clergy,” he said. “Clergy people can be the leaders of the institution, can be the leaders in worship, can be the preachers. But really, when a church is effective, the laypeople are the ones that are doing the work of the Kingdom of God.”
Jones contends the loss of her daughter brought her to grief — and later, to God.
He also acknowledged a possible third version of this story. A madam of a large brothel is in significant debt. The church offers to clear her of that debt and is granted ownership of the house.
“That was the church's kind of tentacles into the ministry was they had a financial stake in it, which can be bad and good. I think it allowed her to be debt free and live in a different way,” Jones said.
No matter the version of the story, some details are certain: Her once-lucrative brothel put her into debt. Jones isn’t exactly sure how she got into so much debt, but she owed nearly $6,000 according to Bexar County Clerk deed records.
Once the home was converted, it housed between 20-30 women, and by the turn of the century, there were more than 60 women in the home. The women cooked and cleaned for the others who lived and worked at the home and were given schooling lessons and job training to prepare for their departure from the home.
The home still exists today, though its name has changed. Once Methodist Mission Home, it’s now called Providence Place.
“We were that place that most people would call Aunt Jane or Aunt Susan, where families sent their pregnant daughter to live, have the baby and then go back home,” said CEO Judith Bell.
Providence Place has gone through a series of focus-shifts — from adoption agency in the early 19th century to serving the local Deaf and hard-of-hearing community. Its current CEO Judith Bell said the organization is now returning to its roots, the roots Volino planted more than a century ago.
“Our main focus is on trauma-informed care and meeting the women where they are. No judgment, just meeting where they are, developing a place where they can take a rest. Then pause, you know, take a deep breath and then start on their restoration journey,” she said.
Providence Place serves women in a transitional housing program, focusing on survivors of assault, domestic violence and human trafficking. They also have a program for young women who are aging out of the foster care system but have elected to stay in extended foster care and for women who are unsheltered, Bell said.
Right now, they have the capacity to care for about 40 women, including pregnant women or women with children. Bell said she thinks Volino would be proud of how the mission has grown, despite whether the conversion was real.
“Every time I tell this story, inevitably someone comes up to me and says, ‘I was adopted for a Methodist Mission Home’ or ‘I adopted my kid from Methodist Mission Home’ or some version of that story,” Jones said.
Jones speculates that Volino — née Burns — was born between 1848-1851, but there is no hard evidence.
She married twice. First to Peter Burns, and together they had a daughter named Gracia. Both Peter and Mary were active in the red-light district: they owned several properties throughout the later 1870s. He disappeared in court records after about 1880, and Gracia died young, Jones said. The circumstances of either of their deaths is unknown.
Then she was married to Mike Volino, an Italian immigrant with whom she had her second (known) child, William, who also died young. Mike was a musician, who played with his brothers in the bars and saloons of the red-light district. Jones said this is likely how they met.
Mike bought property in the area, and together they operated a saloon.
But even before Mary met Mike in the early 1880s, she had already been working under the alias Madam Claude Duval and was one of the most successful brothel owners at the time.
She met her mentor and former madam, Blanche Deerwood, around 1877. She “boarded” in Deerwood’s house. They remained friends even as Mary became competition.
She operated under several names as a madam in San Antonio’s Red-Light District: her birth name, Mary L. Burns; her first alias, Claude Duval; Mary A. Palmer; Mary Volino.
She bought her infamous brothel at 223 San Saba. It was a two-story mansion with over 32 rooms, Jones notes in the final paper he submitted. Though was one of the most successful in San Antonio’s red-light district, she accrued $6,000 of debt
In his research, Jones found that the church almost immediately started hosting worship services for the girls and women of the home after settling Volino’s debt. Some of the women who worked under Volino continued their work at other brothels when her house became a rescue home, but others stayed.
Volino acted as the matron of the home. She cared for the women there and secured donations — likely the same men she once did business with, Jones said.
The numbers of women cared for at the home grew quickly in its first few years, but by 1904, Volino was preparing to leave San Antonio. She quickly sold off her property and assets, and then, she disappeared from Bexar County court records.
“For 100 years, no one really knew where she went,” Jones said. In his research process, Jones tracked her down to Provence, Oklahoma, an up-and-coming boomtown.
Jones had used findagrave.com to find her. It’s a grassroots website where people post pictures of headstones. When he first searched “Volino” and found a headstone in Oklahoma, he’d ignored it because he was focused on finding her in Texas.
Looking at findagrave.com again, Jones realized the number of headstones with the last name “Volino” lined up with the number of Volinos he expected there to be, even though he didn’t see a headstone for a Mary Volino.
So, he drove up to Oklahoma, where he found Volino’s great niece.
“I was so nervous, like, I couldn't believe that I was sitting in front of someone that not only had a direct connection with (Volino), but lived with her like in the same house, lived with her,” he said.
Volino’s niece, Virginia, was her husband’s brother’s wife’s child. The family never spoke about Mary Volino after an incident in the family involving money.
“Virginia’s mom, Sallie, told the kids that Mary, quote, ‘took all the money from us kids.’ And so, Virginia was not real excited to have a conversation with me,” he said.
Jones said on top of the family drama, the interview was awkward because Virginia didn’t know about Mary’s life as a madam. Though Virginia was reluctant to talk about it, another family member — who Jones said acted as a sort of advocate — encouraged her to help document their family’s history.
When Jones left Virginia’s home, he realized he had never hit "record" on his recorder.
Virginia died a week after their conversation.
There are few solid facts in the life of Mary Volino. We’re not sure when or where exactly she was born. We’re not sure why she decided to move to Provence. We also don’t know why she left.
The last documentation of Volino is in the 1920 Census; she’s listed as 71 years old.
There is no evidence that Volino stayed a member of the Travis Park Church congregation after her so-called conversion. Jones said she doesn’t appear on any membership rolls, which doesn’t prove she wasn’t a member necessary. There’s just no proof.
There was no funeral for Volino when she died, nor does she have a proper headstone. Her great niece, Virginia, told Jones she is buried in Provence Cemetery, where there is a deteriorated marker with no name on it.
Volino is one of many madams who made San Antonio’s red-light district successful and whose histories were not preserved. Unlike the others, some of her legacy is remembered through institutions like Providence Place and Travis Park Church.
Please reach out to us with questions or comments at redlights@tpr.org.
Copyright 2022 Texas Public Radio. To see more, visit Texas Public Radio. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-15/a-san-antonio-madam-walks-into-a-church-and-turns-her-brothel-into-a-rescue-home | 2022-05-12T15:36:11Z |
On April 14, 1947, a federal court in California made a landmark decision on school segregation in a case called Mendez v. Westminster.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an earlier ruling that it was unconstitutional for an Orange County school district to send Latino children to “Mexican schools,” separate from their white classmates. These schools existed throughout the southwest, including in Texas.
Lisa Ramos, associate professor of history and coordinator of the Mexican American Studies program at San Antonio College, spoke to Texas Standard about the ruling’s back story and impact. Listen to the full interview in the audio player above.
This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
Texas Standard: Tell us a little bit more about this practice of establishing separate schools for Latino children. How widespread was it in Texas?
Lisa Ramos: It was very widespread in Texas and across the U.S. southwest. So there was the belief that any Spanish-speaking children, as they were called in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, did not need to go to school because they were going to end up working in the fields anyway. So it's a waste of taxpayer money was the belief. There was also this fear that children who are Mexican oaredirty, unclean and should not be around, Anglo children. So there definitely were economic and health reasons that were used to justify keeping Spanish-speaking children – meaning of Mexican descent children – out of the schools that were for the white Anglo children.
Given the times and given the level of racism that was already baked into policies that we're talking about here, what sort of argument did the plaintiffs use to show that this type of segregation was in fact, unconstitutional?
David Marcus, the attorney and the Mendez case, argued that the Mexican-descent children were being denied their 14th Amendment rights, specifically the equal protection clause. So, you cannot separate a whole group of children just because they have a Spanish surname, and that's often what was done.
It didn't matter that these children were born in the U.S., were U.S. citizens. It didn't matter that they spoke only English. The fact that they had a Spanish surname would lead the school administrators to say, ‘you're going to the Mexican school, you can't come to the white school.’
So Marcus attacked that. He said that was unequal, unfair, unconstitutional. And also the fact that it creates this sense of inferiority for the children. Because the Mexican school was in worse-off condition, the books were the old school books from the white school. So the other argument he made was that this is creating a sense of inferiority for these schoolchildren who don't understand why they can't have the same type of education as white children.
This case was styled as Mendez v. Westminster. That's a city in Orange County, California. How did that end up affecting students in Texas? How long did it take for the ripple effects to reach Texas?
You saw professors like George I Sanchez from the University of Texas at Austin work with local members of the League of United Latin American Citizens and the American GI Forum to help use the same arguments in cases in Texas to say, ‘we can't do this here.’ This was a federal court decision declaring segregation based on Mexican ethnicity as unconstitutional. So they started making the same arguments here in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
So it became basically a template for future challenges that also proved successful.
Yeah, it was a template. And every school board or school district would try to use different arguments. They would say, ‘Oh, but the reason we do it is most of these kids don't speak English.’ Or they're going to leave to go pick cotton. They're not here when the school year starts.
Again and again, a lot of these school boards tried to say, 'we have to do it.' But thanks to the precedent set in Mendez… I do want to give credit to Professor Sanchez and LULAC and the American GI Forum because they were working on this before the Mendez v. Westminster case. So Mexican Americans have been fighting school segregation for many years before the 40s, From the 1910s, you have cases across the U.S. southwest where working class families were fighting together with educators and lawyers to try to dismantle this. So Memphis definitely was the first successful case, but it was one of many. And fortunately, it got to the top and was able to be used by Mexican American activists across the U.S. southwest.
What's the relationship between the Mendez case and Brown v. Board of Education, where you had the ruling that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional?
So Thurgood Marshall actually wrote an amicus curiae for the Mendez case.
He was at the NAACP at the time as a lawyer, I believe.
Yes, he was. And so he actually, along with many other groups – Japanese American groups, Jewish groups – wrote the statements of support, stating that segregation is unequal.
So the Mendez case did not say separate but equal was unconstitutional. The Mendez case said that the separation of students based on ethnic Mexican descent is unconstitutional. So what Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP did in Brown is they extended that and they said, ‘we want to knock down the whole concept of separate but unequal.' It doesn't matter. It is Mexican American and it's Black schoolchildren. Japanese-American, just the whole concept is unconstitutional. And that's what made Brown successful.
But it was building off of what Mendez had done and the strategies that were used and Mendez were also used in Brown. So for instance, you had an educational expert and a sociologist testify in the Mendez case that separating these school children teaches them that they're not as worthy – teaches Mexican Americans that you don't deserve the same thing as these other children because of your last name, because of your skin color, because of your ethnicity.
What Thurgood Marshall did is to use similar testimony by other educational experts and sociologists, saying African American schoolchildren are also feeling the sense of inferiority because of this separation. But it's also unconstitutional because these separate schools are actually very unequal. We're creating a two-tiered system where some are treated as first class citizens and others are second class.
It sounds as if Mendez really did lay the legal foundation in a sense for what would come in Brown v. Board of Education.
Yes, definitely. It gave ideas to the Brown legal team on what kind of arguments to make, who to bring in as experts to further that use of the 14th Amendment and the equal protection clause, saying We have to look out for our students, they're not being treated equally. So definitely members had a huge impact.
Copyright 2022 KUT 90.5. To see more, visit KUT 90.5. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-15/how-mendez-versus-westminster-helped-end-legal-segregation-of-schools-in-the-southwest | 2022-05-12T15:36:18Z |
During last year’s catastrophic winter blackout, Jesika Fisher and Kelli Lewis were like many exhausted North Texans who were huddled under blankets, waiting for power.
But unlike many other North Texans, they were running the city of Carrollton’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts, using pop culture references to provide residents with engaging updates on the storm.
“You're working in the dark with no batteries left and you're having to get the message out because you know that it's important that OK we're having shelter here, your water's ok,” said Lewis, the city of Carrollton’s marketing director. “You're trying to keep going because you want them to keep going, to get the information.”
Their fun but informative posts during the winter storm led to a roughly 1,000% increase in social engagement across their Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts during the winter blackout. In the thick of the blackouts, they posted daily recaps about everything from warming shelters to water availability.
Around 1,000 people started following the city of Carrollton's Facebook page during the winter storm and they now have over 20,000 followers. The city’s Twitter account also grew by about 500 followers during the storm and now has about 8,000 followers.
“You're saving lives, you are making people laugh, you were getting important information out to people in a way that is relatable and you're trying to be less stuffy,” Fisher said.
Posts referenced Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” – “We come from the land of ice and snow” , Ice Cube's famous "Bye Felicia" phrase and The Incredibles’ Frozone photoshopped on an icy Carrollton road.
But the witty posts weren’t just for the winter storm — the friendly persona is a mainstay for the City of Carrollton’s social media accounts. Recent posts have included references to Full House, Wordle, and Disney’s Encanto.
“We’re quirky every day,” Lewis said with a laugh.
And while the social posts are funny, Fisher and Lewis say their social media presence really comes down to authenticity and building rapport with the community. They’re just as concerned about providing accurate information, as they are about relating to Carrollton residents.
“We need people to realize we are trustworthy running your government. You are more likely to trust somebody you would have a fun conversation with like ‘oh they watch Mean Girls too,’” Lewis said.
Self-proclaimed pop culture nerds
“It's been great to be able to flex our pop culture comedic muscles with each post,” Fisher said.
The Wichita Falls native, who started in her position five years ago, said she’s a big fan of comic books and looks for opportunities to reference Marvel and DC.
Lewis, whose hometown is Carrollton, is also a pop culture fanatic who grew up in a family where references to TV shows, music and movies were a way of life — even to this day.
🎵 Everywhere you look, everywhere you go, there's a face (there’s a face) of somebody who needs you.🎵
— City of Carrollton (@CarrolltonTX) March 8, 2022
Carrollton Animal Services & Adoption Center may not be a hit TV show, but it definitely has a FULL HOUSE. Adoption fees have been temporarily waived for all large breed dogs. pic.twitter.com/wAz5VWxfuW
“It’s kind of like listening to an episode of the Gilmore Girls, but daily — I talk that fast and we're cramming in that many references,” she said.
Lewis is intent on raising her children the same way. Her 9-year-old son has thrown out ideas for posts about Greek mythology. And her husband, who’s also from Carrollton, came up with the Led Zeppelin reference during the winter storm.
That receptiveness to new ideas has come in handy. To come up with ideas for posts, they track community feedback and trending hashtags. The social media experts also take a Socratic approach in the office, throwing around and challenging ideas.
“We poke holes in each other’s ideas because we don’t want to be the people that have put something out that’s tone deaf or that doesn’t meet the audience,” Lewis said.
That doesn’t mean that every post works. A few years ago, they posted about signing up for storm alerts and used a photo of the city’s water tower with a photoshopped demogorgon from Stranger Things. While some residents liked the post, Lewis said “some people freaked out” and gave extremely negative feedback.
But Fisher and Lewis say they learn from all those experiences and take them in stride. Engagement with community members is one of the main reasons they enjoy their jobs.
“It’s fun to see the resident reactions,” Fisher said. “It’s fun to see them be engaged.”
Lewis agrees that serving the community is what makes her work meaningful.
“It's for your neighbors, it's for my kids, it's for my parents,” she said. “We're all Carrolltonians and I know that audience really well because I'm one of them and I care about everything that's happening to them.”
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you.
Got a tip? Email Elizabeth Myong at Emyong@KERA.org. You can follow Elizabeth on Twitter @Elizabeth_Myong. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-16/these-chaos-coordinators-keep-the-city-of-carrolltons-social-media-fun-and-factual | 2022-05-12T15:36:24Z |
The Dallas Art Fair kicks off Thursday for its 4-day run at the Fashion Institute Gallery (F.I.G.) in the Dallas Arts District. National and international galleries will display a range of artworks, including paintings, sculpture, video and installations by modern and contemporary artists.
Every year, the Dallas Museum of Art also selects works to add to its permanent collection as part of the Dallas Art Fair Foundation Acquisition Program. Ten artworks from this year's fair have been selected.
""Three are from right here in Dallas and others coming from around the globe, including Poland and Kenya," said Dr. Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the DMA's curator of contemporary art. "Some are at the very beginning of their careers. The youngest artist is just 23. Some have been making work for decades and are newly finding well-deserved acclaim for their robust body of work."
The Dallas-based artists are Xxavier Edward Carter, Keer Tanchak and Evita Tezeno. The other artists are Sarah Awad, Kohshin Finley, Jessie Homer French, Athena LaTocha, Kaloki Nyamai, Krzysztof Strzelecki and Benjamin Styer.
"It's truly changed careers," said Dallas Art Fair director Kelly Cornell. "Putting these artists of all different levels directly into the DMA's permanent collection? It's incredible."
Brodbeck and Cornell said the acquisition program allows the fair and the DMA to be responsive to the most exciting ideas coming out of the contemporary art world right now.
Some of the past artists selected during the fair have gone on to great acclaim. The DMA acquired a piece from the late painter Matthew Wong at the fair in 2017. Now, the museum will host Wong's first retrospective this fall.
"He had never been in a museum collection before and now he's widely collected," Brodbeck said.
Here's a look at the other events around town this week at or related to the fair.
Wednesday
- Dallas Design District Art Night: Before the Fair even opens, the Dallas Design District hosts its first ever Arts Night. Start the evening with BBQ and drinks at River Bend (150 Manufacturing Street) and visit 12.26, Erin Cluley Gallery, The Green Art Family Foundation, Keijsers Koning, and PDNB. Nearby galleries and museums such as, The Karpidas Collection, Dallas Contemporary, Site 131, Conduit Gallery, Galleri Urbane, Peter Augustus, Cris Worley Fine Art, and Holly Johnson Gallery—will also be open late.
- Power Station: Hadi Fallahpisheh - Young and Clueless Stop by the Power Station in Downtown Dallas for the opening reception of Hadi Fallahpisheh's exhibition Young and Clueless. Fallahpisheh is a storyteller who incorporates cartoons of cats, mice and stick figures into his art. Themes of isolation, conflict and anxiety are seen in this solo exhibition that include paintings, photography, sculpture, and mixed media works.
Thursday
- Performance | Xxavier Edward Carter: Where There Are Mountains to Move
For Dallas Art Fair, Carter performs his exploration into the myth of Sisyphus. Suited, Carter moves the remains of a broken rock to higher ground one push at a time, physically reassembling broken pieces. The performance ritualizes struggle and is a reminder to persist even after a burden has seemingly been lifted. The free performance happens at Henry C. Beck Jr. Park at 4 p.m
Friday
- Artist Book Signing with Josh Sperling, Presented by Perrotin and The Joule New York-based artist Josh Sperling, who is best known for his boldly colored shaped canvas pieces, will be signing copies of his catalogue raisonné The ABC to XYZ of Josh Sperling (Volume A) and Volume 8 of Between the Lines: an RxART Coloring Book in the hotel’s lobby.
- Video Art Nights presented by AURORA: Enjoy live music and a market followed by a video program including a selection of videos by Ukrainian artists. The program happens at Pegasus Plaza from 6 to midnight.
Saturday
- Dallas Art Fair Panel Discussion: The Roaring '20s: Growth of Arts in Dallas The Nasher Sculpture Center hosts Billy Fong - Editor-in-Chief of PaperCity’s Dallas and Fort Worth Editions; Jeremy Strick - Director of the Nasher Sculpture Center; Cris Worley - Dallas-based contemporary art dealer and Dallas Art Fair exhibitor; and William Hathaway - Partner at Night Gallery and a longtime Dallas Art Fair exhibitor for a discussion into how and why the Dallas art market is booming.
- Closing Party - The Eye Ball: The Dallas Art Fair wraps up on the lawn at The Joule Hotel on Saturday with its signature closing party, The Eye Ball. Purchase of a pARTy Pass is required. Check the Dallas Art Fair website for details.
The Dallas Art Fair is open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday. A complete list of participating artists and activities can be found on the Dallas Art Fair website. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-19/get-ready-for-a-week-of-art-around-town-at-the-dallas-art-fair | 2022-05-12T15:36:30Z |
Harvey Yamagata has spent more than 15 years as president of the Fort Worth Japanese Society, and even more time as a volunteer at the organization’s events.
But Yamagata can recall a time when he wasn’t particularly interested in volunteering his time toward the group. His parents, who co-founded the organization in 1985, asked him to help out with the Japanese festivals held at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden each spring and fall.
“In many Japanese families, like many other ethnic groups, you respect your elders,” Yamagata, a retired business executive, said. “I listened to my parents, and so they made me do certain things. In the long run, it’s been very helpful for me, and so they were right. Not that I was wrong, but when you’re young, you’ve got other things you want to do.”
Taiko drumming groups, karate experts, bonsai tree enthusiasts, jewelry vendors and food trucks will fill the space in and around the Japanese Garden, which celebrates its 50th anniversary next year. The 7.5-acre garden was designed on top of a reclaimed gravel pit that once served as a trash dump for the U.S. Army during World War II.
“It’s countless times I hear people who have never come to the garden, except during the festival, say: ‘Gee, I’ve never realized how beautiful the Japanese gardens are here,’” Yamagata said. “It’s great to see all this activity. But sometimes you should come here … when it’s very quiet and you can actually think and contemplate.”
Botanic garden officials have invested time and money into “improving the authenticity” of the garden, said John Powell, a Japanese garden builder who restored a teahouse structure sitting at the edge of a pond. Nick Estus, the horticultural manager of the Japanese Garden, calls it an “emerald for the city,” providing green space in the heart of the Cultural District.
“We’re trying to evoke natural imagery and scenery,” Estus said. “I grew up in a rural setting, and a big part of it is we’re trying to tap into people’s subconscious with these gardens, and you know, bring back these thoughts and images from childhood. That’s sort of what it did for me.”
Fort Worth’s proposed 2022 bond, which will come up for a vote in the May 7 election, includes funding to improve the garden’s water features and stonework, said Bob Byers, executive vice president of the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens.
The popularity of the Japanese festivals fits into the garden’s larger strategy of growing and diversifying its audience. Byers pointed to upcoming events honoring Hispanic heritage and African art.
“We’re working really hard to represent and recognize, in the garden, all the different cultural traditions that you have here in Fort Worth, which we think is very important,” he said.
Changes in the Fort Worth Japanese Society’s membership also reflect the city’s shifting demographics. Back in the 1980s, nearly all of the society’s members were people of Japanese descent, Yamagata said.
Some were Japanese-Americans brought to the city by business interests, like the Yamagatas. Others married American service members and sought a community that could help them adjust to life in the United States, Yamagata said.
“They were seeking friendship where they could let their hair down and speak in Japanese,” he said. “These people, unfortunately, are slowly passing away, and so our task, like so many groups like ours, is to try to get new members.”
Today, about one-third of the society’s 300 members are people of Japanese origin while the remaining two-thirds are people interested in Japanese culture, including fans of anime, Yamagata said.
Through its weekly language classes and monthly luncheons, the society seeks to promote understanding of Japanese traditions and the rich history of Japanese-Americans, he added. The group also supports the exchange of visitors and students from Fort Worth’s sister city of Nagaoka, Japan.
Through the years of work dedicated to the society, Yamagata also found purpose in teaching his children, who are half-Japanese and half-white, to be comfortable in their own skin.
“I think that being sure that my children are aware of what the Japanese represent and to be proud of it helps to build their own self-esteem so they can be successful in their own lives,” Yamagata said. “What the Japanese Society does is to promote that kind of understanding. That really creates a better community for all people.”
Disclosure: Architect Albert Komatsu, who was involved in designing Fort Worth’s Japanese Garden, is the father of Sylvia Komatsu, the chief content and diversity officer for KERA and KXT.
Got a tip? Email Haley Samsel at Haley.Samsel@fortworthreort.org. You can follow Haley on Twitter @Haley_Samsel.
Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-21/three-decades-in-fort-worths-japanese-festivals-blossom-at-botanic-gardens | 2022-05-12T15:36:36Z |
Bahr began to examine his own routines on a map and was inspired to turn it into art.
“One thing I do every day is drive my kids around. I take them to school, I pick them up from school, I take them to dance, I go to work.” Bahr said. “I started pulling up maps and tracing out the lines of my routes and started playing with those lines. It was kind of this nice discovery where these patterns and forms evolved.”
The end results are optical, abstract and pattern images that Bahr’s created for the past six years through serigraphy.
Serigraphy is a form of stencil printing that forces ink through a screen onto paper or canvas beneath. A screen is stretched over a frame, with areas of the screen blocked off with the stencil. Any part left exposed becomes the design.
Bahr has lived in Fort Worth for 35 years with his wife and two children. He received his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting from TCU in 2001.
While in college, Bahr interned with the Fort Worth Modern Art Museum. After college, Bahr worked for the William Campbell gallery where he learned about framing art. He transitioned to working as an art preparator at the Amon Carter Museum, where he has been for the past 19 years. This job taught him about the importance of details, he said.
Before venturing into serigraphy, Bahr focused on photography and mixed media art pieces he categorized as Light and Form and Urban Landscapes. Bahr sees his early work as a foundation for his current art, he said.
Over the years, Bahr has been featured in numerous exhibitions in New York, Colorado and Texas. Most recently, in 2019, his solo exhibit, Day Trippin, was featured at the Fort Worth Community Arts Center. In the same year, another exhibit, Daily Travels Through Time and Space, was featured at Fort Works Art.
“I look at these images and I ponder them,” Bahr said. “They’re having effects on my mind and you can get lost in them.”
In the accompanying video, Bahr sat down with the Fort Worth Report to dive deeper into his current art, how he makes each piece and how he looks at his pieces as a reflection of his life.
David Moreno is a spring fellow reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at david.moreno@forthworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-22/from-the-artist-daily-routines-paths-on-maps-inspire-greg-bahr-to-create-abstract-pieces | 2022-05-12T15:36:42Z |
During his 20 years as executive and artistic director of TITAS, Charles Santos has been instrumental in strengthening Dallas' international cultural profile by bringing dance groups of national and international importance to the city.
Saturday evening at TITAS' annual Command Performance and Gala, the organization’s board of directors will honor Santos with an award of appreciation for his dedication to TITAS and the Arts.
Ahead of his big night, we spoke with Santos about some of his work with TITAS, being optimistic and...The Macarena.
A lot of people think being a dancer is a combination of talent, hard work and maybe luck. What do you think dancers possess that the rest of us don't?
Oh, I think it's everything that you said, but it's also recognizing that a dancer, when they're performing, they are an athlete and they're focused. Back in the day when I was doing this, you went to rehearsal, you went to the gym, you went to class every day. That's just the way it was. You don't think about it, you just do it. So, they're a little manic in that respect.
There are some dancers that are very particular and only eat organic. And then there are people like me, when back in the '80s when I was dancing, we would go for a performance burger before we went to get ready for a show. We were a little bit more irreverent about that back then.
When I taught aerobic dance back in the '80s, all the instructors would go to Pizza Inn at lunchtime for the all-you-can-eat buffet.
Yeah, we would have been friends during that time.
As the leader of an arts organization and someone who has dedicated their life to the arts, what's one thing that the citizens of North Texas need to know about the arts in our community?
I think there are two important things.
One is that the arts are a vital economic engine for any community. When we present our shows, we're employing a bunch of people, we're employing stagehands and we're paying theater rental and all this. There are taxes that are being paid for tickets. People are going to restaurants. They're eating, they're paying for parking. All of it is a creative economy ecosystem that supports any city. So that's one really vital part of this. It's not just about entertainment, it's a business.
Secondly, I think the arts are the soul of any community. I think William Carlos said it best – “When all is gone, all that's left behind in this culture is art.” We look at archeology and what we are. What we learn about these past civilizations is from their art that was left behind. So it is the essence of any community.
And I think that any city that doesn't take the arts seriously isn't going to attract the big businesses and the tourism that they want. It's the soul of a community and people want to know that they're living in a city that's got, you know, quality of life values.
You were in New York City working for the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at the World Trade Center in September of 2001. Though you were supposed to be at a morning meeting at the Windows of the World restaurant in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, you missed it. How did this near-death experience change you for better or worse?
Well, I'll tell you one thing, I definitely had guardian angels. I've always felt like that I very easily would have been up there and had I been up there at Windows of the World, listen, I would have perished.
It certainly made me appreciate every day a little bit better. I make a choice to try to be happy. I make a choice to try to see the better and choose to be happy. And I don't want to minimize anyone battling depression or those kinds of issues. I'm speaking for myself. I make a choice to try to live a happy life. And a lot of that came from that experience.
And I'll tell you the single most renewing thing that happened during the week after the event was Broadway CARES, calling me and offering me tickets to see Kiss Me, Kate, because my mother had flown up to New York to see my shows, which obviously didn't happen. And we all went. And for about two and a half hours, you know, I didn't have to answer a phone call. I didn't have to make the call--"Yes, I'm alive. I'm okay," you know? When you are comforting yourself while you're trying to comfort the people trying to comfort you, it can hit you and you can only do so much of that, you know?
But it was for two and a half hours that I went to this show. I didn't have to think about it. You know, my spirit was lifted, and it was the single most healing activity I did during that time was to just go and enjoy the arts. And so, I became very aware of the healing power of the arts on so many levels, you know, and whether we're doing an AIDS benefit or breast cancer benefit or just going to just detach from life for a little bit, it's healing. I have done benefits throughout my entire career, but you don't really realize the benefit until you're on the receiving end.
If there were no limitations, as far as money, time or talent, what would be your dream show?
You know, my dream show is really the project that we created called The Gathering in 2011 and then again in 2013. I was at a dinner that Chris Heinbaugh and Carol Reed and Craig Holcomb put together. They always wanted to write a show from top to bottom that was a big benefit. In the next day or so, Chris came by my office and said, “It's the 30th anniversary of the AIDS pandemic. You have to do it. And we will support you at the AT&T Center." And I said, “Okay, I'll do it.”
And I remember the pivotal day was when I invited all the companies. There are 15, I think, arts groups and all the artistic directors of all the companies. Everybody was there. We were going into the conference room and I told my assistant John, "This is either going to be a clusterf**k or it's going to be magic." And I went in and I thanked everybody for being there, and I said, "Listen, we don't have much time. So in the interest of time, I just need to dole these things out. Ben [Stevenson], I need you to do a ballet to this piece of music. And I'm going to take this piece of music," and Bridget Moore said, "I'll take the Vivaldi," and Bruce Wood said, "I'll take this picture and this music," and so-and-so is going to do this and then working with the theater people to get the theme put together and having the [Turtle Creek] Chorale making it what it was. It was easily the best work I've ever done and the hardest I've ever worked.
So, I guess you've already done your dream show?
Oh, I did. It was my dream show.
You're a very positive person that thinks of the positive aspects of life, but what keeps you awake at night?
Right now, we're in production week and what's keeping me awake is the airlines and the weather. We have a very tight window for this big production this weekend with six artists flying in from different cities. All of them have to arrive in the tiny window because we have tech rehearsals and the performance. So if they miss their six a.m. flight on Saturday, they have maybe two hours to get on a plane to make it, or the show doesn't happen with them. The artists that are in five pieces don't fly out until Saturday morning to get here for a Saturday night gala. So we're praying to God for weather and flights and there's nothing we can do. It's just nail-biting and problem-solving.
Have you ever had a crazy backstage mishap and how did you get through it?
I remember one year dancing in Austin and I'm allergic to cedar and had terrible cedar fever. I took two of these allergy pills and I didn't read the instructions that said it was one every twenty-four hours -- and I took two. We were in the show and I am completely out of it backstage. And my entrance was with this dancer, Andrea, who would leap up and I would catch her in the air and then we would go from upstage left, down right, crossing the stage. And I'm standing in the wings and here comes Andrea, and she leaps and lands on her feet and she just runs herself backwards because I did not move. I was zoned out on allergy medicine and I missed the entire thing. I had to run to the other side of the stage and sort of fake an entrance. You know, if I can say this, I was high as a kite and I didn't realize it.
What's your guilty pleasure?
Guilty pleasure? Well, probably RuPaul's Drag Show and because of my friend Katie Carter, I had been watching The Making of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders reality show. I got to be a judge in that part of this series, not in the TV show, but in this training thing. I got into this whole experience with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, and so I would watch that reality TV. Rick, my husband, would give me a hard time. I said, “I don't care. I'm watching it.” Unfortunately, I have to admit, I'm a TV-aholic. We watch a lot of stuff on Netflix and all the streaming services.
And I think another guilty pleasure would be Whataburger and Oreos.
If you live in Texas, Whataburger is not a guilty pleasure, it's a requirement.
That's right!
The Macarena at weddings, yes or no?
No. With a big N and a big O. I can't stand the song. I can't stand the movement, but it’s the song more than anything that’s an offense to my ears. Do the Electric Slide.
With my family, it's the chicken dance. And I'm like--whose idea was that?
Someone who couldn't do the Electric Slide.
Charles Santos will be honored at the TITAS/DANCE UNBOUND annual Command Performance and Gala Saturday evening at the Winspear Opera House. The event features 13 works performed by national and international dancers and TITAS-commissioned works created specifically for the gala performance.
In Good Question, we're getting to know movers and shakers in the arts a little bit better with a few quirky and thought-provoking questions. Who should we talk to next? E-mail me at tpowell@kera.org.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-23/charles-santos-has-spent-20-years-bringing-dance-to-dallas-so-what-does-he-think-of-the-macarena | 2022-05-12T15:36:48Z |
Kristin Jaworski, head of Fort Worth’s Texas Longhorn herd, spoke with the Fort Worth Report's government reporter Emily Wolf.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. For the unabridged version, please listen to the audio file attached to this article.
Emily Wolf: To get us started, would you mind talking a little bit about how you got started with The Herd and what the role of trail boss looks like?
Kristin Jaworski: So something that’s always hard to explain is what trail boss even means. And so, I love telling that story. Because it’s very unique, and I’m very proud to hold that title, because it represents the history and the authenticity of western heritage here in Fort Worth.
When the city of Fort Worth first established the Fort Worth Herd on June 12 of 1999, to celebrate Fort Worth’s 150th anniversary by driving a herd of Texas Longhorn cattle from downtown Fort Worth to their home here in historic Fort Worth stockyards, they were really, really concerned and focused on making sure that the program told a story of that history. And it really represented the period correctness and the diversity of everything that Fort Worth embraced from that Western heritage. Just after the Civil War, when longhorns were in South Texas and driven along the Chisholm Trail through Fort Worth, that time in history had such a huge impact on Fort Worth, that they really wanted to tell the story. So, the City Council and members of the community and stakeholders in this area got together and put together this herd of longhorns.
I think that we’re so blessed and so fortunate that we had historians and curators and City Council members, and also people in the longhorn community that donated their longhorns to the program to commemorate that time in history to share with people from all over the world.
Trail boss was the title in the late 1800s of the individual who orchestrated and coordinated these cattle drives. And then fast forward, several years, 130 years later, we’re still doing that today, well, more than 130 years.
Wolf: Would you mind walking me through what a day in the life of a trail boss looks like?
Jaworski: So, you have to replicate what a trail boss did in the late 1800s, which is a little bit different than what I do today. But based on the same management and leadership principles, the trail boss in the late 1800s would have been responsible for the cattle, the personnel, the finances and the business dealings. Same thing today. So today, my responsibilities are the day-to-day management of the entire operation, except in the 12th- largest city in America. And so rather than being out on a trail and a pasture grazing them as they made their way to the rail market, we are doing that cattle drive twice a day along East Exchange Avenue here in the historic Fort Worth stockyards for millions of people a year.
My responsibility on a day-to-day basis is to make sure first and foremost that we are prepared to present that twice-daily cattle drive to the public. And so that consists of making sure our livestock are attended to, making sure that our horses and our drovers, which are the cowboys and cowgirls that drive the cattle, are educated and prepared and skilled, because safety is paramount. It is so important that we are in an environment that is forever changing, for lack of a better word. There’s traffic and there’s all kinds of different elements. It may be the weather, it may be the environment that the public is putting on us. And so we have to be prepared from a safety perspective to be able to produce that. Then there’s an educational element. So we might be performing education programs for fourth grade students, or we might be performing an interview for the media to take our message to other areas in the country or even the world.
Wolf: And usually, when people see the cattle and the drivers and the horses, they’re seeing them for maybe 30 minutes or so watching them go down the path. But that’s not all that those animals do; they have a whole life outside of that. Would you mind talking a little bit more about what the life of a steer in the herd looks like, or any of the geldings or mares y’all use on the trail drive?
Jaworski: I love that you know the term steers, geldings and mares. So that in itself is something that we never take for granted. Just our terminology. I work with a lot of people in different industries that use acronyms. And so our first step is making sure that we don’t ever take for granted that our terminology is used that way. So a plus for you.
Wolf: Thank you, I was a barrel racer, once upon a time.
Jaworski: Oh, that’s great. That’s very helpful. So I don’t have to give you definitions of all of that. That’s great.
What’s so great about our longhorn steers is because they’re all donated from different ranches, all across the country. Each one of them has a very special story. And I am so fortunate to be able to select each one of them as they’re presented to me. And I love that, because it’s a relationship with the breeder and the donor. And then with the steer, as they transform from their pasture to their job here in the Fort Worth herd and then after their job once they retire, and to be able to stay with that family that donated the animal and that steer as they transition into retirement is pretty, pretty important and pretty special.
So something that we look forward to is working very closely with our program veterinarian, with our program farriers and then with stockmanship trainers as well. So the cattle-handling aspect of it and the horsemanship training is just huge and you being familiar with horsemanship, you completely understand what I’m talking about there. Unless you have the horsemanship skill, you don’t have the stockmanship. And if you don’t have the stockmanship, the horsemanship doesn’t do any good. And so all of that works hand in hand to be able to drive them down the street because we keep our longhorns as natural as possible.
As far as moving away from the pressure or the environment that they’re in, it puts them in a position to be able to be driven down the street, because they’re going to be on a predetermined path. Cattle are creatures of habit. And so we try to create a routine with the cattle and a routine with our horses, to create that very low-stress environment, which is safe for all of us. And so that works really, really well.
So those steers, they’re introduced to us and are selected on so many different levels of criteria. And I know that you’re excited to hear about that. We look at age, confirmation, color, horn pattern, disposition. And another thing that’s really important to me is where they come from. I’ve met the most beautiful people through these cattle. And, of course, that’s probably my most favorite part of this job, this program that Visit Fort Worth supports, is the relationships that we build throughout the years with longhorn breeders.
Wolf: We were talking earlier, y’all just had a new addition, Gus. Would you mind talking to me a little bit about how y’all ended up acquiring Gus, where he’s from and when folks can see him?
Jaworski: I think that these stories about these steers are very heartfelt. And so if we talk about ‘How did I meet the owner of the steer,’ usually, it is through word of mouth, or somebody such as yourself, who’s, maybe watched the cattle drive, learned about it and wants to know how they can make a difference and how they can contribute.
When we met the family of Gus, when you really hear how heartfelt these stories are, you will completely understand how I can’t say no, I just can’t say no. And, a lot of these steers have come from children. And it is a young man or a young lady who has shown this longhorn or raised the longhorn as a calf and knows of the Fort Worth herd cattle drive and knows that it is a prestigious job for that animal. And it’s an iconic program for their family brand or their ranch brand to be part of. And so many times I’ve had these students say, ‘Oh, I’m raising a steer, and eventually I would love for him to be part of the program.’ And that’s a goal. That’s really special. And so they’ve shown that animal, and the animal has reached the prime age to become a herd steer. And then I get that call that they’re ready to donate their show steer that they’ve loved, that they’ve shown, that they’re so attached to, that they want to donate it to the herd.
