Austin, TX
Save Our Springs Alliance lawsuit seeks to remove Austin charter amendments from ballot
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a new statement shared by a spokesperson of the city of Austin.
The Austin City Council violated the Texas Open Meetings Act when placing a slate of charter amendments on the Nov. 5 general election ballot, a lawsuit filed Monday claims.
The suit was filed in Travis County’s 98th District Court by attorneys representing the Save Our Springs Alliance, an environmental nonprofit; its executive director, Bill Bunch; and Joe Riddell, a former staff attorney in the Texas attorney general’s office.
It seeks to invalidate the City Council’s approval of adding the charter amendments to the ballot. As Monday is the last day to order an election, if a judge rules in favor of the group, the 13 charter amendments approved last week by the City Council would not make it onto the ballot this year.
The lawsuit asserts that the city’s governing body violated both the public participation requirements and the public notice requirements of the act when it authorized the election at a hearing last Wednesday because all of the proposed amendments were compressed into one agenda item, rather than each one being taken up individually. This limited the amount of time a person could speak on the amendments and did not give substantial public notice on what the amendments would change, the lawsuit claims.
“The Austin City Council is becoming lawless, and this lawsuit is another example of their arrogant disdain for transparency. Mayor Watson and the Council majority are undermining democracy with violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act,” Bill Aleshire, a former Travis County judge and attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a news release.
Bunch has seen success in the courts in suing the Austin mayor and City Council over violations of the Texas Open Meetings Act in the past.
“Following a lengthy and robust charter amendment process that included multiple opportunities for public input, we are aware of the lawsuit that SOS filed today that challenges the August 14 charter amendment election ordinance,” read a statement shared by city of Austin spokesperson David Ochsner with the American-Statesman. “The city stands by the process used.”
The city charter is a comprehensive legal document of the city of Austin’s rules and regulations. The proposed charter amendments include raising the threshold of signatures needed for a recall election of a City Council member from 10% of registered voters in the council member’s district to 15%, giving the City Council the authority to appoint and remove the city attorney, and requiring that initiative elections and citizen-initiated charter elections occur in even-year November general elections.
Austin, TX
Man arrested, charged for deadly shooting at downtown Austin hotel
AUSTIN, Texas – A 20-year-old was arrested and charged with murder for a deadly shooting at the Cambria Hotel in downtown Austin, police said.
What we know:
Police said on Monday, Jan. 5, around 6:55 a.m., officers responded to a report of a gunshot at the Cambria Hotel at 68 East Avenue #824. The caller said a person had been shot.
When officers arrived, they found a man with injuries. He later died at the scene. He was identified as Luke Bradburn.
The investigation revealed that Bradburn drove and crashed a car that belonged to 20-year-old Maximillian Salinas. After the crash, Bradburn and the other people in the car left and went to the Cambria Hotel.
Salinas went to the hotel and shot Bradburn.
On Jan. 6, Salinas was arrested and charged with murder.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Austin Police at 512-974-TIPS. You may submit your tip anonymously through the Capital Area Crime Stoppers Program by visiting austincrimestoppers.org or calling 512-472-8477.
The Source: Information from the Austin Police Department
Austin, TX
Austin activists hold anti-ICE protests following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis
Chants of “shame” and “ICE out of Texas” rang through the street as Austin-area activists joined thousands across the nation in protesting the killing of Renee Nicole Good, who was fatally shot Wednesday by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
The protest was held in front of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security building in Pflugerville.
Good, 37, was shot in her SUV while attempting to drive away from several ICE officers who ordered her to exit her vehicle.
Scarleth Lopez with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the organization that led the protest, said the videos of the shooting in Minneapolis were “sickening.”
“Trump has lied and and said that Renee was a terrorist. She was a mother. She was an innocent bystander,” Lopez said. “We must organize to stop these people from kidnapping and murdering.”
