Austin’s Top News – March 5, 2021

Utility bill relief

$10 million has been approved this week by the Austin City Council for utility bill relief following last month’s storms. That includes $5 million for Austin Water customers and $5 million for Austin Energy customers, and that money will be made available immediately.

The City of Georgetown has been slapped with a whopper of an electric bill from ERCOT. Mayor Josh Schroeder tells FOX 7 they’ve got a near $45 million bill and it’s due April 1.

“Which is, you know, far beyond anything we could ever contemplate,” says Schroeder.

He says it bills for about four days worth of energy, but it totals more than the city would typically spend in an entire year. The good news, though he says utility customers shouldn’t be seeing any increase on their utility bills. 

Austin Energy General Manager Jackie Sergeant has resigned from her position on the ERCOT board. In a letter, Sergeant says that position was unpaid volunteer. ERCOT CEO Bill Magnus was fired earlier this week, and several other paid board members have also recently resigned. 

Gov. Abbott response to criticisms on lifting mask mandate

Governor Greg Greg Abbott is making no apologies for allowing people to choose whether or not to wear a mask as of next week. He tells TV station KTVT in Dallas, the lifting of the restrictions doesn’t change your own duty to make smart choices and be personally accountable, 

“Everybody must continue to assume their own individual responsibility to take the actions that they have already mastered to make sure that they will not be contracting COVID-19,” says Abbott.

He says just because people have a choice not to wear one doesn’t mean everyone must stop wearing one.

Governor Abbott is facing a lot of pushback this week over that decision, but he’s also finding plenty of support that includes from Georgetown State Senator Charles Schwertner, who’s also an orthopedic surgeon. And he thinks the governor made the right call. 

“I know all sorts of personalities and medicine and infectious disease specialists might have you wear masks even in the normal times,” says Schwertner.

Although even Schwarzer says he thinks that decision was probably influenced somewhat by politics to help deflect the attention away from that power grid failure. 

COVID-19 update

Further declines in Travis County’s COVID numbers have been seen over the past day, with hospitalizations now down to 235 overall, that includes 69 people in the ICU, which is also lower than a day ago. 1,724 cases are said to be active right now, out of 76,365 confirmed and 73,880 people have recovered. 

Overall hospital space has continued to grow this week across Williamson County where 717 beds are available as of this morning. As work continues to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible, the county says 6.6% of people have now been fully vaccinated, while nearly 15% have gotten their first dose.

Hold harmless provision

Texas schools have gotten some much needed positive financial news. Governor Greg Abbott and the TEA commissioner have announced that schools won’t lose funding based on lower attendance during the pandemic. Schools could have lost millions of dollars. To “hold harmless provision” in this case means Texas schools will receive funding this year based on pre COVID attendance projections, instead of the fraction of students that actually took advantage of in person learning 

“Without ‘hold harmless’, we would be looking at probably massive numbers of layoffs through many of our schools, districts, urban districts, rural districts alike,” says Zeph Capo of the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers. “Without it, we could have been coupling disastrous problem on top of disastrous problem.”

Sexual abuse lawsuit against AISD

Attorneys representing a mother who says her five year old child was sexually abused two years ago is expected to provide details on a lawsuit she filed this week against AISD. District Chief of Police Ashley Gonzalez, and former bus driver Cesar Maldonado, who is now serving a 20 year prison sentence for the abuse. The suit says AISD has repeatedly failed to protect its students. 

Special election

A special election is being held tomorrow in Hutto to decide who will take over as the city’s next mayor. Current Councilman Mike Snyder is running against Steven Harris. Voters will also decide who will represent City Council Place 3 and the race between Randal Clark and Mandi Villareal Salvo. Former mayor Doug Gaul resigned back in November for personal reasons.

Declawing banned

The practice of declawing cats is now illegal within the city limits of Austin. City Council has approved an ordinance banning declawing unless it’s deemed to be medically necessary by a veterinarian. Austin is now the first city in the state of Texas to ban declawing. Many veterinarians, though, have moved away from that procedure in recent years.

This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:

https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-3-5-21