BG Note | News - What We're Reading (June 4, 2018)
[Austin Metro]
City sued over CodeNEXT sign information (Austin Monitor) LINK TO STORY
Billboard company owner Billy Reagan, who helped fund the petition drive to put the new Land Development Code on the November ballot, has sued the city. His suit is not to be confused with the lawsuit filed last week to attempt to force the city to put CodeNEXT on the ballot.
In his suit, Reagan says the city is violating the Texas Public Information Act by refusing to divulge information about how it arrived at the current CodeNEXT section on billboards.
Reagan is the owner of Reagan Signs, also known as Reagan Outdoor Advertising. Attorney Bill Aleshire is representing Reagan in seeking records to show how the city arrived at the billboard rules proposed in the third draft of CodeNEXT.
... (Read more)
School transformation plan sputters after board president’s ouster (Austin American-Statesman) LINK TO STORY
The Austin school district’s plan to tap millions in state funding to help low-performing schools is in jeopardy after a lack of interest from its campuses and the ouster of a school board president who once appeared to support it.
Administrators initially looked to the state’s Transformation Zone program as a way to boost up to eight struggling schools in North and Northeast Austin. Individual plans would be designed for each participating campus, and it would bring additional autonomy and resources, but greater accountability, to help improve academic performance.
... (Read more)
Amid ‘tight timeline,’ soccer stadium debate gets very public (Austin Monitor) LINK TO STORY
With Friday’s release of two key documents related to Austin’s possible home for a relocated Major League Soccer team – and the push to build a stadium for the team on city-owned property – it’s likely that every City Council session in the near future will have some time dedicated to the issue.
That’s because Precourt Sports Ventures, the business group that owns the Columbus Crew SC team, has set the end of June as a deadline to have the major pieces of an agreement with the city in place so its representatives can begin the negotiations needed to establish a temporary home beginning in 2019.
... (Read more)
Garage band of dockless scooter engineers works to rev up GOAT (Austin American-Statesman) LINK TO STORY
Perhaps some day, if the fever dreams of GOAT’s founders come to glorious fruition, the modest Shady Hollow house and its garage will take on the historic qualities of that Los Altos, Calif., home where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started it all.
Maybe, as GOAT’s 32-year-0ld CEO and firebrand, Michael Schramm, suggests, the microcompany will someday trade blows with Bird, Lime and the other lavishly funded dockless scooter and bike rental companies and become a huge player.
It is at least a possibility that 12 people putting together purple scooters mostly by hand (including soldering circuit boards) might drive a company that accelerates from an inventory of 20 vehicles to an industry giant. How else to explain its aspirative name, an acronym for Greatest of All Time?
... (Read more)
[STATE]
Texas House and Senate leaders take early steps to consider Gov. Greg Abbott's school safety plan (Texas Tribune) LINK TO STORY
Two days after Gov. Greg Abbott released a 40-page school safety plan, Texas House and Senate leaders ordered their committees to study ways to limit shootings and increase protections in Texas public schools before students return in August.
After a Santa Fe High School student went on a shooting rampage last month, Abbott released a list of suggestions for preventing future massacres. Some are possible with immediate funding; others need future state legislation. Outgoing Texas House Speaker Joe Straus and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both Republicans, asked lawmakers in their respective chambers to study many of the suggestions in the governor’s plan.
... (Read more)
[NATION]
Surreal Trump-Kim summit defies diplomatic playbook (Politico) LINK TO STORY
How do you plan a high-stakes meeting between a freewheeling American president and a paranoid Asian dictator? The world is about to find out. As President Donald Trump prepares to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, officials from both countries are working overtime to prepare for a June 12 nuclear summit in Singapore. The event is unprecedented: A sitting U.S. president has never met with his North Korean counterpart. Kim had never even met with a fellow head of state before a March visit to Beijing.
... (Read more)