That was Gus’ story. As soon as I heard that, and that family wanted to donate Gus, his owner was so proud to present him to us. Now granted, he was just a 4-year-old steer, but a gigantic 4-year-old steer. And what was beautiful about him, as he applied for the job is on his resume, he had colors that we didn’t have. He had a horn pattern that was unique, but he had the disposition that was just so sweet, and so gentle, but not too gentle, he would still respect our horses and respect the drovers. And so, I absolutely said yes. And as soon as we have an opening in the herd, we do have a long list of applicants to be a steer in the herd.
Wolf: And you mentioned these are not just livestock that have lived their lives on pasture, often they have a very close connection to their former owners. They’re going to shows all across the state, sometimes multiple states and building that connection. What does that mean to you as trail boss that you get to be the new caretaker of these steers that have clearly been well-loved?
Jaworski: That is a lot on my shoulders at times, knowing that they trust in me as their guardian of their steer. And I’m very proud of that. I know that they know that I’m going to take care of that animal as if it were my own. Probably one of my most favorite things is to update them periodically just out of the blue with a picture of that steer, or a cute snapshot of the kids out on the street watching him go down the street, in the cattle drive, or just something to surprise them with how great that steer is doing in the herd. That’s very touching to me. Or they’ll show up and surprise me to watch the cattle drive and they’ll bring their family. And it doesn’t matter if they’re from Illinois, if they’re from Florida, or if they’re from North Texas. They’ll stop by, and they’re so proud that that animal is part of the cattle drive. They want to know what he weighs. They want to know what his horn length is. They want to know if he’s being a good boy. And that’s just really important. It’s really special, because they’re telling all of their friends.
Each steer has a trading card, like a baseball card. And we’ve got on that trading card who donated that animal, what its horn length tip to tip is and a little story about that steer. And I think that’s our call to action. That is something that we pass out on the street and say, make sure you follow us on social media, make sure that you keep up with their favorite steer. We want them to keep up with that story. If Gus was your favorite steer, we want you to be able to follow that throughout his tenure here, because I think that that’s important. I think that each person has been able to choose a steer that they can relate to for whatever reason, and some of them that have been donated over the years will walk up to the fence and call their name. And they’ll perk up and I think they always recognize their owner. I really believe that because they have an attachment to them and a special bond that I couldn’t possibly relate to, but I promise I’ll take care of them.
Wolf: Obviously steers are an essential part of this, but you’ve also got your drovers and the horses that they rely on. Can you talk a little bit about the process for someone becoming a drover and what sort of training goes into that?
Jaworski: The drovers are instrumental to this program. So, the people are coming to see the herd because of the longhorns. Without the longhorns we wouldn’t have a position.
But the drovers, that’s who’s out there doing the work. It doesn’t matter if it’s the middle of summer, in the middle of winter raining, or the sun is shining. They’re out there being the caretakers of the animals, whether it’s the livestock, the cattle or the horses, cleaning their pens, feeding, and making sure that everything is taken care of, making sure the facility is in working order.
Something that the drovers accomplished this year that’s really impressive, Emily, is we belong to the Certified Horsemanship Association, and we were the first facility in entertainment to be site accredited as a horses-in-entertainment facility. That’s a really big accomplishment for us. So what that means is we achieved site standards, equine standards and program standards in the equestrian world. And for us to be certified as an accredited site was a really big deal. And it took the drovers coming together and making that happen. So there were a lot of policies and procedures for them to review. What it takes to be a drover is having to adhere to all of those site accreditation program standards.
And to be someone who knows how to ride a horse, can practice good stockmanship, but most importantly, have the public relations skills to talk and educate our guests and want to visit with people. I think that is why we’re here. We can never lose sight of that. It’s talking to the people, and the horses and the cattle are our tools to do that. Because that enables us to have something to offer as an experience. And we certainly wouldn’t have that attraction if we didn’t have that. I like to refer to us as a visitor center on horseback because people come to visit. And we’re the information to give them.
Wolf: I feel like when people think about Texas, they think of longhorns, bluebonnets and quarter horses. Can you talk a little bit about where you get your horses from?
Jaworski: Horses are difficult. Horses are one of the most difficult things that I have to purchase. So I am responsible for purchasing everything that we need to make this program work. And horses are by far the most difficult.
If anybody has ever ridden a solid, safe horse, or even participated in creating a nice, reliable, safe horse, they know it takes a lot of consistency and a lot of work and a lot of patience. And in our environment that is absolutely a requirement. So we take our time, and we’re not doing anything quick. And here in the stockyards, our job is to visit with people and then also move the longhorns down the street. So we’ve got to have a horse that just is really, really calm and very understanding.
We do have geldings and mares. I’m not particular on size, color, gender, breed, any of that. It’s more about what’s between the ears and how that animal is put together to be able to be sound, and I care more about that animal’s overall health and mental state than anything else. We do have quarter horses, paint horses, from both breed associations. But first and foremost, it’s about having a nice, sound, quality animal.
Wolf: Sure, making sure it won’t spook at a plastic bag is more important than whether it’s a dun.
Jaworski: Yes, ma’am. And we do a lot of desensitizing training to know what our horses are going to react to and how they’re going to have that reaction. And we work very, very closely with different professionals in the equine industry to make sure that we’re prepared to not put too much stress on them.
Wolf: What does the introduction process look like when you get the new steer?
aThe introduction of a new steer varies on the actual animal. The steers have a pecking order like any herd or grazing animal. With our herd, we will give them just as much time as possible for them to work their way into the herd.
And we want the new steer to acclimate with an older, more tenured steer, just like you would if you were going off to college. You’d find a friend to buddy up with to show you around the place. And we do the same thing here with the steers. We want the new steer to find a friend. And so as we work through that, then we’ll slowly introduce him.
After he has been introduced to the herd, we introduce him to the horses. And we do that after we’ve worked him on foot, then we work him on horseback. And all I mean by that is we’re simply just moving him around the pen a little bit on horseback. And again, all of this is just so slow. So it takes a long, long time. It can take up to 90 to 120 days before we’re truly moving him across the parking lot with the herd. And sometimes up to three to four months before we’re taking them down the street, because it’s a lot of new environments. And I work very closely with Dr. Temple Grandin. And she always says the first experience for any animal is the most important. So we always want their first experience to be very positive. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-24/listen-how-fort-worths-iconic-longhorn-cattle-drive-came-to-be | 2022-05-12T15:36:54Z |
Three new cultural centers and museums are in different stages of development in Fort Worth. All three will address African-American art and history — but they'll still be very different.
Dr. John Barnett Jr. thinks this confluence of three, new, Black cultural projects getting underway will be appreciated only in the future, in hindsight — the way the start of great changes are often not fully understood as they happen.
"I think we've reached an inflection point," Dr. Barnett said. He's leading the effort to build The Fort Worth African American Museum and Cultural Center.
"You know, it seems that fate has touched us, and change has come to Fort Worth."
- Join us to hear from the leaders of all three cultural-historical projects Friday, April 29, at 6 p.m. when the Kimbell Art Museum and KERA's Art&Seek present State of the Arts. The free conversation will be held at the Kimbell's Piano Pavilion. Check out the details.
The leaders of all three projects worry the public may confuse them, lump all three together. In which case, why three centers? Why not just one to handle African-American history and culture and Juneteenth?
But Adam McKinney, a founding member of the Fred Rouse Center for Arts and Community Healing, argues the multiple centers reflect a strength of what's happening here. There is no single Black culture, he says, no single Black experience.
"Our interest," McKinney said, "is to offer a multitude of Black people's experiences within Fort Worth and across the country."
Here's the current status of all three efforts:
Dr. Barnett is co-chair of the steering committee behind the forthcoming museum. The committee has researched five possible sites — including two in the city's Cultural District. They've paid for a feasibility study and members of the committee will be checking out leading Black museums around the country this summer.
But they're not in the hiring a designer-and-raising-the-big-money phase yet.
Dr. Barnett is an art collector himself and he believes that even with the city's renowned museums, there's a need for one that centers Black artists and their achievements.
He's also not shy about the museum's ambitions.
"I don't have a small vision for what I think this could be," he said, "because I think it's critical to stimulate our city into healing and acceptance. So we're talking about a museum on the caliber of the Amon Carter or the Kimbell."
While the African-American cultural museum doesn't have a site or a building yet, the Fred Rouse Center has both. It gained nationwide attention by aiming to repurpose the red- brick Ku Klux Klan hall built in 1924 on Fort Worth's Northside. (The collective organization that's working to reclaim the hall is Transform 1012 North Main.)
Adam McKinney is a founding board member of the Rouse Center. He says, with the former Klan hall as its home, it'll inevitably address the building's racist origins.
But it won't be a history museum, he said. Instead, the Rouse Center will use the arts to help those communities damaged by prejudice.
"The way in which white supremacy was instilled in our community," McKinney said, "was the silencing of people of the global majority. And so we hope to do the exact opposite by bringing our experiences forward."
And that'll require more than art exhibitions or live performances.
"We hope to create meeting spaces for racial equity and leadership training," McKinney said, "outdoor spaces for community gardens. A tool library, and a market place and affordable live-work spaces."
At the moment, the Rouse Center has received several national grants, but is starting on the local fundraising it needs to realize these visions.
Like the Fred Rouse Center, the National Juneteenth Museum is taking a community-service approach. But on a notably larger scale.
Dione Sims is the museum's executive director. She's also the granddaughter of Opal Lee -- the 95-year-old activist who marched to have Juneteenth recognized as a national holiday.
All this means the museum has a national profile and an inspiring story.
Naturally, the museum will celebrate what Juneteenth represents: The moment in 1865 when enslaved Blacks in Texas learned they were free. But Sims says the range of the museum will be wider and richer than a single event. It'll explore the history and broader meanings of freedom itself.
And more locally, "we're wanting to help restore the Historic Southside," Sims said. "I think it's an underserved community that was once a thriving bed of commerce, of economic development, of culture."
To that end, the design for the Juneteenth Museum on East Rosedale near I-35 will address the needs of neighborhood residents with affordable housing, offices, a performance space, public meeting rooms.
"There's also an incubator for small businesses to get started," Sims said. "And there's a food hall. So there's going to be, I think, five African-American restaurants."
Got a tip? Email Jerome Weeks at jweeks@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @dazeandweex.
Art&Seek is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-26/building-three-new-homes-for-black-arts-and-culture-in-fort-worth | 2022-05-12T15:37:00Z |
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra will take over The Children's Chorus of Greater Dallas.
The announcement, made Tuesday, comes after several rancorous months at the 25-year-old children's chorus that saw hiring disputes with the chorus board, staff resignations and confusion from chorus members and their parents.
The chorus will still perform a scheduled concert May 1 at the Meyerson Symphony. In July, the symphony will take over the chorus, which will be renamed The Dallas Symphony Children's Choir. It will perform with the symphony's adult choir beginning this fall.
Meanwhile, staff members who recently left the children's chorus announced last week they were forming a new group: The Greater Dallas Choral Society for Children and Youth.
All of this comes during what should have been a time of celebration for the Children's Chorus: It's marking its 25th anniversary season. Over those years, thousands of Dallas-area children have trained and sung in its ensembles — many going on to run their own.
The May 1st concert was originally designed to celebrate the retirement of the chorus' original artistic director, Cynthia Nott. She led the group to acclaim and to performances at Carnegie Hall, St. Peter's in Rome and the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
Nott announced last year that this would be her final season. On December 31, Kimberley Ahrens, who'd been with the group since 2013, was offered Nott's job.
Soon after that, problems started
In February, after initially accepting the position, Ahrens declined it over questions of paid compensation and the filling of another full-time position. She resigned from the chorus entirely.
That triggered resignations from most of the existing artistic staff — or threats of resignation if Ahrens were not re-instated.
On April 4th, a petition appeared on Change.org, in support of the artistic staff and the 19 people who'd resigned. The petition was created by Catharine Lysinger, a SMU professor of music. It's garnered more than 2,500 signatures.
Ten days later, the chorus board of directors emailed a lengthy open letter to parents explaining this was a confidential personnel matter. But the letter spelled out the board's timeline and a defense of its decisions, including hiring a "third-party conflict resolution team" and why it felt it necessary to end negotiations with Ahrens who, it said, had increased her demands after having been hired.
That same day, Cynthia Nott also emailed parents, declaring her "heart is now broken. " She replied to the board's letter, disputing several of its points about compensation, artistic control and the creation of another full-time position.
The following day, April 15, the Change.org petition was updated to state there had been "a catastrophic breakdown of effective communication" with the board, the director, the staff and the families involved.
The update concluded "the chorus as we have known it for 25 years is gone."
On April 19, the children's chorus board announced it had engaged Alfred Calabrese, the director of music ministry at St. Rita's Catholic Church, to head the auditions for the May 1st concert at the Meyerson.
CORRECTION: He was engaged to head the auditions for next season.
The next day, a new group was announced by some of the departing staff: the Greater Dallas Choral Society for Children and Youth. It will feature Cynthia Nott "and the music educators you have come to know and love."
Auditions for that chorus will be held in May, rehearsals will begin September 12th.
Dallas Symphony Orchestra Executive Director Kim Noltemy said that the symphony is currently looking for a new director for its adult chorus. No decision has been made yet whether that director, or another new director, will be in charge of the children's choir.
"Will we have multiple directors?" Noltemy said. "We have an assistant for the adult chorus, so we kind of have to look at all of that. But we will be leading the search for that after the Children's Chorus of Greater Dallas concludes."
Nott learned of the DSO's decision Tuesday and said she didn't know for certain whether that change in the administration of the Children's Chorus will have any effect on the brand-new Greater Dallas Choral Society.
Essentially, she said, the split was caused by disputes between the Chorus' board members and its artistic and educational staff. With the board possibly changing because of the DSO's involvement, some of those disputes may be resolved.
But one thing's for certain, Nott said. "These people [in the Choral Society] are committed to the artistic growth of their students. And that won't change. " | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-26/dallas-symphony-takes-over-childrens-chorus-after-the-singing-groups-staff-resigns | 2022-05-12T15:37:06Z |
The City of Dallas hopes this new plan will address its historic role in creating an uneven playing field for residents of color.
"We know from both historic and current policies that may perpetuate inequities in Dallas that it's instrumental to operationalize equity," said Dr. Lindsey Wilson, director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion. "We're doing this through specific, measurable goals that address racial, ethnic and socioeconomic inequities."
The city, along with a team of consultants at CoSpero Consulting, is crafting new goals for internal departments designed to address those inequities. CoSpero has been gathering input from the community about what sort of goals would best indicate real progress.
The Office of Arts and Culture has already established several such goals, like more funding for BIPOC arts groups and more diverse arts boards. But advocates in Dallas’ arts scene say they want better benchmarks.
Teresa Coleman Wash with the Bishop Arts Theater Center says the solution has to tackle the deep-rooted disadvantages experienced by many communities of color in Dallas.
“Racial equity is not a project," she said. "It is about who we are as individuals.”
That's why she thinks some of the goals the city has developed so far to address inequity in the arts miss the mark.
Here's an example:
“Increase the number of Black, Latinx, Native American, and equity-specific public artworks that confront historical racism from 18 works to 23 by 2024.”
Coleman Wash says it has to go deeper. It comes down to resources: livable wages, money to cover operational costs, and the proper space to make art. Spaces like the Bishop Arts Theater Center have long offered multicultural programming, especially for Black and Latino audiences.
“We’re not looking for a quick fix," Coleman Wash said. "We’re not looking for projects or a $5,000 ‘go away’ grant. We want to make sure that this institution, like Eurocentric institutions, is available in the neighborhood for generations to come.”
That is the challenge that lies ahead for CoSpero. They want to know what kind of benchmarks would reflect real, long-lasting change. Not just in the arts but in education, housing, public health and criminal justice.
Dallas native Morgana Wilborn, a longtime arts administrator and educator, has some suggestions.
She says equity for the arts community goes hand in hand with equity for everyone.
"A sculpture is not going to afford me bread at the table. You have to provide everyone with the resources to flourish.”
CoSpero has been holding community events since December to understand how these different facets of city government can work together. The consultants have proposed new goals for arts equity. More funding for Black artists and Black-led arts groups, for example.
Alexandra Hernandez attended one of CoSpero’s listening sessions. She’s the artistic director at Anita N. Martinez Ballet Folklorico.
“If the only thing we want is numbers, then we're not actually thinking about how we're going to advance organizations," she said. "How do we make them sustainable long term?”
Supporting the growth of Dallas' existing creative talent is key, Hernandez said.
She's been in Dallas for roughly seven years. Back in Minneapolis, she was able to work full-time with a single arts group. That hasn't been feasible in Dallas.
“Most of the time I'm working two or three contracts at a time,” Hernandez said.
In order to truly support arts in the city, Hernandez says an equity plan needs to support not just the art-making but the artist's standard of living.
“I really strongly advocate for that quality of life, because it is very life changing when all you have to do is go to a rehearsal or you can focus your whole energy on just one project,” she said.
Wilborn's vision for arts equity in Dallas goes one step further. She grew up in the Bexar Street Corridor in South Dallas, and she wants to ensure the needs of longtime residents are heard.
“My community who has lived here all their lives aren't benefiting like those who come here working in nonprofits, dictating what should be in our community and what history should be documented.”
All three artists hope the arts portion of the racial equity plan addresses artist’s needs, but more importantly the broader community’s needs.
“I can go somewhere and get affordable food. I live in affordable housing. I can get my health needs met for me and my family. I can get there safely. Arts and culture events that don't make me feel less than because I don't speak the language," Wilborn said. "I feel like I can show up however I can show up and people will love and respect me and celebrate me for it. That’s true arts equity.”
The city and CoSpero Consulting are still gathering community input. Visit weareonedallas.org to share your own feedback on the plan.
Got a tip? Email Miguel Perez at mperez@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @quillindie.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-27/as-dallas-crafts-racial-equity-plan-artists-appeal-for-real-progress | 2022-05-12T15:37:13Z |
Atatiana Jefferson. Botham Jean. Breonna Taylor: The list of Black people killed by police goes on. In response, Stage West is offering What to Send Up When It Goes Down — an angry, cathartic and wildly inventive play that's getting its Texas premiere in Fort Worth.
In the lobby of Stage West, performer Sky Williams started What to Send Up by addressing the audience about Black people being shot to death -- with little or no accountability.
"The emotional and physiological toll of this concerns us and is the reason for this ritual," Williams announced. "Let me be clear: This ritual is first and foremost for Black people. Again, we are glad that non-Black people are here. We welcome you. But this piece was created and is expressed with Black folks in mind."
What to Send Up contains raucous comedy and wrenching scenes of loss. But early on, we're told it also includes audience participation -- and that's enough for some theatergoers to wonder: Just how confrontational does this get?
In an interview, Williams said that when she starts speaking in the lobby, she can sense these flickers of discomfort -- especially in white but even in some Black theatergoers.
"They're like, 'We're gonna keep watching but we're not sure what it's going to be' - which I think is kind of fantastic."
Once we were all inside the theater, performer Raven Lawes took charge, inviting the audience to stand in a circle — then she started asking us increasingly pointed questions.
"If you've ever heard someone say something racist about a Black person -- firsthand -- please step forward. If you've ever witnessed a Black person being denied something -- a promotion or an opportunity to speak -- please step forward."
Have you ever seen a Black person assaulted? Are you a Black person who's been assaulted? Have you ever had a gun pointed at you by a police officer?
Lawes asked us to let all that sink in -- the numbers of people who'd stepped forward.
Audience member Meghan Glovier is white, in her sixties and lives in Fort Worth. She said she's participated in racial equity excercises at her office, so she was familiar with these kinds of questions — and the pain that motivates them.
Even so, standing in a theater with people she didn't know -- "yeah, there were moments, y'know, of anxiety," she said. "It definitely yielded some reflections."
Keneisha Thompson is an Arlington Black woman in her thirties. To her, What to Send Up felt like a rarity, a relief — the show created a safe, public space, open to whites and Blacks, but one where she nonetheless didn't feel like an outsider.
"I've often been in spaces where I was the only Black person. And there is a feeling of needing to adjust who you are," Thompson said. "And with this particular show, I felt seen and validated -- and that I'm not alone in these experiences."
Playwright Aleshea Harris has called her 2016 play a "ritual-pageant-performance-homegoing-celebration." In it, she takes dead aim at provocation. One character (Lee Walter) delivers a somber monologue about a love that's fallen apart in bleak frustration — it's clearly a reference to the white race.
But Harris also aims for wicked, satiric humor. One Black man (Djore Nance) warns a younger one (Jonah Munroe) about walking so "brazenly" in white neighborhoods — he mocks his clueless, chest-out, arms-pumping stride. He's going to get himself killed like that. A Black office worker (Brittney Bluitt) has a white manager who claims he simply doesn't see color. She snatched the mouth right off his face.
Directed by vickie washington, What to Send Up even features exultant singing, dancing, stomping and clapping.
As Sky Williams put it: "Black rage lives within every single one of us. But so does Black joy, Black resilience."
In fact, audience member Meghan Glovier said, as angry as it is, the performance of What to Send Up offers what she called "the grace" of humor.
"I felt privileged to be invited in," she said. "They give us so much room to join them to acknowledge racism."
Brentom Jackson, a Black Fort Worth native in his 30s, said all this contributes to the sense of powerful, painful emotions being worked through -- as in a ritual.
"Yeah, so it becomes a lot more of an uplifting experience."
It's a ritual that combines a funeral with a dance party.
What to Send Up When It Goes Down is at Stage West in Fort Worth through May 8.
Got a tip? Email Jerome Weeks at jweeks@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @dazeandweex.
Art&Seek is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/arts-culture/2022-04-28/black-rage-and-riotous-comedy-in-stage-wests-what-to-send-up-when-it-goes-down | 2022-05-12T15:37:19Z |
Brian Lopez and Jason Beeferman | The Texas Tribune Education Texas educators are losing their licenses for quitting during the school year amid teacher shortage Brian Lopez and Jason Beeferman | The Texas Tribune The policy sidelines educators, often for two school years, at a time when districts are already struggling to keep teachers in the classrooms. | https://www.keranews.org/brian-lopez-and-jason-beeferman-the-texas-tribune | 2022-05-12T15:37:25Z |
New Mexico dispensaries have seen sales soar during the first week the state allowed recreational marijuana and businesses near the Texas state line are among those benefiting the most.
“We are happy to welcome visitors from Texas and around the country to come to our state to enjoy great cannabis products,” said Heather Brewer, spokesperson for New Mexico’s Cannabis Control Division which licenses and regulates marijuana in the state.
Many of those buying recreational marijuana at dispensaries just over the state line on April 1 when sales began were from Texas. Adults 21 and older can buy up to two ounces of marijuana or other products, including edibles.
In Sunland Park, nearly all of those in line on April first were from El Paso. El Pasoan Damian Marufo, 37, waited more than three hours outside Pecos Valley Production to be among the first to buy legal marijuana.
“You look at the line and you look at the taxes, and you’re like just legalize it,” he said referring to his home state of Texas, where recreational marijuana is illegal. Texas remains the outlier among southwest border states. All now allow both medical and recreational use marijuana.
New Mexico sold more than $9.9 million worth of marijuana in the first week recreational marijuana was legal, according to the New Mexico Cannabis Control Division. About 61% was classified as “adult use,” or recreational, while the rest was medical cannabis. New Mexico mandates a third of the marijuana supply be set aside for patients in the medical program. Medical marijuana has been legal in the state since 2007.
Dispensaries in tiny Sunland Park made $259,332 from recreational products alone from April 1-7. Las Cruces, just 40 miles down Interstate 10 from El Paso made $530,410 in recreational sales.
Ruidoso, a popular weekend getaway for El Pasoans and other Texans earned $150,870 in recreational sales, while Carlsbad, known by tourists for its caverns, sold $255,049 worth of recreational Cannabis products. Hobbs, in southeast New Mexico, just four miles from Texas made $338,992.
Most of the new dispensaries are clustered near the state line. The New Mexico legislature legalized recreational marijuana in 2021 as a tool for economic development attracting investment and tourists. More dispensaries are set to open their doors in the coming weeks.
In Anthony, New Mexico, a green sign with a marijuana leaf is walking distance from the state line. Several people driving past from Texas slowed down to look on April 2, a day after New Mexico legalized recreational marijuana. A few stopped before realizing the dispensary was not open yet.
In Anthony, New Mexico, a green sign with a marijuana leaf is walking distance from the state line. Several people driving past from Texas slowed down to look on April 2, a day after New Mexico legalized recreational marijuana. A few stopped before realizing the dispensary was not open yet.
“I’m excited about New Mexico being legalized,” said Mayra Villela, 40, who declined to say where she lives. She wanted to buy some recreational marijuana but then noticed the “opening soon” sign on the front of the dispensary building.
“They say there’s another one down the street so I’m going to try it out,” Villela said.
In Anthony, the differences in state laws are stark. The state line cuts right through the community. In New Mexico marijuana is as part of an economic development plan. In Texas cannabis is an illegal drug. Anthony Texas, population about 5,000. Anthony, New Mexico, home to just over 9,000 residents.
“I think we’re going to have more tourism being that we’re the gateway coming into New Mexico,” said Diana Murillo, mayor of the city of Anthony, New Mexico.
Three dispensaries have licenses in Anthony according to the mayor and she expects a fourth to apply for a license soon.
“We welcome any cannabis business to come in and conduct business in Anthony,” Murillo said. She views recreational marijuana as a way to spur economic development and attract investment in the city. She did not know the amount local governments would get from the 12% tax on recreational marijuana but did not expect to see much of that money.
The once hardscrabble farming community named for Saint Anthony is growing. The old part of town is filled with humble homes, but there are also new housing developments for commuters who work in El Paso or Las Cruces. Several buildings in the center of town are being renovated, including one that houses Rocky Mountain Cannabis, which has not yet opened.
“I’m pretty sure it’s going to make a boom in the area,” said Pedro Delgado, who owns a business that rents sound equipment.
Delgado was setting up a sound system for a Norteño band playing at a bar on the Texas side of the street on April 2. The bar is just a few doors down from Rocky Mountain Cannabis.
“Since we’re in the entertainment industry, I’m pretty sure it’s going to help out the area and us as well,” Delgado said.
Area restaurants could also see more customers.
But knowing where New Mexico ends and Texas begins can be confusing. Beyond the one sign in town, it’s hard to tell. Even residents at a yard sale on a recent Saturday debated whether the state line started just across the street before agreeing the arroyo was the likely dividing line.
“Good luck to visitors when they come,” said Maria Palma, an Anthony, New Mexico resident. “They’re going to get into trouble,” Palma said with a chuckle.
Some are running into trouble now with the law in Texas.
“It’s an eye opener for a lot that don’t know they’re in Texas,” said Lt. Osvaldo Gomez with the Anthony Texas Police Department.
The police department’s four officers are starting to see more people driving into Texas by mistake with recreational marijuana.
“It’s difficult for us because we’re a small department. But at the same time, we’re not going to shy away from our work. If you possess any amount of marijuana in Texas, then we’re going to have to arrest you,” Gomez said.
In Texas possessing up to two ounces of marijuana is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a $2000 fine. On top of that there’s the cost of towing and impounding a vehicle. which Lt. Gomez calls an education in state marijuana laws that comes at a “hefty price.”
His advice for those visiting New Mexico’s new dispensaries in Anthony is: “be careful where you’re at because sometimes you don’t even know you’re already on the Texas side,” Gomez said. “It’s not like we have a marking on the street saying you’re in Texas now.” | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-13/texans-drive-up-sales-of-recreational-marijuana-in-new-mexico | 2022-05-12T15:37:31Z |
“Play ball!” echoed across the country’s ballparks during the past few days as baseball season began.
And, particularly in minor league parks, the cries of “pass the peanut butter” may also have reached the clubhouse. Peanut butter is a staple at minor league parks, where players don’t quite earn the six-figure incomes of their Major League counterparts.
“Minor league players say it’s almost the ramen noodle of minor leagues,” said Joseph DeWoody, CEO of Fort Worth-based HomePlate Peanut Butter.
HomePlate Peanut Butter was founded in 2015 by a team of former professional baseball players and entrepreneurs in Austin. Last year, Fort Worth-based Valor Management Consulting, a business management, process outsourcing and advisory firm and a subsidiary of Valor Mineral Management, began to manage the product and its brand. DeWoody is CEO of Valor as well.
“We’re in the process of really trying to put roots down here and bring it to town,” he said. “We’re getting involved with some local companies here in Fort Worth and advertising in the Little Leagues around here and working to build the brand here.”
Among that area outreach is a partnership with FunkyTown Donuts which created a donut combining HomePlate Peanut Butter, chocolate and M&Ms for baseball season. Customers who buy the HomePlate donut also get a sticker touting the HomePlate Peanut Butter brand.
“They made a great HomePlate donut,” said Hannah Jones, chief marketing officer for HomePlate. “We’re trying to find ways that we can work with other brands that have established themselves and also seen great success like FunkyTown.”
Peanuts and baseball have a long association. According to the National Peanut Board, peanuts have been sold as a concession at ballparks since 1895.
Shawn Ferguson, an entrepreneur in Aledo, was in minor league baseball for several years and said peanut butter was a part of his life during his time in the minors.
“The pre-game meal was always a snack, and peanut butter was always there,” he said. “You kind of feel like a little kid.”
Eventually, the players figure out their favorite peanut butter recipe, he said.
“Mine was creamy Jif, on bread with some honey and, if you have a knife, with the crust cut off,” he said.
HomePlate Peanut Butter is in a growing market. Sales of peanut butter increased during the pandemic, according to The Peanut Institute. Total peanut consumption grew to 7.6 pounds per capita in 2019-2020 with peanut butter growing 5.1% to 56% of total peanut consumption.
HomePlate Peanut Butter comes in three varieties: smooth, crunchy and honey. The product is made in Georgia and is priced about $5.99 per 16-ounce jar and is considered to be on the premium end of the peanut butter market.
“We’re not competing with Jif and Skippy,” said DeWoody.
The product is also touted as healthier than most traditional peanut butters.
“We use palm fruit oil instead of hydrogenated oils, and we don’t use emulsifiers and GMO ingredients like you see in some cheaper brands,” said Liz Jang, president.
The product is sold in stores such as H-E-B, Kroger, Neighbor’s House Grocery and Roy Pope Grocery, as well as online.
“We even have a subscription service,” said Jones. “People love the honey version. I think we just got the perfect blend of salty and a little sweet, and we use real honey, whereas a lot of other brands will use a powdered honey.”
The product also does well overseas, Jang said, particularly in Japan where baseball has a large fan base.
Chris Reale, owner/operator at Roy Pope Grocery, the longtime westside store that was refurbished in 2021, said he is a big supporter of local products like HomePlate.
“Customers are looking for special items like that and the fact that it’s a company based in Fort Worth is something our customers really look for,” he said.
For DeWoody, who has long been involved with Valor Mineral Management which provides oil and gas accounting, mineral management and consulting services, the move into consumer retail products is a little different. But if a client needs those services, Valor will provide them, he said.
“We create functional teams to come in and help out as needed. So we have accounting and logistics and operations and then marketing services,” DeWoody said.
But he and the other managers are excited about the opportunities provided by HomePlate Peanut Butter.
“It is a first-class product that has an outstanding brand foundation. Our goal is to continue its brand growth and presence in the peanut butter spread space,” said DeWoody.
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-14/fort-worth-company-tries-a-new-tune-buy-me-some-peanut-butter-and-cracker-jacks | 2022-05-12T15:37:37Z |
BILLINGS, Mont. — The Interior Department on Friday said it's moving forward with the first onshore sales of public oil and natural gas drilling leases under President Joe Biden, but will sharply increase royalty rates for companies as federal officials weigh efforts to fight climate change against pressure to bring down high gasoline prices.
The royalty rate for new leases will increase to 18.75% from 12.5%. That's a 50% jump and marks the first increase to royalties for the federal government since they were imposed in the 1920s.
Biden suspended new leasing just a week after taking office in January 2021. A federal judge in Louisiana ordered the sales to resume, saying Interior officials had offered no "rational explanation" for canceling them.
The government held an offshore lease auction in the Gulf of Mexico in November, although a court later blocked that sale before the leases were issued.
Friday's announcement comes amid pressure for Biden to expand U.S. crude production as the pandemic and war in Ukraine roil the global economy and fuel prices have spiked. The Democrat faces calls from within his own party to do more to curb emissions from fossil fuels that are driving climate change.
Leases for 225 square miles (580 square kilometers) of federal lands primarily in the West will be offered for sale in a notice to be posted on Monday, officials said. The parcels represent about 30% less land than officials had proposed for sale in November and 80% less than what was originally nominated by the industry.
The sales notices will cover leasing decisions in nine states — Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Montana, Alabama, Nevada, North Dakota and Oklahoma.
Interior Department officials declined to specify which states would have parcels for sale or to give a breakdown of the amount of land by state, saying that information would be included in Monday's sales notices. They said the reduced area being offered reflects a focus on leasing in locations near existing oil and gas development including pipelines.
Hundreds of parcels of public land that companies nominated for leasing had been previously dropped from the upcoming lease sale because of concerns about wildlife being harmed by drilling rigs.
At the time, officials said burning fuel from the remaining leases could cost billions of dollars in climate change impacts. Fossil fuels extracted from public lands account for about 20% of energy-related U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making them a prime target for climate activists who want to shut down leasing.
Republicans want more drilling, saying it would increase U.S. energy independence and help bring down the cost of crude. But oil companies have been hesitant to expand drilling because of uncertainty over how long high prices will continue.
Friday's announcement comes after Interior officials had raised the prospect of higher royalty rates and less land available for drilling in a leasing reform report issued last year.
"For too long, the federal oil and gas leasing programs have prioritized the wants of extractive industries," said Secretary Deb Haaland. "Today, we begin to reset how and what we consider to be the highest and best use of Americans' resources."
But the move brought condemnation from both ends of the political spectrum: Environmentalists derided the decision to hold the long-delayed sales, while oil industry representatives said the higher royalty rates would deter drilling.
Nicole Ghio with the environmental group Friends of the Earth said Biden was putting oil industry profits ahead of future generations that will have to deal with the worsening consequences of climate change.
"If Biden wants to be a climate leader, he must stop auctioning off our public lands to Big Oil," Ghio said in an emailed statement.
American Petroleum Institute Vice President Frank Macchiarola said officials had removed some of the most significant parcels that companies wanted to drill while adding "new barriers" that would discourage companies from investing in drilling on public lands.
Lease sales and royalties that companies pay on extracted oil and gas brought in more than $83 billion in revenue over the past decade. Half the money from onshore drilling goes to the state where it occurred.
Most states and many private landowners require companies to pay royalty rates higher than 12.5%, with some states charging 20% or more, according to federal officials.
The royalty rate for oil produced from federal reserves in deep waters in the Gulf of Mexico is 18.75%. In the November auction that was later canceled, energy companies including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil offered a combined $192 million for offshore drilling rights in the Gulf.
New leases that are developed could keep producing crude long past 2030, when Biden has set a goal to lower greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50%, compared with 2005 levels. Scientists say the world needs to be well on the way to that goal over the next decade to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Economists say a higher royalty rate would have a relatively small effect on global emissions, because any reductions in oil and gas from federal lands would be largely offset by fuel from other sources.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-18/biden-increases-oil-royalty-rate-and-scales-back-lease-sales-on-federal-lands | 2022-05-12T15:37:43Z |
Mall management at one of the city’s major retail centers announced the policy, the Parental Guidance Required Program, days after a fight broke out among teenagers April 16. Arlington police arrested “multiple juveniles” on fighting in public charges, according to the department’s Twitter account. No one was seriously injured, according to the post.
Because there have been a lot of rumors flying around on social media this evening, we wanted to provide some information regarding an incident that occurred earlier tonight at the Parks Mall.
— Arlington Police, TX (@ArlingtonPD) April 17, 2022
A fight broke out between a large group of teens inside the mall.
(thread)
1/ pic.twitter.com/lWJfhcVwjY
“The PGR program is intended to help provide a safe, peaceful experience at our shopping center,” said Lorie Lisius, mall senior general manager, in a statement. “We want to reiterate that all are welcome at the Parks Mall at Arlington at any time. We simply require that during certain weekend hours, families shop together and guests under 18 are accompanied by an adult.”
Various malls across the country have adapted policies requiring adult supervision during busy holiday seasons or after fights. Brookfield Properties, which owns Parks Mall and is one of the largest mall owners in the country, has enacted the program at a few other locations, and is “not something that we enter in lightly,” said company spokesperson Lindsay Kahn.
“We know that not all youth are disruptive and how important the mall is. It’s community and we all have experiences of hanging out at our local mall, so it is a last resort,” Kahn said.
Security officers will check government-issued or school identification cards of anyone who looks younger than 18. Parents or adults over 21 must remain with their children throughout the trip, and those over 18 will receive wristbands that are optional to wear, but may prevent people from getting carded again by officers throughout the mall.
Supervising adults can accompany up to four children ages 11 to 18 and any number of children 10 or under.
Mall staff will broadcast announcements starting at 1 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays to give unsupervised children time to leave.
Police Chief Al Jones said in a statement that his department supports the mall’s decision.
The April 16 fight is the second major brawl to break out in Parks Mall this year. Arlington police arrested five minors Jan. 8 following a fight that involved 20 to 30 people.
Got a tip? Email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org. You can follow Kailey on Twitter @KaileyBroussard.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-21/arlington-mall-announces-curfew-program-for-minors-after-brawl-ends-in-arrests | 2022-05-12T15:37:49Z |
DALLAS — As Texas’ exploding real estate market dramatically drives up home values, homeowners are getting sticker shock after receiving notice of their properties’ new appraised values — which help determine how much they pay in property taxes.
The growth rate of home values in the state’s major metropolitan areas has surged by double digits. In Harris County, the state’s most populous county, residential values have risen between 15% and 30%, according to Roland Altinger, the county’s chief appraiser.
In Bexar County, the median value of a home appreciated nearly 25% to $265,540.
And in Travis County, where the state’s housing crunch has been most apparent, the median home value has skyrocketed — climbing more than 50% since last year to $632,208.
“We have never seen anything like this,” said Marya Crigler, chief appraiser at the Travis County Appraisal District. “This is unprecedented for us in Travis County. And I think that same unprecedented appreciation is being seen statewide.”
But an increase in value doesn’t necessarily guarantee a dramatically larger tax bill, appraisers and property tax experts caution.
“Many factors complicate how property taxes are calculated,” said Adam Perdue, a research economist at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.
It’s likely that at least some local governments will have to cut their property tax rates in order to fall in line with recent state laws meant to slow property tax growth. And the state’s top elected officials are already making new promises to bring down Texans’ property tax bills. But recent laws haven’t stopped property tax growth altogether.
Property tax collections have risen more than 20% since 2017, according to data from the Texas Comptroller’s office. Texans paid an estimated $73.2 billion in property taxes in 2021, which went to school districts, cities, counties and other taxing entities that then use the revenue to fund everything from public schools and police departments to road maintenance.
Facing reelection, Gov. Greg Abbott has deemed property tax reduction a top priority when state lawmakers reconvene next year.
"One of my top goals this coming session is to reduce property tax substantially, and that will reduce the cost of doing business," Abbott said during a March event for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Austin. "It will also reduce the cost of living."
Democratic opponent Beto O’Rourke, a former El Paso congressman, sees an opportunity to lay the blame for the state’s rampant growth in property taxes at Abbott’s feet. In a new line of attack, O’Rourke has pointed out that the amount of property taxes paid by property owners has grown by more than $20 billion since Abbott took office in 2015. (Abbott’s campaign has said the Legislature has spent $18 billion since 2015 to limit how much school property taxes grow.)
