Bill Magnus of ERCOT fired
Bill Magnus is in his final days as the CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. The circuit board this week has voted to hand Magnus a 60 day termination notice. During recent hearings, Magnus had very few answers about the power outages to satisfy state lawmakers.
“I think things have to change to avoid this kind of situation again. What all those things are, sitting here today, Senator, respectfully, I don’t think I know,” Magnus says.
The board spent only a small amount of time and discussion before voting to fire Magnus. Five other board members resigned late last month.
Utility relief programs
The Austin City Council will vote today on some relief programs for utility customers. One proposal is putting $5 million into an assistance fund for Austin Water and $5 million into a fund for Austin Energy and then provide utility bill relief that way. Council will also consider a $10 credit on an upcoming electric bill.
Austin’s Water Oversight Committee has gotten an update from Water Director Greg Mesaros, who says the outages during the winter storm were demoralizing for the utility. He says Austin Water is pledging to do better moving forward.
“Austin Water is going to play a more significant role in seeing that those resources are secured and stored prior to any event. It’s too difficult to lift those off the ground during an event,” says Mesaros.
He says Austin Water has already begun work on updated real time maps showing outages and leaks.
COVID-19 update
On to coronavirus now where Travis County’s numbers have not really moved much in either direction over the past day. This morning there are 242 people hospitalized because of the virus, 74 of whom are in the ICU. 1,718 cases active out of the 76,274 confirmed over the past year, and 73,802 recoveries.
And overall hospital capacity has increased a bit this week for Williamson County, which this morning is reporting 673 available hospital beds. That equates to 16% across the country, a little bit more than when we were starting out the week. 6.4% of the county has been fully vaccinated, and more than 14% of Williamson County have gotten one dose of the COVID vaccine so far.
Mask wearing mandates response
Several members of Governor Abbott’s open texas strikeforce say they weren’t involved in his decision to lift the COVID restrictions. Dr. Parker Hudson is one of the members. He tweeted Wednesday that he was not consulted prior to the governor’s executive order, ending the COVID restrictions. Dr. Mark McClellan, another member, called the governor’s order premature. On Wednesday, Department of State Health Services Commissioner Dr. John Hellerstedt was asked whether he specifically spoke with Governor Abbott about the executive order.
“Did the governor consult with you on his decision to lift the statewide mask order?”
“We have daily discussions with the governor’s staff about what we in public health see going on in terms of trends.”
Austin and Travis County health officials say they want to see people wearing masks for quite a while. Austin area Dr. Jose Ayala says the area needs to see 80% of the local population vaccinated for COVID-19 before they should relax masking. Currently, about 10% of Texans have been vaccinated, Ayala says. I think we have a long way to go.
“I think there needs to be a lot more education. There’s a lot of people who fear vaccines, so we need to reassure and educate the population,” says Ayala.
In Travis County, officials say less than 6% of residents have been fully vaccinated.
Possible restrictions if cases rise
Travis County is really trying to find any angle it can to maintain control over the populist now that won’t be able to force the wearing of masks. County Judge Andy Brown says that may mean finding a way to limit what local bars and restaurants can do.
“If that means changing the hours of openings of restaurants. And that’s something that we’re able to do under this new order, that’s absolutely something that I would look at doing,” says Brown.
Not only would Brown consider limiting the hours of bars and restaurants, he also says he would consider banning alcohol sales before 2 a.m.
So there has been a lot of anger this week over Governor Abbott giving the public a choice about mask wearing. Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell, who resisted imposing a mandate at the beginning of the pandemic, tells CBS Austin he does support this.
“Our hospitalization has plummeted in the region or area. The number of positive tests, they have plummeted and the number of people being vaccinated daily in our community is just going through the roof,” says Gravell.
County judges can impose a mask mandate if total COVID hospitalizations climb above 15% which Gravell says he would consider if the numbers go back up.
This news and more on News Radio KLBJ:
https://omny.fm/shows/klbjam-flash-briefing-1/am-newscast-3-4-21
