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State Representative Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock), author of House Bill 2127

Have you contacted your city or county government recently, asking for enforcement of a local ordinance? Email Andrew Schneider at andrews@houstonpublicmedia.org or contact him on Twitter @aschneider_hpm.

Over the past several years, Republican state lawmakers have passed laws blocking local governments from regulating issues ranging from fracking to ridesharing services. Now, legislators are poised to adopt a far broader measure to limit the self-government powers of cities and counties.

"This is a kind of Death Star bill"

Bill Kelly has been tracking efforts by the State of Texas to limit local government powers ever since he started working as Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner's director of government relations seven years ago. He said Republican lawmakers are more aggressive this session than they've ever been before. But there's one measure that concerns Kelly above all: House Bill 2127, known as the Texas Regulatory Consistency Act, which passed the House and is now in the Senate.

"Its very concerning for Home Rule cities like Houston and about the 349 other Home Rule cities, because it takes eight different fields of government code and basically says you will not legislate in this area unless we give you permission to," Kelly said.

Those fields include labor and occupations, the environment, and finance, among others. Kelly said the only matter Houston regulates in its finance code is payday lending, loans at high rates of interest that need to be paid back immediately and target low-income residents and communities of color.

"Really awful practices that youve seen us and over 30 cities in Texas, from very conservative Midland to our friends in Austin, everybody has got these local ordinances that regulate payday lending. Those would be wiped out," Kelly said.

Hany Khalil, executive director of the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation, fears a wide range of protections for working class Texans would vanish.

"This is a kind of Death Star bill," Khalil said. "Local governments ability to protect tenants from slumlords could be banned. The ability to respond quickly to hurricanes and industrial fires could be banned. Many of the things that we have fought for, like a $15 minimum wage for airport workers and for workers on county construction projects."

This last is particularly of concern to Khalil. He said his organization has worked closely with Harris County to craft a recently enacted policy enhancing worker safety on county construction jobs.

"Work in construction in Texas is extremely unsafe, with something on the order of about one worker dying a day due to safety considerations in Texas on these kinds of jobs," Khalil said.

Harris County's policy requires construction companies to show that they have a positive safety record. It prohibits companies that have a bad safety record from being able to apply for jobs for several years. The policy also requires that all workers on construction jobs have 10 hours of OSHA safety training and that managers have 30 hours of training.

"These are key ways to significantly reduce the number of fatalities on construction jobs in Texas, and local governments can use their existing authority, their existing procurement authority to do that. But if this bill gets passed...that authority very much is at risk," Khalil said.

The potential benefits for businesses of "regulatory consistency"

So why are Republican lawmakers going so big when it comes to preempting local control? State Representative Dustin Burrows of Lubbock is the author of the bill. He says local governments have a patchwork of regulations that increases the cost of doing business in Texas.

"This bill provides the regulatory stability and certainty that enables business owners to expand their businesses to other cities within Texas with more consistency, creating more jobs and prosperity in the process," Burrows told the House at the start of the floor debate over HB 2127. "At the same time, it actually gives local governments a hand by giving them a simple reason why they wont, in fact, be bringing a vote to countless issues that activists have been harassing them to pass locally."

Burrows gave the examples of a restaurant owner with two restaurants on either side of a city line, as well as of tradesmen operating in the same area but having to cross multiple jurisdictions in their daily work. "We want those small business owners creating new jobs and providing for their families not trying to navigate a Byzantine array of local regulations that twist and turn every time they cross (a) city limits sign," Burrows said.

State Senator Brandon Creighton authored an identical bill to HB 2127 in the Senate. He's now the lead advocate for Burrows' measure in the upper chamber.

"I had a CEO in my district out of the Conroe area that had businesses and trucking-related aspects to his business," Creighton said. "He had hired three additional people to keep up with compliance city to city and had to let go of others and terminate their positions to be able to afford those new positions."

Creighton balks at the notion that the bill would prohibit cities and counties from performing their functions of regulating on behalf of their residents. "I think were addressing what really for years has been an out-of-bounds aspect of what local governments felt like they have the authority to be doing in the first place," Creighton said.