“He (Abbott) is the single greatest driver of inflation in the state of Texas, and it's causing real pain to our fellow Texans right now,” O’Rourke said at a Wednesday press conference in southern Dallas.
Here’s a quick primer on how Texas got here:
Why are property taxes in Texas so high?
Texas’ local governments rely heavily on property taxes to pay the salaries of police officers and firefighters and for government services like roads, libraries, parks and public schools. Coupled with the fact that Texas has no state income tax, Texans’ property tax bills are among the highest in the nation.
Texas homeowners pay a higher proportion of their home value toward property taxes than most homeowners in other parts of the nation, according to the Tax Foundation. Texas depends more on property taxes than almost any other state to pay for government services — edged out only by New Hampshire, Alaska and New Jersey.
In no arena is that more apparent than in Texas’ public schools — which depend greatly on property taxes for funding.
School districts use local property tax revenue to cover as much of their base budgets as possible — then the state chips in the rest. Over time, that formula has often resulted in fewer state dollars paying for public education as local property values have grown.
In any given year, revenue from property taxes makes up more than half of the state’s pot of funds to pay for public schools, the rest of which comes from state and federal sources. Of the $69.3 billion that went to public education in fiscal year 2020, property taxes kicked in $38.4 billion while the state provided $23.3 billion. The rest came from federal funds.
As a result, school property taxes make up the bulk of a typical Texas homeowner’s tax bill. More than half of all property tax revenue in the state comes from school property taxes, according to data from the Texas Comptroller’s office.
“The only way to really institute meaningful property tax reductions would either be to find some other revenue source or to substantially cut education budgets,” said Dr. Charles Gilliland, a research economist who studies property taxes at the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University. “Neither one of those options is palatable in today's political atmosphere, so that's how we got into this situation.”
Has anyone tried to fix this?
Texas legislators have tried numerous ways to limit property tax growth.
Lawmakers have raised the state’s homestead exemption — the portion of a homeowner’s home value exempt from taxation — to $25,000.
State law also limits the taxable value of a home from rising more than 10% in a given year on an owner’s primary residence. In Travis County, the median market value of a home grew nearly 54%. But the median taxable value of a home in Travis County rose by about 11% after also accounting for the construction of new homes just coming onto tax rolls for the first time.
In 2019, lawmakers passed a pair of laws aimed at slowing growth. House Bill 3 was an $11.6 billion school finance bill that included $5.1 billion to lower school district taxes, $6.5 billion in new school spending and caps on school districts’ tax rates. Senate Bill 2 required many cities, counties and other taxing units to get voter approval if they want to raise the property tax revenue they collect from all property owners by 3.5% or more than the previous year.
According to a study by the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, the bills worked — sort of. The study says Texas taxpayers would have shelled out $6 billion more in property taxes than they did in 2021 if not for the two bills — the result of falling tax rates.
But that doesn’t mean everyone’s paying less in taxes. School tax rates dropped by 13% since the bills passed in 2019, but taxable property values rose by 23%, according to the study.
“Values are still rising faster than school tax rates,” said Dale Craymer, president of the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association. “But taxpayers now at least benefit as their values rise. They benefit from falling tax rates. That didn't happen before 2019.”
Meanwhile, ideas like making the sales prices of properties public — which advocates say would ensure properties aren’t exorbitantly valued and that owners of expensive properties are paying their fair share of taxes — have gone nowhere.
What’s on the table now?
With campaign season comes new promises to cut property taxes.
Abbott has touted a “taxpayer bill of rights” that includes proposals to further reduce school property tax rates, make property appraisals more transparent and limit local governments from taking on new debt without voter approval.
On Wednesday, O’Rourke put forth a set of ideas to reduce Texans’ property tax burden. That would include making sure that the state picks up 50% of the tab for public schools, expanding Medicaid to ease the property tax bill for publicly funded hospitals, plus legalizing marijuana and taxing its sale. He also floated the idea of legalizing casino gambling and sports betting as a way of generating more tax revenue.
Texas voters will have the opportunity to cut their own taxes at the May ballot box. On the ballot is a measure to raise the state’s homestead exemption from $25,000 to $40,000 for school district property taxes. The average homeowner would see about $176 in savings on their annual property tax bill, according to Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston, the proposal’s author.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in the state House and Senate are weighing ideas to use state and federal funds to cover some school expenses so that districts could lower property taxes. They’re looking at a $12 billion surplus in state revenue along with $3 billion in federal stimulus dollars that Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and House Speaker Dade Phelan set aside to pay for tax relief when the Legislature convenes in 2023.
Whether state lawmakers will be able to use federal stimulus funds to pay for property tax cuts hasn’t been settled. The $3 billion comes out of the American Rescue Plan Act, the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill aimed at pandemic relief, which prohibits the use of stimulus funds for tax cuts.
Texas, joined by Louisiana and Mississippi, sued the federal government last year alleging that the prohibition is unconstitutional. A federal judge in Amarillo sided with Texas earlier this month, but the decision is likely to be appealed.
One idea that has gained momentum in Republican circles is the abolition of school districts’ maintenance and operations tax, which Patrick instructed senators to look into this year.
Craymer, the TTARA president, is dismissive of that.
“I don't think we're getting rid of the school M&O tax anytime soon,” Craymer said. “I don't think we're getting rid of the property tax anytime soon.”
Other ideas abound. During a Thursday meeting of the Texas House Ways & Means Committee, state Rep. Morgan Meyer, a Dallas Republican, asked the comptroller’s office to look into what effect lowering the appraisal cap on residential taxable values and creating such a cap for commercial properties would have on tax revenue.
But lawmakers have left little room for themselves to maneuver on property taxes, observers have said. The state’s lack of an income tax has long been a carrot to attract employers and new residents to Texas. And Texas voters won’t allow one; in 2019, they voted to enshrine a ban on a state income tax in the state’s constitution.
“Texas has kind of painted itself into a corner by now having a constitutional prohibition against what is a major source of funding for other states by concentrating on reducing property taxes, rather than expanding the people who pay their fair share,” said Dick Lavine, senior fiscal analyst with the liberal-leaning Every Texan. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-22/as-texas-home-values-skyrocket-state-officials-wrestle-with-how-to-slow-property-tax-increases | 2022-05-12T15:37:56Z |
The goal of the eviction clinic is to bring together tenants, property managers, property owners to help people navigate what can be a confusing and intimidating process.
Multiple organizations will have representatives present, including the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Legal Aid of Northwest Texas and the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center. They’ll be helping to connect renters involved in the eviction process to available resources. They'll also answer questions about the process.
The Dallas County Constable's office said the idea for hosting the clinic came about after North Texas eviction filings last month reached the highest level since the onset of the pandemic. According to the North Texas Eviction Project, more than 7,800 evictions were filed across Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin Counties in March.
The event will run from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Oak Cliff Government Center at 320 East Jefferson Boulevard in Dallas.
The County Constable’s office said both tenants and landlords could benefit from attending.
Got a tip? Email Rebekah Morr at rmorr@kera.org. You can follow her on Twitter @bekah_morr.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-22/oak-cliff-eviction-clinic-aims-to-demystify-the-eviction-process | 2022-05-12T15:38:02Z |
Amid Twitter fanfare April 26, Fort Worth became the first city government in the nation to mine its own Bitcoin.
Parker was eager to share the news. She streamed herself on Twitter inside Fort Worth’s data center in City Hall as she connected wires to turn on three small Bitcoin mining machines on April 26.
Launching the @CityofFortWorth #Bitcoin mining pilot program w/ @TexasBlockchain1 and becoming the first city government in the United States to mine #Bitcoin #ItBeginsInFW https://t.co/W7yE9nWnFr
— Mayor Mattie Parker (@MayorMattie) April 26, 2022
“I’ve been joking that we’re Cowtown and cryptocurrency, right?” Parker said on the stream. “It’s all happening in Fort Worth.”
Standing beside Parker, Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, described Texas as the epicenter for Bitcoin mining globally. Now, he said, Fort Worth is taking steps to become the capital of Bitcoin mining in the state.
Bitcoin is a type of cryptocurrency, a digital currency that is not backed by an establishment such as a bank. To make sure each Bitcoin transaction is verified, machines in a network compete to solve a complicated math problem. If the machine solves it first, it becomes the official record of the transaction. A Bitcoin is given in exchange as an award to the first miner that solves the math problem. This process is called mining.
The city of Fort Worth will mine with three Bitmain Antminer S9 machines donated by the Texas Blockchain Council — an organization made up of companies and people working in the cryptocurrency industries. The miners, worth $2,100 altogether, will operate 24 hours a day at the Information Technology Solutions Department at Fort Worth City Hall in a six-month pilot program.
The pilot program isn’t just about testing cryptocurrency, Parker said.
“It’s bigger than that,” she said. “We want to be a city that’s on the forefront of technology innovation. And what I’ve noticed lately is that any company that’s on the forefront of technology, they’re all talking about cryptocurrency.”
During the live Twitter conversation, Parker said she got the idea when she was running for mayor and started talking to Les Kreis, principal at Steelhead Capital, about how the city can be at the cutting edge of technology.
Breaking News Coverage: Ft. Worth Texas becomes the first US city to mine #Bitcoin @lee_bratcher @MayorMattie https://t.co/8hVHipfkhk
— Dennis Porter (@Dennis_Porter_) April 26, 2022
The city of Fort Worth has been trying to sell itself as an innovative place for tech workers to grow their companies or relocate. It recently established an entrepreneurship and innovation council committee and has funded the Techstars Physical Health Fort Worth Accelerator program, according to past reporting from the Fort Worth Report.
Some cryptocurrency advocates believe the industry has something to gain from city government officials dipping its toes in Bitcoin mining. The federal government is contemplating the use of a digital currency, and The Federal Reserve released a paper discussing the pros and cons in January.
Other countries, like China, have banned the use of cryptocurrencies, in fear of economic instability and to prevent financial crimes, according to the World Economic Forum.
People in the industry have promoted the idea that cities, states and the national government should mine Bitcoin, Dennis Porter, a Bitcoin advocate who hosted the Twitter conversation with Parker, said.
“So to have a city actually doing it now, it’s almost like a dream come true, I’m sure, for a lot of miners in the space,” Porter said during the stream.
Parker said the program will be operated by a combination of her office, the Texas Blockchain Council and the city of Fort Worth’s IT department.
Texas has been open to the entrance of cryptocurrency companies. Last year, legislators passed a law that recognized cryptocurrency in the state’s Uniform Commercial Code. Another law established a panel to develop a plan for the expansion of the blockchain industry. The city of Denton recently saw the entry of a cryptocurrency mining site.
The amount of money the machines make from mining Bitcoin will be small, and the machines take up the same amount of energy as a vacuum cleaner, Parker said.
That isn’t exactly true. Some criticism of Bitcoin mining focuses on the massive amount of energy it takes up, according to reports. And mining machines take up more power over time, Kelly Slaughter, an associate professor with expertise in fintech at Texas Christian University, said.
As the computers get more powerful and better at solving problems quickly, the servers make the problems more difficult. That makes the computer work harder, which means it takes more energy. It does take up energy, he said, but so do other servers.
“Something that IT has been working on for decades is how do we get the servers to use less electricity?” Slaughter said. “So I don’t know if Bitcoin would really be as prominent as if it was ranked into what else actually takes electricity.”
Cryptocurrency is a transparent process, he said. If people know the account address number, they can see all the transactions made. He said that it could make the city government more transparent if it started doing transactions via a cryptocurrency system and published its account address.
“You actually now have a public ledger, that in my mind makes the city government more accountable to the population than ever. I can actually look real time and see whatever tax collections they’ve been making,” Slaughter said. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-28/fort-worth-embraces-cryptocurrency-becomes-first-city-in-u-s-to-mine-bitcoin | 2022-05-12T15:38:08Z |
People who own property throughout Texas recently received new valuations from their local appraisal districts. This number, known as your appraised value, estimates what your property would currently sell for in the state's booming market.Appraisals are higher than they were last year, especially in Austin. According to the Travis Central Appraisal District, on average, appraised values rose 56% over the past year.
But if you live in the house you own, and have filed what is called a homestead exemption, the amount you have to pay taxes on is entirely different. This is called your “taxable value,” and it is probably much lower than the estimate of what your home would sell for — unless you bought your house in the past year. Then those numbers are likely the same.
Still confused and in shock? We got you.
The appraised value of my home went up more than 50% in the last year. Does that mean my taxes will go up that amount?
Almost certainly no.
If your property tax bill does go up — and we don’t know that it will — it’s almost certain it won’t increase by anywhere close to that amount. That’s because while the amount your home would sell for can go up any amount year over year, the state limits how much of that value you can be taxed on.
Consider the example of Matt Largey, projects editor at KUT. He bought his home in Southwest Austin in 2013 for around $155,000. Since then, its market value has more than tripled. The Travis Central Appraisal District now estimates that his three-bedroom home would sell for nearly $461,000 on today’s market.
But he won’t be taxed on that amount. The "Net Appraised" column shows Largey's taxable value. (Sort of. It depends on the taxing entity. We'll get to that later.)
When he bought his house, his appraised and net appraised values would have been the same number. His appraised value is subject to the market; the past few years, market values have been increasing rapidly. The same is not true for the net appraised, which is subject to a state cap. This number begins increasing 10% annually starting the year after you bought your home.
You are taxed on either the appraised or net appraised value, whichever is lower in a given year. For Largey, and probably many people in Austin, that lower number is going to be the net appraised.
Once you've determined that taxable amount, each taxing entity applies various exemptions, or "discounts," if you qualify. The City of Austin, for example, allows owners who live in their homes to exempt one-fifth of their taxable amount from taxes. As a result, Largey will only pay property taxes to the city based on $242,684 of taxable value.
So, I’ll ask again: Will my taxes go up?
We don’t know yet.
Later this summer, all the entities that collect taxes will set their tax rates. This includes school districts, cities, counties and other entities. Then, they will apply these rates to the amount they’re permitted to tax you on.
Say the City of Austin sets its tax rate this coming fiscal year to $0.541 per $100. (That’s what the tax rate is this current year.) Largey would owe nearly $1,313 in property taxes to the city. He will also pay taxes to five other entities, and the amounts will depend on their respective tax rates and exemptions.
According to TCAD, you can expect to begin seeing changes in your property tax bill starting in October.
Is there a chance my property tax bill will actually go down?
Sure. Maybe.
The City of Austin says it expects to lower its tax rate this year because values have gone up so significantly. The city also has to be careful not to exceed a state cap on how much new property tax revenue it can collect. State lawmakers in 2019 passed a bill lowering that cap from 8% to 3.5%. If the city wants to exceed this number, it has to hold an election.
But a lower tax rate doesn’t always mean lower taxes. For example, the city could lower the tax rate to an amount that's not enough to offset the rise in taxable values. This happened in 2018 when the Austin City Council voted to lower the tax rate from $0.4448 to $0.4403. Even though the tax rate was (slightly) lower, the city estimated the owner of a home worth $400,000 would pay about $42 more in city property taxes than the year before.
What does it mean to protest my property appraisal?
You can contest your appraised value, or the market value. But you cannot contest your net appraised value, which is what you're likely being taxed on.
Over time, protesting your property appraisal may mean you can get it closer to your net appraised value. This could be helpful in an alternate universe in which Austin’s housing market crashes and values tank, and suddenly your appraised value is less than your taxable value. Then you’d be taxed on the smaller number.
Why should renters care about this?
Renters may be more adversely affected by property appraisals than homeowners who live in their homes (i.e., not landlords).
Landlords don’t get that 10% cap on net appraised amount increases each year. They also don’t get to hide a fifth of their taxable amount from taxes, as the city allows owners who live in their homes to do. So, while market values go up wildly, so do landlords’ taxable amounts, which, in turn, could get passed on to renters, who are already feeling strained by rising prices. | https://www.keranews.org/business-economy/2022-04-28/the-value-of-homes-in-travis-county-continues-to-grow-but-it-doesnt-mean-your-property-taxes-will | 2022-05-12T15:38:14Z |
Carson Frame | Texas Public Radio
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More than four years after a former airman killed 26 people at a rural Texas church, advocates say the military still needs to do more to prevent violent service members and veterans from owning guns. | https://www.keranews.org/carson-frame-texas-public-radio | 2022-05-12T15:38:20Z |
David Moreno| Fort Worth Report
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For years, human routine and habits intrigued Greg Bahr. He was drawn to the patterns and repetitiveness in people’s daily lives.
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After being spotted by a representative from the Graffiti Abatement Program, UNO painted 36 murals on nine pillars, for free, beneath Lancaster Bridge from September 2019 until July 2020. | https://www.keranews.org/david-moreno-fort-worth-report | 2022-05-12T15:38:26Z |
A federal judge has ruled that the University of North Texas can’t charge out-of-state American students higher tuition than undocumented Texans who qualify for lower in-state tuition under a 2001 Texas law.
UNT lawyers appealed last week’s decision by U.S. District Judge Sean Jordan, a Trump appointee, over the weekend. If upheld, the decision could impact other Texas public universities, which depend financially on charging higher out-of-state student tuition.
The ruling centers on Texas’ 2001 law allowing undocumented students who have lived in Texas for three years and graduate from a Texas high school to pay in-state tuition.
This recent challenge by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, on behalf of the student organization the Young Conservatives of Texas, could provide a new path forward for some Texas lawmakers who have wanted to eliminate the in-state tuition benefit for undocumented students since at least 2015.
In 2021, a little more than 22,000 students were enrolled in Texas colleges and universities using this benefit.
Two years ago, the right-leaning TPPF filed the lawsuit, pointing out that the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 states that an individual “who does not legally reside in the United States should not be eligible for a postsecondary education benefit granted on the basis of where someone lives unless United States citizens qualify for the same benefit.” Therefore, they argued, out-of-state students shouldn't have to pay more than undocumented Texas students.
Jordan, the federal judge, agreed.
“Because Texas’s non-resident tuition scheme directly conflicts with Congress’s express prohibition on providing eligibility for postsecondary education benefits, it is preempted and therefore unconstitutional,” Jordan wrote.
Other university systems in the state said they are still reviewing this ruling.
But Thomas A. Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, criticized the judge’s ruling.
“It’s hard not to see it as a Trump judge overreaching to try to change longstanding law in the state of Texas,” said Saenz, who is also MALDEF’s general counsel. He found the ruling surprising given the amount of time the state law has been in place.
“It’s obviously a political lawsuit, and granting that political lawsuit is what’s disturbing,” he said.
TPPF lawyer Rob Henneke said he’s excited the ruling will make Texas colleges and universities more affordable for out-of-state students.
“For the thousands of college students in Texas who’ve been burdened by these higher out-of-state tuition rates, they get immediate relief from having to pay so much to be educated,” he said.
According to New American Economy, a bipartisan research group, out-of-state tuition rates are on average three times higher than in-state rates. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-13/federal-judge-rules-unt-cant-charge-out-of-state-students-more-tuition-than-undocumented-students | 2022-05-12T15:38:32Z |
South Hills High School student Italia Jalomo, 18, picked up welding with her father — who works with metals. She learned to get the job done on her second day observing him — she’s a “hands-on learner,” she said.
“I’ve done welding with my dad and my uncle, who own their little gate company. I’ve done that before with them. And ever since I did that, I really enjoyed it,” Jalomo said. “People will say that’s not a woman’s job. I’ve been tied down so many times about that. But I make myself happy. I think women should be a part of anything that they can do.”
Jalomo’s father encourages her to pursue welding while also having a back-up plan.
“He told me not to get into it forever. Because you know how the whole thing messes up your eyes. So, I plan on doing that, and then after that, see where it goes,” Jalomo said. She wants to find a hands-on job where she fixes things like an electrician, she said.
The district offered the Fort Worth ISD Internship Fair on April 14. Daphne Rickard, executive director of Career and Technical Education at Fort Worth ISD, said she hopes seniors find post-graduation internships and juniors line up internships for their senior year.
South Hills High School parent specialist Miriam Rodriguez chaperoned her students to Fort Worth ISD’s Teaching and Learning Center, 1050 Bridgewood Drive.
Rodriguez was keen to help her students find an internship in fields they’re interested in.
“I’m excited because these kids are not the traditional, ‘I’m going to go to college’ kids. For the most part, these kids are like, ‘I don’t even know what I want to do,’” Rodriguez said. “I’m trying to get them open to different options. Let’s land them a good paying job where their skills will be showcased.”
Fort Worth ISD hopes to host future internship fairs in the coming years, Rickard said. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-18/high-school-welder-looks-for-options-at-fort-worth-isd-internship-fair | 2022-05-12T15:38:39Z |
For nearly half a year, southeast Fort Worth ISD has not had a school board member. That means no elected resident to voice community concerns or shape key decisions.
Daphne Brookins represented District 4 for two years until her death in November. Now, three candidates — community organizer Wallace Bridges, child psychiatrist Brian Dixon and correctional officer Trischelle Strong — are vying to succeed Brookins in a special election. This seat, along with District 1 in the Northside, will be crucial as the school board ramps up its search for a new superintendent.
Bridges, 63, is seeking the seat for the second time; he ran in 2021 and lost to Brookins. Dixon, 41, and Strong, 22, are first-time candidates for the seat. Strong did not respond to Fort Worth Report requests to comment. The winner will serve for the remaining three years left of Brookins’ term.
Early voting begins April 25 and ends May 3. Election Day is May 7. Polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Superintendent search crucial
Dixon and Bridges were blunt when assessing the current state of Fort Worth ISD: Trustees and administrators have their work cut out for them, they said.
The district has room for improvement on several fronts, including student outcomes and simply communicating with the community, Dixon said.
Likewise, Bridges said, the district has not been able to make good on its promise to fix student performance and it has failed at accomplishing even simpler tasks, like communicating to parents and the community.
“It’s a state of disarray,” Bridges said. “The board has to take ownership.”
Picking a new superintendent could make a difference in fixing Fort Worth ISD, the candidates said.
Bridges and Dixon recognize their voice and vote could determine the type of leader the school board hires to replace departing Superintendent Kent Scribner, who has been in the position for seven years.
Appointing a superintendent, the sole employee who reports directly to trustees, is one of the most important decisions a school board can make — and it has long-lasting ramifications. The winner will join a school board in which all but one trustee has never gone through this process.
Dixon wants the next superintendent to be a person who can manage people well and has a record of doing so.
“If you don’t have that, you end up with a lot of people doing whatever they think as best, and that’s not sustainable in the long run,” Dixon said.
He agreed with Mayor Mattie Parker’s take that the district needs a person who is more like a chief executive officer. Dixon is open to a non-traditional superintendent candidate, as well as a turnaround expert who can really hone in on improving student outcomes.
Bridges believes Scribner’s successor must be someone who has turned around an urban, minority-majority school district.
This person also must be able to boost staff morale, he added. Bridges has talked to teachers and other Fort Worth ISD staff who have become disheartened with education after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic and their profession becoming a political football for politicians.
“You’re going to need somebody who can motivate the staff and team. …. That’s something that’s been missing,” Bridges said.
Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates is leading the school board’s superintendent search. The firm expects Fort Worth ISD to have a new superintendent in place around the start of the new school year. Scribner is scheduled to leave his position on Aug. 31.
A new voice
Each candidate will be a new voice on the school board. Each brings his own set of experiences that could influence policy.
If he’s elected, Bridges sees his role as a trustee as having a pulse on his community in District 4. Residents’ voices have not been used when making decisions, he said.
For example, Bridges pointed to Fort Worth ISD’s Saturday school program, which is aimed at recovering learning loss some students experienced when they were stuck at home during the worst days of the pandemic. Administrators forgot that many working families spend Saturdays as a day to catch up on their household chores and spend time with their children.
Nearly 85% of Fort Worth ISD students are economically disadvantaged.
“I don’t think decisions are planned in a way to what’s going on in families and the community,” Bridges said, adding every decision ultimately comes to the students.
As a child psychiatrist, Dixon believes he can be a conduit for expressing issues children deal with on a daily basis. Dixon also sees his skills being handy when it is time for awkward conversations about student discipline or even more lightning rod cultural issues, such as race and what schools should teach. Many of these conversations are missing a key component, Dixon said.
“Everything needs context. If you don’t have context, it won’t make sense,” Dixon said. “We’ve lost a lot of context when it comes to education, so hopefully I can help bring more context to those discussions.”
Money matters
Dixon leads Bridges in fundraising, according to campaign finance reports. Strong, the third candidate, did not file her April 7 campaign finance report.
Dixon raised $7,350 from Feb. 19 to March 28. Bridges brought in $4,335 during the same period.
Both men have spent similar amounts. Dixon spent $2,197, while Bridges used $1,943.
Dixon and Bridges also have similar amounts still in their savings accounts. Dixon edged out Bridges by almost $62. Dixon has $3,874 in cash on hand, and Bridges has $3,812.
The next campaign finance reports are due April 29, eight days before the May 7 election. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-18/southeast-fort-worth-isd-voters-to-elect-new-trustee-after-6-month-long-vacancy | 2022-05-12T15:38:45Z |
More than 30 supporters rallied in the Irving ISD administration parking lot Monday night ahead of a school board meeting where trustees were to discuss firing Rachel Stonecipher.
Protestors held signs reading "Support inclusive teachers" and "Firing excellent teachers is the wrong lesson." They chanted "Who do we support? Rachel Stonecipher!" Members of the Texas Faculty Association, the Dallas Resource Center, the American Federation of Teachers and the Dallas Socialists were there to show support for the English and journalism teacher.
James Whitfield was among several who spoke on Stonecipher's behalf. The former Colleyville principal, who is Black, resigned his post after he was accused of teaching critical race theory, which is not a part of any Texas high school curriculum.
He said his case and Stonecipher's were similar. Her backers say she was removed because she's openly gay and supported LGBTQ students. She put up rainbow stickers in class last fall, intending to mark the room as a safe space.
The district removed the stickers and justified the move in a statement.
"Labeling certain classrooms as safe havens for certain groups could communicate to students who do not see themselves reflected in that classroom's decorations that they are unwanted or unsafe in those rooms," said part of that statement.
Stonecipher, who was the advisor for the Gay Student Alliance and the school newspaper, was transferred to another school. She was removed from that classroom earlier this month.
She challenged the district's statement Monday night.
"Those stickers were not endangering students," she said. "We have no evidence that they ever endangered or made students feel unsafe, ever. What did feel unsafe was when they came down."
During the school board meeting, more than a dozen people spoke on Stonecipher's behalf, including her mother. All the speakers demanded Stonecipher get her job back.
"Back in October, when I thought if we stick up for ourselves, maybe we can change the way things are happening. And wow, was I wrong," said 15-year-old sophomore Lola Dempsey.
"It's April and Ms. Stonecipher never got her job back. That fact that not even my teachers can be safe at their job is completely disheartening. Your schools will never be a safe space for queer students. Your schools aren't even a safe space for people of color."
The board was expected to make a final determination and announce it after closed session. But they said nothing on the matter before adjourning the meeting.
Stonecipher said she expects she'll be officially fired Wednesday after a scheduled meeting. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-19/protestors-say-embattled-irving-high-school-teacher-who-put-up-rainbow-stickers-should-keep-her-job | 2022-05-12T15:38:51Z |
The college terminated its executive director of communications, Suzanne Groves, on April 15, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court. Her attorney is Frank Hill, who is representing other former employees in due process lawsuits.
Reginald Gates, TCC vice chancellor for communications and external affairs, said he could not comment on personnel matters to confirm the termination of Groves. After the lawsuit was filed, the Report attempted to contact Gates again, but he was unavailable. Board President Teresa Ayala deferred comments to Gates.
According to the lawsuit, Groves’ termination violates her right to free speech and due process. She is suing for damages including her salary and benefits lost and for a reasonable sum for physical pain and mental anguish.
“Groves is deeply emotionally injured, and you hear lawyers say that in every case,” Hill said. “Well, I’ve been doing it for 55 years, and I can tell you she can hardly contain herself. She’s shaking, crying, hurt emotionally.”
Path to her termination
The college’s actions against Groves spring from how she handled documents she received, according to the lawsuit. In October 2021, Groves received information that indicated a TCC Foundation employee involved with then-Chancellor Eugene Giovannini had a criminal record. The lawsuit claims Groves received the documents from Louise Appleman, a past president of the board of trustees at TCC.
However, Appleman told the Report she does not know what documents the lawsuit is referring to.
Groves turned the documents over to the employee’s supervisor, Kristen Bennett, the former executive vice president of advancement at the TCC Foundation. Bennett is one of the employees involved in another due process lawsuit against the college. She claims she was terminated because of her employee’s relationship with Giovannini.
The lawsuit said no policy or directive prohibited Groves from giving this type of documentation to her supervisor. The lawsuit also states at the time Groves received the documents, the majority of the board knew of the inappropriate relationship between the chancellor and the woman in question.
The board had an independent investigation conducted by attorney Kip Mendryga, according to the lawsuit. During that investigation, the attorney “inadvertently discovered” Groves’ handling of these documents which led to her termination.
Since Bennett’s lawsuit was filed Feb. 7, Hill said, he’s received about 50 calls from current and past TCC employees sharing similar grievances.
People “need to vote every one of these people off this board at the first opportunity they have,” he said. “It is totally dysfunctional.” | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-19/tarrant-county-college-director-of-communications-files-suit-over-termination | 2022-05-12T15:38:57Z |
Six years ago, Staci Crosswell joined the ranks of the teaching profession to do one thing: make a difference.
But, as reality has set it in, the hope and optimism have slowly drained away.
Crosswell’s story is a common one heard from hundreds of Texas teachers who have become disillusioned with the profession. There’s the low average salary that has remained stagnant for nearly a decade. Then the frequent switches to virtual learning and back to the classroom caused by the coronavirus pandemic. And the newer requirement to complete a 60- to 120-hour course on reading, known as Reading Academies, if teachers for kindergarten through third grade want to keep their jobs in 2023. And there’s the recouping of learning progress lost during the pandemic.
Crosswell considered leaving her teaching job in the middle of the school year. But the fear of losing her teaching certification stopped her. Over the last six months, a record number of teachers have been reported to the state for leaving in the middle of the school year. Doing so means a district can have a teacher’s license revoked.
Crosswell, who is a second grade teacher in the Humble Independent School District, said she wasn’t going to risk getting reported and potentially lose her certification even though she still plans on leaving the profession at the end of the 2021-22 school year.
“It’s my safety,” she said. “If I lost my teaching certificate, I would be out of luck.”
Districts in the past have reported teachers to the state for leaving before their contracts are up, but over the last year there has been a surge in such reports — at the same time as a statewide teacher shortage.
At least 471 contract abandonment reports have been sent to the state, according to recent data. That’s a 60% increase from the 2021 fiscal year.
“We’re leaving because it’s not worth it anymore,” Crosswell said.
Teachers who opt to leave in the middle of a school year can be reported to the state, and the State Board for Educator Certification can either suspend or revoke a teacher’s certification. In most cases, teachers receive a one-year suspension of their certification. Teachers can leave the job penalty-free if they do so 45 days before the school year begins.
Paul Tapp, an attorney for the Association of Texas Professional Educators, provides legal counsel for teachers looking to understand the consequences of contract abandonment. In the past two years, Tapp said, he’s seen a surge of teacher certification suspensions.
“I’ve been working with teachers just a little over 25 years at this point, and I have never seen a period like we have gone through, particularly this year, but last year as well,” Tapp said. “The thing we’re seeing now that we didn’t see before was the teacher saying, ‘OK, I understand I’ll be sanctioned, and I don’t care.’”
Tapp said he thinks the marked increase isn’t necessarily because districts are issuing complaints to the state more than before, but that teachers are quitting at unprecedented rates.
“On top of having such a difficult job, being kicked around in the public discourse has just gotten to be too much for a lot of teachers,” Tapp said, referring to the push to ban anti-racism instruction, labeled by some state lawmakers as critical race theory, and the move by some districts to restrict acknowledgement of LGBTQ identities in the classroom.
The state has recently adopted new flexibility when looking at these contract-abandonment cases. Exceptions can be made if a teacher is changing positions, resigning because of safety concerns or experiencing a reduction in pay.
But still, the surge in reports boils down to districts needing a teacher in a classroom, and school officials are trying anything in their power to discourage teachers from leaving before their contracts are up.
“ISDs have really found themselves between a rock and a hard place,” said Monty Exter, a lobbyist with the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
Exter said he has a hard time believing that districts want to punish these teachers. Instead, he thinks they want to create an atmosphere that stops other teachers from trying to quit as well. But that isn’t an effective strategy because most teachers who leave mid-year are leaving the profession and are not coming back.
The surge in reports could also have a negative effect on people wanting to enter the field as they will see it as a bad environment, Exter said.
“It’s too adversarial,” he said. “But again, I think ISDs feel like they have limited tools, and they are under a lot of pressure at the moment.”
Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, said school districts that are losing more teachers this school year are finding it increasingly difficult to replace them in the middle of the year.
“Every single one of those individuals have made a conscious decision to say they no longer give a damn about their teacher certification because conditions have gotten that bad,” Capo said.
When talking about Texas’ teacher shortage, experts usually point to teachers being overworked and underpaid. But Capo believes these teachers aren’t leaving in the middle of the year and potentially risking their certification over more pay. He believes it’s become an issue of health, safety and respect.
Texas saw two COVID-19 surges this school year, which pushed school districts to the limit. Teachers were out, substitutes weren’t available and instead districts were asking parents to come in and watch the children.
When Crosswell was making her decision to leave, she said it boiled down to putting her interest first. Teachers, for the most part, are asked to be selfless and put others ahead of themselves and their families.
“My mental health is greater than the need,” she said.
While a school district can file a complaint to the state, only SBEC has the legal authority to sanction a teacher. Teachers need what’s considered “good cause” to leave the classroom mid-year without punishment, which can include health concerns or a spouse getting a job in a different city. Overwork and an unwillingness to continue are not considered good cause, Tapp said.
The vast majority of teacher contracts are single-year contracts, Tapp said. And although districts like Pflugerville ISD have decided to more aggressively report teachers to the state in the midst of a teacher shortage, some have taken the opposite approach — like giving thousands of dollars in bonuses to teachers who decide to stay.
“As a lawyer, I have a lot of respect for contracts,” Tapp said. “I certainly understand you can’t just walk away from it because you don’t feel like doing it anymore. But that said, there is a larger public issue here as well. … Sidelining a teacher so they are not available to teach anymore, in the middle of the teaching shortage we’re dealing with, hurts everyone.”
The suspension of a teacher’s license usually lasts for one calendar year, starting from the time the teacher abandoned the contract or the time the sanction was issued. Because a school year intersects with two calendar years, this usually means the teacher won’t be able to teach in Texas public schools for at least two school years, Tapp said.
Tapp said the state should consider meting out lesser sanctions. An inscribed reprimand on a teacher’s license, for instance, would permanently reflect their decision to leave.
“The idea that the one-year suspension is the appropriate sanction for a teacher who abandons her contract is something that was just decided; there’s nothing that is written in stone that that’s the obvious sanction,” Tapp said.
“I understand that there’s a balance that has to be considered because we do need teachers in the classroom,” he said. “But I think teachers, like any professionals, should be able to expect that the expectations put on them are going to be reasonable.” | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-19/texas-educators-are-losing-their-licenses-for-quitting-during-the-school-year-amid-teacher-shortage | 2022-05-12T15:39:03Z |
In front of a house owned by Fort Worth school board candidate Dr. Brian Dixon, a campaign sign supported his opponent.
The sign backed Wallace Bridges, 63, who has accused Dixon, 41, of not living in District 4 and who has asked the Fort Worth ISD to investigate. Dixon counters that he has ample evidence to prove his residency in a house he leases across the street from the one he owns.
Property owners cannot claim a homestead exemption on a home that is not their primary residence, Tarrant Appraisal District Executive Director Jeff Law confirmed April 21.
Dixon told the Report he leases and lives in a house at 1109 E. Leuda St., across the street from the one he owns and claims a homestead exemption on at 1104 E. Leuda St. He also co-owns a house Fort Worth but which is in Crowley ISD.
His campaign filing to the district lists 1109 E. Leuda St. as his residency. This also is the address on his voter registration. However, the address on Dixon’s driver’s license is 1104 E. Leuda St., according to the Tarrant Appraisal District.
A woman who lives at 1104 E. Leuda St. told the Report on April 20 that Dixon does not live there and said she let Bridges put up a campaign sign at his request. She asked not to be identified.
The Report also visited 1109 E. Leuda St. on the same day. A woman answered the door but did not identify herself and said Dixon did not live there. Instead, she said, he lives across the street at 1104 E. Leuda.
When the Report followed up with Dixon after the visit to 1109 E. Leuda, he said he spoke with the homeowner, Sherry Bolton, and said she was hesitant to speak after an incident where Bridges went to her house last week. Dixon said he told her it was a reporter who stopped by and told the Report she is open to a reporter going back to speak with her to confirm his residence.
On April 21, the Report returned to her house and asked to speak with her again, she said, “Yes, (Dixon) does live here and, yes, we have a contract, and I have nothing else to say.”
Bridges said people in the neighborhood know that Dixon does not live there and that he is renting out his house on East Leuda and lives in Crowley ISD.
“That’s just America,” Bridges said. “You can choose to live wherever you choose to live. Well, then he said, ‘Oh, just kidding. No, I don’t live there. I live at 1109,’ and it’s almost like, are we really that stupid?”
The school district is not investigating Dixon’s residency based on his voter registration. The district only has to confirm residency at the time a candidate files with the county The Tarrant County Elections Office and the online database of Texas voter registrations list Dixon’s voter registration as active at 1109 E. Leuda.
Dixon emphasized that public records show he lives at 1109 E. Leuda St.
“I never had a driver’s license anywhere but the district,” he said in an emai on April 15l. “I have never had a voter registration anywhere but in the district. I have never had a homestead exemption anywhere but in the district. Consider this my final statement on the issue.”
Dixon also provided an email from the elections office confirming his address was updated to 1109 E. Leuda St. for his active voter registration. The email said he requested the address change on Feb. 7, 2022. Dixon and another person filed a deed for a home in Crowley ISD on Oct. 5, 2021, according to Tarrant County. The Crowley ISD home also carries a homestead exemption, but it is not Dixon’s, Law said.
“My investment in the Southside knowingly goes unseen,” Dixon said in an email on April 15. “As president of the (Historic Southside Neighborhood Association) for the two years preceding Wallace, I invested hours and thousands of dollars into building a better community, including transitioning us through COVID by going from in-person to virtual. I froze alongside my Leuda neighbors last year when the power was out for days. I’ve volunteered at career days and Back to School at Van Zandt Guinn. I didn’t do it for Facebook or a resume. I did it for our kids. Thus, it’s hurtful that he’s making these types of unfounded accusations and, frankly, sows discord within the Black community.”
But Wallace said it’s a bigger insult to run for school board in a community where he does not live. The Fort Worth ISD school board is set up to have single-member districts, meaning whoever represents a district has to reside in it.
“It’s an insult to the Black community when the country club folks decide to choose who they think is better for this community,” Bridges said. “I believe that they know he doesn’t live in this community, but they say, ‘Oh let’s just put a sign out and say Dr so-and-so’ and people will say, ‘Oh, he’s got to be better for all of us.”
Although the elections office focuses on voter registration, the appraisal district requires that a homestead exemption be used only where the property is used as a primary residence. Both 1104 and 1109 E. Leuda St. addresses are claimed as homestead exemptions.
