BG Reads | News You Need to Know (December 20, 2019)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 66: Generational Leadership with Michael Linehan, Land Strategies Inc., and Preston Flynn, Flynn Construction Inc. (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Harper-Madison looks back on lessons and growth in first year on Council (Austin Monitor)
Looking back on her first year representing Austin’s District 1 seat on City Council, Natasha Harper-Madison said her early motivations for running for office were largely personal. She wanted to address issues specific to her district and its people rather than grasping macro issues such as transportation, and abstract issues like “giving voice to the voiceless.”
Her concern for everyday people and their concerns hasn’t changed, but Harper-Madison admits she listened to the advice Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza offered her early after winning election about how to take a measured approach to the demands of the job.
“Prior to this, Delia pulled me aside and said, I know you’re passionate and excited and optimistic, and she basically told me, calm down and don’t burn yourself out, because if you go hard on everything you’ll burn yourself out, and you need to assess how you’re going to be more measured and calculated with expenditure of energy. That was good advice.”
Harper-Madison still directs much of her energy toward district-level issues and relationships while also expanding her attention to the big-picture issues such as land use policy and the anticipated decisions on what kind of an area transportation package will go before voters in November… (LINK TO STORY)
See also:
Delia Garza recalls 2019 as a good year (Austin Monitor)
The year 2019 has been a good year for Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza. The former firefighter pushed hard for new fire stations for her District 2 constituents, and she got a great birthday present on June 5 when the city broke ground on a new station for the Del Valle/Moore’s Crossing area.
“It was a great birthday present because that fire station was not slated to be built for at least 10 years,” she told the Austin Monitor. But Garza fought for the changes and that one station moved up the ladder. However, the city is not keeping up with its firefighting needs. “This will continue to be a problem as the city sprawls,” Garza said, “and even more of a problem with revenue caps,” as the city struggles to find money to fund new stations.
In the meantime, Garza’s Del Valle constituents now have a new temporary fire station because Sen. Kirk Watson arranged for the city to revamp an old Texas Highway 130 tollbooth that wasn’t being used. Garza said renovating the tollbooth only cost the city about $50,000 and included an oven and workout facilities for the firefighters… (LINK TO STORY)
See also:
BG Podcast Episode 59: Land Development Code Draft 1 with Mayor Pro Tem Delia Garza
Renteria appreciates slow but steady progress to affordable, equitable city in 2019 (Austin Monitor)
As he did in 2019, Council Member Pio Renteria will continue working to create a more integrated, walkable and resilient city in the next year.
“Historically, Austin is a city that has been segregated, and we’re trying to change that,” he told the Monitor during an interview last week.
Renteria praises the city’s success in creating the Mueller community, where he says people of all races and incomes continue to live peacefully in a walkable environment. He acknowledges, however, that most developments don’t come with the opportunity to build out a master plan on city-owned land.
With The Grove, for example, a mixed-use, planned unit development currently under construction in Northwest Austin, Renteria lamented that the city was only able to require that 10 percent of units be affordable at 80 percent of median family income. Fortunately, the city was able to negotiate the affordable units down to 60 percent MFI, but Renteria noted the contrast with Mueller, which includes 26 percent affordable units today… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport continues expansion, hopes to keep pace with growing population (Community Impact)
The Austin-Bergstrom International Airport recorded its third-busiest month in history this October, as airport data showed 1.57 million passengers traveled through it during the city’s fall festival season.
Between January and October 2019, more than 14 million customers traveled through the airport, and by the end of the year, after the flurry of busy holiday travel, the airport’s Executive Director of Aviation Jacqueline Yaft said that passenger number is expected to reach a record 17 million.
For now, Yaft said, the airport is equipped to handle all the passenger traffic and provide customers with a good experience. It added nine gates this year in a $350 million project to increase capacity, along with a parking garage with 6,000 spaces… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
In A Fight For Healthier Food, Fort Worth Is Fending Off Dollar Stores (KUT)
Earlier this year, Fort Worth Councilwoman Kelly Allen Gray noticed something unusual in her district. A lot of dollar stores were opening their doors in a small area – over a hundred stores in a 15-mile radius. And some of her constituents didn’t like what they were seeing.
“And the more we started having the conversation, the more residents, the more citizens started joining expressing their concerns of these stores that were opening in their communities,” Gray says.
Her constituents were concerned that stores like Dollar General and Dollar Tree were keeping out full-service grocers like H-E-B and Kroger, and forcing residents to travel farther to access fresh foods.
So the councilwoman led the push to change city’s zoning code to prevent new dollar stores from opening within two miles of an existing one. Any new dollar store would also have to devote at least 15% of floor space to fresh foods.
The measure passed with an 8-1 vote this month… (LINK TO STORY)
The Texas suburbs are slipping away from the GOP. These women for Trump want to win them back. (Texas Tribune)
An audible groan erupted in the lounge area of Houston’s Gulf Coast Distillers in late October when high-profile Trump campaign operative Mica Mosbacher invoked the idea of a Democratic presidency.
Mosbacher encouraged the audience of roughly 50 GOP women — a group that included a millionaire Texas congressional candidate, the owner of a gun store and a Gov. Greg Abbott political appointee — to turn their grumbling into action.
“It’s not the boy’s club anymore,” she said.
Texas Republicans need women on their side if they’re going to keep the state red in 2020, but recent polls suggest President Donald Trump’s support among women is plummeting. A secret recording of outgoing House Speaker Dennis Bonnen laid bare the GOP’s anxieties about the president: “He’s killing us in urban-suburban districts,” Bonnen told a Republican activist in late June… (LINK TO STORY)
Impeachment trial could knock White House contenders off Texas campaign trail (Houston Chronicle)
An impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate could have a big impact on the Democratic presidential primary and keep leading contenders for the White House off the campaign trail in Texas for as long as six weeks. Once an impeachment proceeding starts, U.S. Senators are required to remain in D.C. for 6 days a week until the trial concludes. That could be as quick as two weeks and as long as 6 weeks according to some estimates. The last time there was an impeachment proceeding in 1999 against President Bill Clinton, it lasted over a month from Jan. 7 to Feb. 12.
If that were to happen again, it would most likely prevent U.S. Sens Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Amy Klobuchar, and Cory Booker from campaigning in the four early primary states or Texas, which votes on March 3 as part of Super Tuesday. Warren has acknowledged the possibility in interviews with reporters, saying it would be her responsibility to remain in D.C. even if it meant leaving the campaign trail. “There are some things that are more important than politics, and if we have an impeachment proceeding going on, I will be there,” Warren told reporters in New Hampshire last week. “This is not about politics. Impeachment is something I take very seriously.”… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
U.S. House passes replacement for North American Free Trade Agreement (Texas Tribune)
The U.S. House passed a major trade deal on Thursday that will reset the economic relationships within North America.The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement passed with a 385-41 vote and will now head to the Senate, which is expected to approve it next year. The deal will replace the North American Free Trade Agreement, a 1994 agreement that dramatically changed the landscape of the Texas economy. While the three countries announced the agreement a year ago, the deal hit some turbulence in the Democratically-controlled House.Many Texas lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have urged its passage, due to the state's reliance on cross-border commerce with Mexico. Texas has more ports of entry with Mexico — or any country, for that matter — than any other state in the U.S. In a sign of the trade deal's importance to the state, all Texans in the House voted in favor of it…(LINK TO STORY)
The Bingham Group, LLC is an Austin-based full service lobbying firm representing and advising clients on municipal, legislative, and regulatory matters throughout Texas.
PLEASE RESHARE and FOLLOW:
Twitter #binghamgp
Instagram #binghamgp