Senator Creighton says HB 2127 is likely to pass the Senate no later than next week. "The session before last," Creighton said, "I passed a version of this bill five times out of the Senate. And it met its demise in the House very late in the last few days of session. It just ran out of time. But this has been a process over a few sessions and shouldnt be any surprise."

Opposition from local political leaders

Rene Cross, senior executive director of the University of Houston's Hobby School of Public Affairs said HB 2127 will put the state in the position of having to act on matters it traditionally does not regulate.

"Texas has had a long-term history in having very limited government. That came out of the Constitution of 1876, post-Civil War. And the idea was to limit government, allow the localities to draft the best ordinances for the local people."

If the bill passes, Cross says a lot of people could wind up falling through the cracks.

"And especially in a state such as Texas, where the populations, even just the land, the geography, everything is so different, one-size-fits-all could possibly cause some problems later on down the road."

Those potential problems have earned the bill opposition from a wide range of local politicians. Fort Bend County Judge KP George, a Democrat, says the bill is both irresponsible and politically motivated.

"The same people putting these bills in place, their mantra was local power, and now theyre doing the exact opposite," George said.

Senator Creighton noted that the bill was not bracketed to Democratic-led cities and counties, which may be why opposition to the bill has spread to Republican-led local governments as well.

"This isnt just something that the Democratic leaders of a Houston, Texas or Austin, Texas are afraid of," Cross said. "Weve already been seeing mayors and county judges that are Republican that are concerned about this. For example, Ive just read about the mayor of Bryan or the mayor of Irving (opposing the bill). Those arent exactly hotbeds of liberalism."

Several dozen North Texas mayors, led by Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer, recently co-authored an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News condemning the bill as government overreach.

Other preemption bills

As wide ranging as HB 2127 is, it's far from the only bill preempting local control on the agenda for the 88th Legislature.

"We are actively tracking well over 1,000 bills that would impact city services," the City of Houston's Bill Kelly said. "And this is, by far and away, the most that we have ever had on our oppose' track."

There are some bills where the city has made some progress in limiting the potential consequences of preemption. One is Senate Bill 1015, which governs rate increases by electric utilities. Kelly said that, from 2017 to the present, the City of Houston has saved residents $80 million by protesting rate increases from CenterPoint.

"We get to be able to protest because CenterPoint uses the exclusive right of our right-of-way to provide electricity," Kelly said. "This initial legislation would have completely taken our authority away to be able to do those protests. That is in no way in the interest of anybody that cares about paying on their electric bill, and thats something we fought hard for and are trying to get those protections added back."

Kelly said that the city has had some success, and it's hoping to moderate the bill further as it moves through the House.

Another measure Houston has been able to blunt the effects of is HB 1526, governing municipal parklands. The bill has already passed the House and is awaiting action in the Senate.

Kelly noted that, for every new home constructed in Houston, the city charges a flat fee of $700 that goes to fund parks.

"The last time that we increased that fee was when (State Senator) Carol Alvarado was a councilmember back in 2007." Kelly said. He noted that HB 1526, as originally worded, would have reduced that fee to $7. "We were able to really push, and with repeated testimony, to be able to get that back. We completely exempted single family housing from it. But still, I just dont understand why people would want to reduce the money thats there for parks."

Then there's SB 577, which has passed the Senate and is now in the House. SB 577 primarily deals with food safety regulated by local health departments, but it also covers sound ordinances that is, regulations dealing with noise pollution.

Kelly pointed to Houston's sound ordinance as the product of two years' work by Councilmembers Sally Alcorn and Abbie Kamin. The ordinance is enforceable by the Houston Police Department. SB 577 would nullify it.

"It makes no sense to me why the state of Texas would want to say, We have a one-size-fits-all sound ordinance for the state,' when were the largest American city without zoning," Kelly said. "(Noise pollution) should absolutely be something that you can call your councilmember on if you have a problem, because Council meets every week. It shouldnt be something that you have to call your state rep or state senator on, who meet once every two years. Thats not protecting the quality of life."