Lorianne Willett
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KUT News
Elizabeth Bope, a retired Pflugerville ISD teacher, said the claims from federal and state lawmakers that Good was attempting to strike the ICE agent with her vehicle inspired her to attend the protest.
Such claims were posted online by Vice President J.D. Vance and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Attorney General Ken Paxton reposted a statement from DHS on X, formerly known as Twitter, that said the ICE agent “relied on his training and saved his own life.”
“It’s beyond really any words that they killed this woman for no reason, but also that they’re lying about it,” Bope said. “I’m not even a radical left person, I’m just a regular old Democrat.”
Other key Texas leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, have not commented on the shooting.
Lorianne Willett
/
KUT News
Doug Tickner, who said he works for a home building company in Austin, said he felt it was important to show up in person for Good.
“I don’t really think of Minneapolis as being that far from here, and it’s not like what happened in Minneapolis was some sort of one off unique event,” Tickner said. “This is part of a pattern, and I feel folks better wake up and realize that this is becoming more and more serious.”
The news that federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon, broke hours before the protest.
The gathering in Pflugerville is among the first of four anti-ICE demonstrations planned across the Austin area over the next few days.
Earlier on Thursday, protesters gathered at the intersection of 45th Street and Lamar Boulevard during rush hour. A protest on Friday will be held at the Capitol and another will be held Saturday at City Hall.
Lorianne Willett
/
KUT News
State and federal leaders are now sparring over who should conduct an investigation into the Minneapolis shooting, according to NPR.
Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, which was originally asked to conduct a joint investigation with the FBI, said in a statement it was later told the investigation would be led solely by federal authorities.
Austin, TX
Flesh-eating screwworm may be moving closer to Texas on its own, ag commissioner says
AUSTIN, Texas – A Texas agency is concerned that the flesh-eating New World screwworm could be getting closer to Texas without commercial livestock movement.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller is sounding the alarm again for livestock owners to remain vigilant in watching for signs of the parasite in their animals.
Screwworm sighting near Texas
The latest:
Miller said in a Thursday release that a screwworm had been detected in a cow in González, Tamaulipas, a little more than 200 miles from the southern Texas border.
According to the commissioner, the cow had no reported history of movement outside Tamaulipas, and is the third active case reported there.
Officials in Mexico have not reported a known population of the worm in Tamaulipas. They’re working with U.S. authorities to investigate further into the new case.
What they’re saying:
“The screwworm now may be moving closer on its own, with no apparent link to commercial animal movement,” Commissioner Miller said. “Texas producers must act now—stay informed, stay vigilant, and prepare immediately. We cannot drop our guard for even a moment.”
Inspect livestock for screwworm
What you can do:
Miller urged immediate action from ranchers along the Texas border.
“Inspect your animals daily,” Miller said. “Check every open wound. If anything looks suspicious, report it right away. Better a false alarm than a delayed response—early detection and rapid reporting are our strongest defenses against this devastating pest.”
U.S. plan to fight screwworm in Texas
Big picture view:
The threat to cattle has been deemed so potentially devastating to the U.S. food supply that the federal government is committing $850 million to fight it.
Most of that money will be spent on building a sterile male fly production facility near the border.
The facility will produce 300 million sterile male flies a week to be dropped into target areas where the screwworm is now. Those male flies help to reduce the population size through mating without reproducing.
A much smaller portion of the funding will be used for screwworm detection technology.
In addition, the federal government has already spent $21 million on a sterile fly production facility in Mexico.
What are New World screwworms?
Dig deeper:
The insect gets its name because it’s only found in the Americas.
It lays its eggs in the open wounds of animals, and its larvae become parasites, threatening livestock, domestic animals, and even people.
The screwworm was mostly eradicated in Texas and the rest of the United States in the 60s. But now, it’s moving north up from Panama and has a known presence a little over 300 miles south of the Texas-Mexico border.
The Source: Information in this article comes from Sid Miller.
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