Law said Bolton’s homestead exemption is not in question as long as she lives at 1109 E. Leuda. She can rent space to Dixon and still have the exemption. Dixon’s is the one in question because someone else is living in the home he claimed as his exemption.
The impact on the May 7 election for the school board race is unclear. The ballots already have been printed. Dixon leads Bridges in fundraising, according to the most recent campaign finance reports. Dixon raised $7,350 from Feb. 19 to March 28. Bridges brought in $4,335 during the same period.
Dixon has received some prominent endorsements, including from the Greater Fort Worth Association of Realtors, the United Educators Association and the political action committee Focus on Students.
Bridges’ endorsements include City Council member Elizabeth Beck, Chairman of the Regional Black Contractors Association John Proctor, and State Board of Education member Aicha Davis.
Dixon wants to keep the focus on his goals as a candidate for the remaining weeks of the campaign.
“My goal is to stay focused on our kids, my record, my career, and my public service reflects that. I hope that any report from FWR does the same,” Dixon said.
But, on April 21, community leaders gathered in front of the 1109 address to call for an immediate investigation into Dixon’s residency. The event was led by Michael Bell, spokesman for the Tarrant County Local Organizing Committee.
During the press conference, Dixon walked out of the house at 1109 E. Leuda, got in his car, and left. When the Report visited the home only two hours earlier, though, that car was not there, and Dixon did not come to the door.
Bell wants the school district to ensure the integrity of the election.
“We’re here to call for an immediate investigation into the discrepancies over where Dr. Dixon actually resides,” Bell said. “There are lingering lingering questions related to Dr. Dixon’s candidacy, and they haven’t been sufficiently addressed by the Fort Worth ISD Board, especially board president Tobi Jackson.”
A clique of people downtown have a vested interest in the race because they are pushing their own agenda, he said.
“District 4 deserves to have elected officials that actually live in and are fully invested in District 4 and not have outside persons… They handpick those to further their own agendas, which usually are not in the interest of our district or especially not our children,” Bell said.
Absent from view during the press conference was the campaign sign supporting Bridges. After the Report’s visit to Leuda Street the day before, the sign was removed.
Kristen Barton is an education reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at kristen.barton@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-21/fort-worth-isd-school-board-candidates-residency-called-into-question | 2022-05-12T15:39:09Z |
This Ramadan is Talha Rafique's first away from home. He says one of the things he misses most is his mother's food for suhoor, the sunrise meal that begins each day's fast.
"I was pretty much going to have eggs every single morning," says the University of Southern California sophomore. Then USC announced a new Ramadan initiative: Students can now pick up to-go boxes from a dining hall for the morning meal.
"That's super useful, especially for students on the meal plan, because we're already paying regardless," Rafique says.
As Muslim students across the country began fasting for Ramadan, colleges have stepped up efforts to make them feel more included. USC, Loyola University Chicago, Utah State University, Northeastern University and Emerson College are among the schools that have launched new initiatives this year.
Shafiqa Ahmadi at USC's Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice studies students' sense of belonging on college campuses and teaches workshops on how colleges can be more inclusive.
"We do have administrators and faculty and staff who are listening now," she says. "Obviously, there's a push for DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion] and belonging and mattering."
This year also marks the first time in over a decade that Ramadan has fallen squarely during the traditional school year, and that school year hasn't been disrupted by the pandemic.
Schools are taking it upon themselves to make Ramadan changes
In previous years, USC students were able to bring extra food from their evening meal home to eat for suhoor.
This year, with increased demand, the university began offering suhoor to-go boxes packed with a breakfast entree, fruit, yogurt and juice, instead of last night's dinner.
"Honestly, there was never really a debate as to whether we should or shouldn't offer something," says Lindsey Pine, a dietitian for USC's dining halls. "We just knew that that was something that needed to be done."
She says USC plans to continue offering annual Ramadan accommodations as long as the dining halls are open and Muslim students are on the school's meal plan.
Northeastern University is also offering Ramadan breakfast boxes, as well as a shuttle service to a nearby mosque for evening prayers, and iftar, or fast-breaking, meals twice weekly. And Utah State University is offering hot, halal evening meals twice a week for free, in addition to the to-go boxes they've offered in previous years. At Emerson College, a dining hall has a halal station offering food for iftar as well as takeaway bags for suhoor. This year also marks the first time the school has a Muslim chaplain on staff.
Omer Mozaffar, the Muslim chaplain at Loyola University Chicago, a Jesuit Catholic school, has been working with the university to make dining arrangements for students in residence halls, and to facilitate iftars, some of which would be sponsored by the school.
"We actually started doing preparation two years ago," says Mozaffar. "Then COVID hit."
This year marks the first time Loyola students will be fasting on campus since the pandemic began. Boxes of dates, typically eaten to break the fast, are stacked high in Mozaffar's office. He says they are a gift from the university for him to hand out to Muslim students.
"The university historically has been very open and welcoming on matters related to Islam," he explains. "The dean of students is ready to send out a note to the faculty to let them know that fasting will be taking place and Eid prayers [marking the end of Ramadan] will be taking place afterward."
HBCUs have been doing this for years
Muslim inclusion efforts aren't completely new to American college campuses – especially not at HBCUs.
"Many of the Muslim students who attend historically Black colleges and universities tend to feel better supported and more engaged than their counterparts at predominately white institutions," says Darnell Cole of USC's Center for Education, Identity and Social Justice.
Cole studies race and how it impacts college students' experiences, including the experiences of Muslim students at HBCUs – students who, Cole says, aren't always Black.
Sanaa Haamen leads the Muslim Students' Association at Howard University, which has offered suhoor and iftar dining hall meals since 2017. She has observed a trend among Palestinian and Bengali students who have transferred to Howard from predominantly white institutions: They've told her they feel more included at Howard.
"They came to Howard, and they're like, 'Oh, everybody's just so welcoming. They want to be your friend, they want to network, they want to just get out and do stuff,' " she says.
At other schools, students are leading the charge
For years, Muslim student associations have been working toward better inclusion on campus.
"MSAs are built to support Muslim students in terms of their practice on college campuses. And Ramadan is, I think, a central part of that," says Bushra Bangee of Muslim Students Association West, which oversees MSAs on the West Coast.
More recently, these efforts have been expanding into Greek life. Zara Khan is chapter vice president of the Muslim sorority Mu Delta Alpha at the University of Texas at Austin.
Her sorority has been hosting spirituality nights during Ramadan, a practice they started virtually in 2021 to help foster a communal spirit around the holy month.
"We would get together and discuss a relevant topic related to Ramadan, something about fasting or charity work or core components of things you're supposed to be improving upon during Ramadan," she explains.
Khan's sorority is also partnering with the nation's first Muslim fraternity, Alpha Lambda Mu, to host an iftar at UT Austin's student-run mosque.
Why colleges are starting to do this now
Bangee attributes the surge of campus inclusion efforts to the events of the past two years, including the response to George Floyd's murder and the national conversation around racial justice.
"When it comes to administration supporting students, you know, with the past year around BLM, I think that has really opened the door around conversations around DEI in general," she says.
Sociologist Eman Abdelhadi studies the Muslim-American experience at the University of Chicago. She attributes the uptick in Muslim inclusion efforts to multiple factors, including Muslim advocacy organizations that formed after 9/11 and what she calls the "Trump Effect."
"He made targeting Muslims such an important part of his campaign," she explains. "And it in some ways elevated their position within a liberal coalition of anti-Trumpers."
Shafiqa Ahmadi at USC credits Muslim women who wear headscarves with championing change on college campuses.
"It's a symbol that automatically identifies them as Muslim, and they're often confronted with bias and hate," she explains.
Ahmadi says these women have taken up the mantle to push for belonging on college campuses, and it's made a difference.
Something different for every suhoor
Back at USC, Talha Rafique has gone through several suhoor boxes since Ramadan began. The to-go box menu has included frittatas, bagels and cream cheese, and French toast.
"I get a little bit of a diversity with what I'm eating," he says.
It's not quite the same as his mother's home cooking, but it's better than the daily eggs he had been planning for.
Yusra Farzan is a multimedia journalist, whose work has appeared in Teen Vogue, KCET and Gulf News. She is also a graduate student at the University of Southern California, where she serves as the managing editor at Annenberg Media and culture editor at Ampersand LA.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-25/college-life-isnt-always-ramadan-friendly-some-schools-want-to-change-that | 2022-05-12T15:39:15Z |
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, nearly all Texas public universities responded by making the submission of an SAT or ACT score optional for college admission.
But although COVID infections are down and in-person standardized tests are widely available again, the majority of Texas public universities are keeping the SAT and ACT optional until the spring of 2023 or later.
Even before the pandemic, some universities considered themselves test-optional because of a state law that grants automatic admission to Texas students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school classes. But the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many more schools to become test-optional for all applicants.
“It was an opportunity that a lot of schools are grateful they’ve been able to take,” said Chris Reed, executive director of admissions at Texas A&M University in College Station. “The pandemic created an opportunity when it was the right thing to do. … Now we have a living, breathing dataset to evaluate some of those assumptions.”
So far, Texas A&M has extended the policy through spring 2023. Stephen F. Austin State University in East Texas and the University of Texas at Dallas have already extended their test score policies through the fall of next year. Texas Tech University has extended its policy until 2025.
Other schools, including the University of Houston, Texas State University in San Marcos and the University of Texas at Tyler, say they will make decisions on test score requirements in the coming weeks or months.
Others, including Sam Houston State University, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and Tarleton State University, have extended the test-optional policy indefinitely. Some private universities, including Baylor University and Rice University, have extended their test-optional policies through fall 2023 and say they will reevaluate afterward.
It remains unclear whether the most selective public university in the state — the University of Texas at Austin — will continue to remain test-optional for all students past this fall. The university declined to comment about its plans.
Meanwhile, the state’s two public historically Black universities continue to require standardized test scores. Texas Southern University in Houston requires test scores only for applicants with a 2.5 grade point average or below. Those with higher GPAs do not need to submit test scores. Prairie View A&M University reinstated its standardized test score requirement for fall 2021 applicants.
A Prairie View spokesperson said most students continued to submit scores but did not explain why the school switched back to a test score requirement. Texas Southern said there has been no discussion to shift to a test-optional policy for all applicants.
Even before the pandemic, there were discussions at some schools to make the SAT or ACT score optional. Some school leaders have argued that the tests are not predictive of student performance in college and are an additional barrier to enrollment for low-income students.
Universities that shifted to test-optional policies said they rely on a holistic approach to applications, giving weight to areas like a student’s grade point average, the high school transcript and where the student attended high school.
Reed cautions that it’s too early to definitively state the impact of the change to enrollment with test-optional policies. But he said early data shows that Texas A&M did not see retention rates dip from fall to spring during either of the last two years. Also, the average fall GPA for first-time students remained the same. These data points helped inform the university’s decision to continue the test-optional policy.
Many Texas universities said they saw an increase in applications once standardized test scores became optional for admission. But they haven’t seen a significant change in the makeup of their freshman classes. College counseling experts said that is likely because the state’s Top 10% Rule allowed schools to enroll those students year after year.
Many universities said they saw minimal changes in the diversity of students who enrolled.
But a few universities reported some remarkable differences.
The University of Texas at Arlington increased the number of Black students in its freshman class by almost 34%, from 519 to 694, in fall 2021. The number of Black freshmen at Texas State increased by 6%. Texas A&M International University in Laredo reported that it had accepted more students ranked in the top 40% of their graduation classes.
Some schools, including West Texas A&M University, accepted more students who qualify for need-based federal grants, known as Pell grants. The regional public university in Canyon accepts any student who has at least a 2.0 GPA and meets at least one other requirement, which can include test scores. For those who don’t meet the qualifications, the school has adjusted its alternative admissions process to include two essay questions and a high school recommendation letter.
“The test-optional trend has opened up a lot more opportunities for students who are low-income, who don’t come from high schools that emphasize testing like more resourced counterparts,” said Sara Urquidez with Academic Success Program Dallas, which helps low-income and first-generation college students apply for and enroll in college at 18 high schools in the Dallas area. “But I don’t think it’s changed the fundamental question of college affordability for low-income students.”
Many Texas public universities say they still use test scores to determine merit scholarships, but they also take a more comprehensive look at applications from students who apply without SAT or ACT scores.
Yet Urquidez said she saw a stark reduction in the number of merit scholarships awarded to students who did not submit test scores, and many students and families are confused about what schools are using to determine merit scholarships.
“It’s a black box for students and families,” she said. “We can’t talk about test-optional being a vehicle for change when the vast majority of institutions are still using it in this other way.”
Urquidez said she sits on a few private scholarship committees and heard anecdotally from students that they were unaware that applying without a test score could negatively impact their chances of receiving aid from the university.
She said she still encourages students to submit good scores if they have them. Yet some universities across the state saw a majority of students apply without scores for fall 2020 and fall 2021.
At Texas A&M University-Kingsville, just 36% of applicants for admission last fall included standardized test scores. And at West Texas A&M University, which is keeping a test-optional policy permanently, nearly 80% of students did not submit scores. So far, about 35% of students applying to enroll next fall at the University of North Texas had submitted test scores.
In contrast, 75% of Rice University applicants submitted test scores with their applications for the fall 2021 semester. Reed, the executive director of admissions at Texas A&M University, said more than two-thirds of applicants to the College Station school submitted scores.
National experts say if schools want to make it clear they are truly test-optional, then they need to remain agnostic toward the exams. On some university websites, schools will say students won’t be negatively impacted if they don’t submit test scores but simultaneously encourage students to submit scores if they have them.
“Once they start making recommendations, it’s going to be interpreted as we would prefer this,” said Akil Bello with the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, an organization that works to “[eliminate] the racial, class, gender, and cultural barriers to equal opportunity posed by standardized tests.” “You see the same thing with [Advanced Placement] testing. … AP classes are optional, but kinda not really.”
The confusion that test-optional policies can create for families is one reason St. Mary’s University in San Antonio became the first university in Texas to become “test-free,” meaning it does not consider standardized test scores at all.
Rosalind Alderman, St. Mary’s vice president for enrollment management, said an analysis of student data determined that for the vast majority, the standardized test did not provide any additional information as to whether students would successfully make it to their sophomore year.
“Everyone’s worried about putting your best foot forward,” she said. “Sometimes families ... they kind of want a yes or no, and so [we said], ‘No, we’re not considering it.’”
While a majority of Texas universities have committed to continuing test-optional policies for the near future, some universities across the country have announced they’re beginning to require the scores again.
Earlier this month, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced it was bringing back the test requirement. The University of Georgia system recently reinstated its test-optional policies at all universities except at the University of Georgia, Georgia College and State University, and Georgia Tech.
Urquidez said she’s worried MIT’s decision will give colleges “permission” to bring the exams back at their schools, even if their circumstances around selectivity are different than MIT’s.
“There’s some institutions that are going to say we found ways to adjust, but higher ed is guilty of [saying], ‘This is the way we’ve always done it. This is always a little bit easier.’” | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-26/the-pandemic-showed-some-texas-universities-that-they-didnt-need-the-sat | 2022-05-12T15:39:21Z |
Cowley told attendees at her welcome reception April 13 she is inspired and energized after spending months preparing for the role by learning more about UTA. The university in the last year reached Texas Tier One status, a designation for emerging research universities, and announced a program that will cover 100% of tuition and fees for low-income students.
"Our state and our region need us to dream big. I know we will be united in our efforts to reach for excellence as we make UT Arlington one of the nation's most inclusive and impactful research universities," she said April 13, according to a university press release. "I am proud to be your president and I look forward to all we will be able to accomplish together."
Cowley will join UTA's College of Architecture, Planning and Public Affairs as a professor.
Cowley comes to Arlington from the University of North Texas, where she served as the provost and vice president of academic affairs since 2017. She was also a professor in the university's health and public services college. She's credited with doubling UNT's research expenditures, establishing a Frisco campus and improving representation among women and underrepresented groups within UNT's faculty and administrators, according to a January UT System press release. She earned her doctorate in urban and regional science from Texas A&M University and master's degrees from Texas A&M and UNT.
Before serving at UNT, Cowley spent 16 years at The Ohio State University, where she served as the vice provost for capital planning and regional campuses, head of city and regional planning and associate engineering college dean.
Cowley's appointment has been characterized as a homecoming: She has taught an annual professional development workshop on campus for the last decade and attended UTA summer camps and classes while growing up in Arlington.
The UT System Board of Regents named Cowley as the sole finalist for the position that had been left without a permanent president for two years. The system began its search in early 2020, but paused search efforts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Teik Lim, former UTA provost, served as interim president through the pandemic. Lim will become the president of the New Jersey Institute of Technology in July.
Cowley said April 13 that Lim helped her make a "smooth transition" into the role.
UT System Chancellor James B. Milliken said April 13 that Cowley has had "tremendous preparation" for the role.
"Her experiences at some of the country's great public universities, her experiences in championing diversity in university leadership, are all critical parts in her leadership of UTA," he said.
Got a tip? Email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org. You can follow Kailey on Twitter @KaileyBroussard.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-27/new-uta-president-hopes-to-build-research-capabilities-inclusivity-efforts-as-she-takes-helm | 2022-05-12T15:39:28Z |
Public school teacher salaries in Texas lag behind the national average by more than $7,500, according to a new ranking from the National Education Association.
Based on state financial data reported to NEA, the average compensation for Texas teachers in the 2021-2022 school year is $58,887, putting the state at 26th in the nation.
The NEA’s research also includes the latest available data on average compensation for first-year teachers and top salaries for veteran educators.
“Texas offers one of the most dramatic examples of grossly deficient pay for experienced teachers,” the NEA writes in a corresponding report on average salaries for the 2020-2021 academic year.
While new teachers in Texas earned on average $44,527, or about $2,700 more than the U.S. average, the average top pay for veteran teachers in Texas was nearly $13,000 dollars below the U.S. average. By that measure, Texas ranks 43rd lowest in the nation.
Ovidia Molina, president of Texas State Teachers Association, said the disparity points to why school districts in the state struggle to retain teachers as they gain experience.
"We are seeing educators come in and they do a couple of years and they get burnt out because of all the other stresses and because they see no path for growth as far as salaries. They have to have other jobs. They have to do other duties. They have to turn to administrative work in order to make more money in education."
According to TSTA, which is an NEA affiliate, about one third of new teachers in Texas leave the profession within five years.
Texas teachers are earning 1.5% less today than they were during the 2012-2013 school year. The trend is even starker at the national level, according to the NEA, where the average classroom teacher salary has decreased by an estimated 3.9% in the past decade.
According to Molina, state lawmakers can help bring teacher pay up to the national average by budgeting more funding for public education. She added that a new task force Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Education Agency to set up last month to address staffing issues in public schools should start with increasing education funding in the next state budget.
“We love to be number one in Texas. We should be looking to be number one in this area to ensure that we get the best educators and that we keep the best educators in our public schools,” Molina said. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-27/texas-teacher-salaries-largely-lag-behind-the-national-average | 2022-05-12T15:39:34Z |
On the same day, Fort Worth ISD launched an investigation into a recorded incident where a student used a racial slur nine times in a class at Paschal High School, 3001 Forest Park Blvd. The community leaders said the district’s actions so far were seriously lacking.
Superintendent Kent Scribner said he planned to fire the teacher, who has not been publicly identified. The video showed the teacher appearing to endorse the student’s presentation and not acting when the rest of the class laughed loudly at the repeated use of the slur.
“I am disgusted by the inexcusable behavior that took place in a Paschal High School classroom. There is no place for this kind of language in our society, much less in our schools. I am appalled by the conduct of the adult in the room and saddened by the message that it sends to our students,” Scribner said in a statement.
Outside of Paschal High School, the Rev. Michael Bell, spokesman for the Tarrant County Local Organizing Committee, and other Fort Worth religious leaders laid out a list of actions the group said the district needed to do. The demands included:
- Release demographic data of the school, staff and its Advanced Placement classes.
- Offer racial sensitivity training for staff.
- Provide counseling for students.
The student used the racial slur during an AP class, Bell said.
School districts report the demographics of students in AP classes to the Texas Education Agency. The most recent data is from the 2019-20 school year.
Since 2011, most Paschal students in AP classes have been Latino. White students have consistently been the second-largest group in AP courses. In the 2019-20 academic year, more than 61% of students in these classes were Latino.
That same year, Black students represented 6% of AP students at the school. That amounts to 70 students. In the past decade, the record number of Black students in AP classes was 100 in the 2014-15 school year.
Paschal High School had 2,301 students enrolled in the last academic year. Nearly 53% of students were Latino, and 26.5% were white. The school had 139 Black students — just under 13% of its enrollment.
Last year, Paschal High School had 141 teachers. Most of them — 73% — were white. Only 13 teachers were Black.
In a separate press conference outside Mount Rose Baptist Church, 2864 Mississippi Ave., the Rev. Kyev Tatum, president of Ministers of Justice Coalition of Texas, called for the federal government to start a civil rights investigation into racism inside Fort Worth ISD.
Tatum also called for district administrators to fire the Paschal High School principal, Troy Langston. Tatum described the principal as attempting to sweep the video under the carpet.
Bell and other community leaders noted this incident occurred just weeks away from the scheduled start of the trial for Aaron Dean, a former Fort Worth police officer who shot and killed Atatiana Jefferson in her home during a late-night welfare check.
“As we approach the time of reckoning for the senseless murder of Atatiana Jefferson, Fort Worth can ill afford further racial division,” Bell said. “In this tense, racial sensitive environment, the chasm is not narrowing — it’s widening.”
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-29/black-leaders-call-for-reforms-in-fort-worth-isd-after-officials-launch-investigation-into-video | 2022-05-12T15:39:40Z |
At a time when more Texas teachers are leaving the classroom, the state’s licensing board is considering a new certification exam that could help better prepare new teachers — and perhaps help keep them longer in the job.
On Friday, the 11-member State Board for Educator Certification will vote on whether to adopt the Educative Teacher Performance Assessment, also known as the edTPA exam. This new licensing test, developed at Stanford University, requires teachers to submit answers to essay questions and provide a sample lesson plan, a 15-minute video of themselves teaching in the classroom and a report on their students’ progress.
If approved, the move would mean ditching the old Pedagogy and Professional Responsibilities exam, a test of 100 multiple choice questions that has been in use since 2002.
“This is about how we make sure that those [teacher] candidates are getting the support and coaching that they need and they deserve to be effective and to stay in the profession,” said Jonathan Feinstein, state director of The Education Trust, which advocates for historically underserved students.
The edTPA will especially be a boost for alternative certification programs, he said, which sent nearly 50% of the newly certified teachers into the classroom during the 2020-21 year, according to data from the Texas Education Agency.
Two months ago, John P. Kelly, who sits on the state’s teacher certification board, called this exam vote a “very momentous” decision.
“I’ve been praying and hoping that we would reach a conclusion that is best for the teachers and the students of this great state,” Kelly said. If the test is adopted at Friday’s board meeting, the State Board of Education would still have to approve it at its next meeting in June before it could go into effect.
Critics of the PPR teacher certification exam have pointed out its makeup is a less-than-precise way of testing a new teacher’s potential. All 100 questions on the test are multiple choice, making it easier to pass.
Frank Ward, spokesperson for the Texas Education Agency, called the current exam a “flawed” measure of teacher readiness. “Fortunately, there’s a proven alternative,” he said “[The] edTPA goes well beyond asking questions that aren't designed to demonstrate how effective a teacher will be in his or her first year in the classroom.”
If the edTPA is approved Friday and then by the State Board of Education, with a vote most likely taking place in June, it will start as an optional test in 2022-23. It will be required as a pass/fail exam in 2023-24 and fully implemented in 2024-25.
Not everyone is a fan, though.
At least 17 states use the edTPA as their required certification exam. In 21 others, the edTPA is used as an option for teacher preparation programs. It is more expensive, costing nearly $200 more than the current Texas teacher’s licensing exam, which experts say creates another barrier.
In two instances, the edTPA has been adopted as a statewide exam and then scrapped altogether.
In New York, Black test-takers were nearly twice as likely to fail the edTPA compared with their white or Hispanic peers. The state recently stopped using the exam, saying students were trying to finish the edTPA requirements rather than learning from student teaching, and they found it challenging to complete the multifaceted aspect of it.
In Washington state, a 2016 study showed Hispanic teacher candidates were more than three times as likely to fail the exam when compared with white candidates. The state scrapped the exam last year.
In Georgia, the state parted ways with the edTPA exam as education officials called it a barrier of entry to the profession. Educator programs in the state can still require students to take the edTPA, but it is not required to be certified.
In New Jersey, teacher unions are calling for the end of the exam.
And in Illinois, lawmakers have made efforts to get rid of the assessment as well for all the same reasons. The edTPA in the state has been paused due to the pandemic.
In a July 2021 study, researchers found that the exam reduced the number of students graduating as teachers and had adverse effects on student learning.
Ryan Franklin, senior director of policy and advocacy at Educate Texas, said some states had an uneven rollout for the exam and others just didn’t see the need for it anymore.
He said the same can happen in Texas. If, down the line, edTPA has served its goal and there is another, better way to prepare teachers, the state can look at those options.
When Doug Hamman, professor and director of teacher education at Texas Tech University, first heard that edTPA was coming to Texas, he saw the same studies and he wasn’t sold. But he knew that if the state was considering the test, his program needed to be prepared.
Texas Tech is one of 40 programs piloting the exam, testing it out for the past three years. In Hamman’s experience, the exam has made Texas Tech’s education program better.
“Having teachers demonstrate that they have mastered what they’re supposed to be is not a bad thing,” he said
Gina Anderson, associate dean for educator preparation and partnerships at Texas Woman’s University, said her program, like others around the state, already provides a performance assessment-based student-teaching experience. She thinks making the edTPA a requirement will take away from what these teaching programs are supposed to do, which is to help a student cultivate relationships and gain meaningful lessons. Instead, she believes that the classroom teaching experience will be diluted as instructors work harder on teaching students how to pass the test.
“[Our program] is meant to provide formative support and help educators grow in their practice, rather than to be used kind of as a high-stakes decision at the very end of their program,” Anderson said.
Anderson also takes issue with the video that students are supposed to record. She says it provides only a snapshot of someone’s teaching skills in a classroom, but it could be the difference between becoming a teacher or not.
In Texas, people who want to become a teacher but did not get a degree in education can do so in about a year through the state’s alternative certification program. But a four-year degree program gives its students an opportunity to be student teachers.
If the edTPA is approved, Feinstein, with The Education Trust, said alternative certification providers will have more incentive to provide yearlong support and instruction so people can pass the exam.
Feinstein equates the edTPA model to football teams going back and watching film to improve. “We’re trying to get as close as we can to understand what does a teacher really need to be ready to do to be successful,” he said.
Some say the new exam could help with Texas’ teacher shortage issue. Gov. Greg Abbott has made solving the state’s shortage a priority and launched a task force in March.
Supporters of the edTPA say it will better support and retain new teachers as it can pinpoint exactly what a teacher lacks through the video recordings and written analyses provided.
Hamman at Texas Tech believes the new exam will improve college education programs overall. Initially, he had his reservations about the new exam, but now he believes it’s the way to move forward.
“What the edTPA does is it forces weak programs to become stronger or perish,” Hamman said.
The current exam, he said, requires little preparation by comparison.
“It was an easy test,” he said.
But many are convinced the edTPA will create more barriers for people of color entering the teaching profession.
Andrea Chevalier, a lobbyist with the Association for Texas Professional Educators, said the edTPA will constrict teaching programs that are excelling with their preparation programs. And instead of making the edTPA a statewide requirement, the state should allow for programs to pick whether they want to use it to prepare their students.
“Doing it that way would be a sweet spot because it would give flexibility to programs,” Chevalier said. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-29/facing-a-teacher-shortage-texas-considers-a-more-rigorous-teacher-certification-exam | 2022-05-12T15:39:46Z |
Veronica Valdez’s first year as a librarian is coinciding with a new push to ban books in Texas public schools. But the Fort Worth ISD librarian isn’t worried.
“There have always been people trying to ban books. It’s not really anything new. It’s just a little bit more popular right now,” Valdez said.
Valdez was one of hundreds of librarians carrying tote bags filled with books and other materials they picked up at the Texas Library Association annual conference this week in downtown Fort Worth. The location for the event was not lost on many attendees — they knew this is the hometurf of state Rep. Matt Krause, a Fort Worth Republican investigating schools for books on race, sexuality or that make students feel uncomfortable.
Krause did not immediately return a phone call to the Fort Worth Report.
Abby Dunivan is a librarian in Comal ISD, north of San Antonio and east of New Braunfels. Dunivan, who has been a librarian for 12 years, agrees some books should not be in school libraries. However, children need to have access to as many books as possible to show them more of the world and to see people who are like them. It’s a way for students to know they are not alone, she said.
Students will find books on topics in which they are interested, Dunivan said.
“They’re going to find it on the internet,” Dunivan said.
Gov. Greg Abbott wrote a letter to Texas Education Agency officials directing them to create guidelines on instructional materials.
“As you are aware, a growing number of parents of Texas students are rightfully outraged about highly inappropriate books and other content in public school libraries,” Abbott said. “The most disturbing cases include material that is clearly pornographic, which has absolutely no place in the Texas public education system.”
Some sessions at the conference were geared toward giving librarians the tools to navigate the political fight over what should be on school bookshelves. Books about race and sexuality that likely would make Krause’s list were on display inside the exhibit area.
Some conservatives have criticized the Texas Library Association conference for hosting events with drag queens and highlighting books they believe should not be on library shelves.
Like Valdez, Dunivan recognized prohibiting books is not new. The Comal ISD librarian described it as a revolving cycle where society goes through phases in which books become political targets.
Still, Dunivan has not seen any pushback to any books in her elementary school library.
The Texas Library Association plans to push back against elected officials’ efforts to limit books in libraries. The organization launched a political group called Texans for the Right to Read to rally.
Limiting books has extended beyond schools. Some communities, including Llano County in Central Texas, have started to focus on the materials public libraries offer.
Celadon Work is a librarian in Flower Mound. She works mostly with adults. Rather than teach children how to read, often Work shows adults new skills, such as how to use a spreadsheet, and tries to get them back in the habit of reading books.
Work, who has worked in Flower Mound for two months, hasn’t seen any pushback on the books in the library. However, she knows that could change.
“It’s a complicated time in Texas,” Work said.
As politicians fight over books, librarians said they will continue to focus on their top priority — reading. Whether it’s getting an adult to pick up books again, like Work, or teaching a young child how to read a picture book, like Dunivan and Valdez, that is what their jobs ultimately are about.
“I just love being a librarian because you’re helping students to learn and introducing them to ideas,” Valdez, the Fort Worth ISD librarian, said. “Reading is something we do our whole life. If you don’t have a good foundation at the beginning, you’re not going to enjoy it later.”
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or via Twitter. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here. | https://www.keranews.org/education/2022-04-30/amid-bubbling-book-ban-battle-librarians-gather-for-conference-in-downtown-fort-worth | 2022-05-12T15:39:52Z |
After a Taiwanese plastics and petrochemical company leaked harmful gasses from its chemical plant in the Gulf Coast town of Point Comfort in 2021, Texas’ environmental agency fined it nearly $267,000. Instead of paying the entire fine to the state, Formosa — which uses fossil fuels to create plastics — sent half the money to the Texas Natural Gas Foundation, a nonprofit entity that promotes natural gas to the public.
Texas state law allows polluters to divert some of their fines that normally go to the state’s general revenue fund to “supplemental environmental projects,” or SEPs. The Texas Natural Gas Foundation has qualified as an SEP since 2016.
In theory, SEPs are meant to remediate industrial pollution and environmental harm by funding programs like cleanups at illegal dump sites, habitat restoration or household hazardous waste pickups in communities.
Public documents obtained by Floodlight show that SEPs like the one with the Texas Natural Gas Foundation can directly benefit the companies that are being penalized — by paying to staff and run industry programs.
According to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s description of the Texas Natural Gas Foundation’s SEP, the nonprofit aims to raise $8 million to replace state government-owned diesel trucks and buses with new gas vehicles that the foundation argues are cleaner. Several school districts receive SEP funding for similar bus replacement projects. But by allowing entities like the Texas Natural Gas Foundation to receive state funds, Texas is allowing the fossil fuel industry to reshuffle money back to itself, public documents show.
“You get back to this policy question [of] is [TCEQ] putting SEP dollars into the hands of a marketing organization that is using those dollars to create further demand for natural gas?” said James Bradbury, an environmental lawyer and professor at Texas A&M University School of Law.
The foundation’s work has included developing curriculum for schoolchildren that energy experts have deemed “incomplete or misleading information about energy that appear out of the fossil fuel industry’s playbook,” according to a 2018 investigation from the Austin American-Statesman. Last year, it also supported and lobbied for revised state public school standards that would “emphasize the critical role of energy in modern life” with a focus on how fossil fuel energy produced in Texas is “eradicating global energy poverty.”
To date, TCEQ records show that the Texas Natural Gas Foundation has received $217,000 from deferred fines exclusively from fossil fuel companies, including from oil and gas companies like Motiva Enterprises, which operates one of the largest refineries in the state, in Port Arthur. In an emailed statement, a representative from Formosa Plastics did not address questions about the foundation’s industry ties but said that, with the approval of TCEQ, the company supported the foundation’s goal to reduce vehicle emissions.
The diversion of fines also raises questions about the close relationship between the polluters and the agency responsible for regulating and reprimanding them. The Texas Natural Gas Foundation was co-founded by a former Texas state representative, Republican Jason Isaac. Its executive director, Heather Ball, formerly worked at the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry in the state. Ball did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Another nonprofit with oil and gas industry ties that qualifies as an SEP under Texas law is the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp., which has received more than $950,000 in deferred SEPs from the state since 2016 to subsidize existing air monitors that it maintains. The corporation is a nonprofit but was first formed as a private entity about 40 years ago by refineries and plants operating along the Houston Ship Channel, according to the corporation’s lawyer, Christopher Amandes. It provides air quality data that facilities need to prove that their proposed expansions or changes that might increase pollution will not put the region in violation of federal air quality standards. The Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. has for decades allowed dozens of facilities to use its data to expedite that step in the process.
In a statement, TCEQ said that both the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. and Texas Natural Gas Foundation were approved to receive SEPs because their projects “provide direct, significant, immediate, and enduring enhancements to the quality of the environment, or prevent or reduce further environmental degradation.”
Since 2016, Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. has received $171,292 from Chevron Phillips Chemical Co.; $60,845 from Exxon; and $137,870 from TPC Group, which operates a chemical plant that infamously exploded in 2019.
Yet some of Houston’s biggest fossil fuel and chemical companies with facilities around the Houston port — Arkema, BASF, Chevron Phillips, Shell, TPC Group and Dow Chemical, among others — also pay the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. annual membership fees.
The SEP funds go toward subsidizing five of the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp.’s 10 air monitors. Yet the corporation is required to share only certain data, such as volatile organic compound concentrations, from those five monitors, according to its agreement with TCEQ. A large amount of the data collected is not released to the public, Amandes said.
According to Texas’ environmental agency guidelines, SEPs cannot be used to bring violators into compliance. For example, when Chevron Phillips Chemical received its $26,000 fine in 2021 from TCEQ, the $10,000 it deferred couldn’t be given to a program that would repair Chevron’s faulty equipment or install better leak detection. The aim is to require polluters to pay for their own repairs and upgrades. Chevron Phillips did not respond to a request for comment.
But as the SEP agreement is set up, Chevron Phillips has been able to defer $171,292 in fines to the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. for 13 violations since 2018 — essentially benefiting by redirecting fines to a nonprofit that provides the industry a service.
Amandes, the monitoring corporation’s lawyer, acknowledged that companies “get some marginal benefit from the fact that the SEP money supplements regular membership fees, so they are in effect subsidized.” But he argued that the arrangement is not a conflict of interest that requires scrutiny from TCEQ or other state regulators.
In 2003, the Texas state auditor concluded the program wasn’t achieving its main goals and TCEQ wasn’t appropriately monitoring the funds it granted. Yet there was no formal follow-up to recommendations.
Environmental advocates say that nonprofits like the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. and Texas Natural Gas Foundation haven’t demonstrated that their programs are the best use of state funds, particularly for a program that is supposed to have a measurable public impact.
“There’s a real concern that TCEQ is effectively subsidizing a private corporation that is not publicly accountable in terms of the data they are collecting,” said Corey Williams, a director at Air Alliance Houston, about the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. “A more equitable distribution of those fines would help draw a more direct line from the pollution to the public health impacts associated with it.”
Williams said the SEP system isn’t designed to support smaller, community-led nonprofits to set up programs that companies can pay into. The nearly $1 million that the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. has pulled in since 2016, for example, could easily have established two air monitors within communities adjacent to industrial sites, Williams said.
Juan Flores, program manager for Air Alliance Houston — which helps find community participants to host neighborhood air monitors across Texas — said the monitors offered by the state are sparse and that the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp. hasn’t made an effort to engage with community members about its data.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Houston Regional Monitoring Corp, said it makes its monitoring data available on several websites, including TCEQ’s and its own, and said it offers presentations to groups that ask for it.
“We’ve been dealing with these companies for decades, like Exxon,” said Flores. “I know these companies monitor themselves. But come on. I don’t mean to sound so negative, but we don’t have a lot of good things to say about their past.”
Disclosure: Air Alliance Houston, Dow Chemical and the Texas A&M University School of Law have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here. | https://www.keranews.org/energy-environment/2022-04-25/in-texas-thousands-in-fines-paid-by-oil-and-gas-polluters-benefit-the-fossil-fuel-industry | 2022-05-12T15:39:58Z |
In the Panhandle and West Texas, long periods without rainfall are putting strain on farmers and ranchers. Those regions have faced one of the driest 10-month periods in the last 75 years. And it’s having an effect on grain crops and could even drive up the price of beef.
Jourdan Bell, an agronomist with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, tells Texas Standard that compared to the 2011 drought, farmers might not be able to compensate for drought through irrigation this time. Read the transcript of the interview with Bell below or listen in the audio player above to learn more about why, and what farmers can do to prepare for and possibly offset the negative effects of the drought.
This interview has been edited lightly for clarity.
Texas Standard: Tell us a little bit about the severity of current drought compared with the last extreme drought the state experienced about a decade ago.
Jourdan Bell: Even though the drought of 2011 and 2012 is still considered more than a decade ago, it’s definitely on everyone’s minds. And in the last year, as we have progressed into extreme drought conditions, people really are very worried about the impact, and, you know, are we going to see conditions as extreme as that drought?
What did that last drought mean for agriculture, and what are farmers and others in the industry watching for now?
When we look at the last drought, of course, not only we have below-average rainfall; we were looking at a two-year period where we had four inches and seven inches of rain in each year. So, 4 inches of rain in 2011 on average and about 7 inches in 2012. That, coupled with the limited rainfall, was extreme heat and high winds. So that really drove crop stress.
Now, at that time, many producers had higher well capacities, so they were able to overcome the limitations of rainfall. But as we move into our current drought, our groundwater supply has declined even further. So as we look at an extended forecast without rainfall and the fact that we are currently in one of the driest periods over a 10 month period in the last 75 years, we might not be able to compensate for the lack of rainfall with irrigation, as we did 10 years ago.
An increase in wildfires has also affected agriculture in some parts of the state, right?
Definitely. So we focus on the impact to the row-crop farmer. But across the region, the bulk of our acreage is in native rangeland, and so we are looking at very dry conditions that are very susceptible to wildfire.
Now, fortunately, last summer we had a really wet period where we had a concentration of rainfall over a three-month period and that allowed for some really good growth on our rangelands. But that also created a lot of fodder for these fires. So extreme conditions.