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A Death Star bill aimed at overriding a wide range of local government control powers is likely to pass the Senate - Houston Public Media

WHO is concerned with continued attempts by the tobacco industry and their surrogates to further its interests to influence scientific research, public perception, policy making, and the media; all aimed to ensure proliferation and sale of nicotine and tobacco products.

The tobacco industry continues to amplify misinformation in the media, including the recent egregious attacks on tobacco control organizations[1]. The tobacco industry is the only one that stands to benefit by undermining tobacco control organizations.

There is a fundamental and irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industrys interests and public health policy interests. WHO urges all Member States to ensure that they are not partnering with or accepting funds from the industry or its front groups.

The international community must not forget that the tobacco industry knowingly denied its products were linked with cancer and falsely claimed there was no harm from secondhand smoke.

This misleading conduct continues today with tobacco, e-cigarette, and other nicotine companies concealing the addictive nature of their products, while directly targeting children and young adults with advertisements for their harmful products. The tobacco industry has no place in tobacco control or harm reduction policy.

The tobacco industry should not be a partner in any initiative linked to setting or implementing public health policies, knowing that its interests are in direct conflict with the goals of public health.

Decades of duplicitous behavior serve as proof that tobacco companies put profit before public health.

The tobacco industry uses a broad array of tactics to interfere with the setting and implementing of tobacco control measures. One strategy is undermining the credibility of WHO and partners so that the public calls into question scientific evidence that proves the harm of tobacco and nicotine products.

Inversely, WHO and WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) use evidence-based approaches that have helped save millions of lives.

The international community must protect the implementation of the WHO FCTC, a legally binding instrument that is celebrating 20 years since its adoption at the World Health Assembly.

The WHO FCTC helps keep the tobacco industry from interfering in public health policies. Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTCcontains a legal obligation for Parties to protect public health policies from the tobacco industry. The Guidelines for implementation of Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC, assist Parties on limiting interactions with the tobacco industry and rejecting partnerships with the industry.

WHO and its tobacco control partners[1] continue to uphold the adoption of evidence-based policies to curb tobacco use like MPOWER tobacco control measures that support the full implementation of WHO FCTC. WHOs work with global tobacco control partners has strengthened public health and has now protected over 5 billion people with tobacco control measures.

These great strides in tobacco control are constantly being threatened by the tobacco industrys multibillion dollar campaign.

WHO and its global tobacco control partners do not work with or accept funds from the tobacco industry or by organizations and individuals that work to further the interests of the tobacco industry.

WHOs no tobacco unit with NGOs, foundations, academic centres and governments at all levels in our tobacco control work.https://www.knowledge-action-portal.com/en/about/gcm-participants

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2008/07/michael-bloomberg-and-bill-gates-join-to-combat-global-tobacco-epidemic

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WHO and tobacco control partners urge countries not to partner or ... - World Health Organization

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence, the Office of the President of Ukraine and leading Ukrainian journalists then agreed to hold talks for the first time over frontline access for the media. Senior presidential press adviser Mykhailo Podolyak and deputy defence minister Hanna Malyar were at the meeting, according to Stanko.

We passed on our proposals, and it seemed that we were heard, Stanko said, noting that her accreditation was returned ten days later. But a few months later, she added, the Ukrainian military introduced the system of coloured access zones.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Defence said the latest restrictions have been dictated not only by military necessity, but are also a response to a demand for greater cooperation from journalists themselves, including at the November meeting.

Access zones are a standard approach and are reviewed on a weekly basis, according to defence officials. But in practice, it is difficult for journalists to determine which settlement or military unit they can visit, and which are closed, as communication of this information isnt always clear, says Stanko.

Every time, you need to call them and find out if this or that place is in the red zone, she said.

But what Stanko finds really outrageous is the fact that the red zones arent actually closed to everyone.

We hear from the military that some representatives of the United News Marathon are allowed into the red zones, she complained.

Against a background of criticism over preferential treatment, Ukraines Ministry of Culture confirmed last month that it asked the defence ministry to give combat zone access to journalists working for the Marathon.

Implementing a united information policy is a priority for national security, the Ministry of Culture said at the time.

