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Texas Jeff

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Everything posted by Texas Jeff

  1. Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads...
  2. BTW, Austin ISD's Robin Hood payment is expected to be around $709 million next year. I think it was around $618 million two or so years ago. They collect the money; they just can't keep the money. We are approaching a $10,000 Robin Hood payment per enrolled student -- currently around $9400 per kid.
  3. I would just take them back to the campus where you got them, go the office and hand them in. Most of the campus are pretty vacant right now but I know the admin staff at the high school level will be back in by mid-July or so. Certainly you could take them back when school resumes. AISD did send out emails to groups like graduating seniors, people not returning, etc telling them to turn in their technology in May, but you may have missed it if you've completely left the district.
  4. I track vaccine data for Texas, but I use projected 2021 population data rather than the 2019 data used by the state. At my higher population numbers, today is a big day for Texas -- 50.01% of the eligible population now has a first shot. Halfway there... Travis County is a day or two away from two-thirds of the eligible population having a first shot. The number of first shot vaccinations per day has stabilized. There was a bump mid-May when the 12-15 group became eligible but since then it's been pretty flat, around 40k per day.
  5. Over the weekend, I went back and watched portions of the city council discussion to see where this is headed. I can report back and say it is not headed anywhere. The council and city staff are still bunkered up from COVID, and there is only so much you can accomplish via Zoom. The folks on council that got us to this point don't want to take any steps that might harm the homeless. Somehow they want the city staff to come up with large sites out of the floodplain near downtown that are city owned that are not being used for any other purpose, in one of the most expensive downtown areas in the country. Also, one site per district would be best, unless said site is actually in a council member's district, in which case it's a bad idea. Add it up and there is no solution, and council and staff have a bunch of circular discussions that eventually end with "meeting adjourned, thanks everyone for all of the hard work". Don't think that there is a plan that maps to reality ... I didn't see one.
  6. The Texas 7 day new case average bottomed out about a week ago but has doubled since then. Hopefully it's a glitch in the data but it could be the start of a wave. People of Texas, get vaccinated ...
  7. More than 13,000,000 Texans have now helped stop COVID by getting at least first shot. Even with the slowdown, people choosing to get a first shot are still outnumbering newly diagnosed cases about 18:1.
  8. There is an old Air Force golf course that is part of ABIA that has the space for an entire camp, next door to a Travis Co correctional facility. Putting a camp there would bother no one, so long as they could keep people off the runways. This is not supposed to be permanent housing and it does not have to be great.
  9. BTW the fine print on the Travis County dashboard for hospitalizations says: "Metropolitan Statistical Area MSA: Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis, & Williamson Counties" So it looks like that number is for the five county area. Perhaps they are not all in Travis Co hospital beds. Maybe they are. But the stat appears to be for the MSA, not Travis Co.
  10. Travis Co reporting 480 active cases today. First day under 500 since April 6th, 2020.
  11. They should be. The homeless folks are going from camping on a sidewalk to a spot with a full time manager, two security guards, a social worker, food, laundry, restrooms, showers ... ... versus living in a tent down by the river in most other Texas towns. The city will be able to fill up 100 of those campsites.
  12. In Travis Co, today was the first day the seven day average has been below 50 since May 17, 2020. Careful on those daily stats. Lots of counties have stopped reporting numbers over the weekend so you're likely to see big drops on Sat/Sun/Mon as weekend numbers dip, then bigger numbers Mon/Tue/Wed as the data catches up. Seven day averages are your friend... Texas had low numbers on the weekend, tweets all around! Today was 8-10x the weekend numbers statewide ... not as many tweets. Still headed in the right direction.
  13. You go Travis County... ... 4.5% of 12-15 year olds got their first shot by the end of Saturday ... population 12 and older is over 59% first shots ... 65 and older is over 78% first shots. join the herd everyone, it's the easy way out of this thing! Both Texas and Travis Co are showing vaccination bumps now that 12-15 year olds are in the game...
  14. Maybe 1997? https://www.texasfreeway.com/austin/183-research-blvd/
  15. Those are crazy numbers. Why would we pay for two security guards to watch 100 people 24/7 at a cost of $3900 per person per year? Are social services people really $171k per year each ... to watch over 50 people in addition to what the operational staffer and the security guards are doing? That is 3x teacher pay. Each camp needs an operational staffer at another $150k each? $1750 per person for annual laundry? Crazy...