How could all this affect food prices?
When we talk about crop production in the Texas High Plains, we grow a lot of grains. But it is important to keep in mind that these are feed grains and these are grains that are going into the livestock industry as well as forages. And so if we have a drought and we have limited feed grain and limited forage production, that is going to drive up the price of the grain and the forage in addition to just what we are seeing in a global economy right now.
So as the price of feed goes up, that is going to impact the price of beef. Now, as a whole, we like to think about the global market regulating itself. But because we are growing feed grains, we could see further impacts to the price of beef probably.
Is there anything farmers can do to prepare or offset the negative effects of this drought?
We do have irrigated production in the high plains, and irrigation provides farmers an opportunity to stabilize production. So under irrigated conditions, producers are deciding how to allocate their irrigated acreage and even looking at cropping options. But again, we no longer have the well capacities that we had 10 years ago due to a declining groundwater supply. So it still is a very tough decision.
And then on our dry-land acreage, farmers really are dependent on the weather to get a crop established, although they do consider drought-tolerant options such as grain, sorghum and cotton. | https://www.keranews.org/environment-nature/2022-04-14/drought-in-west-texas-and-panhandle-makes-growing-feed-grain-a-challenge | 2022-05-12T15:40:04Z |
The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday sought to list the Houston and Dallas metro areas as “severe” violators of 2008 federal ozone pollution standards, kicking off a process that will likely impose stricter pollution controls in both regions to reduce local smog.
Ground-level ozone pollution, known as smog, harms human health by constricting lung muscles, making it harder to breathe and exacerbating lung diseases such as asthma. More than 79 million Americans live in areas that do not meet national air quality health standards for smog, according to the EPA.
“Smog pollution is a serious threat to public health,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a Wednesday statement on the proposed rule. “With these proposed determinations, we are fulfilling our duty under the Clean Air Act.”
Ozone pollution results from car and truck emissions, industrial emissions from facilities such as refineries and electric generation plants, as well as from natural sources (trees, for example, emit organic compounds that react with other emissions to form ozone).
The 2008 rule requires metro regions to stay below 75 parts per billion of ozone in the air; the EPA looks at the fourth worst ozone pollution days between 2018 and 2020 to determine the limit was violated. The Dallas-Fort Worth area, a 10-county region, exceeded the threshold at 76 parts per billion, while the eight-county Houston region exceeded it at 79 parts per billion.
Three other metro regions — Denver, Chicago and New York — also failed to meet the standard and would be listed as “severe” violators under the EPA’s proposal.
“It is a big deal,” said Victor Flatt, an environmental law professor at the University of Houston who has studied the Clean Air Act. “Once you change those designations, it requires the state to do more in that locality to reduce pollution.”
In addition, the EPA is seeking to designate the San Antonio region as a “moderate” violator of the more recent 2015 ozone standard of 70 parts per billion, with a measurement of 72 parts per billion.
The new designations in the Dallas and Houston regions would trigger more aggressive pollution control requirements on businesses by requiring the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to revise its plans to control smog in those regions. The changes could include stricter air pollution permits and requiring businesses to install better pollution control technology, as well as requiring a greater reduction in pollution before an area can approve new additional pollution sources.
A TCEQ spokesperson declined to comment on the EPA’s proposal on Wednesday.
Flatt said he wouldn’t be surprised if Texas sues the EPA to protest the new designations, although winning would be difficult since the EPA’s authority to enforce the ozone requirements is well settled, he said.
“But the attorney general of the state of Texas is running for reelection,” Flatt said. “He plays to a base by opposing EPA or the Biden administration.”
Flatt said the EPA action partially reflects the Biden administration’s influence on the EPA following inaction on the standards under the Trump administration.
“We have a different administration now that is more concerned about the health impacts of ozone,” Flatt said, but added that inflation concerns are tempering the administration’s actions. The Biden administration said on Tuesday that the EPA would allow E15 gasoline, or gasoline that uses a 15% ethanol blend, to be sold over the summer, which is typically not allowed due to smog concerns.
In a statement, EPA press secretary Nick Conger said that an agency analysis found that vehicles manufactured in the last two decades would have similar exhaust emissions on E15 fuel as the standard manufacturing test fuel and that the EPA expects relatively small changes to emissions from the change.
“EPA would not expect an impact on ambient air quality,” Conger wrote in a statement. “However, EPA is committed to working with states to help ensure that expectation remains true.”
EPA rejects deadline extension request
The EPA also sought to reject Texas’ request for a deadline extension in Houston, arguing that an extension would simply delay planning for pollution controls and further burden neighborhoods already subjected to high levels of pollution — particularly neighborhoods adjacent to the highly industrialized Houston Ship Channel.
“Granting the state’s request would, by definition, prolong the ozone air quality problem,” the EPA proposal said.
Predominantly Latino neighborhoods that sit adjacent to the ship channel tend to experience high levels of industrial pollution from refineries, chemical plants and other industrial operators nearby. Regan, the EPA administrator, toured one such Houston Ship Channel neighborhood, Manchester, in November to hear environmental concerns from residents and advocates during the administrator’s tour of environmental justice issues in the South.
While Texas environmental organizations said that they welcomed the EPA’s action on ozone, much more work needs to be done.
High levels of pollution can disproportionately harm Black and Latino children, researchers have found: One 2017 Rice University study showed that 13% of Black children in Houston have an asthma diagnosis compared with 7% of Hispanic children and 4% of white children and Asian children.
“EPA's failure to meet its Clean Air Act deadline to finalize more stringent designations has led to public health impacts, prevented vulnerable individuals from enjoying the outdoors and allowed for air nuisance that cannot be reversed,” Bryan Parras, a Gulf Coast organizer for the Sierra Club based in Houston, wrote in a statement. The Sierra Club and other environmental organizations in February had warned the EPA they would sue if the agency didn’t soon take action.
“The good people of Houston and Dallas deserve better, cleaner air quality,” Parras wrote.
Smog reductions stagnant
Between 1991 and 2020, the Dallas region’s highest ozone levels decreased by 28%, according to TCEQ data. The Houston region’s decreased by 36% over that same period. But much of the gains were made in the first two decades of regulation, when Texas focused on reducing industrial emissions and federal standards on vehicle exhaust improved.
In recent years, major Texas cities have struggled to reduce smog. In Houston, high ozone levels fluctuated between 78 parts per billion and 81 parts per billion between 2014 and 2020 without a consistent downward trend, according to data included in the EPA’s proposal.
“Ozone is a very stubborn pollutant,” said Daniel Cohan, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice University and an expert on air quality.
“It takes large changes in emissions to make much of a change,” Cohan added. “To get that last 10% of progress that we need is just very, very hard to do without steps like electrifying vehicles that come closer to completely removing emissions.”
He estimates it would probably require at least a 50% reduction in local air emissions in Houston to achieve a roughly 10% reduction in ozone levels.
In Texas, it’s particularly difficult to reduce smog, he said, because the climate can accelerate chemical reactions in the atmosphere that create ozone. Smog tends to be worst on sunny, hot and stagnant days, when the sunlight and high temperatures accelerate reactions between volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides to form ozone. Such conditions are particularly common during Texas summers — and getting worse with climate change, further accelerating those reactions, experts said.
An October report by the Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon found that average daily minimum and maximum temperatures in Texas have both increased by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 125 years. Nearly half the increase has come since 2000.
“EPA is showing frustration that Texas hasn't done more to take vigorous measures [to cut ozone pollution],” Cohan said. “But just the atmospheric chemistry of the situation is going to make a 70 parts per billion standard very difficult for large cities to achieve in hot climates.” | https://www.keranews.org/environment-nature/2022-04-14/epa-seeks-more-smog-controls-in-houston-dallas-after-they-fail-to-meet-standards | 2022-05-12T15:40:11Z |
Six electric Dash buses carry passengers through downtown and the Cultural District. Over the past decade, the agency’s fleet of buses were converted from a diesel fuel system to compressed natural gas in an effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions.
But those initiatives were never compiled into a formal action plan with timelines for completion that could be viewed by employees and the general public, Edwards said.
Now, thanks to the agency’s participation in the Federal Transit Administration’s inaugural “Sustainable Transit for a Healthy Planet Challenge,” staff have drafted their first-ever sustainability plan.
“We already do a lot of these things – it just hasn’t been documented very well,” Edwards said. “We already have electric buses and the plan is to purchase more of those. It just wasn’t put on paper, necessarily, that we were going to do this in a certain timeframe.”
Trinity Metro is one of more than 170 organizations participating in the challenge nationwide. The goal is to push public transportation agencies to further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, which trap heat and contribute to global warming. Transportation accounts for 29% of total greenhouse gas emissions each year, according to the latest Environmental Protection Agency data.
The North Central Texas Council of Governments, a voluntary association of governments that work on regional planning issues, encouraged local transit agencies to get involved with the challenge. Dallas Area Rapid Transit, Denton County Transportation Authority, east Dallas’ STAR Transit and the council of governments are also participating.
Organizations had a slate of three options: submitting their existing climate action plans, explaining their strategy for developing one or creating an entirely new plan for the challenge, Edwards said.
“It gives us a better sense of how we move forward in the future, and it’s still in its early stages,” Edwards said. “There’s some internal review that has to be done, but we hope to take it to the board (of directors).”
Lori Clark, an air quality program manager for the council of governments, offered support to agencies regarding the different strategies they could use to transition their fleets to cleaner fuel sources, whether through pursuing federal grant funding to purchase electric buses or improving energy efficiency at their facilities.
Clark also leads the Dallas-Fort Worth Clean Cities program, which the U.S. Department of Energy established in 1995 to help local governments reduce fossil fuel consumption.
“Our fleets were very early adopters in making that switch to natural gas and getting into cleaner fuels,” Clark said. “Now they’re going to be early adopters to making that additional switch from natural gas to even cleaner electricity. It’s got the same benefits in terms of reducing ozone-forming pollutants, with the extra benefit of being even more impactful in terms of greenhouse gasses.”
Under the Biden administration, federal funding to transition bus fleets to electric vehicles has increased ten-fold, Clark said. The two central sources are the Low or No Emission Vehicle Program and the Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities Program, both overseen by the Federal Transit Administration.
“That’s where a lot of our transit agencies, not only here but around the country, have been able to get funding to help acquire their very first electric buses because they are so much more expensive,” Clark said. “I’m sure that there’s plans to send in more electric bus applications.”
Trinity Metro’s draft sustainability plan, submitted prior to the April 15 deadline, focuses on five key areas: emissions from its vehicle fleet, facility energy usage, water usage, waste reduction and preparation for floods and natural disasters.
By 2025, Trinity Metro plans to install 10 electric vehicle charging stations, initiate agencywide conservation and recycling programs, and create an emergency response plan and flood risk assessment for their fleet, among other goals. Long-term plans include converting 30% of staff vehicles – the “non-revenue fleet” of vehicles – to hybrid or electric by 2035.
Challenges to converting all Trinity Metro buses to electric include the capacity of the local electric grid to recharge buses, Edwards said. Another concern is how long the buses can run without being charged.
“What is the infrastructure there on the electric grid that can provide that charging capability?” Edwards said. “What do we do with the buses – do we bring them back to the garage to charge or is there an opportunity around to charge them? How often do they have to recharge? These are all considerations that we have when we’re thinking about this.”
For now, Edwards is happy to highlight the actions Trinity Metro is already taking to reduce air pollution in Tarrant County. At a virtual event for Earth Day on April 22, 10 transit agencies from across the country will be celebrated for their “exemplary efforts” to address emissions.
“We’ve had a hard time patting ourselves on the back for all the good things we’re doing,” Edwards said. “We’ve already renovated a facility on Grove Street downtown and taken on a 110 year-old building remodel inside with water-saving measures. We are really trying to get LED lights in the whole office. We’re always looking at opportunities to improve our footprint.” | https://www.keranews.org/environment-nature/2022-04-18/trinity-metro-creates-first-sustainability-plan-to-reduce-pollution | 2022-05-12T15:40:17Z |
Growing up in southeast Ohio, Haley Varnadoe always felt a pull to the legal field. Her hometown of Marietta felt the impact of chemical contamination documented in “Dark Waters,” the 2019 film portraying the lives of residents who contracted deadly illnesses from a nearby DuPont manufacturing facility.
“I was interested in environmental justice from a really young age,” Varnadoe said. “I took a few side-steps along the way, but I always found my way back into wanting to be a lawyer.”
Varnadoe’s interest in environmental law drew her to Texas A&M University’s School of Law, which offers an energy, environmental and natural resource systems program. Through their coursework, students can delve deeper into issues surrounding water pollution, land use and the oil and gas industry.
Aside from a similar UT-Austin course, Texas A&M is one of the state’s only law schools to offer an environmental law clinic, said Sara Thornton, who co-teaches the class with professor Gabriel Eckstein. Eckstein, an expert in international water law and policy, serves as director of Texas A&M’s environmental law program.
The idea for the clinic was born out of Eckstein’s capstone class, which allowed students to produce legal recommendations for real-life clients as their final project.
Capstone courses are a rarity at law schools, Eckstein said, and he realized the class would be more helpful to students if it included the practical experience that comes with a formal clinic. Law schools are great at teaching theory and case law, Eckstein said, but graduates need another set of skills to be courtroom ready.
“My capstone was functioning like a clinic, minus the skills component,” Eckstein said. “We weren’t really teaching them the skills of how to talk to clients. We saw real value in taking that extra step and saying: ‘Let’s ratchet it up and make an effort to teach them: How do you speak to the client? How do you interview?’”
After setting up the clinic with associate dean Luz E. Herrera, Eckstein reached out to Thornton, an Austin-based water lawyer with the firm Lloyd Gosselink Rochell & Townsend, P.C., about co-teaching the course.
Thornton is also one of Eckstein’s former students from his days as a professor at Texas Tech’s law school. Eckstein’s plan to marry the classroom experience with the day-to-day experiences of advising a client convinced Thornton, who taught her first Texas A&M law course in spring 2021, to say: “Sign me up.”
“It seemed like a great opportunity for me to grow as an attorney as well, because it helps me hone my skills with the individuals I work with,” Thornton said. “It isn’t a one-sided learning experience on behalf of the students. The professors definitely get a lot out of it.”
Members of the clinic focus on legal issues, such as compliance with environmental regulations, and take on a single client every spring semester. The class – which can range from five to eight students – doesn’t handle litigation but can’t discuss details of its work due to attorney-client privilege.
The lessons learned in the course go beyond the specifics of the legal issues students explored, Thornton said.
“When you’re just taking coursework, it’s not well understood the level of stress that’s higher when you’re dealing with the client,” she said. “There was plenty of focus on time management, not just in terms of getting work done, but in establishing work-life balance and mental health, particularly post-pandemic.”
The complexity of environmental law is tough to fit into a 12-week clinic, Eckstein said. Students have to meet the client, conduct research, arrange meetings with experts, conduct site visits and more.
For Varnadoe, who participated in a different clinic last year, the environmental program was entirely different. Varnadoe was accustomed to working with several clients on specific issues and wrapping up the case in a short time frame.
“Being able to cover a lot of ground with one consistent client was really beneficial and applicable to the real practice of law, where you have established clients,” Varnadoe, who graduates next month, said. “Developing those teamwork skills and collaboration between all of our different schedules and having client meetings all the time over the course of the 12-week semester was a lot of fun.”
The clinic is open to taking on all types of clients, including corporations and government agencies, Eckstein said.
“We’re not a ‘tree-hugging’ focused clinic,” he said. “We really try to be at the very center of the road. We want to work with the private sector, the public sector, with municipalities and so on, because our job is not to achieve a particular outcome unless it’s a particular outcome that the client wants … Every time, it could be somebody different.”
In the future, Eckstein – who argued on behalf of Bolivia’s water rights in front of the International Court of Justice earlier this month – would love students to tackle international environmental law, if they can find a topic to fit into the semester.
Mostly, he wants students to leave the course feeling like they are prepared to hit the ground running in their first law firm job.
“When they go to a job interview or go out into the real world, they can say: ‘I’m not just book smart, I actually got to work on this case. I did these kinds of legal analyses, this kind of legal research, for a real life project,’” Eckstein said. “These are the kinds of skills that they’re going to have to learn on the job. Now, the employer is going to be more likely to say: ‘Come on board.’” | https://www.keranews.org/environment-nature/2022-04-25/through-new-texas-a-m-legal-clinic-students-explore-implications-of-environmental-law | 2022-05-12T15:40:23Z |
When Dave Hildreth and his Republic Services team take buses of teenagers on tours of the Arlington landfill, their visit is largely focused on how the facility processes 4,500 tons of waste every day. But their ears perk up when they hear about falcons patrolling the skies.
“Everybody is more fascinated by the birds than they are with the other parts of the landfill,” Hildreth said.
Republic is responsible for operating the 774-acre property at 800 Mosier Valley Road in Euless, adjacent to the master-planned Viridian community in northwest Arlington. During the winter months, migrating seagulls often crowd around the waste piles and surrounding communities as they migrate between the Gulf Coast and Canada.
That’s where Roger Crandall and his company, Fal-Tech Inc., come in. Since 2013, Crandall has used his peregrine falcons – what he calls “the fastest-living creatures on Earth” with diving speeds of over 200 miles per hour – to ward away the gulls.
The birds can cause major issues for truck operators dropping off waste and using 125,000-pound compactors to push the trash into as small a space as possible.
“Before Roger got here, we had times where it was so bad, operators couldn’t hardly even see out of the machines because there were so many birds flying around,” Dickerson said. “It was just solid seagulls.”
Crandall, a master falconer since the age of 16, provides bird control services to Arlington, as well as Fort Worth’s southeast landfill. His business has also helped shopping centers and the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport deter grackles and other nuisance birds from roosting in their buildings.
Because landfills can draw larger numbers of gulls to the area, the birds are also a nuisance to the communities that surround the site, Hildreth said. Crandall’s falcons, including a pair named Jasmine and Thumper, are hired to ensure the gulls don’t stick around for long.
The gull invasion is at its peak between mid-October and the early spring months, Crandall said. By mid-April, most of the gulls are already well on their way from the Gulf Coast to Canada for mating season.
At least 1,000 stragglers lingered around a massive trash pile on a windy April morning. Crandall launched a falcon into the sky, sending large numbers of gulls packing.
“Anywhere where falcons and gulls’ habitats overlap, gulls show up on the menu,” Crandall said. “There’s just a deep-seated fear that goes way, way back in their DNA, and they’re just very sensitive to the shape of a large falcon. They know that’s danger, and they just want to leave the area.”
But the falcons are not hunting gulls, Crandall added. The birds get all the food they need from him. Their only job is to soar through the sky and push the flock to keep moving.
“Whenever a seagull sees one of these birds flying around, they know the difference between this and a red-tailed hawk and some of the other common species around here,” he said. “They know that a redtail doesn’t pose any threat, but they’re really, really afraid of these things.”
Crandall said he couldn’t discuss the specifics of his contract with Arlington and Republic Services because of a confidentiality agreement. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has been known to charge upward of $140,000 to keep the gulls off of landfills, he said, and Fal-Tech’s yearly rate is about half of that price tag.
There are other ways to control birds, Hildreth said. Other cities have used fireworks and pyrotechnics to scare the gulls away, or even used bird baits to poison gulls.
“You could sit out here and pop screamers and firecrackers all day long to chase the birds away, but it drives the neighbors nuts,” Hildreth said. “Those methods are just not as effective and not nearly as humane as this … We look for methods that work in an urban landfill.”
The Arlington landfill’s location near River Legacy Park and Lake Viridian were also concerns in going the falcon route. Plus, Fal-Tech’s daily monitoring of the site has proven effective in reducing the visual issues truck operators were experiencing, Hildreth said.
Using falcons for commercial work, as Crandall does at landfills, wasn’t always an easy option. Before 2007, falconers had to obtain U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service permits for every specific project where they sought to earn money for bird abatement, or the practice of warding away nuisance birds with falcons.
Crandall worked with U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, to push the federal agency to issue a more general permit for falconers who wanted to practice bird abatement commercially. Crandall was the first to obtain the new special purpose permit in late 2007.
Since then, hundreds of the permits have been issued to master falconers, he said, and the industry continues to grow.
“It’s an amazing thing to be able to utilize this kind of bird control,” Crandall said. “It’s not always the answer. In fact, frequently it’s not the answer. But there are some situations where it’s just a perfect fit in terms of being environmentally sound.” | https://www.keranews.org/environment-nature/2022-04-27/seagulls-were-causing-major-problems-at-arlingtons-landfill-the-city-turned-to-falcons-for-help | 2022-05-12T15:40:29Z |
Labrador retrievers fetch, border collies herd, huskies howl: It's conventional wisdom that many dog breeds act in certain ways because they've been bred to do so over the course of many generations.
But a new study to be published Friday in the journal Science finds that though some dog behaviors are indeed associated with particular breeds, breed plays less of a role overall than that conventional wisdom holds.
"We found things like German shorthaired pointers were slightly more likely to point, or golden retrievers were slightly more likely to retrieve, or huskies more likely to howl, than the general dog population," says Kathryn Lord, a researcher at the UMass Chan Medical School and an author of the study.
Researchers surveyed the owners of more than 18,000 dogs and analyzed the DNA of about 2,100 animals to see if physical traits and behaviors can be correlated with dog breeds.
Overall, the study found that about 9% of the variation in an individual dog's behavior can be explained by its breed.
Border collies, for instance, were more likely to be responsive to human direction, a trait called "biddability." Owners of beagles, bloodhounds, coonhounds and Siberian huskies will not be surprised to learn that those breeds had a tendency to howl.
The same was true of mixed-breed dogs, the researchers found — the higher the percentage of border collie in a mutt, the more responsive it was to human commands.
"From a genetic standpoint, that's fantastic. That means there are real behavioral differences that are connected to breeds that we can go and study," says Elinor Karlsson, a professor at UMass Chan Medical School and another author of the study.
Why dogs may not behave like others of the same breed
Across individual dogs of the same breed, the researchers found huge variations in behavior.
For instance, although golden retrievers are, on the whole, more likely to fetch than many other dogs, there are plenty of lazy goldens that sit and watch as their owners fruitlessly toss tennis balls.
And no behavior is unique to any single breed, the researchers said. German shorthaired pointers are not the only dogs that point.
"Genetics matter, but genetics are a nudge in a given direction. They're not a destiny," Evan MacLean, the director of the Arizona Canine Cognition Center at the University of Arizona, who was not involved in the research, tells NPR. "We've known that for a long time in human studies, and this paper really suggests that the same is true for dogs."
The most likely explanation for the relatively low correlation between behavior and breed, the authors of the paper said, is that many modern dog breeds are relatively new, in the evolutionary scope of things.
Organized dog breeding, with kennel clubs and other groups that regulate physical traits and track lineage, has existed in its current form only since the mid-19th century.
By contrast, humans have been helping to shape dog behaviors for thousands of years, the researchers said — first by giving helpful dogs food and shelter, thus allowing them to more easily have puppies, and then later by intentionally breeding.
"The thing about complex traits is that selecting on them takes time," Karlsson says. "And so the idea that they've been created in the last 160 years when these breeds came up didn't make any sense."
Dog owners were a big help in the study
To create their data set, the researchers set up a website called Darwin's Ark that allows dog owners to upload data about their dogs and answer questions, both about physical traits — how tall their dog is, how long its fur is — and about their dogs' behavior: Do they shake toys? Do they avoid getting wet? Do they howl?
The study's reliance on owner surveys is both good and bad, says MacLean of the University of Arizona.
On the one hand, owner surveys allow for massive sample sizes — well over 18,000 survey responses in this case — but on the other, the information gathered from surveys is almost always less reliable than results from a laboratory environment, he says.
"We like to put dogs in a situation that we can control and we can administer in the same way to every dog, and be a little bit more objective about the behavior that we see," MacLean says.
The researchers say they hope the paper can help aspiring dog owners shift their mindsets about how to choose a dog.
"I don't think that we should really be deciding that breeds are the things that will tell us whether we will be happy with a dog or whether a dog will be happy with us," says Marjie Alonso, another of the study's authors and executive director of the IAABC Foundation, an animal training organization.
Instead, she suggests that potential owners make a list of what they'd like to do with a dog and then try to find a dog that meets those needs.
"We do have to accept that our dogs are individuals. Each dog is a study of one," she says. "We want to accept our dogs for who they are."
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/environment-nature/2022-04-30/your-dog-is-a-good-boy-but-thats-not-necessarily-because-of-its-breed | 2022-05-12T15:40:35Z |
Floodlight Energy & Environment In Texas, thousands in fines paid by oil and gas polluters benefit the fossil fuel industry Amal Ahmed | The Texas Tribune The state allows a portion of fines to be directed to projects that remediate environmental harm. Some of those projects benefit the companies that are being penalized. | https://www.keranews.org/floodlight | 2022-05-12T15:40:41Z |
The most recent transfer in mid-March drew criticism from District 9 councilmember Elizabeth Beck, who questioned the ethics of accepting money seized from potentially innocent residents.
“Our civil asset forfeiture laws are broken,” Beck said.
The Fort Worth Report talked to experts to answer commonly asked questions about the process of civil asset forfeiture, how it operates in Fort Worth, and why the practice is controversial.
What is civil asset forfeiture?
Civil asset forfeiture is a process used by law enforcement to gain money and property they think is related to criminal activity. Police seize belongings from individuals, and then prosecutors file suit in order to retain ownership of the property.
People do not have to be charged with a crime for their assets to be seized through this process. They must prove the property was not linked to a crime, even if they have not been arrested or charged for said crime. This differs from the standard for criminal asset forfeiture, which requires law enforcement to prove property was involved in or earned through criminal activity.
“You’re punishing people for a crime they’ve never been convicted of committing,” Dan Alban, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, said. “And because law enforcement can keep up to 100% of these forfeitures, there are very strong incentives to pursue asset forfeiture.”
Police argue that the practice is an essential tool to crack down on organized crime. Kevin Lawrence, executive director of the Texas Municipal Police Association, said the lower standard allows police to hit criminals in their pocketbooks even if they can’t place them behind bars.
“Civil asset forfeiture is intended to try and take a bite out of organized criminal syndicates by getting at their profit margin,” he said. “If we do away with civil asset forfeiture, who really benefits the most? It’s organized crime.”
The Fort Worth Police Department has four routes to seize assets — joint Department of Justice investigations, joint Department of Treasury investigations, and county and city investigations (grouped as state investigations in the department’s budgetary breakdown). Money from federal joint investigations is split among the participating agencies.
Tarrant County-based attorney David Sloane most frequently sees civil asset forfeiture through highway interdiction cases, where officers will stop motorists and look for reasons to search their vehicle, he said. Sloane is paranoid about making sure he has a series of official documents if he’s ever traveling with cash, for that reason, he said.
“It’s my money, but you know, again, I cover my bases as best I can,” he said. “Is that going to stop an officer from taking it still if he wants to? I mean, he can still do it. And I still have to go fight to get it back.”
How common is the practice in Texas?
Police departments across the state frequently use civil asset forfeiture. The practice has come under scrutiny at both the state and federal level over the years; critics say it targets primarily low-income individuals and unfairly steals citizens’ property.
Lawrence said while people often think of civil asset forfeiture as a ‘get rich quick scheme’ for police, in reality there are built-in checks and balances.
“In order for it to actually be inappropriate or improper, the district court judge has to be just as involved as anybody else,” he said. “And if that is the case, we have the board of judicial review.”
Departments report civil asset forfeitures to the state attorney general’s office, which tracks totals annually.
Several other states have passed legislation aimed at reforming the practice in recent years. Last year, Maine abolished civil asset forfeiture entirely. It is the fourth state to do so, joining Nebraska, New Mexico and North Carolina.
In Texas, State Rep. Matt Schaefer (R–Tyler) has filed several House bills over the years aimed at placing the burden of proof on the state rather than the accused whose property has been seized. None of the bills have been signed into law.
“It’s free money. It’s free cars, it’s free guns,” Sloane said. “You know, it’s anything they see can be converted to law enforcement use.”
While he is not supportive of doing away with civil asset forfeiture, Lawrence said there should be additional oversight of constitutionally elected law enforcement officers, including district attorneys.
“I think (misuse of the process) is probably more prevalent at the county level because there is not that accountability to the voter, directly to the voter, like there is for cities,” he said.
How much money does the Fort Worth Police Department gain from civil asset forfeiture yearly?
In 2021, the department generated $856,876 in revenue. The majority of that money came from joint DOJ investigations. In 2020 and 2019, the majority of the revenue came from county and city investigations.
Data from 2001 to 2013 showed that Texas as a whole collected an average of $41.6 million in civil asset forfeiture funds annually.
While people can contest forfeiture proceedings, Alban said it doesn’t always make financial sense. Because civil asset forfeiture is handled through a civil court, the accused are not provided a free court-appointed attorney. If someone had $500 seized, for example, lawyer fees to contest the seizure would likely be higher than the amount lost in the first place.
“Many people don’t have the means to contest it,” Alban said. As a result, many cases are closed through a default judgment.
“I’ve always taken these cases on a contingency basis, like ‘I’ll split the recovery with you or I’ll take a percentage of the recovery that I get back,” Sloane said. “If I get nothing back for you, then you don’t you owe me nothing.’”
The police department said property it seizes is often abandoned as officers pursue further investigation, as a way for owners to reduce their criminal liability.
Where does that money go?
Money from civil asset forfeiture is generally split between the arresting department, the local prosecutor’s office, and the state. On the federal level, the department must apply for a share of the revenue.
In Fort Worth, the police department submits a proposed asset forfeiture budget for council approval. This year’s budget included 16 expenditure categories, including $61,250 to match a Texas Department of Transportation grant.
In a statement, the Fort Worth Police Department told The Fort Worth Report that “while some must be destroyed, property that has legitimate financial value is used to purchase equipment and technology. These resources help the Department with the expensive task of keeping pace with evolving crime strategies and technology with the ultimate goal of reducing the financial burden of policing to the taxpayer.”
Beck would like to see the city reinvest the money into communities it was taken from, either in the form of drug and gun violence prevention efforts or other community services, she said.
“I think that making that statement, that we’re giving this back to the people, that it hurt, is a way forward,” she said. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-13/explainer-fort-worth-police-receive-big-bucks-for-civil-asset-forfeitures | 2022-05-12T15:40:47Z |
The Fort Worth City Council was forced to cancel two meetings and re-ratify its actions stretching from September 2021 to March 2022 after staff discovered the city failed to post physical agendas in City Hall.
Under the Texas Open Meetings Act, local governments are required to post agendas for upcoming meetings online and physically within City Hall 72 hours before a scheduled meeting, with some exceptions.
Previous reporting by the Fort Worth Report led to the discovery that agendas for Fort Worth City Council meetings were not in compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act starting from Sept. 1, 2021, to March 18, 2022.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Greg Abbott suspended the requirement of physical meeting notices for government meetings on March 16, 2021, after declaring a state of disaster in Texas earlier that month. The executive order, meant to prevent in-person gatherings, expired on Sept. 1, 2021.
“Although the city’s agendas were not physically posted outside of City Hall after the order expired in September 2021, all meetings were posted as required on the city’s website,” Michelle Gutt, spokesman for the city, said in a statement.
Nonetheless, failing to physically post the agendas is a violation of the Open Meetings Act, Joe Larsen, an attorney specializing in media law said. Moving forward, the city will program a kiosk in the City Hall lobby to show the meeting agendas on a digital screen, in compliance with the law.
Failure to post physical agendas within City Hall could pose a barrier to participation for residents without access to the internet, said Kelley Shannon, executive director of the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas.
An estimated 60,000 Fort Worth residents lack home internet access, according to the city.
“If they can go down and look at an agenda that’s posted publicly, physically, that helps them,” Shannon said. “What we’re trying to do is make sure everyone’s covered by our open government laws.”
To resolve the violation, the City Council passed a resolution “to re-notice those items and ratify all actions taken at those meetings.”
The resolution included over 500 pages of past agendas. The council’s actions during those months became official when the council ratified them March 29, 2022.
Along with ethical concerns, the mistake opens the city to potential legal trouble from residents impacted by any actions taken by the council while agendas were not being properly posted, Larsen said. Residents could sue to have those actions rendered invalid during the months the agendas were not physically posted.
The suit would be valid only in a very specific set of circumstances, Larsen explained. For example, if the council were to fire a city employee while agendas were not properly posted, that employee could sue to receive wages for the months the action was invalid.
“It’s not easy to get this remedy if you don’t act quickly and it’s hard to get it if too much water flowed under the bridge,” Larsen said.
While it’s possible someone could take legal action, the city believes they could successfully demonstrate that the failure to post was a misunderstanding, the city’s legal department said in a statement.
The city has previously cited technical issues to explain the absence of agendas on the city’s website. There are two places residents can typically view agendas before City Council meetings: The city calendar and Legistar, where residents can also watch meetings live. The city acknowledges agendas have previously been absent from one of the two platforms but always maintains compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act by maintaining agendas on one of the two platforms.
The result can be confusing for residents, city staff acknowledged in emails obtained by the Report.
“I am advocating for a new agenda management system that would be more stable and reliable and could be expanded,” City Secretary Jannette Goodall said in an email to legal and communications staff.
“Residents have to know where to find things on multiple web pages, which is frustrating. I, as a staff person, find it frustrating,” Goodall went on to write. “That doesn’t make it a violation of the Open Meetings Act, just not the best customer service.”
The technical issues stem from the city using two content management systems to publish agendas.
To solve the issue would require an investment from the city to replace Legistar and redesign the council meeting web pages to make it a one-stop shop for residents to find the agendas, executed documents, meeting minutes, and videos, Goodall said in the email.
By getting familiar with open meetings laws, residents can effectively advocate for the right to get involved with their local government, Shannon said. The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas and the Attorney General’s office have online resources and guides to help residents understand the Open Meetings Act and the Texas Public Information Act. The foundation also holds in-person training across the state where journalists and residents can learn more about their rights under the law.
“Everyone needs to make themselves aware of their right to know and the public’s right to access information,” Shannon said. “Individual citizens can do this and government officials can, too.” | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-14/fort-worth-open-meetings-violation-reveals-confusing-public-participation-process | 2022-05-12T15:40:53Z |
Tucked into the folds of the federal government’s latest $1.5 trillion spending bill lies more than $280 million to fund initiatives for Texans. Those projects range from expanding the San Antonio police department’s mental health unit and improving flood mitigation in coastal counties to planting a sustainable community garden at a high school and building a Gandhi museum in Houston.
The money comes from a federal budgeting practice known as earmarking, in which members of Congress request direct funding to their local districts. The practice was banned by Republicans after they won control of Congress during the 2010 midterm election, citing fiscal responsibility, but this past year, Democrats brought the practice back with some additional safeguards in place.
A number of Texas Republicans — including those who wield considerable influence in Congress — sat out of the process to bring home the proverbial pork.
That includes U.S. Rep. Kay Granger of Fort Worth — the highest-ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee, which plays a key role in evaluating and negotiating funding requests — and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, who was previously the second highest-ranking Republican in the Senate. Both members previously pulled tens of millions of dollars in earmarks for Texas before the practice was initially banned.
In Texas, 19 out of Texas’ 38-member congressional delegation — all 13 Democrats and six Republicans — submitted requests and received funding.
While the majority of Texas Republicans protested the practice, the two members who were most successful at bringing home the bacon for their constituents are Republicans — U.S. Reps. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio and Dan Crenshaw of Houston.
Despite having the second-largest population of any state and around 9% of the country’s people, Texas received less earmark funding than smaller states like South Carolina and Alabama — states where Republican senators on the chamber’s appropriations committee helped amass $378 million and $542 million, respectively.
Another GOP-led state that beat out Texas in earmark funding is Missouri with $311 million. Of the approximately $9.7 billion in earmarked funds, Texas will receive around 3%.
Texas is taking in the 7th highest share of earmarks out of any state. But per capita, Texas’ share ranked 42nd among all the states and the District of Columbia.
Return of earmarks
Before they were banned, members of both parties used earmarks extensively to address constituent needs like fixing broken roads and funding community programs. They also double as fundraising fodder, as politicians who score big wins can tout them in campaigns.
Earmarks do not add to the federal budget’s expenses, but instead provide specific instruction to federal agencies on how to spend their allocated dollars. Without them, more authority is given to the executive branch and agencies to decide how to spend their funds.
However, earmarks have been associated with government abuse. For example, former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, a California Republican, was sentenced to federal prison in 2006 for funneling money to causes whose beneficiaries donated to him.
They’ve also been linked to wasteful spending. One oft-cited instance was the so-called “bridge to nowhere,” a project in sparsely populated rural Alaska that had hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks directed to its construction in the 2000s. The bridge was never built.
When Democrats took control of Congress after the 2020 election, party leadership brought back the practice in 2021 with additional regulations, including requirements meant to clean up their bad reputation: posting funding requests online and affirming officials receive no financial benefit from a given project.
One argument in favor of earmarks is that it incentivizes bipartisan collaboration in the budget process, especially at a time when key votes in Congress are breaking across party lines. Rather than simply voting against the party in power, earmarks give lawmakers in the minority party some skin in the game.
Granger sits out
The powerful appropriations committees in both the House and Senate are key in determining how the federal government spends its money. Four Texans sit on the House Appropriations Committee: Democratic U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo and Republican U.S. Reps. John Carter of Round Rock, Gonzales and Granger. All of them except Granger brought earmarked funds back to Texas.
“I didn’t think it was appropriate at the time,” Granger told The Texas Tribune when asked why she didn’t submit funding requests in the passed budget. “I want to make sure if they come back, they come back in a way that’s acceptable to everyone.”
Granger did not comment on what specific restrictions she would want to see on the process. If Republicans win a House majority in the November midterm elections, Granger is poised to become the next chair of the House Appropriations Committee, where she would be a key voice in determining the future of the process.
While earmarks are one visible way in which members of Congress can get wins for their district, members — especially those on the appropriations committees — can negotiate project funding in other legislation. For example, Granger touted this year more than $400 million for Panther Island, a long-anticipated flood control project for the Trinity River in Fort Worth. That money comes from a bill last fall that she voted against.
Granger, who has represented the district since 1997, earmarked $28.4 million in funds, oftentimes with other members of Congress, for the river project before the practice ended in 2010. She has caught heat because her son is the executive director of the authority in charge of Panther Island’s development. Her daughter-in-law has also served on the project’s management team.
The Republicans who played ball
Six Texas Republicans joined their Democratic counterparts in asking for earmarks: U.S. Reps. Pete Sessions of Waco, Troy Nehls of Richmond, Beth Van Duyne of Irving, Crenshaw, Gonzales and Carter.
The Republicans who played ball with earmarks took home proportionally more than their Democratic colleagues. The six of them amassed nearly $120 million, while all 13 Texas Democrats together brought in a little more than $176 million.
“What we did in our district was we had our local elected officials — including mayor, state reps and state senators — come together,” Van Duyne told the Tribune. “They’re the group that looked over what the requests were and they gave their recommendations.”
Van Duyne said this approach mitigates some of the concerns expressed about earmarks by taking the power from members of Congress and putting it in the local district — “where it should be.”
The Irving congresswoman took home three funding requests of $5 million each — two of the three in partnership with other North Texas representatives — and all are directed toward various improvements for the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.
Nehls took home more than $6 million for road expansions and education programs. He declined comment for this story.
Gonzales, a junior member of the House Appropriations Committee, brought in the most of any Texan with nearly $39 million. U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, secured the most of any Democrat at $24.4 million.
The funding Gonzales directed toward his district includes $32 million to Joint Base San Antonio, a military facility, for a child development center and a vehicle maintenance shop.
