BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 27, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 71: Carrie Simmons, Texas Lobbying Group (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
City of Austin expects to see more dockless vehicles used for longer trips in 2020 (Community Impact)
When electric scooters first arrived in Austin in April 2018, residents and city officials alike raised concerns about regulations, safety and inconvenience.
Today, they are a widely used resource—there were more than 5 million electric scooter trips in the city of Austin in 2019, according to the transportation department—and new vehicles capable of longer trips are entering the market.
Jacob Culberson, mobility services division manager for the transportation department, said he expects micro-mobility operators to debut more robust vehicles that can hold a longer charge and serve a wider audience, including residents with disabilities.
In November, Revel launched in Austin with 1,000 electric mopeds. That same month, Ford Motor began mapping the city of Austin, where it will launch its autonomous commercial vehicles in 2021.
Culberson expects existing operators to follow suit… (LINK TO STORY)Listen also to:
Austin Police Chief Pushes Back On Claim That City Council Resolution Decriminalizes Pot (KUT)
“First and foremost, marijuana was not decriminalized,” Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said at a news conference Friday, a day after the City Council voted not to spend money on testing suspected marijuana except in high-priority felonies.
“That is an action that can only be taken by the state Legislature,” he said. He later added: "At this point, nothing will change. We will handle it as we have."
He said there are two options: An officer will either cite a person, if warranted, and release them, or an arrest will be made.
The Travis County district attorney and the county attorney have been dismissing some marijuana cases since Texas legislators legalized hemp last year. But APD has continued to cite for low-level possession even though it doesn't have the testing protocols to distinguish marijuana from hemp.
On Thursday, Council unanimously voted not to spend city money on testing except in the case of high-priority felonies, like trafficking or violent offenses.
Council Member Greg Casar said the resolution was the biggest move the city could take to stop the prosecution of low-level cases. He said it was the right thing to do from a common sense and criminal justice perspective… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin to give more than $1M to chambers of commerce, but funding may be tweaked next year (Austin Business Journal)
Organizations that represent Austin's Hispanic, Asian, African-American and LGBT business communities will get another year of city funding at their current levels.
But changes are in the works for how Austin city government funds these groups.
Austin City Council on Jan. 23 gave the green light to one-year contracts with five business advocacy and economic development organizations. Here is how much the multi-ethnic chambers got in funding:
• Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: $212,500
• Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce: $202,500
• Greater Austin Black Chamber of Commerce: $171,000
• Austin LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce: $153,750
Council also authorized a contract that will give $350,000 to the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce's Opportunity Austin economic development campaign.
All of those payments are the same as the prior year.
Austin's Economic Development Department Director Veronica Briseño said the city will also look at its contracts with two more organizations, the Austin Independent Business Alliance and the Austin Young Chamber.
"It would be best to have them [all] on the same track," she said.
The city is entering a "transition year" for how it funds these business advocacy organizations. A report last fall by the city and its consultant, Sabre Development, suggested some of those chambers need to diversify their income to become less dependent on city funds… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Baylor student becomes second person in Texas suspected of contracting coronavirus (Texas Tribune)
Health officials in Waco are investigating the second suspected case in Texas of the deadly coronavirus, which has killed at least 25 people overseas and caused the lockdown of a city in China.
The Baylor University student, who traveled to China earlier this year, is being monitored by health officials and is isolated in a room on Baylor’s campus, according to a university release.
CBS Austin reported Friday that state health officials are investigating a potential third case but that they declined to provide the patient's location.
The first suspected case was an unnamed student at Texas A&M University who traveled from Wuhan, China, where the virus originated, said Dr. Eric Wilke, a Brazos County health official, at a Thursday press conference… (LINK TO STORY)
Rep. Henry Cuellar gets dark money help as he defends against progressive challenger (Houston Chronicle)
Just weeks before voting starts in what is expected to be U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar’s toughest re-election fight in years, a dark money group is flooding his South Texas district with ads supporting him. The nonprofit American Workers for Progress has poured more than $720,000 into ads in Austin, San Antonio, Laredo, McAllen, Brownsville and Harlingen, according to Advertising Analytics, a private firm that tracks political advertising.
Little is known about the newly formed group. A longtime Democratic operative listed as its president declined to comment. Cuellar's campaign spokesman says he knows nothing about the group, as does the state Democratic party. Nonetheless, the heavy spending is a sign of how nervous some in Cuellar's orbit are that Jessica Cisneros, a 26-year-old immigration attorney from Laredo who has become a star in progressive circles, could end his 15-year stint in Congress. The race will provide an early indication in 2020 of the electability of several progressive hopefuls in Texas. They argue that a key to turning the state blue will be reaching voters who have not made a habit of voting in the past, especially young and minority voters, who they believe can be energized by an unflinching progressive message… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
So long, California? Goodbye, Texas? Taxpayers decide some states aren’t worth it (Wall Street Journal)
Larry Belardi and Bobbie LaPorte are longtime San Francisco residents, but they are planning to leave California for Nevada next year. A turning point was the federal tax overhaul that Congress passed in late 2017. The law made it costlier to own a house in many high-price, high-tax areas, reshaping the economics of homeownership in those slices of the U.S. Two years after President Trump signed the tax law, its effects are rippling through local economies and housing markets, pushing some people to move from high-tax states where they have long lived. Parts of Florida, for example, are getting an influx of buyers from states such as New York, New Jersey and Illinois.
Many people saw their overall taxes go down after the 2017 law was passed. But the law had two main changes making it tougher to live in high-cost, high-tax states, especially compared with lower-taxed options. It essentially curbed how much homeowners can subtract from their federal taxes for paying local property and income taxes, by capping the state and local tax deduction at $10,000. It also lowered the size of mortgages for which new buyers can deduct the interest, to $750,000 from $1 million. These changes have the biggest impact on a sliver of the population who have high incomes and live in expensive areas. They tend to have white-collar jobs and the ability to pick up and move. Many own their own businesses, work remotely or are nearing retirement. Critics say the changes have hurt everyone who lives in high-tax states, by taking a bite out of tax revenue. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, for example, panned the state and local tax cap last year. “It has redistributed wealth in this nation from Democratic states—we’re also called blue states—to red states,” he said at the time… (LINK TO STORY)
Schiff ‘has not paid the price’ for impeachment, Trump says in what appears to be veiled threat (Washington Post)
President Trump escalated his attacks on Rep. Adam B. Schiff on Sunday, issuing what appears to be a veiled threat against the California Democrat one day before Trump’s team is expected to deliver the crux of its defense in the third presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history. “Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and probably a very sick man,” Trump tweeted Sunday morning. “He has not paid the price, yet, for what he has done to our Country!”
Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is the lead impeachment manager in the Senate trial. Schiff responded in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” saying he believes Trump’s remarks were intended as a threat. “This is a wrathful and vindictive president; I don’t think there’s any doubt about it,” Schiff said in the interview. “And if you think there is, look at the president’s tweets about me today, saying that I should ‘pay a price.’ ”… (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.
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