  16. I think it's going to keep going down ... but it could be going down faster. Even with the slowing vaccine numbers, more people are getting vaccinated each day than are getting covid. Right now the 7 day average vaccinations for Texas is 45k and the 7 day average COVID cases is 1300. Even if we are only finding 1/4th of the covid cases out there, vaccines are winning new customers much faster than COVID is. As long as those ratios hold, eventually it will die away ...
  17. Since the re-opening we have gone from a plane crash every two days to a plane crash once a week or so. We've got that going for us, which is nice ... but still ... plane crashes, make 'em stop. We have this magical potion available for free in stores near you that can stop the plane crashes ... enough for everyone over 16 to be covered by July 4th. And it's sitting in fridges.
  18. An update on Jimmy Flannigan, the city council member that lost to Kelly... https://theaustinbulldog.org/flannigan-loses-election-lands-plum-job/ The day after he lost, he was offered a job as president of Austin Convention Enterprises. This is a non-profit that runs the city of Austin owned downtown Hilton hotel. The president is the only employee of the non-profit. Flannigan does not actual run the hotel -- the non-profit hires Hilton to do that, he just maintains the non-profit. This involves working on the website, preparing for once monthly board meetings, working with vendors associated with the non-profit. The job is limited to 20 hours per week and his compensation was set at $140,000 per year, plus $6000 for health insurance. As a council member, Flannigan voted to appoint the three directors that then hired him and to create the position that he now holds. Two of the directors donated to his reelection campaign.
  19. Deparkingism.
  20. People need an incentive to get the shot at this point. It would have been nice to give vaccination bonuses as part of the last stimulus, but that ship has sailed. Maybe local businesses could offer "welcome back" specials to folks that could present a fully vaccinated card. Like a free appitizer or 10% off your tab or something, if everyone in your party could show a card. It would get people back in places and maybe push some folks into getting the shot. People might be able to hold out for a while but they will be challenged to maintain that position when they see their friends getting free stuff.
  21. Not yet. By late May, maybe. Texas is still giving maybe a million first shots per week. Supply is catching up to demand, but demand is still there. There is going to be another demand bump when 12-15 year olds are eligible, and another one when elementary kids are eligible, and so on until all ages are covered.
  22. Sometime yesterday, the 10,000,000th Texan got their first shot. Only about 18,000,000 to go, of that 13,000,000 are over 16. Travis Co, which was weeks behind the Texas average at the beginning of March, is now surging way ahead. At current rates, Travis Co will hit 70% first shots about the same time Texas as a whole gets to 50%.
  23. A few articles about how the Austin Swing never happened back in 1995: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1995/10/12/The-Austin-Swing-struck-out-before-the-first-batter/7077813470400/ https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/1995-09-22/529795/ Evidently Austin voters rejected a proposal for a bond to pay $10 million to pay for about half of a stadium for an AA team. Not $10 billion for a train or $60 million a year for the homeless .... a one-time $10 million bond to help with a stadium. About $18 million in 2021 dollars. Seems comically low by today's standards. The city would have received 7% of ticket sales for 20-30 years, plus a portion of concessions and parking and sometime around now the city would have owned the stadium. The stadium would have probably been somewhere near Pleasant Valley and the river, east of IH-35. The stadium bond was opposed by a group called Priorities First. Said group got outed as being run by a group of developers who, and this is not going to surprise you, owned some land in Williamson Co and wanted to bring their own baseball franchise to town. Or at least close to town. Bridget Shea was the only Austin City Council member to oppose the project. She still holds elected office in Travis County.
  24. If I had to guess, the 2021 numbers are in the mail and a website update is coming along shortly...
  25. Today, Texans 50-64 reached 50% first-shots and Texans over 65 are past 65% first shots. Everyone else doesn't have long to wait, Texans 16 and over should reach the 50% mark by April 26th. It may be a few days later because of the J&J screw up, but it's right around the corner. At the current rate, we will hit 70% of first shots for all Texans over 16 by May 24th, although I suspect we will see vaccine hesitancy before then. Sometime in May you are going to see vaccine in stock everywhere.
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