The first-term San Antonio congressman said in a statement to the Tribune that if Congress doesn’t exercise its authority to control spending using earmarks — which are now officially called community project funding — presidential administrations would do it and leave small communities vulnerable.
“When community project funding returned to the appropriations process last year for the first time in over a decade, we fought hard to ensure that a diverse set of projects received federal funds,” Gonzales said. “I realize the process is opposed by some members, however if federal funds are going to be spent, I will always advocate for those dollars to come home to our district.”
Many of the Houston-area representatives took home money to address flood infrastructure and storm drainage in their districts — a continual concern for the region in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. Crenshaw received the second most earmarked funds out of any Texan, securing more than $26 million in funding for his district — all of which is directed toward various flood control projects.
“I have a very strict process for that, and it has to be flood mitigation for the district,” Crenshaw told the Tribune about his approach to earmarks.
The Republicans who sat out
Other Republicans in the delegation — especially the most conservative ones — pushed back against the process, even with its new reporting requirements, and said further conversations about the funding were necessary.
“I am very concerned about earmarks and the corrupting influence of them and how they have been in Congress,” U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud, a Republican from Victoria serving his second term in the House, told the Tribune when asked about Texas getting disproportionately less money than some states. “Yes, we want to represent our districts well, we want Texas to prosper. But we are at an existential cliff when it comes to monetary policy.”
Cloud is a member of the Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative House Republicans that includes five Texans who did not request or receive earmark funding. The caucus came out in strong opposition to earmark funding last year as the Republican caucus at large decided how to navigate their return.
Both of Texas’ senators, Cornyn and Ted Cruz, signed a letter last year that affirmed a commitment to the ban on earmarks, which they called an “inherently wasteful spending practice that is prone to serious abuse.”
Cornyn told reporters in a press call that he was open to a conversation about earmarks, but was not going to vote for a “corrupt” process without reform.
“I think it just has a very unseemly appearance of, frankly, corruption. That’s not always the case, but part of what I would look for is some reform of the earmark process,” said Cornyn, who sponsored or cosponsored more than $420 million in earmarks from fiscal years 2008 to 2010. “I’ve found in my experience, we’ve been able to establish programs and seek appropriations for things that help Texas in a variety of ways, and it’s not really necessary to request an earmark in order to get that done.”
Beyond Cornyn and Granger, other long-serving Republicans who did not request funding this round but previously did before the practice was banned in 2010 are U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, Michael Burgess of Lewisville, Kevin Brady of The Woodlands and Louie Gohmert of Tyler, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks the flow of money in politics. Over the years, many of them have cited the argument that earmarks lead to shady and unnecessary government spending.
Some Texas Democrats seemed wary of using the term “earmarks” to label the funding practice, likely a nod to the negative connotations the practice had in years past.
“We don’t have earmarks,” said U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Houston, who secured more than $10 million for health care, education and public safety initiatives. “Our focus is about really helping those community-based organizations that truly need that little lift to get their programs going to better serve.”
“They’re not called earmarks anymore, obviously,” U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat from El Paso who took home $11.6 million for initiatives such as police body cameras, broadband expansion and hospital equipment, told the Tribune. “They’re community-funded projects. They’ve been reformed so that they’re more transparent, so that there’s more accountability and rules around them.”
U.S. Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, D-Houston, amassed $13.7 million that will go toward flood mitigation, drinking water infrastructure and resources and equipment for the Houston Fire Department.
“I’m here to advocate for my constituents and to make sure that we get the funding that we need in our community,” said Fletcher, who was elected to House in 2018 and went through the earmarking process for the first time. “I’m really excited about the projects and things that we’re going to be able to make happen.”
We can’t wait to welcome you in person and online to the 2022 Texas Tribune Festival, our multiday celebration of big, bold ideas about politics, public policy and the day’s news — all taking place just steps away from the Texas Capitol from Sept. 22-24. When tickets go on sale in May, Tribune members will save big. Donate to join or renew today. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-15/as-federal-earmarks-return-most-texas-republicans-abstained-from-bringing-home-the-bacon | 2022-05-12T15:40:59Z |
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, expressed an early eagerness to contest the 2020 presidential election, while also privately pushing for real evidence to be the basis for any challenge and later urging former President Donald Trump to “call everyone off” the effort to block the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
“If we substitute the will of states through electors with a vote by Congress every 4 years ... we have destroyed the electoral college ... Respectfully,” Roy texted to Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, on Dec. 31, 2020, according to a CNN report.
“Give a statesman speech. End strong,” he added.
CNN obtained and published a series of exchanges between Roy and Meadows ranging from the days after the election to the Jan. 6 insurrection, when a group of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol and temporarily blocked Congress from certifying Biden’s electoral victory. The revelations Friday set off an online frenzy around Roy heading into Easter weekend.
The released texts begin on Nov. 5, two days after the 2020 presidential election. At that point, major news organizations had not yet declared Biden the winner, which is the traditional moment when a presidential transition begins.
Because of uncounted mail-in ballots, the races in three states, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania, remained uncalled. At that point, Trump’s seeming lead in those states was evaporating by the hour as votes were counted.
“We have no tools / data / information to go out and fight RE: election / fraud. If you need / want it, we all need to know what’s going on. Fwiw [for what it’s worth] ...” Roy wrote to Meadows.
The published texts end on Jan. 6, the day the Capitol was stormed, as Roy urged Meadows to “Fix this now.”
All through the final months of his term, Trump was seeking to fight the election results, claiming falsely that the victory was stolen. Republicans — including Texans — never found any substantial evidence that widespread fraud occurred, despite oftentimes wild claims to the contrary during the fall and winter of 2020 and 2021. Federal courts repeatedly and consistently shot down attempts to reverse the results.
On Friday, Roy stood by his actions.
“Been off social media this Good Friday, but apparently there’s quite a stir,” Roy said on Twitter. “I’ll say this once. No apologies for my private texts or public positions - to those on the left or right. I stand behind seeking truth, fighting nonsense, & then acting in defense of the Constitution.”
When Roy initially asked for the tools to fight for Trump on Nov. 5, Meadows responded by saying he was working on them and congratulated Roy for his reelection victory. Roy wrote back, “Yessir, thx. Now let's hold GA, & take az & pa!”
But later in the day, Roy began pressing for guidance on how to politically litigate Trump’s cause.
“What’s the message? This seems hard to sell,” he wrote.
“Any help on message appreciated,” he later pressed again. “We’re all just making generic statements ... .”
Eventually, Meadows replied, “If observers are not present then votes should not be uploaded. The fair and open process should be subject to observation.”
Two days later, all of the major news networks called the race for Biden.
“If you’re still in the game ... dude, we need ammo,” Roy wrote to Meadows on Saturday, Nov. 7. “We need fraud examples. We need it this weekend.”
“We are working on exactly that,” Meadows replied.
Roy’s tone became increasingly alarmed that Monday.
On Nov. 9, Roy alerted Meadows that he was traveling to Georgia to see Cleta Mitchell, one of the most active Trump campaign litigators at that point. Roy tweeted a photo with her that day.
“... let me know what I can do,” Roy wrote to Meadows. “We need a message that isn’t wild-eyed.”
Later that day, Roy sent what appeared to be a note intended for an audience of Trump’s inner circle. He urged the president “to tone down the rhetoric” and to “approach the legal challenge firmly, intelligently and effectively without resorting to throwing wild desperate haymakers, or whipping his base into a conspiracy frenzy.”
He indicated that he still wanted to keep up the fight, saying the goal is to “get the president re-elected by counting every ‘legal’ vote through recounts in states where the margins qualify, and filing lawsuits in states where there is enough circumstantial voting irregularities evidence to justify the legal action.”
Roy then warned Trump allies that if a “final determination” indicated Trump lost, Republicans should “have an orderly transfer of power, and push hard for election process reform so that this does not happen again if we win, full speed ahead on all conservative fronts.”
Again on Nov. 9, Meadows said the Trump campaign was “going to do a manual recount,” likely referring to the Georgia presidential contest.
At that point, a key legal marker for Roy began to emerge when he told Meadows, “Gotta go before certification ...” referring to the traditional Jan. 6 certification of the Electoral College in Congress.
On Nov. 15, Roy again asked for evidence of voter fraud: “Who has catalogued / is tracking the best case for fraud / issues? Do we know?”
Meadows did not appear to reply.
Four days later, Roy texted to Meadows that “we need substance or people are going to break ...” — likely referring to House Republican colleagues. Meadows also did not appear to reply to that.
On Nov. 22, Roy restated his previous warning: “If we don’t get logic and reason in this before 11/30 - the GOP conference will bolt (all except the most hard core Trump guys.)”
He also advised that “Frigging Rudy needs to hush ... ” — an apparent reference to Rudolph Giuliani, who was leading Trump’s legal charge in overturning the election and holding outlandish press conferences in which he was asserting fraud.
For the rest of November, Roy continually checked in with Meadows. He offered legal and political advice while continuing to press for evidence to make the public case for Trump.
“I think there is a strong message that would be louder and better than Sydney/Rudy have been doing, but it’s hard to keep up,” he wrote, apparently referring to pro-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
There are no released texts between Nov. 26 and Dec. 21.
In that interim, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton led a failed lawsuit challenging the election results in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, arguing that those states implemented pandemic-related changes to election procedures that were illegal.
The Supreme Court tossed out that lawsuit on Dec. 11. Fourteen Texas Republican members of the House endorsed Paxton’s challenge. Roy did not.
Roy, who once served as Paxton’s top deputy, described the case at the time as “a dangerous violation of federalism” that “will almost certainly fail.”
A week before the Jan. 6 certification, Roy’s messages to Meadows became more agitated, including the one in which he called for Trump “to call everyone off.”
“If POTUS allows this to occur ... we’re driving a stake in the heart of the federal republic ...” Roy wrote on New Year’s Day 2021.
Two days later, Roy joined in a statement with several of his House Republican colleagues urging against overturning the election. To do so, they argued, would be “to unconstitutionally insert Congress into the center of the presidential election process – would amount to stealing power from the people and the states.”
Roy went one step further to make his point that day, Jan. 3.
He objected to seating colleagues in states that many House Republicans were contesting, arguing that “those representatives were elected through the very same systems — with the same ballot procedures, with the same signature validations, with the same broadly applied decisions of executive and judicial branch officials — as were the electors chosen for the President of the United States under the laws of those states, which have become the subject of national controversy.”
The next day, he texted Meadows, “I am truly sorry I am in a different spot then you and our brothers re: Wednesday. But I will defend all.”
A different set of texts released Friday involve Roy’s former boss, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, from around the same time. In that same window, Cruz led the charge against certifying the election.
He and several Republican senators announced on Jan. 2 that they would challenge certification, at the time a shocking step.
In missives to Meadows on Jan. 3, Cruz’s closest friend in the chamber, U.S. Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, wrote to Meadows expressing “grave concerns with the way my friend Ted is going about this effort.”
“This will not inure to the benefit of the president,” Lee added.
And then, on Jan. 6, not long after Cruz delivered his remarks challenging the legitimacy of Biden’s victory, violent intruders stormed the Capitol, leaving several people dead and hundreds injured.
Roy, who was present at the Capitol that day, sent Meadows two more messages.
“This is a sh*tshow,” he wrote to the president’s chief of staff. “Fix this now.” | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-18/texts-show-u-s-rep-chip-roy-sought-evidence-of-election-fraud-in-2020 | 2022-05-12T15:41:06Z |
The Fort Worth Police Department is asking for new body cameras, new stun guns, new drones and an automatic license plate recognition system as part of a proposed technology contract.
Police Chief Neil Noakes presented the proposal to the City Council on Tuesday. The contract would cost about $6 million per year and bring the department’s technology services under one company, Axon, formerly known as Taser. The department’s current tech contracts are split between Axon and a few other companies, according to a City Council presentation.
The police department is pitching the new technology as a tool to make the department more efficient and transparent. The new body cameras would automatically activate when officers draw a weapon like a Taser or a gun, said Lt. Vincent Brown, who helped make the police department’s case at City Council. Supervisors could livestream officers’ body camera feeds and give them advice on how to keep situations calm.
“To have somebody that can talk to you and say 'Hey, this is kinda what’s going on, be careful of this,’ it can help deescalate, and that’s what our ultimate goal is,” Brown said.
Without the new contract and new products, the police department’s technology contracts would be cheaper next year at $5.6 million, Brown said. The technology contract cost $3.66 million last year.
City Council members Gyna Bivens, Chris Nettles and Jared Williams all expressed concerns about the potential for officers to deactivate their own cameras. Nettles asked for policies to be set before the City Council votes on the contract. That vote is scheduled for April 26.
“When the vote is taking place, I want to take a vote on what’s in black and white, and not what’s on a maybe or a wish, because those maybes or wishes may not never happen,” Nettles said.
The new contract would also put automatic license plate readers in more patrol cars, helping police identify vehicles connected to crimes.
Some organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice, say while these readers can be instrumental in catching suspects, they also make it easier for police departments to collect data on people unconnected with any crime and to surveil people.
Council member Elizabeth Beck said she wants a policy that makes sure data is deleted after a certain period, not kept indefinitely. The city needs to be careful “that we don’t step too far and cross a line that violates our Constitution and our rights to privacy,” she said.
The city should develop policies on the best way to use the new technology, said Fort Worth Police Monitor Kim Neal. Her office has already been working on enhancing the department’s body camera policy, she said, but there are no policies surrounding things like license plate readers.
Fort Worth’s business partnership with Axon has been controversial in the past. In 2015, The Associated Press reported that during his time as Fort Worth Police Chief, Jeff Halstead lobbied the city for a contract with Axon and accepted airfare and hotel stays from the company after the contract was approved.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-20/fort-worth-police-want-new-body-cams-stun-guns-and-automatic-license-plate-readers | 2022-05-12T15:41:12Z |
The Texas Democratic Party is planning to apply to be one of the first states to vote on the 2024 presidential nomination.
The Democratic National Committee recently decided to allow new states to bid for the coveted status, which has long belonged to places like Iowa and New Hampshire. But after complaints throughout the 2020 primary — and Iowa’s disastrous caucus — the national party is looking to overhaul the calendar to kick off the nominating process in states that better reflect the diversity of the broader electorate.
The Texas party had been considering a bid and was planning to meet Wednesday with the DNC to go over the process, according to a state party spokesperson, Angelica Luna Kaufman. She said later Wednesday that the party had decided it would submit an application.
“Because Texas has such a vibrant and diverse population, we believe candidates that would emerge from our primary would better represent and be better prepared to face the country’s growing dynamic and diverse population,” Luna Kaufman said. “The candidates that would come out of an earlier Texas primary would be quite a force. And a force is exactly what it’s going to take to win in 2024.”
However, it could be a tricky process and starts out with uncertain odds. Moving up the primary date would ultimately be up to the Legislature, where Republicans are in charge.
States have until May 6 to submit a letter of interest to the DNC and then until June 3 to submit an application. The DNC could finalize the new calendar by the end of the summer.
In 2020, Iowa had its contest on Feb. 3, followed by New Hampshire on Feb. 11, Nevada on Feb. 22 and South Carolina on Feb. 29.
Texas already holds a relatively early primary, falling on the first Tuesday in March. But if the application is successful, Texas could join the ranks of states that vote before March and draw outsized attention from candidates and the media.
Candidates make regular trips to the early-primary states and pay close attention to state-specific issues. Their showings in places like Iowa and New Hampshire have been known to make or break campaigns.
Iowa and New Hampshire, however, are overwhelmingly white, and their demographics fueled concerns in 2020 that Democrats were not living up to the diversity they preach. It also did not help that the 2020 Iowa caucus was beset with vote-counting problems that did not lead to a clear winner emerging until days later.
While Texas Democrats can be expected to press the case that the state is one of the most diverse in the country, they would also have to justify its massive size. One of the factors that the DNC is considering is feasibility, including the logistics of campaigning in a state.
Despite the March date, Texas still played a significant role in the 2020 primary. It was one of the Super Tuesday states where Joe Biden accelerated his comeback after winning the South Carolina primary, holding a primary-eve rally in Dallas where he was endorsed by former rivals including Beto O’Rourke. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-21/texas-democrats-make-moves-to-be-early-presidential-primary-state-in-2024 | 2022-05-12T15:41:18Z |
The county's fleet of almost 1,000 vehicles is a small slice of all North Texas vehicles, which number in the millions. Still, officials say shifting to electric vehicles is something they can do to address air quality while reducing carbon emissions that contribute to climate change and extreme weather.
An “F” for air
Dallas County Commissioners this month approved buying 23 all-electric vehicles: ten Ford F-150 trucks, ten Ford Mustang Mach-Es, and three Tesla Model 3s. It’s a three-year pilot program to assess whether the vehicles meet — or don’t meet — a the needs of various county workers.
Commissioner Elba Garcia, who represents a district in western Dallas County, has been the main proponent for electrifying the fleet, and noted the bad marks DFW has received for its air quality.
“We have had an F for ozone pollution for many, many years,” she said.
The American Lung Association recently gave the counties of Dallas, Denton, Collin, and Tarrant all an “F” Grade for ozone in its latest State of the Air report, released last week.
“Particle pollution and ozone are a threat to human health at every stage of life, increasing the risk of premature birth, causing or worsening lung and heart disease, and shortening lives,” the report states. It says several vulnerable groups — including children, older people, and people of color — are more likely to experience harm from air pollution.
The EPA recently said it wanted to classify the Dallas-Fort Worth area as a “severe” violator of federal ozone rules, which could lead to more regulation.
Dallas County’s recently approved EV purchases, Garcia said, is a much-needed start in doing something about this problem.
“Government should never be the last ones to do what we can do to make our taxpayers’ and constituents’ air better,” she said.
A long wait?
But first, the cars must arrive.
“It’s not going to be anytime soon,” said Michael Frosch, director of purchasing for Dallas County.
He said they placed the order after receiving commissioners’ approval on April 19th, but the three Teslas and the 20 Fords will take between six and eight months to arrive.
“The availability of any of these vehicles — electric, gas, doesn’t really matter — we're having difficulty getting products in a timely manner,” Frosch said. “We need to really think a year in advance.”
Sales of electric cars are booming worldwide. The International Energy Agency said electric cars were 9% of the global market in 2021, up from 4.1% the year before.
Many local governments around the country are trying to electrify their fleets to reduce carbon emissions, but the supply of EVs is not yet matching the demand. The Ford F-150 Lightning the county is buying begins production today.
A related concern is whether the additional “aftermarket” products that law enforcement vehicles need, like window inserts, prisoner partitions, and center consoles, will be on offer from aftermarket manufacturers.
“I just hope the market and aftermarket are responsive to law enforcement,” said Zack Masri, a sergeant with the Dallas County Marshals Service. Masri said aftermarket products made specifically for a particular model are better than generic ones.
Sticker shock
The mismatch of supply and demand also contributes to another concern — the up-front cost of electrifying the fleet.
The Tesla Model 3 is more expensive than the Ford models, which prompted Commissioner John Wiley Price to vote “no.”
“I’m having a difficult time getting to the $63,000 cost of Tesla,” he told KERA.
The electric Ford F-150 costs about $44,000 each and the Ford Mustang Mach-E vehicles about $45,000.
The Model 3 Tesla will be used for law enforcement, which is about 60% of the county’s fleet. While the Ford models are less costly, each of these different cars are going to be tested to see what works for county employees on the clock — and for officers who may drive their work cars home.
The county’s budget typically allocates $2 to $2.5 million annually for vehicle replacement, according to Jonathon Bazan, an assistant county administrator.
The electrification of the fleet would happen over time, during the regular replacement process funded by the county’s annual budget.
Looking to the future
An important part of electrifying a fleet is mapping out where charging stations will be. Bazan said charging stations for the downtown vehicles will be at the county parking garage, currently under construction. Future charging stations will be at government sites throughout the county.
The White House estimated the 2021 federal infrastructure law will send $408 million to Texas to expand charging networks for electric vehicles, and the state could apply for billions in grants for charging.
Cynthia Ross is president of Seamless EV Transition Group, a company that helps local governments make long term electrification plans for their fleets. She said writing specific long-term plans for electrification can save money when building stations.
It can also prepare local governments for grant opportunities, including from utilities or manufacturers of charging stations.
“That money is normally gone in 48 hours, because people that have the plan can submit their plan — and they get the money,” Ross said.
The newly approved EV purchases, Garcia said, are part of developing Dallas County’s plan, even if there are still unknown details about how and when the county will electrify its fleet.
“The worst thing … that you can do is do nothing,” she said.
And even though the big push behind EVs is to help air quality and reduce carbon emissions, some county employees have found other potential benefits.
Security Officer Richard Nguyen works for Dallas County and drives one of the five electric vehicles the county currently owns. He repeatedly observed how quiet it is, a feature that has helped him do his job of patrolling the county’s downtown buildings.
"If you need to go somewhere that you don’t want people to know that you’re watching them ... they won’t even know that you pulled up on them,” he said.
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-25/bad-air-climate-change-dallas-county-officials-look-to-electric-vehicles-for-help | 2022-05-12T15:41:24Z |
The Fort Worth Police Department has agreed to many of the recommendations from the city’s police oversight office, with some exceptions, public records show.
The city established the Office of the Police Oversight Monitor in 2020 to serve as a watchdog over the police department. Police Monitor Kim Neal and her staff review police department policies and keep an eye on internal investigations into police conduct.
Neal does not have the power to tell the police department what to do, but she can make recommendations for changes.
Through a public records request, KERA obtained a spreadsheet of recommendations the police monitor’s office made from April 2020 to April 2022.
The spreadsheet lists the month and year the police monitor’s office made the recommendation, the recommendation itself, and the Fort Worth Police Department’s response: whether the department agreed with the recommendation, and whether the change is still in progress, partially completed, or completed.
The police department has agreed to and completed six of the recommendations, the spreadsheet shows. Those include:
- A revised de-escalation policy to include more guidance for officers, following a recommendation in May 2020
- Allowing the Office of the Police Oversight Monitor to sit in on oral boards, part of the job interview process with potential new recruits, following an April 2020 recommendation
The other recommendations the police department agreed with are listed as still in progress or partially completed. Those include:
- A 2020 recommendation to create a more detailed foot pursuit policy, that describes “the circumstances under which officers are allowed to conduct foot pursuits and corresponding searches.” The police monitor submitted a draft policy that is currently under review by the FWPD chain of command.
- A recommendation that would require Internal Affairs to formally notify people who lodge complaints about a police officer about the result of their complaint investigations, proposed in May 2020.
- A recommendation to make sure the department’s Use of Force Review Board has a diverse membership, proposed in April 2021.
Eight recommendations have no agreement or progress listed at all, including a January 2021 recommendation to require officers to give a warning before they use their stun guns.
Several of the recommendations with no agreement or progress listed are recent and relate to the police department’s proposed new technology contract. The $6-million-per-year contract would give the department new body cameras, new stun guns, new drones and an automatic license plate recognition system.
Regarding that technology, the police monitor’s office recommended that the police department:
- Enforce drone use to what is allowed under federal and state law
- Create rules for using automatic license plate readers and set disciplinary action for breaking those rules
- Develop community education campaigns to increase public awareness of the new technology and what its purposes are
The Fort Worth City Council is scheduled to vote on the new technology contract on Tuesday.
Got a tip? Email Miranda Suarez at msuarez@kera.org. You can follow Miranda on Twitter @MirandaRSuarez.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-25/see-what-oversight-recommendations-the-fort-worth-police-department-has-agreed-to-adopt | 2022-05-12T15:41:30Z |
The first May election will decide many municipal and school board races, plus two state constitutional amendments.
Find everything here you need to make your voice heard. Early voting is April 25-May 3. Election day is Tuesday, May 7.How To Vote, When To Vote?
What do you need to vote in person?
VoteTexas.gov has everything you need to know about what to bring to vote in person.
One of seven forms of ID will get you into a voting booth:
◆ Texas driver's license
◆ Texas election identification certificate (EIC) issued by the Department of Public Safety
◆ Texas personal ID card issued by DPS
◆ Texas handgun license issued by DPS
◆ U.S. citizenship certificate containing your photograph
◆ U.S. military ID card containing your photograph
◆ U.S. passport, book or card
What if you don't have one of the seven acceptable forms of voter ID?
The state lists other forms of identification, like a utility bill or birth certificate, that you can use to vote if you don't "possess an acceptable form of photo identification, and cannot reasonably obtain one."
In addition to presenting that secondary form of ID, you'll also need to fill out a "Reasonable Impediment Declaration" form.
What if you're a voter with special needs?
A person of your choice or an election worker can assist you at the polls — but the person cannot be your employer or someone who represents your employer, or an officer or representative of your union.
If you're physically unable to enter the polling location, you can vote curbside. Send someone into the polling location to request an election worker meet you at the curb. If you're planning on arriving alone, call ahead to your county's elections office.
Where To Vote
Early voting for the May 7 election runs April 25-May 3. Find your polling places and times by county:
• Collin County
• Dallas County
• Denton County
• Tarrant County
What's On The ballot?
State constitutional amendments
Proposition 1:
“The constitutional amendment authorizing the legislature to provide for the reduction of the amount of a limitation on the total amount of ad valorem taxes that may be imposed for general elementary and secondary public school purposes on the residence homestead of a person who is elderly or disabled to reflect any statutory reduction from the preceding tax year in the maximum compressed rate of the maintenance and operations taxes imposed for those purposes on the homestead.”
Proposition 2:
“The constitutional amendment increasing the amount of the residence homestead exemption from ad valorem taxation for public school purposes from $25,000 to $40,000.”
That is the official language you'll see on your ballot. For more information and explanation, you can read this by The Texas Newsroom.
Municipal and school board races
Municipal races by city
- Arlington City Council
- Carrollton City Council and mayor
- Colleyville City Council and mayor
- Denton City Council and mayor
- DeSoto City Council and mayor
- Duncanville City Council and mayor
- Farmers Branch City Council
- Fort Worth City Council, charter and bond election
Charter Election
Thirteen proposed amendments to the City Charter will be on the May 7 ballot. Voters may vote for or against each of the propositions individually.
Among the propositions is increasing the mayor and councilmembers’ annual pay, as well as other propositions designed to delete outdated language and to reflect the current organization of Fort Worth’s municipal government.
2022 Bond Election
The $560 million bond package includes propositions funding capital projects in Fort Worth neighborhoods and business districts. The size of the bond package was designed to work within the existing property tax rate. If approved, it’s expected the bonds will be fully repaid without increasing your property tax rate.
The bond program is broken down into five propositions. Voters can vote for or against each proposition on the ballot.
Proposition A: $360,218,300 for streets and mobility-related projects.
Proposition B: $123,955,500 for park and recreation projects, including a new aquatics center in the Stop Six neighborhood and a rebuilt Forest Park Pool.
Proposition C: $12,505,200 for a new library in far northwest Fort Worth.
Proposition D: $39,321,000 for police and fire public safety facilities. Included is a proposed headquarters for the Northwest Patrol Division.
Proposition E: $15,000,000 for the city’s Open Space program, which focuses on acquiring natural areas.
- Frisco City Council
- Garland City Council
- Grand Prairie City Council
- Grapevine City Council
- Irving City Council
- Lancaster City Council
- Lewisville City Council
- Rowlett City Council and mayor
- Rockwall City Council
School board races by entity
- Dallas ISD
- Allen ISD
- Arlington ISD
- Carroll ISD
- Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD
- Cedar Hill ISD
- Coppell ISD
- DeSoto ISD
- Duncanville ISD
- Frisco ISD
- Garland ISD
- Grand Prairie ISD
- Grapevine-Colleyville ISD
- Irving ISD
- Lancaster ISD
- Lewisville ISD
- Richardson ISD
Dallas College Board of Trustees
- Seats 1, 2 and 3
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-25/your-spring-2021-north-texas-voter-guide | 2022-05-12T15:41:36Z |
Melvin Braziel, part of Evans' family in San Antonio, watched the 22-year-old grow up. He said in an email the family was impressed with the energy and intelligence Evans displayed through his time in the Boy Scouts of America as well as different groups affiliated with Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in San Antonio.
"Everyone loved him," Braziel said in the email. "He seemed to be older for his age at the time. He had the ability to show his love and concern for others. He was a volunteer and was willing to help with whatever he was asked to do."
Evans' body was found Monday, days after he dove into the Rio Grande to rescue two migrants who appeared to be drowning. The river's current swept Evans under on April 22 and slowed down rescue efforts across state agencies.
Jo Ann Johnson, his grandmother who raised him, told WFAA at a press conference Monday evening she was not surprised to hear he died trying to help others.
"He wouldn't ask you who you were before he tried to help you. He just wouldn't," Johnson said.
Evans graduated from Mansfield High School in 2018, where he was a member of the JROTC drill team. He was recruited to the National Guard in 2019 and served as a field artilleryman assigned to A Battery, 4-133 Field Artillery Regiment in New Braunfels, according to the state military department. He was mobilized in 2020 to Operation Spartan Shield in Kuwait and was regularly assigned to operations in Iraq in support of Special Operations Forces.
Evans was assigned to Operation Lone Star, Gov. Greg Abbott's border initiative.
"We are devastated by the loss of a member of our Guard family," Maj. Gen. Tom Suelzer, Texas adjutant general, said in a written statement. "We recognize the selflessness of this heroic Soldier who put his life above others in service to our state and national security."
Evans' family told WFAA he always wanted to serve. He also enjoyed anime, game nights and dancing.
Dakota Pettifer is a friend Evans met at Mansfield High School's anime club. Evans supported Pettifer and would roll down his window to call to her and make jokes while she walked home.
"He was a really chill, really funny guy," Pettifer said.
Got a tip? Email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org. You can follow Kailey on Twitter @KaileyBroussard.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-26/bishop-evans-family | 2022-05-12T15:41:43Z |
Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick on Monday urged the Supreme Court of Texas to take up Attorney General Ken Paxton's appeal to throw out a whistleblower lawsuit against him.
The appeal is Paxton's latest attempt to avoid a trial after eight of his former top deputies accused him of bribery and abuse of office in late 2020. Within seven weeks of their complaint to authorities, all eight had either been fired or driven to leave the agency. Four of the fired employees later filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Paxton saying they were fired in retaliation for their complaint and have asked to be reinstated to their jobs. Paxton denies wrongdoing.
Paxton, a Republican, has fought that lawsuit, claiming that the state's whistleblower law — which covers public employees, appointed officials and governmental entities — does not apply to him because he is an elected official. A district court and an appeals court have ruled against Paxton's lawyers and said the lawsuit could move forward. But in January, Paxton's lawyers asked the Texas Supreme Court to reconsider the matter and throw out the case.
Paxton's lawyers argue that allowing whistleblowers to sue the attorney general for firing them could hamper the executive power that the state constitution gives him. It is the same argument two lower courts have already rejected after hearing from the whistleblowers' lawyers, who argue that siding with Paxton would take away whistleblower protections for employees trying to report the misconduct of an elected official.
Lawyers for the governor's and lieutenant governor's offices did not indicate whether they agree with Paxton's argument. The two Republican state officials filed friend of the court briefs asking that the high court take up the case because it is relevant to statewide governance and to the powers of an executive office under the Texas Constitution. Because of that, lawyers for the offices argued the case should be considered by a statewide court and not by the local courts that have already rejected Paxton's argument.
The two lower courts were filled by Democrats. The Texas Supreme Court is made up of nine Republicans.
Abbott's and Patrick's offices did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The court also received a friend of the court brief from Kent Hance, a lawyer and former lawmaker, from a law firm that represented Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor, in a lawsuit tied to the whistleblowers' complaints. The whistleblowers allege that Paxton was improperly getting the office of the attorney general involved in legal matters tied to Paul, who was a Paxton political donor.
The political action committee for Hance's law firm, Hance Scarborough, also donated $25,000 to Paxton's campaign in 2020, just weeks after Paxton's office became involved in a lawsuit involving two entities controlled by Paul's World Class Holdings and the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation, an Austin-based nonprofit. Representatives from the law firm have previously said they regularly give to the attorney general's office, even before Paxton's tenure.
The attorney general's office is required by law to be notified of cases involving nonprofits in case it wants to help them, but it rarely does so. Against advise from lawyers in the attorney general's office, Paxton became involved in the lawsuit and pushed the parties to settle, according to the whistleblowers and a lawyer for the charity. Paxton even considered appearing personally in the Travis County District Court for the case, an action rarely taken by an attorney general. Whistleblowers said they convinced him not to do it.
In October 2020, after the whistleblowers' complaints became public, the attorney general's office withdrew from the case.
Hance did not mention his firm's ties to the whistleblower case in his brief. He said he was filing his brief as a former elected official concerned about the case's impact on the functionality of government.
Hance said members of the executive branch choose "inferior employees" to help them with policymaking goals as determined by the elected official.
"But what happens [when] they are at odds?" he wrote. "Are you to require the Governor take advice from an inferior officer when their advice is adverse to his or her stated goals? Would the justices themselves be required to be subject to the counsel of clerks who disagree with their rulings?"
"If this Court were to leave in place the decision of the Third Court of Appeals, it would place in jeopardy the very foundations of our governmental system and require elected officials to rely on advice that is adverse and hostile to their own duly established policy goals as a statewide elected official," he said.
Hance did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lawyers for the whistleblowers declined to comment.
Separately, Paxton is also fighting six-year-old allegations of securities fraud. He is accused of persuading investors to buy stock in a technology firm without disclosing he would be compensated for it. He was a member of the Texas House at the time. Paxton denies any wrongdoing in that case and says those accusations are politically motivated. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-26/greg-abbott-dan-patrick-urge-texas-supreme-court-to-take-up-ken-paxtons-whistleblower-lawsuit | 2022-05-12T15:41:49Z |
As the city of Dallas drafts its first racial equity plan, a team of consultants is asking residents whether the city's goals are audacious enough.
The city has retained CoSpero Consulting to work with more than 40 internal departments to set new "progress indicators," data-specific benchmarks that'll signal whether the city is actually delivering and improving equitable outcomes for communities of color.
Advocates in the arts community have shared some of their expectations for the city and the Office of Arts and Culture. You can read their thoughts here. Residents can offer their own feedback on the racial equity plan at weareonedallas.org.
Meanwhile, Harold Hogue, the manager partner at CoSpero, says there's still a lot of work left to do before the city starts drafting a plan. He stopped by KERA to talk about his team's community engagement efforts.
Broadly speaking, how will this plan address racial equity in Dallas?
"We really started with looking at various data sets that demonstrate where the greatest needs are across our city because we can't know where we want to go until we know exactly where we're at.
So that's step number one. Step number two is working across the 40+ city departments to say, if this is what you do every day, from infrastructure projects to working on affordable housing, what is it that we can be measuring that delivers better equitable outcomes for the residents of this city?"
Can you explain how this work looks like within the Office of Arts and Culture?
"Some of the things we were working through in the development of racial equity plan with this office is really taking a historical look at who has received funding and whose organizations and work has been at the forefront of both the city's funding but also the philanthropic community.
So, we have really got to look at which groups have been historically marginalized, the greatest in the longest."
So, the crux of racial equity is that it recognizes the unique challenges faced by different racial groups. Will this plan recognize and address the historical challenges faced by black and Latino residents in Dallas?
"Yes, it will. We're still at the early stages in drafting the plan, but it certainly will have a piece that acknowledges why this plan is even needed.
I think one of the most innovative things about the racial equity plan ... is that we're talking about disaggregated measurements. That's a key strategy to advance racial equity. If you're going to set a goal, you have to name the people group or the community that you're hoping to impact. We've got to know where dollars are going, where they're targeted to, because that's the only way we can hold anybody accountable."
How do you plan to reliably measure progress over time? Does the city currently keep track of the demographic data necessary for that?
"That's a really great question. There are some places where that's happening. There are other places where it's not. There's 40 plus departments. There are some departments that already are capturing data in a very systematic way. They've got their systems in place. 3-1-1 is a great example. They've got incredible data tracking, and there's other departments where there's just opportunity to improve it.
The other piece of that is we're asking the community, how do you want to follow the implementation of this? What's the best way to do that? Is it a dashboard? Is it monthly town halls? Is it a combination of both?"
Tell me about CoSpero's community outreach efforts. What have you done to get the adequate input you need from residents?
"We're not asking folks to check our work after we've done it, but we're doing it in a way that honors and respects that folks have been talking about what they need to see change their community. We've got to act on it.
We tried to diversify the types of engagement that we offer and to make sure that we are capturing folks wherever possible. So, you might have called our team tabling at local community events. We set up a website. That website has a few options. There's a public forum board. We have a phone line that anybody can dial in and access it in any language. There's a prompt and you just respond and you tell the city what it is you want to see from this racial equity plan."
As you have been reaching out to the community, what have been some key takeaways? Especially the arts and culture aspect. What are people saying that they want from the plan?
"One of the things is around just access. It's still pretty hard for an artist to apply and receive funding, to go through the grant making application or the funding application. There are application systems that present barriers and that is an equity issue.
The amount of funding. There have been some minority-led arts nonprofits that have expressed to us that yes, we're getting some dollars, but we're still not getting the level of investment that we think we should because we didn't get that grant for years and years and years."
Some arts advocates in the city have expressed skepticism over how effective project-based goals can be at addressing equity. For example, increasing the number of public artworks. Is the goal for all of these measures to work in tandem across the board?
"Yes, absolutely. There's a thin line there, right? Because if everybody's in charge of everything, then nothing's going to get delivered. But, we also know the intersectionality of the department is also critical, where one department's work might pick up where the other one ends.
But to your point, the feedback on that measure you just shared, I think is really critical. Our job is to continue to champion internally what's being shared with us externally and move the needle as fast as we can."
At what point in the development of the plan are you and what are the next steps?
"So, the point in the plan that we're at right now is we are really working hard internally to ask the question you just raised: is this enough?
Are these the biggest, boldest, most feasible, audacious commitments we can make to help make our city a city that works for all of us and not just some of us."
Got a tip? Email Miguel Perez at mperez@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @quillindie.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-28/this-consultant-wants-dallas-to-deliver-the-boldest-commitments-to-racial-equity-possible | 2022-05-12T15:41:55Z |
Rewriting the city’s housing plan with a focus on racial equity is intended to undo some of the damage from a long history of discriminatory City of Dallas policies, which denied Black and Latino neighborhoods the same support that helped produce prosperity in white communities.
“Dallas will never be the city it can be until Dallas becomes an equitable city,” said Councilmember Casey Thomas, who chairs the council’s Housing and Homelessness Solutions committee. “We have to understand equity, put equity first, and move forward.”
Thomas led the push to revise the city’s current policy, starting with hiring consultants to audit the city’s current Comprehensive Housing Policy.
That policy, passed in 2018, sets out three goals, including using the city’s housing plan to “overcome patterns of segregation and concentrations of poverty through incentives and requirements,” and building more fair housing options.
Nonetheless, the consultants’ audit found the city housing policy laid out “no vision or strategies” to achieve those goals. A recent complaint to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development argues the city has actually increased segregation in low-income housing since 2018.
The recommendations adopted by the city council Wednesday are meant to provide the missing vision and strategy for building racial equity into Dallas’ policies and practices around housing.
The recommendations also fit into a larger effort by the city to put racial equity front and center across all of the city’s departments, Thomas said.
The resolution to formally adopt the recommendations passed unanimously.
One step forward
The council’s adoption of the recommendations doesn’t actually change city policy. Instead, they provide a roadmap for how city staff members should re-write the Comprehensive Housing Policy. That updated policy will need to be reviewed and approved by the city council. That’s expected to happen this fall.
