Abbott against defunding police
Texas Governor Greg Abbott once again touches on the issue of cities like Austin defunding police. Speaking with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Abbott says he wants to make it “fiscally impossible” to do that.
“I think the one that forces a city to choose between either bankruptcy or funding their police is the best policy,” says Abbott.
He says that will be among the priorities of this new legislative session. Abbott’s plan involves requiring the state comptroller to withhold sales tax revenue from cities until councils agree to properly fund their police departments.
Travis County DA holds law enforcement accountable
The new Travis County district attorney is making the Mike Ramos and Javier Ambler case is his top priority. Travis County DA José Garza says he’ll see both of those cases in front of a grand jury by March 30. Part of Garza’s campaign for the DA seat was to hold law enforcement accountable.
“And our community has been clear. They think that it is crucial that if a law enforcement officer commits a crime that that law enforcement officer be held accountable and they have been clear that they expect transparency on these cases,” says Garza.
To that end, Garza has also released information on every pending case his office of civil rights unit has .
COVID-19 update
On the coronavirus front, hospitalizations have fallen slightly in Travis County, down by six from yesterday to a total of 601 this morning. Still very high. 186 people in the ICU, that has increased by one. There’s also been a fairly sizable jump in active cases, which have risen up to 6,364 today. Over all, the counties flag about 59,000 cases, resulting in 52,439 recoveries.
Vaccination lines
Travis County’s vaccination clinics are experiencing very long lines. With only 12,000 doses given out to Austin Public Health this week, not everybody who’s showing up is getting one. Sandra Kelly tells CBS Austin she and her friend both had appointments.
“Got out here at 8:15, and there are about 350 people in front of it. And as it turned out, a lot of them were turned away because they did not have appointments,” she says.
Pre-registration for phase 1A and 1B began Wednesday. Austin Public Health expects all 12,000 doses to be gone by today or tomorrow.
It didn’t happen as quickly as promised, but state leaders say Texas has now surpassed one million vaccinations, which is more than any other state in the nation. Governor Abbott had projected more than a million doses being given out before the end of last year, but it actually took a full month to hit that one million mark.
Local school district update
Leadership in the Austin school district is asking parents to keep kids at home following the MLK holiday. That comes as Travis County Health Authority Mark Escott says the new semester is causing him some concern.
“The positivity rate is much higher, four times what it was in the fall. We have a new variant, which is almost certainly impacting the spread of disease here,” says Escott.
He feels that it’s a bit disastrous that some school campuses were operating between 70 and 90% capacity.
More than a dozen local districts have signed a letter to Mark Escott asking that he make teacher vaccinations a priority in the next round. The letter estimates only about 10-15% of faculty and staff in the area are eligible right now in phase 1B. Districts that have signed that letter include Austin, Hays, Pflugerville and Lake Travis.
Speaking of Pflugerville, there’s a shortage of substitute teachers that has forced the Pflugerville district to call on administrative staff to fill in the gaps. District spokesperson Tamra Spence tells KXAN and they got about 650 subs in their system, but only about 150 are signing up to help right now.
“Our executive leadership team, which includes our superintendent and the cabinet, they’re gonna be serving in the classroom on a regular basis starting at the end of January,” says Spence.
She says to meet the day to day needs of the district. at least 250 subs are actually needed.
The Taylor Middle School has gone back to 100% online learning for now. That decision comes after nine employees have tested positive for COVID his week. The Taylor School district says kids won’t be coming back to the classroom until at least January 25.
Ken Shine Prize
UT Dell Medical School has awarded infectious disease Dr. Anthony Fauci, with the Ken Shine Prize. The school says Fauci has helped make significant advances in health. Fauci says it is an honor, but he’s still not sure why the nation is so divided right now over COVID-19.
“People are dying at the tune of 3,000-4,000 per day, and there are still people who think it’s fake and it’s made up and it’s a conspiracy,” says Fauci.
Fauci believes that it will be vital for the nation to get to the root of what has divided us so deeply over this if we expect to make any real forward progress.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-1-15-21