Ukrainian journalists are also dealing with a new balance of power as a result of the Russian invasion. The state now has much more control over the countrys media environment from keeping certain channels off air to launching new ones.

The cornerstone of the governments media policy is the United News Marathon, launched on the very first day of the Russian invasion, 24 February 2022. The National Security and Defence Council decided it must be broadcast 24/7 on Ukrainian TV so the major channels take shifts, each showing it for six-hour stints throughout the day.

Over the past year, the Marathons popularity has faded, though many still view it as a trustworthy source.

This is a source of information that is, in part, [meant] to verify what is actually happening, culture minister Oleksandr Tkachenko said last month. When people read unchecked information on Telegram, then the first thing they do is turn on the Marathon, to find out if its true.

The rest is here:
How Ukraines journalists are challenging state control of the media - openDemocracy

The Alberta government has declared a provincial state of emergency as out-of-control wildfires force more residents from their homes.

Premier Danielle Smith made the announcement at a media briefing Saturday afternoon.

Earlier in the day, at another media briefing about wildfire conditions, Smith suggested the province was considering a state of emergency.

She also described the current wildfire situation in Alberta as an "unprecedented crisis."

Under the Emergency Management Act, declaring a state of emergency is a legal mechanism that provides the provincial government with a higher level of intergovernmental co-ordination by working with municipalities, organizations and businesses to support evacuated residents.

This also allows around the clock monitoring of the situation, access to emergency discretionary funds, the ability to mobilize additional support.

Wildfire officials will provide an update of the current wildfire situation at 3:30 p.m. MT. You can watch it here live.

Nearly 25,000 Albertans have been forced from their homes as wildfires continue to rage in north and central Alberta, while 5,200 residents are on evacuation alert.

The number of active fires increased to 110 from 103, as hot and dry conditions led to fast-spreading wildfires that threatened homes, businesses and lives.

Thirty-six of those fires were considered out-of-control.

"I want to assure everyone that our province has the right tools, the right technology, and the right resources in place to tackle this challenge, and they will get the supports that they need," Smith said.

WATCH | Wildfire evacuees in Alberta speak about fleeing their homes

The federal government is on standby to help, if needed, Smith said.

A statement from the federal Emergency Preparedness office Sunday saidMinisterBill Blair "has beenin touch with his counterpart and while we have not received a formalRequest for Federal Assistancefrom the Government of Alberta, we stand ready to support them if federal aid or resources are required."

"It's a high danger time, but I do have to say this year is significantly higher as far as hectares burned than we've seen in the last five years," wildfire information officer Christie Tucker said during the media briefing.

She added that close to 350,000 hectares of land have burned since Jan 1. as of Saturday evening.

Yesterday was particularly bad in terms of conditions, she said.

"We were expecting extreme wildfire behaviour yesterday with the conditions that we were seeing and that's what we got," she said.

Tucker said that on average, the total hectares burned at this time of year usually sits at around 800.

More than 1,000 evacuees from Drayton Valley and Brazeau County have registered at the Edmonton Expo Centre, the City of Edmonton said in a news release Saturday.

"The City of Edmonton Reception Centre [is providing] temporary lodging, food services, clothing, health care and animal care for people evacuated," it said.

The Town of High Level also announced Saturday it is assisting as many as 500 evacuees from Rainbow Lake, which was evacuated earlier in the day.

Residents will be offered space in the curling rink. The town is also working on providing space for residents travelling with holiday trailers.

One of the largest evacuations is in the Edson area, including the town's 8,000 residents. People in that area are being told to evacuate to Jasper or Hinton, as parts of Highway 16 east of the area are closed.

Edson remains under "significant threat" from an out-of-control wildfire 14 kilometres southeast of the town.

The firehad consumed about 78,000 hectares at the last estimate, Alberta Wildfire said in an update Sunday morning.

The forecast is favourable for the next few days, with trace amounts of rain and overcast conditions in the Edsonforest area, which "should assist with firefighting efforts," the update said.

"That said, not all areas will receive rain, and while every little bit helps, the long-term forecast is predicting a return to hot and dry conditions within a few days, and the high/extreme fire danger is anticipated to resume," it said.