To actually implement the recommendations and work toward racial equity in the city’s housing and other initiatives, the city council will also need to approve money and enact policies that support the communities that have been underserved and marginalized by city policy.
“The staff can bring forward projects and we can dream up all sorts of great ideas, but unless we have the leadership behind us to bring these projects past city council – past approval – we can’t do it,” said the city’s housing director, David Noguera.
Among the recommendations is a dedicated revenue stream to build affordable housing that is “scaled to the magnitude of Dallas’ affordable housing shortage.” That will likely take the form of a voter-approved bond package, though City Manager T.C. Broadnax said exactly how large and exactly how it might work has not been determined.
The city will also add a goal to the city’s housing plan to remedy the infrastructure deficit in southern Dallas stemming from “generations” of underinvestment.
“We have to understand that if we want to level the playing field, it’s not about spreading resources equally,” said Council Member Jaime Resendez, who represents southeast Dallas. “We need significant financial investment focused on infrastructure and really addressing the opportunity gaps in southern Dallas, a place that has been historically neglected.”
Lending practices
But making significant progress toward a more equitable housing landscape will take more than the city acting alone. Several council members and speakers at the meeting pointed to the role banks and other financial institutions will have to play.
Equitable access to capital is crucial for Black- and Latino-led housing developments to get off the ground, and for people of color to become homeowners. The banking industry has a long history of discriminatory lending practices that have undermined the prosperity of communities of color in Dallas and the rest of the country.
Many lending institutions continue to underserve communities of color in Dallas and around the nation.
Council Member Carolyn King Arnold suggested the city take look at the performance of the institutions it banks with.
“We have to take a Rosa Parks approach to the folks we’re taking our money to as the city. If they’re not going to do business with [Black and Latino communities], they’re going to continue to redline…we need to stop doing business with them and we need to call them out.”
Arnold said she hears regularly from Black contractors who want to build in the southern sector, but can’t get loans from the bank to start their projects.
The recommendations
The recommendations are, functionally, marching orders for city staff. They’ll spend the rest of the year figuring out how to take the recommendations and turn them into city policy and practices.
The first three recommendations call for the creating of a vision statement for “how the affordable housing playing field will be leveled for all racial groups,” a city-wide strategy for how to get there, and setting clear benchmarks for progress.
Another recommendation calls for an education campaign for staff, policymakers and the public about what racial equity means in the context of affordable housing.
One of the recommendations adopted by the city relates to the placement of affordable apartment developments subsidized by federal tax credits. It calls for the placing these projects “in both high opportunity areas with low poverty rates and distressed areas with higher [poverty] rates.”
The city is currently facing a complaint brought by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on behalf of a Dallas resident who argues the city has concentrated these subsidized affordable housing developments in Black and Latino neighborhoods in violation of the Fair Housing Act and other civil rights laws.
There are also recommendations that address the potential for backlash against expanding affordable housing. That includes a “myth busting campaign” to dispel misinformation that fuels NIMBYism, and a focus on building affordable housing across all 14 council districts.
Got a tip? Christopher Connelly is KERA's One Crisis Away Reporter, exploring life on the financial edge. Email Christopher at cconnelly@kera.org .You can follow Christopher on Twitter @hithisischris.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/government/2022-04-29/find-out-how-dallas-prepares-to-re-write-its-housing-plan-with-a-focus-on-racial-equity | 2022-05-12T15:42:01Z |
RIO GRANDE CITY — Cathy Torres was ready to log off for the weekend and start celebrating her 26th birthday when she got a text message with a link to a local news story: A woman in the Rio Grande Valley had been arrested for a “self-induced abortion.”
“I was just completely sick to my stomach,” Torres said. “I couldn’t believe it. I was just panicking.”
But not for long. Torres is based in Edinburg and works as the organizing manager for the Frontera Fund, a nonprofit that helps people in the Rio Grande Valley access and pay for abortions. She sent the story to the group’s leadership, as well as other reproductive rights advocacy groups in the area.
Ten minutes later, they were on a Zoom call. Fifteen minutes later, they had plans for a protest at the Starr County Jail the next day. They contacted partner organizations around the state and country to draw attention to the case, created social media messaging and started working with legal aid groups to figure out how to post bail.
Their furious work was interrupted only when there was a knock on Torres’s door: her best friend, who had driven hours to celebrate her birthday with her.
“I opened the door and she was there with balloons and I was just like, ‘Thank you so much for being here, but you won’t believe what happened,’” Torres said. “She was so great, though. She was like, ‘OK, let’s go to work.’”
Over the next three days, a coalition of small, scrappy local reproductive rights advocacy organizations fanned the flames of a national firestorm that subsided only when Starr County District Attorney Gocha Ramirez agreed to drop the murder charges against 26-year-old Lizelle Herrera.
Many details of the case remain murky. But as whole regions of the country prepare to follow Texas’ lead in significantly curtailing abortion access, local organizers say they want this weekend’s activism to send a clear message:
“I hope that people get that we’re not just going to stand back and let all of this happen,” said Nancy Cárdenas Peña, the Texas director of policy and advocacy for the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. “They can’t just mess with us. We’ll fight back. We’ve proved that time and time again.”
Mobilizing a movement
The initial details of the case against Herrera were sparse: just a statement from the Starr County Sheriff’s Office saying she’d been indicted for murder for “intentionally and knowingly [causing] the death of an individual by self-induced abortion.”
She was arrested and booked into the Starr County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond.
But that was more than enough for local organizers to go on.
“It just happened. It’s still unfolding. We haven’t spoken with her family,” Torres said about those first few hours. “But what we can see right off the bat is nobody should be charged with murder with a bond of half a million dollars just because of a pregnancy outcome.”
There is a long history of abortion advocacy in the Rio Grande Valley, but in the last decade or so, several groups have joined together to advocate for legislative change, expand abortion access and help pregnant patients seek care throughout the border region.
The Frontera Fund, the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, South Texans for Reproductive Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, among other groups, have created a coalition to push back against ever-tightening abortion restrictions.
And on Friday afternoon, they leapt into action. Their protest at the jail in Rio Grande City, about 240 miles south of San Antonio, was sparsely attended, but they counted every person there as a victory, considering the short notice and remote location. Starr County is an hour from McAllen and two from Brownsville.
As the story began to gain momentum online, they directed people to call Ramirez, the district attorney, and Starr County Sheriff Rene “Orta” Fuentes to demand that Herrera be released. By the end of the day Saturday, advocates said, both offices had taken their phones offline due to the deluge of calls.
They coordinated with the national reproductive legal advocacy group If/When/How to post Herrera’s bond; by Saturday night, she was out of jail. And by Sunday afternoon, Ramirez announced in a press release that his office was dropping the charges.
“Although with this dismissal Ms. Herrera will not face prosecution for this incident, it is clear to me that the events leading up to this indictment have taken a toll on Ms. Herrera and her family. To ignore this fact would be shortsighted,” Ramirez wrote. “The issues surrounding this matter are clearly contentious, however based on Texas law and the facts presented, it is not a criminal matter.”
Ramirez’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Maj. Carlos Delgado, with the Starr County Sheriff’s Office, declined to comment.
The advocacy groups, which had been gearing up for a much longer fight, exhaled. Herrera was no longer in jail and no longer facing prosecution for an abortion. But it was hard to celebrate the result when the means to get there involved a woman spending three days in jail and having her name and mugshot shared around the world.
The long fight in the Rio Grande Valley
This was not the first time this coalition has had to mobilize quickly to stand in opposition to abortion-related actions.
In July, the City Council in Edinburg, just north of McAllen, moved to make the city a “sanctuary city for the unborn.” The ordinance would have made it illegal to perform or help someone in obtaining an abortion within city limits.
More than 45 cities, mostly in Texas, have passed these ordinances in the last few years. Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood dropped a legal challenge to a “sanctuary city for the unborn” ordinance in Lubbock, which had forced the area’s only abortion provider to stop offering the procedure.
In Edinburg, which does not have an abortion provider, the ordinance had the support of the mayor and City Council. But abortion rights advocates started a social media campaign raising awareness about an upcoming public hearing on the issue.
“We had about a two-day turnaround to mobilize people, and we flooded City Hall,” Torres remembers.
The three-hour public comment period was dominated by abortion rights advocates opposing the restrictions, and at the end of the night, the council declined to bring the ordinance forward for a vote.
Torres said the advocates heard from a lot of people that the Rio Grande Valley was expected to be an easy win for abortion opponents. The area is overwhelmingly Hispanic and Catholic and has a reputation for electing conservative, abortion-opposing Democrats.
But part of the advocacy work for these groups is breaking that stereotype — and the stigma that still shrouds abortion.
“People assume that the Valley, the border, because it’s a lot of Catholicism, they have to be pro-life,” said Torres. “There’s that presence, of course. But there’s an overwhelmingly large pro-choice community too, and that’s who showed up.”
Advocates fear what comes next
For many people, Herrera’s arrest felt like a warning of what’s to come in the next few months as the U.S. Supreme Court considers overturning the constitutional protection for abortion laid out in Roe v. Wade.
Texas is one of 26 states that are primed to ban abortion if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade this summer. But many in the Rio Grande Valley are already navigating limitations that are at least as restrictive as what’s to come.
There is one abortion clinic, which can only provide abortions up to six weeks of pregnancy, a point at which many people do not know they are pregnant. It’s a 10-hour drive to the nearest clinic in Shreveport, Louisiana. The state has criminalized the mailing of abortion-inducing medication.
Undocumented immigrants living along the border cannot travel beyond an internal Border Patrol checkpoint south of San Antonio, foreclosing the option of leaving the state to seek an abortion.
With fewer — or no — options, many women in the area turn to illegally obtained abortion-inducing medication from pharmacies across the border in Mexico.
That’s part of why Cárdenas Peña wasn’t surprised to see that this high-profile case of a “self-induced abortion” stemmed from the Rio Grande Valley.
“I think the Rio Grande Valley has been … already living under the conditions of a post-Roe world,” Cárdenas Pena said. “We’re definitely a testing ground for what can happen and what that organizing struggle is going to look like.”
As more than half of the country seems primed to start looking more like the Rio Grande Valley when it comes to abortion access, Cárdenas Peña said there’s a lot other states and national organizations can learn from the “beautiful struggle” these small local organizations have been engaging in for years.
“I think the resounding message is that there’s a whole community of people out there that are going to stand up and show up for abortion access,” she said. “We just give them hell, and we’re not going to stop.” | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-13/reproductive-rights-groups-sound-the-alarm-after-a-south-texas-woman-was-arrested-for-an-abortion | 2022-05-12T15:42:07Z |
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS:
Concerns about the booster
When we look at antibody levels, we can certainly objectively see if they're higher or lower. What we do not know is what antibody level is actually protective.
So, while we know every booster you get certainly brings your antibody levels higher, does that clinically mean anything? No one really knows.
However, because of the (COVID) waves and the effect they have had on society, folks are trying to be as conservative as possible.
A booster for people with underlying medical conditions makes sense, but why for anyone over 65?
Those over 65 build a less robust antibody response to each shot. A younger person creates more antibodies in response to a vaccine dose than someone who is older. And so because fewer antibodies are generated with each shot, as those antibodies levels drop, then for older folks, the antibody levels drop to lower levels faster, and so getting boosters brings them back up to what's considered good levels.
Should you consider getting a booster shot if you’re younger than 50?
At this point, the reason it's not recommended is that what we know, or at least what we think we know now about COVID, younger folks are, at baseline, already less susceptible to serious disease simply because of the way their immune systems work.
And so that's why for the younger folks you won't see, and at least have not seen, a recommendation for the last booster because we know that their antibody levels no one are higher. And plus, even if their antibody levels were lower, they're less susceptible to severe disease anyway.
BA.2 is out there. COVID restrictions have eased. Do you worry people will ignore this latest recommendation?
I think folks will take this recommendation less seriously because of what we're seeing on the ground. We have found BA.2 in our community already for almost three weeks. Yet we haven’t seen cases spike.
So when people look at that, I'm sure folks will say, “Well, look, I mean, it's already been here. It looks like it's not spreading. So why should we be so concerned about it?” I definitely understand that feeling.
So what is the best way for all of us to proceed?
If you have not gotten vaccinated, that is certainly something that needs to occur.
For boosters, I think everybody should really look at their personal situation. From a young person's situation - let's say less than 65 - I think the benefits of a booster are really yet to be seen. That’s why you would see from the CDC that this is a suggestion, a recommendation, but certainly not a mandate.
If you asked me what would I do? Well, if I was 50 years old and not immunocompromised or something, I certainly wouldn't get another booster.
So, I think those conversations can be had with your personal doctors. But right now, the benefit of another booster for those who are healthy has yet to be seen.
RESOURCES:
CDC: COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters
Are COVID-19 vaccine boosters or extra shots recommended?
Interview highlights were lightly edited for clarity.
Got a tip? Email Sam Baker at sbaker@kera.org. You can follow Sam on Twitter @srbkera.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-18/why-some-need-a-second-covid-booster-shot-and-others-may-not | 2022-05-12T15:42:13Z |
The pharmaceutical company Moderna announced Tuesday that a new version of the company's COVID-19 vaccine appears to provide stronger, longer-lasting protection against variants of the virus than the original vaccine.
Preliminary results from a study testing a vaccine that targets both the original strain of the virus and the beta variant — a so-called "bivalent" vaccine — appears to produce high levels of antibodies for months that can neutralize the virus.
"We believe that these results validate our bivalent strategy," said Stéphane Bancel, Moderna's chief executive officer, in a news release.
Bancel added that another bivalent vaccine that combines the original strain with the omicron strain "remains our lead candidate" for a fall vaccination campaign aimed at protecting people against a winter surge. Results from the testing of that version are expect later this spring, according to Moderna.
"We believe that a bivalent booster vaccine, if authorized, would create a new tool as we continue to respond to emerging variants," Bancel said.
The study has not yet been reviewed by independent scientists and produced mixed reactions from outside experts.
"This paper is a 'proof of principle' that supports the concept of a bivalent mRNA vaccine," wrote Nathaniel Landau, a microbiologist at New York University, in an email to NPR. But Landau agreed a omicron-specific version would probably be the most useful.
Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former top Food and Drug Administration scientist now at Georgetown University, agreed the results are encouraging. But he also noted the approach needs to be confirmed by additional research.
"Other things could be at play in making the bivalent booster look better," Goodman wrote in an email to NPR.
John Moore, an immunologist at Weil Cornell Medicine, called the results "unimpressive" in an email to NPR. "What's here is unlikely to support the rollout of this type of bivalent vaccine — the benefits would not justify the expense and hassle."
Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert at Kaiser Health News, said the company's announcement "seems misleading" because it compared the antibodies from just two doses of the original vaccine with a third dose of the new vaccine.
Researchers are testing several new versions of Moderna's and Pfizer's vaccines to see if they provide broader protection again the omicron variant. Federal officials are hoping to see enough results by later this spring to give companies enough time to produce enough vaccines for another round of shots in the fall, when immunity from previous vaccination and infections may be waning and another surge could be looming.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-19/moderna-says-its-new-bivalent-vaccine-shows-promise-against-covid-variants | 2022-05-12T15:42:19Z |
Updated April 19, 2022 at 8:14 AM ET
U.S. airlines are lifting mask mandates, after a federal judge in Florida ruled against the Biden administration's mandatory mask mandate for travelers on planes and other public forms of transportation.
Monday's ruling quickly reshaped U.S. air travel, as a cascade of carriers from Delta and United to Southwest and American said masks are now optional for travelers aboard their aircraft.
The massive shift means many airline employees no longer have to wear masks — and won't have to enforce the rule on passengers. But airlines also warn that travelers should still bring a mask on their trip, to conform with the rules where they land, particularly for international flights.
Here's a rundown of where airlines stand:
Alaska Airlines
Masks are now optional for customers, but they should be patient with the change in policy. "Even as more pandemic protocols and policies ease, our team will remain vigilant and prepared for whatever may come next," the airline said. "Safety remains our top priority."
Alaska said it will be ready to respond if the U.S. is faced with another COVID-19 surge.
"Please remember to be kind to one another and that wearing a mask while traveling is still an option," the statement added.
American Airlines
American's mandatory mask requirement for travelers and staff at U.S. airports and on domestic flights is now rescinded.
Like other airlines, American said face masks may still be required in some places, based on local ordinances or when traveling to and from international locations.
Delta Air Lines
Masks are optional onboard, but Delta warned that travelers may encounter "inconsistent enforcement" over the first 24 hours as the news is being "broadly communicated."
"Communications to customers and in-airport signage and announcements will be updated to share that masking is now optional — this may take a short period of time," Delta said in its statement.
In a note of optimism about the pandemic, the airline added, "We are relieved to see the U.S. mask mandate lift to facilitate global travel as COVID-19 has transitioned to an ordinary seasonal virus."
Frontier Airlines
"To mask or not to mask, the choice is yours," the airline said.
It cautioned that passengers should still check the policies at their destination, noting that some airports or countries where Frontier flies might still require masks.
Hawaiian Airlines
Face masks are now optional for passengers and crew members on board flights, the airline said. "We advise travelers to stay informed and follow mask requirements that may remain in effect at their origin or arrival airports," it said.
JetBlue Airways
"While no longer required, customers and crewmembers are welcome to continue wearing masks in our terminals and on board our aircraft," JetBlue said.
Spirit Airlines
"We understand some Guests may want to continue wearing face coverings on flights, and that's perfectly fine under our optional policy," Spirit said.
Southwest Airlines
Southwest said it encourages passengers and employees to "make the best decision to support their personal wellbeing," and it will monitor public health guidance and federal requirements.
Southwest added that its cabin air ventilation systems use "HEPA air filtration that removes at least 99.97% of airborne particles."
United Airlines
Masks are no longer required on domestic flights and some international flights.
"While this means that our employees are no longer required to wear a mask — and no longer have to enforce a mask requirement for most of the flying public — they will be able to wear masks if they choose to do so, as the CDC continues to strongly recommend wearing a mask on public transit," the company said in a statement to NPR.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-19/these-airlines-are-dropping-mask-mandates-after-a-federal-judges-ruling | 2022-05-12T15:42:25Z |
Former Texas State Sen. Wendy Davis, best known for her 13-hour filibuster of a 2013 abortion bill, has filed a federal lawsuit challenging Texas' recent abortion law. The suit claims the law is "blatantly unconstitutional" and written to "make a mockery of the federal courts."
The law, which went into effect in September and empowers private citizens to bring civil lawsuits against anyone who "aids or abets" in an abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected, has led abortion clinics to stop providing the procedure after about six weeks of pregnancy.
Meanwhile, abortion funds — nonprofit advocacy groups that help pay for abortions and related expenses — have seen increased demand from pregnant Texans seeking care outside the state. This financial support has put these funds in the crosshairs of abortion opponents, who have claimed on social media and in legal filings that abortion fund donors, employees and volunteers are susceptible to lawsuits and criminal charges.
Davis, who was the Democratic nominee for Texas governor in 2014 and unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2020, donates to and works with the Lilith Fund for Reproductive Equity, an Austin-based abortion fund, according to the lawsuit. She claims in the suit that these threats against donors and volunteers “have had a chilling effect” and stop her from associating with “like-minded people to express her views and achieve her advocacy goals.”
She is joined in the suit by the Stigma Relief Fund, an abortion fund associated with abortion provider Whole Woman's Health, and Marva Sadler and Sean Mehl, who both work for Whole Woman’s Health and serve on the board of the Stigma Relief Fund. Sadler and Mehl say in the suit that they have stopped donating to abortion funds “until the Court clarifies whether and to what extent [they] can face liability for doing so.”
They are suing state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, and three private citizens who have made efforts to bring lawsuits against abortion funds. Cain recently sent cease-and-desist letters to all the Texas abortion funds, accusing them of criminal conduct.
In a written response late Tuesday, Cain reiterated statements made in his cease-and-desist letter and repeated his intention to pass legislation next year that would allow district attorneys to prosecute abortion-related crimes outside their home jurisdictions.
The lawsuit filed Tuesday claims that the law violates the plaintiff's rights to due process and free speech and asks the court to declare both this law and Texas' older abortion law unenforceable.
"We are asking the courts today to stop the unconstitutional harassment of abortion funds by confirming S.B.8 cannot be used to silence donors with bogus threats," Davis said in a statement. "More than that, we are asking the courts to stop the nightmare S.B.8 has created for Texans if they need abortion services.”
Legal background
In recent months, abortion opponents have accused abortion funds of both civil and criminal impropriety, and the abortion funds have brought their own legal challenges to block the law.
The chief architects of Texas' new abortion law have asked a state district judge to allow them to depose the leaders of two abortion funds, seeking to "better evaluate the prospects for legal success" in potential lawsuits over illegal abortions.
Anti-abortion advocacy groups including the Thomas More Society have also tweeted at different abortion funds, claiming their donors could face lawsuits. The law specifies that paying for a prohibited abortion constitutes "aiding and abetting," and someone can be sued "regardless of whether the person knew or should have known that the abortion would be performed or induced in violation" of the law.
Last month, two abortion funds filed federal lawsuits against the anti-abortion advocacy groups that had threatened to bring lawsuits against them.
Recently, Cain claimed that the abortion funds could also face criminal charges under a Texas abortion statute that was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. Cain claimed in his cease-and-desist letter that the law, which was never repealed by lawmakers, was recently reaffirmed when the state passed the new abortion law.
Davis' lawsuit asks the judge to affirm that the old criminal statute is unenforceable and that the newer law is unconstitutional.
The current law "seeks not only to strip Texans of their fundamental right to make decisions about their pregnancies based on their individual circumstances and religious beliefs, but also to make a mockery of the federal courts," the lawsuit said.
In December, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out most of the arguments brought by abortion providers to challenge the law, and though a state judge found the law to be unconstitutional, he allowed it to remain in effect.
The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans — and engages with them — about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-20/former-state-sen-wendy-davis-challenges-texas-abortion-law-in-court | 2022-05-12T15:42:32Z |
COVID-19 testing clinics around the country are closing, and federal funding for free clinical testing is drying up. But wastewater surveillance could step in to play a crucial role in keeping track of where the virus is and just how much is really circulating out there, according to two professors in San Antonio who have been working on COVID wastewater surveillance since early in the pandemic.
Dr. Vikram Kapoor is an assistant professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Management at UTSA. He's a lead author on a study of COVID-19 in wastewater in Bexar County that found this type of surveillance is an effective tool to determine trends in infectious disease prevalence, and provide complementary information to clinical testing.
Kapoor also concluded that you could use wastewater surveillance to try to get ahead of COVID.
“We call it a leading indicator of surveillance because it can predict before the infection starts spreading. Before people start getting symptoms, before they get tested, they will start shedding the virus in the feces,” Kapoor said. “So if all the people who are infected, they're shedding the virus, there's a chance that we can pick up that signal days or even a week before they actually get tested.”
Scientists tracking COVID in wastewater in New York City found the same thing. Dr. Davida Smyth is now an associate professor of microbiology at Texas A & M San Antonio, but she was working in New York when the pandemic started.
They were checking the wastewater for COVID and then sequencing what they found to see what variants were there.
“I think the first evidence we had that it was really predictive was when Omicron came about,” Smyth said. “We actually were able to show that it was coming before (it showed up in) people. So it proved that it actually worked.“
Smyth thinks communities all around the world could use this technique to get ahead of new variants and potential surges, and to more efficiently and effectively fight the virus.
“The data from wastewater gives you maybe two weeks of lead time and what's actually going to appear in the human population,” she said. “So you can say to yourself, ‘Well, a new variant is coming,’ and you can actually look and see where it is in the city and say, Well, that's where it's emerging.”
Then, Smyth said, you could target mask-wearing and other interventions to that specific area, which would be more efficient and effective than locking down entire cities.
Smyth and Kapoor plan to work together to build a surveillance and sequencing program in South Texas, but so far it’s slow going. They’re having trouble getting access to new samples to test, and funding is always in short supply.
The Centers for Disease Control has set up a dashboard where states can report the results of their wastewater surveillance, but right now only about a dozen states are sending information. Texas is among them, but only a handful of plants in the Houston area are currently participating.
Related: Wastewater testing could help control COVID's spread. Why isn't it happening across America?
Copyright 2022 Texas Public Radio. To see more, visit Texas Public Radio. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-21/tracking-covid-19-in-san-antonio-sewers-could-help-control-covids-spread | 2022-05-12T15:42:38Z |
Laud Dei, the unit's epidemiologist, says the survey results will help his team tailor programs and services to each community, especially in parts of town that have historically had less access to health care.
"Our aim is to help people to improve their quality of life. One of the best things that we can do is understand their health status," Dei said.
The survey asks about common health conditions and diseases, including heart problems, diabetes and sexually transmitted infections, as well as information about the last time they needed medical attention.
The four-page questionnaire is available in English, Spanish and Vietnamese until May 9. It is the first of its kind from the agency, and will not be the last. Dei says they'll periodically survey people in town about health care issues and access. Individual survey results are confidential, and the department will study the findings to guide programming decisions.
"We will be able to draw our strategies and give them the right support when we understand the exact health problems that we have in these communities," Dei said.
Fire department staff have twice extended the survey deadline to collect more responses, and translated the surveys into Spanish and Vietnamese after receiving requests from the community, Dei said. Public health employees will also set up computers where people can complete the survey during a community wellness fair at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Bob Duncan Center at 2800 S. Center St.
Around 203 has people responded to the survey as of 1 p.m. Friday, April 22, Dei said.
The fire department launched its Public Health Unit last year to focus on providing resources to historically underserved communities. The department received funding in the city's 2022 budget to create 45 new firefighter and two public health positions in an effort to expand public health efforts and lower emergency response times. The department in 2021 opened its Public Health Unit building at 2920 S. Cooper St., where it has offered free COVID-19 vaccinations. The center is designed to be a central location for public outreach.
Free first- and second-dose COVID vaccinations are available with no appointment necessary between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays at the public health unit building.
Got a tip? Email Kailey Broussard at kbroussard@kera.org. You can follow Kailey on Twitter @KaileyBroussard.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-22/arlington-officials-surveying-the-public-about-health-issues-access-to-care-to-fill-in-gaps | 2022-05-12T15:42:44Z |
Texas agriculture experts are warning commercial poultry producers and residents with backyard flocks to be on guard now that a virulent strain of avian influenza has reached Texas. The virus has already devastated domesticated bird populations in other parts of North America.
Earlier this month, the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC) and U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) confirmed Texas’ first case of the H5N1 strain of a virus, which originated in Europe in fall 2020.
"Luckily, it was not in our commercial broiler or commercial egg-laying facilities here across the state. It was a much smaller operation that produces pheasants and game birds," said Tracy Tomascik, Texas Farm Bureau Commodity and Regulatory Activities Associate Director, in an interview with The Texas Newsroom.
Texas’ first positive tests showed up April 2 in pheasants raised for hunting at a game-bird ranch in Erath County, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth. The outbreak forced the operator to euthanize its entire mixed-bird flock of pheasants, quail and ducks due to exposure.
According to the U.S Center for Disease Control and Prevention “the risk to the general public’s health from current H5N1 bird flu viruses is low, however some people may have job-related or recreational exposures to birds that put them at higher risk of infection.”
The highly pathogenic variant has been confirmed among wild bird populations in more than 30 states and Canada. Outbreaks so far have forced commercial poultry operations, primarily in the Midwest, to euthanize roughly 22 million mostly egg-laying chickens.
The commercial losses to egg and poultry markets have contributed to rising prices in the U.S., but Texas has been less impacted than other regions.
"Our consumers aren't being hit very hard and we hope it stays that way. Our farmers are doing their very best to prevent something like that from occurring," Tomascik said, explaining the state’s commercial poultry producers, located primarily in East Texas, have enhanced bio security measures since the U.S.’s last major outbreak of bird flu in 2015.
According to Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service Associate Professor and poultry specialist Gregory Archer, the virus is believed to have spread across the globe through migratory birds that are less vulnerable to getting sick and dying.
“They come over through Russia and China, across into Alaska and then into Canada. And then they migrate down south through the flyaways,” Archer told The Texas Newsroom. “That’s basically where we’ve seen [the outbreaks] start: in the flyaways on the east coast and it’s made its way west as the birds start to migrate more in that direction.”
What to do if you have backyard chickens
The chances for bird-born viruses to spread has grown over the past decade with what Archer called the “exponential increase” in keeping backyard chickens, a trend that accelerated during the pandemic.
For that reason, he urged Texans tending their own flocks to take extra precautions during the current bird migration season.
“Don't encourage wild birds to come on to your property where your chickens are by putting bird feeders out and things like that," said Archer. If you have a pond on your property or farm, "Don't let your birds go down…to interact with wild ducks.”
Archer said humans can also expose their at-home flocks to the virus by tracking it in from elsewhere.
“Especially this time of year when we’ve got migratory birds [traveling across the state], try to limit your exposure to those birds,” he said.
“Limit exposure of even your vehicles and clothing that go to other places where there are those birds so you may not bring it back with you.”
In response to the spread of avian influenza, zoos across Texas — including in Austin, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and San Antonio — have also closed public exhibits and moved susceptible birds indoors to limit their exposure to wild populations. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-22/experts-warn-residents-with-backyard-chickens-as-a-new-bird-flu-hits-texas | 2022-05-12T15:42:50Z |
Importance of the discovery
What we can do is look at what does that gene code for? What is it associated with? And that can help us find the pathways that lead to the disease. And then you start to work backward from there. How can we start to develop medications that target that particular pathway to stop that process from occurring?
So knowing these genetic risk markers or risk factors that we hadn't known before really helps to open up more therapeutic development and just by increasing our understanding of why Alzheimer's pathology forms in some people and not others.
For instance, some of the newly discovered genes may make our immune system less efficient?
One of the main areas was the immune system, and also some scavenger cells are clean-up cells in the brain called microglia. And there were some genes that were identified that were associated with decreased function of those microglia. So they're not cleaning up the toxic protein species in the brain as they should.
And so you can imagine that if you can then start to focus on that risk factor in that gene, can you start to reverse that so the microglia and those clean-up cells can continue to function at a normal level so that you might be able to prevent those toxic protein species from accumulating in the brain, which we know is what leads to the dementia syndrome many years down the road.
Another key pathway involves genes associated with inflammation.
And that may actually help us explain why some people, even if they only have mild hypertension, seem to develop Alzheimer's at a much faster pace.
It may help us to identify for individuals why the interaction of their genes, and maybe their slightly elevated blood pressure or their slightly elevated cholesterol, seems to have a compound effect. Whereas in other individuals, it may not have as much of a pronounced effect.
It does go back to the underlying advice we have for patients as far as paying attention to your own cardiovascular risk factors. That's why we say exercise and diet to reduce inflammation.
One of the insights of the study was that brain disorders such as Parkinson's or Lewy body disease and ALS may have the same underlying genetic basis. Why is that important to know?
There are actually maybe more similarities between them than we thought. Often, a lot of research is focused on Alzheimer's, but what it tells us is that a finding in Alzheimer's research or finding and frontotemporal dementia research can actually help us find new therapies for potentially several of the dementia syndromes.
That was a really important finding because I think it helps us take a bit of a broader scope at looking at these risk factors and saying this patient may be at risk not only for Alzheimer's but for other general disorders because this particular gene is present.
We know lifestyle choices like smoking and diet and exercise can influence Alzheimer's development. But from everything you're saying, and from the study, the much-needed answers everyone is looking for really lie in genetics.
We do know that the genetic background is very important to understand, but we don't want to just leave it there and say, Well, if it's in your genetic risk factor, you can't do anything about it.
The knowledge of the genetic makeup and genetic risk factors will help us inform individual precision medicine. What's your genetic risk background? And then what are the lifestyle at risk mitigators that we could introduce to try to offset those genetic risk markers?
I think although we all want to know if it's in our genes, we don't want to be passive about it because that actually can help us to inform, even more importantly and emphasize the importance of taking control of your risk factors and trying to reduce them so that you, as an individual can reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer's.
RESOURCES:
42 previously unknown genes discovered for Alzheimer's disease
Interview highlights were lightly edited for clarity.
Got a tip? Email Sam Baker at sbaker@kera.org. You can follow Sam on Twitter @srbkera.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-25/what-42-previously-unknown-genes-may-tell-us-about-treating-alzheimers-disease | 2022-05-12T15:42:56Z |
Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught was chatting with a mentee the day after Christmas in 2017 when she typed the first two letters of her patient’s prescription into the drug cabinet monitor: V-E.
She wanted Versed, a sedative to help the 75-year-old patient — a woman hospitalized for a brain bleed — relax before her final scan. Instead, she selected vecuronium, a drug that causes paralysis. Vecuronium was Vaught’s top search result, and she didn’t check the label before administering it.
Within the hour, her patient had no pulse. In fewer than 12, she had died. Later, the patient’s medical examiner report would identify her cause of death: acute vecuronium intoxication, an error for which Vaught would, just last month, be criminalized.
In the decades since patient safety surfaced as a research priority, no official count of accidental patient deaths exists, but some experts estimate the number in the U.S. could be in the hundreds of thousands each year. “The system is not improving,” said Lillee Gelinas, a nurse and course director for patient safety at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. “And you have to back up and say, ‘Why?’’”
Since 2019, before Vaught’s conviction swept national headlines, Gelinas and her colleagues at the medical school have worked to answer that question. One solution, she said, is academic — which is why, in 2020, the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine became the only medical school in the world to require its students to take the internationally recognized Certified Professional in Patient Safety exam.
“At the end of the day, we are committed to developing safe providers of the future,” she said. “It’s our responsibility and accountability to our community.”
‘An epidemic’ of preventable harm
The second chapter of the seminal report, “To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System” begins somberly: “Health care is not as safe as it should be.”
The 1999 report, published by the organization now known as the National Academy of Medicine, estimated that as many as 98,000 hospitalized Americans die each year from medical errors. The insights galvanized “the patient safety movement as we know it today,” Gelinas said.
More recent studies expand those estimates. In 2016, an analysis from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine suggested that number could be more than 250,000 people each year, making medical error the third leading cause of death in the U.S. before the pandemic.
The uncertainty comes, in part, from the continued lack of a nationwide reporting system, which the To Err is Human report recommended. By 2015, just over half of the states, including Texas, required hospitals — but not necessarily clinics or outpatient providers — to report preventable harm.
“The bottom line: The amount of preventable harm and death is too many,” Gelinas said. Her boss and the dean of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Dr. Frank Filipetto, calls it “an epidemic.”
‘We’re carrying germs from patient to patient’
Dr. Conner Reynolds was scribing for an emergency room physician in Waco when he noticed the physician’s smartphone.
He would remove it from his pocket for every patient, calculating risk scores and checking treatment options — first for the diarrhea patient, then the stroke patient, then the heart attack patient. Following protocol, the physician would wash his hands in between, but he didn’t clean his phone.
“We’re carrying germs from patient to patient,” Reynolds pointed out. He and the physician looked at each other. “Is this OK? Is this something we need to consider?”
The question led Reynolds, who was in college at the time, to pursue a research study on health care student cell phone use when he enrolled at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. The results reflected his physician’s behavior: Overall, health care students were likely to use their phones in the restroom and wash their hands afterward; however, they cleaned their phones less than once a week.
Reynolds, along with Gelinas, presented the research at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s national conference in late 2018. There, he learned about the Certified Professional in Patient Safety credential, an accolade that could only be earned by health professionals with three to five years of direct clinical experience under their belts.
The criteria excluded medical students, who typically start clinical rotations in year three and therefore wouldn’t be eligible to sit for the exam until at least their second year in residency.
“And we all sort of sat down and asked ourselves, ‘Why in the world would we want to send providers out into health care, let them learn bad habits … and then, five years later, teach them the right way to do things?’” Reynolds remembers.
He calls it a “Eureka moment,” and it aligned with the hiring of Filipetto, a staunch patient safety advocate, as dean of the medical school.
‘Tools to identify when there’s problems in the system’
The day after Filipetto had his tonsils removed as a 6-year-old, he felt something strange in the back of his throat. It was a piece of gauze, unintentionally left behind, and he started choking on it.
“That was terrifying,” he remembers. “My parents didn’t know what to do. Luckily, I was able to cough it up after a minute or two, but that was what we would call a ‘near-miss.’”
Years later, when he was applying to become dean, patient safety was part of his platform. “We know that people make mistakes. They’re not intentional,” he said. “It’s impossible to prevent human error, but how do we create a system whereby the system either catches that or … where bad outcomes don’t occur?”
The patient safety component was part of a larger curriculum shift Filipetto had advocated: the inclusion of health systems science to a traditional spate of courses like anatomy and clinical skills. Health systems science takes a bird’s-eye view of health care delivery, requiring a critical look at how health professionals work together.
“You want a (medical) student that’s a systems thinker, that doesn’t just think siloed … You also want somebody that has an open mindset,” said Dr. Janet Lieto, who directs the health systems science curriculum at the medical school.
After the Eureka moment, Lieto and Gelinas set to work creating a patient safety course for the school’s medical students. Their first priority: collaborating with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, an organization that provides educational resources for the Certified Professional in Patient Safety exam.
To prove that medical students could, indeed, pass the exam before three years of clinical experience, they received permission from the Certification Board to pilot a patient safety course with 10 students — nine of whom passed the exam on the first try. The national average is 70%.
Once the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Certification Board gave the go-ahead, the college received the necessary approvals to incorporate patient safety into the school’s curriculum. Less than two years after the Eureka moment, in July 2020, the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine became the only medical school in the world that requires its students to take the patient safety certification exam before graduating.
The Institute for Healthcare Improvement tracks data on every person who has passed the exam, a spokesperson told the Fort Worth Report. She confirmed the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine’s globally unique status.
On the institute’s website, Texas’ list of certified professionals vastly overshadows that of other states. After nearly 500 medical students have taken the patient safety course, the school’s pass rate is 98%.
The course itself spans just two weeks, about eight hours a day, during a medical student’s third year, Gelinas said. The cost to each student, which covers the training materials and the exam, is about $900. When they pass the exam, students can add “C.P.P.S.” to their white coats.
When Reynolds, who passed the exam in 2021, applied for residency programs, the initials came up again and again in his interviews. Now, as a resident at JPS Health Network, he’s helping his colleagues develop safer systems to protect their patients.
“The initials after the name isn’t the most important thing,” Lieto said. “The most important thing is giving them those tools to identify when there’s problems in the system.”
‘We can eliminate preventable death’
Charlene Murphey’s head ached when she checked into the emergency room at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. It was Christmas Eve 2017, and Murphey had been shopping earlier that day, according to a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report.
The 75-year-old lived about 30 miles away, in a suburb called Gallatin, and had had her share of health troubles: Guillain-Barre syndrome, lupus and breast cancer, but her prognosis looked hopeful. A CT image revealed bleeding in her brain, but her condition improved, and by Dec. 26, she was almost ready to leave. Before her final scan, Murphey mentioned she was claustrophobic, and her physician prescribed Versed to calm her nerves.
Months after Murphey died from vecuronium intoxication, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid paid Vanderbilt University Medical Center a surprise visit.
Inspectors found the hospital’s policies lacked guidance about when and how to monitor patients after administering “high-alert” drugs like vecuronium. The report also determined the hospital lacked adequate safety measures to prevent providers from accidentally acquiring such medicines from the drug cabinet. Finally, the hospital had not reported the error to the Tennessee Department of Health, a requirement by state law.
“So when people talk about safety, I worry that they just see that (Vaught) made this mistake,” Lieto said. “You have to ask why … and when you come down to it, it’s usually a system error or a process error in addition to a human error. And that’s the piece that people forget about.”
Vaught’s criminal conviction in late March undercuts a key component of patient safety, Gelinas said: Just culture, or an environment where people feel safe to discuss mistakes without fear of punishment. “This one case, the criminalization of medical error, has really put a chilling effect on a lot of the progress that we’ve made,” she said.
A patient safety course like the one at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine acknowledges that, while people make mistakes, good systems can prevent bad outcomes. Gelinas hopes more and more medical schools come to adopt a similar strategy; she and Lieto are scheduled to present their success at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Patient Safety Congress in May.
“So long as it involves humans, health care will never be free of errors,” she said. “But it can be free of preventable death.”
What’s the problem?
Although no official count of accidental patient deaths exists, some experts estimate the number in the U.S. could be in the hundreds of thousands each year.
What’s a possible solution?
Since 2020, the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine has required its medical students to take a patient safety course and the Certified Professional in Patient Safety exam before graduating. The requirement involves a collaboration between the school and the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. | https://www.keranews.org/health-wellness/2022-04-26/should-medical-errors-be-criminalized-this-fort-worth-medical-school-offers-another-way | 2022-05-12T15:43:02Z |
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KERA News Wins 7 Texas Broadcast News Awards, including overall broadcast excellence
KERA News and its public media partners won several statewide and national awards from the Texas Association of Broadcasters. The announcement on April 9, was in recognition of journalism produced in 2021. | https://www.keranews.org/inside-kera-news | 2022-05-12T15:43:08Z |
The organizations’ Texas Broadcast News Awards recognizes outstanding local broadcast journalism produced by member radio and television stations serving local communities throughout the state.
KERA collected seven Texas Broadcast News Awards for outstanding local broadcast journalism in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. TAB recognizes broadcast stations and journalists throughout the state whose work has earned that trust and helped advance the communities they serve.
KERA’s TAB awards include:
General Assignment
A toxic neighbor: Grand Prairie Latinos want answers about hazardous waste site
Commentary-Editorial
Korean New Year: How COVID Changes Brought Unexpected Insights Into My Family Traditions
Best Local Talk Show
Feature (Serious)
'The Beauty In The Embraces': Families Separated By U.S.-Mexico Border Have A Chance To Reunite
Continuing Coverage
Asian American Coverage
Sports Story or Series
The Legacy Of Black Cowboys Is A Missing Chapter In Texas History
- Overall Texas Broadcast Excellence
KERA News’ Stella Chavez also earned a 2021 Investigative Reporters & Editors Award for her collaborative reporting with NPR, The California Newsroom, The Texas Newsroom, Columbia Journalism Investigations and Public Health Watch. Their reporting uncovered the dangers some workers face when their work is primarily done outside, sometimes in sweltering temperatures.
Additionally, The Texas Newsroom — a public radio journalism collaboration based at KERA that includes NPR, Houston Public Media, KUT in Austin and Texas Public Media in San Antonio — has also earned a Gracie Award for radio documentary in the local non-commercial category for its collaborative reporting on how rural communities in Texas have struggled to keep up in the fight against the coronavirus.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/inside-kera-news/2022-04-22/kera-news-wins-7-texas-broadcast-news-awards-including-overall-broadcast-excellence | 2022-05-12T15:43:15Z |
James Barragan and Patrick Svitek | The Texas Tribune
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For Democrats, especially in Texas, tackling border issues is difficult on the campaign trail as the party is not in agreement about various policies. O’Rourke has had to distance himself from President Joe Biden’s border policies, while going after Gov. Greg Abbott’s. | https://www.keranews.org/james-barragan-and-patrick-svitek-the-texas-tribune | 2022-05-12T15:43:21Z |
Jill Ament and Caroline Covington | Texas Standard Environment & Nature Drought in West Texas and Panhandle makes growing feed grain a challenge Jill Ament and Caroline Covington | Texas Standard The drought could drive up the price of beef. One agronomist explains why, and what farmers might do to adapt. | https://www.keranews.org/jill-ament-and-caroline-covington-texas-standard | 2022-05-12T15:43:22Z |
Jill Ament and Caroline Covington | Texas Standard
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Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s staffers are accused of unfairly awarding a contract to a politically connected vendor during the pandemic. Hidlago says it’s an attempt to hurt her career. | https://www.keranews.org/jill-ament-and-caroline-covington-texas-standard-1 | 2022-05-12T15:43:28Z |
Michael Marks | Texas Standard
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The number of milk cows in the state is increasing, thanks to mild weather and expanded processing capacity.
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Thursday was the 75th anniversary of the ruling that barred creating separate schools for “Spanish-speaking” children. | https://www.keranews.org/michael-marks-texas-standard | 2022-05-12T15:43:34Z |
That's something recently allowed by a new state law. The penalty now rises from $500 to $2,000, and there’s a potential jail sentence of 180 days. But officials want more tools to deal with the problem.
“This council wants to really strongly support restrictions against unauthorized, illegal houses where the conditions that are mentioned are absolutely atrocious and people are being warehoused,” said Council member Adam McGough of northeast Dallas. “At the same time, we’re trying to navigate an increasing homeless number where [displacement] is absolutely an issue.”
Boarding homes have three to eight occupants living in a residential area, according to Andrew Espinoza, interim director of code compliance services. The residents, who may have disabilities or are elderly, are unrelated to the owner of the home. The home provides basic services like laundry and grocery shopping but not “personal care services.” A certificate of occupancy is not required, but a permit is.
Espinoza said there are about 160 boarding homes registered across the city. There may be many more that are unregistered.
Council members said they often hear from residents who want to know when a boarding house opens on their street. Another concern is that a boarding home has ten days to appeal a citation and/or register the property, thereby avoiding any penalty.
“There should be a penalty if you get caught,” Council member Tennell Atkins said at a Wednesday meeting. His district includes far southeast Dallas and has the most boarding homes – by far – of all council districts. “You should not be able to operate, because you should know the law.”
Fires at unregulated boarding homes in Houston led to that city changing its ordinance in 2018.
State lawmakers recently increased the violation for operating an unpermitted boarding home. It went from a Class C misdemeanor to a Class B misdemeanor in September in order to investigate cases faster, according to a city presentation. Cities can now fine an operation up to $2,000 or jail them for 6-months.
Espinoza said city staff will bring more recommendations to the council’s Quality of Life, Arts, and Culture committee next week.
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-13/dallas-council-members-want-to-crack-down-on-unregulated-boarding-houses-amidst-housing-shortage | 2022-05-12T15:43:40Z |
The closures account for less than 10% of the total. The slimmed-down roster of locations will be in place for local elections on May 7th and a state runoff on May 24th. The plan will stay in place for any local runoffs in June.
In November, the county will return to a full complement of polling sites.
Officials were worried about finding enough workers to run over 400 sites with the curbside voting service that’s available to people with disabilities. Some residents in the county waited hours to vote curbside on primary day last month. Dozens of election judges — who run the polling sites — didn't show up two days before the election to pick up equipment.
Now the county must communicate the changes with the voting public. Elections Director Michael Scarpello wants to remind people the county uses a “vote center” system, which means you can vote anywhere that’s open.
“We need to do a better job of saying, yes, you can vote anywhere at any time, and here’s how you find out which locations,” he told commissioners on Wednesday.
He said his department is vetting the idea of contacting voters who used the now-closed locations to advise them to not show up there.
No sites will close in District 3, which curves from Cedar Hill to Sachse and includes southern Dallas. That’s because Commissioner John Wiley Price, who represents the district, objected to closures there.
“They tend to go where they have traditionally gone,” Price said of voters in his district, especially older ones. He worried voters who were accustomed to visiting a specific location would be discouraged from voting if that site were closed.
Dallas County resident Wes Bowen, who said he served as a Republican election judge in the past, praised the plan. He told commissioners that one of the purposes of a vote center system is to save money.
“I think we do have a responsibility to use our tax dollars wisely,” he said. Having low-turnout locations was “not being good stewards of the county’s money.”
Scarpello said he consulted with the county Republican and Democratic Parties, cities, and two citizen advisory committees in choosing which voting locations to close for May. Anytime an objection was raised to closing a particular site, they left it open, he said.
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-13/dallas-county-consolidates-voting-locations-for-may-hoping-to-avoid-problems-for-voters | 2022-05-12T15:43:42Z |
A new crosswalk was unveiled on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day this year, with the words, “All Black Lives Matter,” spanning the four corners of the historic MLK and Malcolm X Boulevard intersection in South Dallas.
Although more than 950 streets across the nation have been named after King, and dozens after Malcolm X, D.C. and Dallas are the only places the roads intersect, according to the Washington Informer.
“It is perhaps essential because King and Malcolm X evolved together,” historian Miranda Yan told the Informer. “They remain as relevant today as in the 1960s, even with George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and the global protests, the only way to understand these movements is to understand Malcolm and Martin.”
Abounding Prosperity, Inc., the organization who paid for and installed the “All Black Lives Matter” crosswalk, vowed to maintain the paint for the next ten years with private funds.
The non-profit organization was created to respond to social and health disparities that impact Black men and their families in Dallas County.
But residents and activists are speaking out months later, not only criticizing the organization for not sealing the paint, resulting in tar marks on the art from cars and pedestrians, but also for the confusion on what the crosswalk really means.
Shenita Cleveland, a community organizer in South Dallas, says there’s division in the neighborhood about the crosswalk.
“The organization is really about the issues that plague the Black man and their families, which is fine, but people really need to know,” Cleveland said about the “All Black Lives Matter” message.
Michael Sneed, 65, has lived in the South Dallas neighborhood his entire life. When he first drove by the sidewalk, he felt prideful and excited. “We had something of our own,” he said.
The word “all” was written much smaller than the rest of the words on the crosswalk, causing confusion on why the word was used.
After being made aware of the company’s intentions to highlight the plight of LGBTQ+ Black people, Sneed’s feelings changed.
“It’s not that anyone is against it, but overall, we want to say just ‘Black Lives Matter’ to reflect the whole community,” Sneed said. “The ‘all’ stops people from walking across the sidewalk because they don’t want to be perceived as gay.”
The crosswalk has challenged and created conversation around the intersectionality of being Black and queer, and if it has a space on MLK Boulevard.
Ultimately, Cleveland says that residents want more investment from the city. “This crosswalk is nice, but where's our money?”
While the city of Dallas was involved in unanimously approving the art on public streets, no city funds were used for the project.
KERA reached out to Abounding Prosperity in regard to some of the residents’ complaints but did not get a response.
The “All Black Lives Matter” crosswalk also exists at five other intersections on Al Lipscomb Way and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The two-mile stretch of MLK Boulevard spans South Dallas, a predominately Black neighborhood in the shadows of Fair Park, the city’s art-deco fairgrounds where King spoke at a rally in 1963.
But, similar to the crosswalk, not everyone was on board when the street was first renamed.
Sandra Crenshaw has been a part of the political landscape in Dallas since 1978 and remembers the controversy around renaming the street to Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in 1981.
“When Marvin Crenshaw went down the street to get the petition the community leaders didn't want it to continue Cedar Crest. The had no problems on Forest Avenue, but they did not want it continued across the bridge to Cedar Crest," Crenshaw said.
Marvin Crenshaw was a plaintiff in the 14-1 decision and is a prominent community activist.
Residents should be consulted when the city decides to make changes to their neighborhood, Crenshaw said.
“Everybody [should be] aware that you are doing something that's going to impact not only them but their property, their property values and what they have to say about this,” she said.
South Dallas, a neighborhood that is primarily mentioned in the media during the State Fair of Texas or the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade, is seeing transformative changes. Some of the changes are providing hope in the community.
Joe Powell, founder of Association of Persons Affected by Addiction (APAA), just moved into the corner building at the intersection of MLK Boulevard and Malcolm X. The building housed an entrepreneur center before the pandemic caused them to shutter the space.
When asked about opening their space at this historic intersection in South Dallas, Powell nodded to the legacy of the two men.
He pointed to the photo of Malcolm X on a pole outside the building and reminisced about his time growing up in Harlem in the 60’s.
“These are the guys that I grew up with, right in New York and Harlem,” he said. He recalled the riots and “all of the racial justice that we were fighting for back then in the civil rights era.”
APAA moved from a different building down the street, on MLK Boulevard. The organization plans to open a community center to provide a safe space for people battling addiction and create education programs for youth in the neighborhood.
“We are excited that we get the opportunity to be on this corner, and to bring equity to this community, right here," Powell said.
Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly attributed the petition to rename the streets to the Dallas City Council.
Got a tip? Email Keren at Kcarrion@kera.org or Solomon Wilson at swilson@kera.org.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-14/south-dallas-residents-have-mixed-feelings-about-changes-to-historic-mlk-and-malcolm-x-intersection | 2022-05-12T15:43:48Z |
The execution of Texas death row inmate John Henry Ramirez may once again be halted.
Last September, the U.S. Supreme Court delayed the 37-year-old’s execution to consider his claim that Texas was violating his religious rights by refusing to let his pastor pray over and touch him while he received a lethal injection. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice only allows a spiritual advisor inside the death chamber if they don’t speak or touch the inmate.
However, in March, the nation’s high court sided with Ramirez. In their 8-1 opinion, the justices ruled Texas likely violated Ramirez's rights when it denied his request. While TDCJ does not plan to change its overall policy, a spokesperson for the agency said requests for spiritual advisors to pray or touch the inmate will now be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Less than a month after the Supreme Court’s decision, a South Texas judge rescheduled Ramirez’s execution for Oct. 5. But now, the Nueces County district attorney has filed a motion to withdraw the rescheduled execution date for Ramirez, even though his office had initially requested it last week.
In the motion filed Thursday, DA Mark Gonzalez said a prosecutor in his office had requested the new date without his knowledge.
“The Assistant District Attorney who most recently moved for an execution date in this cause was not aware of my desire in this matter and did not consult me prior to moving for an execution date,” Gonzalez said in the motion.
Earlier this year, Gonzalez was among three district attorneys in Texas to sign onto a joint statement with more than 50 elected prosecutors nationwide to call for “the elimination of the death penalty.”
“So, [Gonzalez’s] actions [to withdraw the order] are consistent with the position he has publicly taken,” said Kristin Houlé Cuellar, the executive director of the Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty.
Houlé Cuellar told the Texas Newsroom that she was “very heartened” by Gonzalez’s motion.
“In his motion to withdraw the order, he states that it is his ‘firm belief that the death penalty is unethical and should not be imposed on Mr. Ramirez or any other person’ while he occupies this office,” she read, quoting the motion. “And I am very pleased with that.”
Houlé Cuellar said if the court does not approve Gonzalez’s motion, the October date would be the fourth execution date that has been set for Ramirez since 2017.
“I have every confidence, though, that this date will be withdrawn,” she added. “In my experience, when a prosecutor asks for a date to be withdrawn, it is granted.”
Ramirez was sentenced to die for the 2004 murder of Pablo Castro, who was a store clerk in Corpus Christi. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-15/da-wants-to-stop-execution-of-a-texas-death-row-inmate-whose-case-made-it-to-the-supreme-court | 2022-05-12T15:43:54Z |
Artist renderings of the 14-acre park show a dynamic green space lined with elm and sycamore trees.
Two open green spaces are complemented by playgrounds, a lookout tower, vendor space and a stage.
The designs created by California-based Studio-MLA are the latest steps in the process to create a public space for surrounding neighborhoods in South Dallas. Once completed, the park will be open year-round.
Brain Luallen is CEO of Fair Park First, which is leading the project. He says the studio designed a “prairie wonderland” that will be a place for a variety of public events.
“[It’s] the sort of Blackland Prairie ecosystem and geography that would have been here prior to development and interweaving the unique personality of sunny South Dallas in a way that feels completely authentic, definitely of North Texas,” Luallen said.
The park will be located on what was once the site of a South Dallas neighborhood of over 360 homes. They were torn down to make room for parking space which currently sits between Fitzhugh and Pennsylvania Avenues.
Luallen says the park offers a chance to right past wrongs.
“That displacement loomed large, and it certainly left a very large scar in the surrounding community, but the idea of a healing gathering place has always been at the forefront of people's minds,” Luallen said.
Luallen said Fair Park First will work with the community to establish a name for the park that resonates with the surrounding neighborhoods.
Construction is set to begin in early 2023 with an anticipated opening date in late 2024.
Got a tip? Email Pablo Arauz Peña at parauzpena@kera.org
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-15/fair-park-in-south-dallas-is-getting-a-new-park-heres-what-it-will-look-like | 2022-05-12T15:44:00Z |
At about half-past midnight Monday, a speeding car drove off the Houston Street viaduct, into the bridge's sidewall and fell onto DART rail’s overhead lines.
Two people were in the car when it fell and fled the scene. It's unknown whether they were injured in the crash, according to KXAS.
Gordon Shattles, DART’s director of external relations, said crews were assessing the damage as of late Monday morning.
“It knocked over both the power lines, the poles that support them, and also the counterweights that keep tension on those lines. So as you can imagine a lot of repairs to be done,” Shattles said.
In the meantime, riders will need to use shuttles at various stations near downtown.
“Their bus will stop at Victory, EBJ, Convention Center and Cedars as well as Eighth and Corinth stations and we'll continue that shuttle bus until repairs are complete,” Shattles said.
Shattles says riders can use DART’s GoPass app for the latest updates on repairs.
Got a tip? Email Pablo Arauz Peña at parauzpena@kera.org
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-18/car-falls-off-viaduct-damaging-dart-rail-power-lines | 2022-05-12T15:44:02Z |
The complaint was sent to the city after Darryl Baker, a housing activist with the group Fair Share for All Dallas, delivered a detailed complaint to the federal department. The complaint also includes allegations that Dallas clusters these subsidized affordable housing developments into lower-income communities.
“We’re putting our thumb on the scale in a way that will guarantee that if you’re poor in this part of town, you’ll always be poor. And [that] this part of town will always be poor,” Baker said.
The complaint is the beginning of a process to figure out if the issues raised are valid, and to resolve the issue. HUD hasn’t validated the claims in the complaint. Federal statute requires HUD to complete its investigation into the issue within 100 days from receiving the original complaint, though the agency can extend that deadline.
But the stakes for Dallas are high, the agency said in its complaint.
“The acts alleged in this complaint, if proven, may constitute a violation of” multiple federal civil rights laws by the City of Dallas, the HUD complaint states.
In January, the City of Arlington agreed to pay nearly $400,000 to settle a fair housing lawsuit brought by HUD alleging that Arlington for blocking affordable housing opportunities for low-income families. Arlington officials denied wrongdoing, but agreed to the massive penalty to stay out of court.
The City of Dallas declined to comment on the complaint. A HUD spokesperson said the department won’t comment on open cases.
According to correspondence shared with KERA by Mike Daniel, a Dallas lawyer helping Baker to raise the fair housing concerns to the federal agency, Dallas received the complaint from HUD on February 7. The agency has given the city until April 25 to submit its initial response.
Low-income housing
The HUD complaint centers on the city’s role in the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, commonly referred to as LIHTC, which provides tax incentives to developers building housing for people whose incomes are lower than the median incomes in their area.
The program is administered by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs, but local governments have a lot of power to help or hurt the chances of proposed projects qualifying for the federal tax credits.
Baker, a retired city employee with a background in architecture and planning, says the city routinely puts its thumb on the scale for LIHTC developments mostly in neighborhoods of color and not in majority-white neighborhoods.
The city has given its approval, removed barriers to projects moving forward, and in many cases financially subsidized housing for lower-income residents almost exclusively in neighborhoods that are majority non-white.
“We have an ecosystem that’s not sustainable, that’s not healthy,” he said. “I don’t know any other way to put it.”
In an interview conducted before the city received the HUD complaint, Dallas’ Director of Housing and Neighborhood Services David Noguera said the city throws its weight behind LIHTC projects where developers have earmarked units for a variety of income levels, from low-income households to people able to pay a market rate. The city’s goal is more mixed-income neighborhoods.
“We are not going to change decades of segregation overnight or through one project. However, we can make sure that any and every project that comes through the city has a mixture [of incomes]. So if it's in a high opportunity area, we want a mixture. If it's in a depressed community, we want a mixture because it's the only way we can influence history.”
Noguera said developers tend to favor southern Dallas, which is predominantly Black and Latino, because the land is less expensive and there is more open land available for development.
Increasing segregation
Daniel worked with Baker to bring the issue to the attention of the federal housing department. The Dallas lawyer and his partner, Laura Beshara, have sued Dallas multiple times for policies they argued increased racial segregation and limited housing options for low-income people. link
“[Low-Income Housing] Tax Credits are just about the only kind of housing in Texas that cannot turn someone away just because they’re on a housing choice voucher,” he said. “So when you steer [those] tax credits, you’re also steering to a large extent where voucher families can find housing.”
Daniel said the city has actually increased racial segregation in Dallas’ LIHTC program in recent years, despite the city’s approval of a housing policy explicitly setting a goal of undoing a long history of segregation.
In 2018, the city passed its first Comprehensive Housing Policy, which included ambitions benchmarks to meet the city’s affordable housing shortfall.
The three stated goals of that plan were to “create and maintain…affordable housing throughout Dallas,” to “promote greater fair housing choices” and to “overcome patterns of segregation and concentrations of poverty through incentives and requirements.”
Since 2018, the city has approved 31 LIHTC projects. Of those, only two are majority-white neighborhoods, Baker said. The other 29 – accounting for 6,100 individual rental units – are located in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods.
Now that the city is in the process of overhauling its housing policy to incorporate measurable commitments to racial equity, Darryl Baker is skeptical that a new policy will change city practices any more than the last policy did.
“We are resistant, we are reluctant, to trust the people who created this problem to be in charge of the solution,” Baker said.
Concentrating poverty
Baker’s complaint also says the city approves LIHTC projects in contradiction of state policy aimed at avoiding the concentration of low-income housing in the same neighborhoods or in areas of deep poverty.
He called the practice, "cruel," saying that many of the neighborhoods lack grocery stores, have lower-performing schools and are far from good jobs that can help people build stable finances for their families.
Research has found that living in neighborhoods with concentrated poverty – where poverty rates exceed 20% – corresponds with an increase in a variety of negative outcomes for the residents who live there, including higher crime and incarceration rates, dropping out of school, and experiencing poverty later in life.
Many of these projects are also in or near areas identified by the Dallas Police Department as crime hotspots, Daniel said.
Homeowners affected, too
Baker’s neighborhood – predominantly Black and middle-class homeowners – sits next to two census tracts that have such a concentration of LIHTC developments that they are ineligible for more LIHTC projects under state rules intended to limit the concentration of affordable housing.
However, the city’s Dallas Housing Finance Corporation has waived the state’s over-concentration rules to approve more LIHTC housing, according to documents he sent to HUD.
That concentration affects the home values in his neighborhood and artificially lowers property values in the southern sector and in neighborhoods of color, the complaint asserts, further privileging predominantly white homeowner neighborhoods.
Baker says his concerns are not NIMBYism, because his neighborhood – and others like it across the city – are already doing their share of hosting LIHTC developments.
“We need a balance. We’re terribly out of balance here, and we don’t seem to have any guarantees that City Hall understands that, based on outcomes,” Baker said. “We want affordability to be available throughout the city.”
Ultimately, Baker wants to see the city put more effort into creating opportunities for homeownership for low-income people. The city’s own Comprehensive Housing Policy sets the goal of making 55% of the affordable housing it helps produce homes that are owned by their occupants, with the other 45% of the affordable homes being rental units.
On that count, too, Baker says the city is falling short.
Got a tip? Christopher Connelly is KERA's One Crisis Away Reporter, exploring life on the financial edge. Email Christopher at cconnelly@kera.org .You can follow Christopher on Twitter @hithisischris.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-18/federal-agency-looking-into-claims-of-racial-discrimination-in-dallas-affordable-housing-projects | 2022-05-12T15:44:08Z |
The decision late last week comes after the Biden Administration was blasted for what critics say is preferential treatment for Ukrainian nationals over non-European refugees.
"I can't overstate the urgency and necessity of this protection," said Kristina Morales, DOJ Accredited Representative for the Asylum Program at Human Rights Initiative of North Texas. "At the same time, the multi-year fight for this designation — the same with which was approved for Ukraine in mere days — is a stinging and painful example of the ways Black lives continue to be deprioritized and ignored."
A number of immigrant advocacy groups had been calling on the federal government to prioritize Cameroon because of the ongoing armed conflict and humanitarian crisis there.
"Despite urgent calls for protection, our government spent the last several years deporting Cameroonians directly into harm," Morales said. "This designation does not and cannot erase the violence our country has perpetrated against them.
DHS said this is the first time the U.S. has given Cameroon TPS status. DHS Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas cited the conflict in the country in a statement.
To qualify for TPS, individuals must have been living in the U.S. since April 14.
Daniel Tse, founding member of the Cameroon Advocacy Network, said in a statement that the decision “secures protection for thousands of Cameroonians in the United States living in fear and uncertainty.”
Tse also noted the decision came after years of pushing for the temporary protected designation and after numerous Cameroonian asylum seekers have been deported.
Got a tip? Email Stella M. Chávez at schavez@kera.org. You can follow Stella on Twitter @stellamchavez.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-18/immigrant-advocates-say-temporary-protected-status-for-cameroon-is-long-overdue | 2022-05-12T15:44:14Z |
Federal records show that 68 people have died in 39 separate crashes involving the Robinson R44 helicopter since Jan. 1, 2012.
WFAA identified the victims of the March 25 crash as instructor Lora Trout and student Ty Wallis, who were on their second training trip. A preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board said they were flying from Garland to Rowlett. The NTSB report said evidence indicated the main rotor blade contacted the tail boom. The investigation into the crash is continuing.
The R44 has been involved in crashes that caused 369 fatalities since 2001, according to NTSB data reviewed by KERA.
A federal regulation that applies to the 4-seat R44 and the smaller R22 model requires pilots and pilot instructors to have specific “abnormal and emergency procedures flight training.”
Jon Kettles, a Dallas-based attorney who represents families in aircraft accidents, said this extra regulation is a red flag.
“It’s just a risk that should have been designed out, instead of relying on extra training for the operator,” said Kettles, a former Army helicopter pilot.
The company told KERA it could not comment on the Rowlett crash beyond an emailed statement, because it’s still involved in the ongoing investigation.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and extend our sincerest condolences to all those affected by the tragic accident in Rowlett,” said Loretta Conley, a spokesperson with Robinson Helicopter Company. “A senior Robinson investigator was on-site and provided assistance when requested by the NTSB and the FAA.”
Other countries have raised concerns about the Robinson helicopters.
New Zealand’s Transport Accident Investigation Commission placed the helicopters on its “watchlist” in 2016, leading to the Department of Conservation to stop using them, according to the Dominion Post.
In Australia, the Civil Aviation Safety Authority “issued an airworthiness directive grounding Robinson R44 helicopters fitted with C016-7 main rotor blades,” Flight International reported in 2015.
Closer to home, a Los Angeles Times investigation in 2018 found the R44’s rate of accidents per hours flown was “nearly 50% higher than any other of the dozen most common civilian models whose flight hours are tracked by the Federal Aviation Administration.”
Kurt Robinson, the company’s president, disputed that analysis and “vigorously defended” the firm’s record, the Times wrote.
The Times said the R44 was selling for about $475,000 in 2018.
That is cheap, Kettles said – which is why the model is so widely used.
“Some people act like flying a helicopter is a right,” Kettles said. “But if you can’t afford to do something safely, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it. Especially if you’re going to put other people at risk.”
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-18/robinson-helicopter-model-in-fatal-rowlett-crash-involved-in-68-deaths-since-2012 | 2022-05-12T15:44:20Z |
Jenkins sued Abbott after the governor declared counties couldn’t require masks.
The lead attorney on the case is representing Jenkins for free, but three commissioners approved paying $250,000 to the law firm of Alexander Dubose and Jefferson for other legal expenses.
When they approved the funding at a Tuesday meeting, county commissioners said they want to be consulted next time.
“The decision to hire counsel is not one for him to make and to make alone,” Commissioner John Wiley Price said. “In the future, he must consult with his colleagues, keep us informed about the nature of such lawsuit if we’re going to be asked to approve legal fees with taxpayer dollars.”
Price noted that the commissioners court had voted to authorize Jenkins to take actions to protect public health.
He was joined in approving the money by Commissioners Theresa Daniel and Elba Garcia. Jenkins and Commissioner J.J. Koch had to recuse and didn’t vote.
Daniel said it was the “responsibility of any member of this court to include the rest of the court” if they took action on behalf of the group. Commissioners have voted in the past to continue Jenkins’ declaration of a local disaster; Jenkins issued a mask mandate and sued the governor in his role as emergency manager.
The case is pending in the Texas Supreme Court. It’s a dispute over whether the state can curtail the power of a local emergency manager.
Last summer, as the Delta variant of COVID-19 led to a rise in cases and hospitalizations, Jenkins ordered workers and customers to mask up indoors. It was in defiance of an earlier order from Abbott, which said “no person may be required by any jurisdiction to wear or to mandate the wearing of a face covering.”
When Koch challenged Jenkins’ order at a public meeting, saying the governor’s order superseded his, Jenkins sued Abbott.
Medical experts and public health officials recommend masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19, which can be transmitted through minuscule water droplets in the air.
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-19/dallas-county-to-pay-mask-lawsuit-legal-fees-out-of-general-fund | 2022-05-12T15:44:26Z |
Tristan was at home when Gov. Greg Abbott's statements on trans youth popped up in his newsfeed.
"I was like, 'What is this? What is he doing now?,'" he said.
Tristan, now in his early 20s, says it wasn't too long ago that he was a kid receiving gender-affirming care.
"To think that now [the] governor has basically said that gender affirming care for minors is equivalent to child abuse is just kind of bizarre to me," he said. "I think it was the exact opposite in my case. Gender affirming care literally saved my life as a teenager."
Both Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton issued statements a few months ago targeting trans youth and their families in the state. Part of these statements urged case workers with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate families providing access to gender-affirming care to their kids. It's left both trans youth and adults feeling anxious about their future.
"It was such a weird, bizarre moment, when your government official says you are invalid," Michael said. "It feels like a dystopia. Maybe it is a dystopia. It's really traumatic."
Creating community with other trans youth is "a liberating feeling"
Michael and Tristan met in a support group for trans and non-binary youth in North Texas. The group has been a mainstay over the past few months for both of them, as it's given them a space to share their fears and frustrations.
"The work that we're doing is really transformative in the fact that it's exclusively by transgender people, for transgender people," Michael said. "That is really a liberating feeling."
"It's just very important to have like a support system that understands the struggle," Tristan echoed.
Tristan and Michael both discussed how easy it can be to internalize harassment as younger teenagers, especially in school.
"If you are told you're this one thing enough times, you're gonna start to believe it, which is like, really sad," Tristan said. "Even as an adult, if you are called slurs enough times, you're gonna be like, man, that sucks. I guess I am."
But Michael wants to make sure people know that being trans, especially being trans in the South and in Texas, is not full of "pain and suffering."
"I want [people] to take away the fact that we're beautiful and that we're here to exist and to flourish and thrive just like everyone else," he said. "We're beautiful and our existence is filled with inherent beauty."
Allies need to give trans youth a platform to share moving forward
Tristan said that he feels so much better now, with a support system and affirming healthcare providers, than he did at 13.
"It is definitely not all doom and gloom being trans," he said. "It's very empowering to have other people who understand [and] have other people who respect you."
They both encourage allies to lift up trans voices in their community.
"I think it's really interesting when cisgender people try to understand the entirety of what it means to be trans," Michael said. "What allies really need to do is to just recognize that they don't know everything about it and just let transgender individual speak for themselves, and give them a platform to do so."
"Knowledge is power," Tristan said. "It can really affect the people around you if you are knowledgeable about their struggles."
Got a tip? Email Elena Rivera at erivera@kera.org. You can follow Elena on Twitter @elenaiswriting.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-19/it-feels-like-a-dystopia-trans-youth-in-texas-navigate-an-uncertain-few-months | 2022-05-12T15:44:33Z |
Southern Gateway Park is closer to becoming a reality. The nonprofit leading the planning effort announced Tuesday it has reached 75% of its $82 million fundraising goal.
“We all know that the historic underinvestment in southern Dallas has stymied its residents' growth and success,” said April Allen, president and COO of Southern Gateway Public Green Foundation. “By drawing eyes, dollars and feet to this area, we believe that the Southern Gateway Park will be the first step in reversing this neglect.”
The park will be built above I-35, between the Dallas Zoo and north Oak Cliff. Artist renderings show green spaces, trails and a pavilion, along with market space and playgrounds.
Speaking at Dallas City Hall on Tuesday, Mayor Eric Johnson said the park will be a bridge between neighborhoods where houses were once torn down to build the interstate.
“Southern Gateway Park should be viewed as what it is, which is a game changing investment in the people and the families of southern Dallas,” Johnson said.
Johnson said the park’s first phase is on track to be completed by the end of 2023.
Got a tip? Email Pablo Arauz Peña at parauzpena@kera.org
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-19/new-oak-cliff-park-to-unite-area-divided-by-i-35 | 2022-05-12T15:44:39Z |
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's order imposing safety inspections on trucks crossing the border from Mexico inflicted billions of dollars in U.S. trade losses — including $1 billion per week at the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge alone, according to the latest tallies of the slowdown's economic fallout.
A massive line of northbound trucks was seen waiting to enter the bridge's import lot last week. Abbott issued the order on April 6 and rescinded it on April 15.
The Pharr-Reynosa bridge in Hidalgo County lost an estimated $202 million per day while the policy was in force, with average border wait times rising to 10-12 hours, the city of Pharr said in a video release about the additional inspections. It's one of more than two dozen international bridges and border crossings in Texas.
The inspections by the state's Department of Public Safety resulted in "zero apprehensions" but vastly increased wait times at the border, Texas Public Radio reports. The delays, which sometimes stretched beyond 24 hours, forced companies to scramble to refuel diesel trucks that sat idling on the road, hoping to ensure produce and other goods remained refrigerated.
Abbott had touted his April 6 order as a crackdown on drug smuggling and human trafficking. But Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who like Abbott is a Republican, says the inspections did "nothing to stop the flow of illegal immigration or illegal drugs. I mean, absolutely zero."
That's because Abbott's inspections looked only at basic vehicle safety, such as the trucks' tires and brakes and lights — not their contents, Miller told NPR's Morning Edition.
"The governor's people have no authority to open the trucks," Miller said. Instead, he said, every truck undergoes inspections by federal and state agricultural agencies, as well as Customs and Border Protection. Those inspectors use X-ray machines, drug-sniffing dogs and other measures to ensure the cargo is legitimate, Miller added.
The border inspections' final political tally remains unknown — but in recent days, their stark economic costs have come into focus.
"The Perryman Group, an economic research and analysis firm based in Waco, estimated that total losses to the state were $470 million per day in what trade groups called 'a supply chain crisis,' " TPR reports.
The slowdowns at Texas' busy entry points has caused food prices to rise, Miller said.
"You're already seeing things like bananas, avocados, lemons and limes" going up in price, he said, adding that the border crisis has been compounded by a shipping crisis.
Abbott's order drew broad criticism on both sides of the border; many accused him of using the inspections as an attention-getting stunt for his reelection campaign. He lifted the order after the leaders of Mexican states across the border signed agreements that Abbott says will bolster border security. But as TPR notes, some of those stipulations were already in place before the inspections.
Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-20/a-key-texas-bridge-lost-1-billion-per-week-during-governors-slowdown | 2022-05-12T15:44:45Z |
The Dallas City Attorney’s Office said in a press release late Wednesday that a lawsuit was filed against the property owner, who was identified as St. John Missionary Baptist Church, Inc., in Dallas, and the promoter, Germaud L. Lyons aka Bossman Bubba.
The city wants the suit “to address the ongoing violations of the Dallas city code by seeking injunctive relief and civil penalties.” The City Attorney's Office will provide updates as they move forward with litigation.
The shooting was at a large unpermitted outdoor event called the Epic Easter Bike Out and Field Party on Cleveland Road on April 2-3. The event’s promoters did not have a permit, city officials said.
The city’s police department has recommended the city create stricter regulations for promoter who organize big gatherings.
Dallas Police Chief Eddie García said seven off-duty Dallas police officers were approved by the department to work at the event but left before the shooting. He said at a meeting last week he’s tightening the rules for off-duty police officers who work as security staff. They must now notify the department at the beginning and end of an off-duty shift.
City Attorney Chris Caso and García are working on an ordinance that would limit the ability of promoters to circumvent the current permit system. They’re also looking into more oversight for landowners who lease their property.
The lawsuit follows an investigation by the city into the Epic Easter Bike Out and Party shooting.
Got a tip? Alejandra Martinez is a Report For America corps member for KERA News. Email Alejandra at amartinez@kera.org. You can follow Alejandra on Twitter @alereports.
KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gift today. Thank you. | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-20/dallas-files-lawsuit-linked-to-oak-cliff-fatal-shooting-naming-property-owner-and-promoter-of-event | 2022-05-12T15:44:51Z |
Gov. Greg Abbott's Texas Task Force on Concert Safety found five recurring themes that led to last year's deadly Astroworld incident — most notably permitting and risk assessment.
Tuesday's report comes a little more than five months after the festival, in which 10 people were killed and hundreds more injured when the crowd surged toward the stage during Travis Scott's set. The youngest of those killed was Ezra Blount, 9, who attended the concert with his father.
The governor's task force found a lack of uniformity in the state's permitting process for concerts. It found that Astroworld was operating over its occupancy load issued in the concert permit, which the task force said could have been prevented if a consistent permitting process was in place.
Task force members recommended "a universal permitting template" in lieu of that discovery. It also recommended a standardized checklist for county judges issuing these permits.
"This template would be informed by those counties that have historically hosted successful events and could provide guidance on what is statutorily required in permit applications," the report read. "The template would serve as a ‘floor not a ceiling,' allowing for local issuers to add relevant information according to the area and type of event."
The report recommended a central organized command center — "Unified On-Site Command and Control" — tasked with identifying and preventing similar tragedies at future events, and additional training for security and event staff.
On risk assessment, the report criticized the team behind Astroworld, specifically Scoremore Productions, a subsidiary of Live Nation Concerts, for lack of preparedness around large crowds.
"Compared to shows in established venue structures, such as the ATT Center or Globe Life, manufactured events like the Astroworld show, which occurred in a parking lot, require unique contingency plans," the report said. "For these manufactured events, there is a serious safety risk if venue borders are susceptible to a breach that results in unauthorized entrance to the grounds, and especially into sections reserved for first responders. This influx of people can overwhelm even a well-planned event's security and staff and may result in the introduction of contraband not screened at designated entry points."
The concert's safety plan has been criticized by public safety experts who say it failed to adequately prepare for such a crowd.
Scores of lawsuits were filed in response to the incident, many of which were combined into one suit currently in front of a Harris County judge. Local law enforcement have been actively investigating the event, and the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight and Reform Committee launched its own probe.
For future concerts, the group suggested barricades and adequate communication. It also recommended a scan of social media hashtags and artist accounts for the general "mood of the crowd in real time."
The Texas Music Office also created an Event Production Guide that further details the recommendations provided in the report for future events.
One of the people who served on the task force, Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association President Marty Lancton, praised the plan in a statement Tuesday night.
"There would have been no lives lost if the policies contained in this report had been in place last fall, especially the requirement of a unified command and control for all first responders working the event," Lancton said. "In the future, the Houston Fire Department must be the entity designated to fulfill that responsibility." | https://www.keranews.org/news/2022-04-20/gov-abbotts-concert-safety-task-force-finds-5-key-factors-led-to-astroworld-incident | 2022-05-12T15:44:57Z |
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