"Because these wildfires have been so extremely hot and will have burned deep into the ground, these fires can re-ignite again even after several days of light rain, especially once these hot, dry and windy conditions return."

On Saturday, Alberta Health Services temporarily closed the Edson Healthcare Centre because of wildfire activity in the area.More than 90 patients and residents were moved to other care facilities across the North Zone, AHS said.

The Municipality of Jasper is warning residents to prepare for an extended power outage.

Lindsay Lauer is 36 weeks pregnant and evacuated from Drayton Valley with her family, including her one-year-old child.

"I'm feeling just very overwhelmed and very scared and unsure of what's happening in our community," she said.

"It was a very traumatic experience for sure for my family. So there's a lot of different emotions going on right now."

Her husband has cattle he had to leave behind. She said it was sad to see people's way of life at risk around Drayton Valley.

"I've already had a very complicated pregnancy, which has not been easy on my family and I," Lauer said.

"I think just to be hit with this as well, really just was like the cherry on top of the cake to a lot of things for us."

A total of 79 firefighters from Ontario and Quebec will arrive in Alberta today to help battle the numerous fires that have ignited over the past week. An additional 200 firefighters will arrive in the coming days.

The entire province is under a fire ban. A provincial off-highway vehicle restriction is in place. The recreational use of off-highway vehicles on public land, including on designated OHV trails, is prohibited.

Alberta Wildfire is also asking people who are flying recreational drones to stop immediately.

"We have heard that people are using recreational drones operating illegally within wildfire areas of operation that can be incredibly dangerous for firefighters and for those pilots who are flying the area and can inhibit our ability to fight those fires," Tucker said.

Meanwhile, break-ins in some areas are being reported as people flee their homes.

RCMP arrested four people in relation to a break-in to a gas station in Drayton Valley, Cpl. Troy Savinkoff said in an emailed statement.

"We have investigators determining the suspects' potential involvement in other break-ins in the community," Savinkoff said.

These types of break-ins are part of why Zachary Dressler has stayed behind at his home in Drayton Valley, even though the town is under an evacuation order.

"I'm super paranoid about somebody breaking into my house," he told CBC News Saturday.

"That would really upset me a lot. So I was like, it would be better for me to be here. And if it became a fact of my house burning down then ... I would have left immediately and I would have been able to leave because nobody was here."

Deputy Commissioner Curtis Zablocki, commanding officer of Alberta RCMP, said in a news conference Saturday that most people are co-operating with evacuation orders.

"There are a few however who are somewhat reluctant and perhaps have concerns or maybe significant concerns with an evacuation. And of course, we're working with them and working with the local authorities to resolve those concerns and those situations."

Zablocki said that so far, these incidents appear to be few and far between.

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Provincial state of emergency declared in Alberta as wildfires spread ... - CBC.ca

Cleveland schools next CEO will be announced Tuesday by the Cleveland Metropolitan School District Board of Education and Mayor Justin Bibb.

The mayor and the board of education have weighed two finalists in recent weeks. The new CEO will either be Warren Morgan, chief academic officer for Indianapolis Public Schools, or Ricardo Rocky Torres, assistant superintendent for student services at Seattle Public Schools. Both have previously worked in the Cleveland schools, Torres as an assistant principal and principal from 2014 to 2019 and Morgan as an academic superintendent and administrator from 2014 to 2016.

Torres, who was previously executive director of special education at Seattle Public Schools, grew up on Clevelands west side between the Ohio City and West Park neighborhoods. He began his career as a bilingual special education teacher in New York City. Torres is bilingual in English/Spanish.

Morgan grew up on Chicagos south side. He was a principal at Chicago Public Schools for roughly four years, and prior to that, a teacher and corps member at the Teach for America nonprofit. He was also executive director of Teach for America in St. Louis for three years, and most prominently, a White House Fellow for Presidents Barrack Obama and Donald Trump.

Cleveland is unique in Ohio in that it has mayoral control of its school board, where the mayor must agree on the CEO candidate chosen by the school board.

You can read more about each finalist and their philosophies for education here.

Original post:
Next Cleveland schools CEO to be announced Tuesday - ideastream