BG Reads | News You Need to Know (February 10, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
NEW -> Episode 73: Emily Blair, Executive Vice President, Austin Apartment Association (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Gov. Abbott working to override Austin homeless camping ordinance (Fox 7 Austin)
With less than a year away, Gov. Greg Abbott revealed one of his priorities for the next legislative session: homelessness. The governor's office confirmed that a statewide solution is in the works.
While talking about Austin's homeless issues Wednesday, Abbott said on Twitter, "Next step should be to reinstate the ban on camping and work with non-profit organizations to assist with shelters. That's exactly what I will ask the Texas Legislature to do."
This comes after Austin City Council legalized camping in public back in June. Then in October, they put back in place some camping, sitting and lying restrictions.
Groups like Homes Not Handcuffs who pushed to get the homeless ban lifted say going back to criminalizing the homeless won't solve the problem.
"Can hurt trying to find a job, can hurt trying to find housing as well, having an arrest on one's record or a ticket received for violation from one of these ordinances can prevent people from getting into housing," organizer Heidi Sloan said… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin district enrollment to decline 10% next decade, report says (Austin American-Statesman)
Despite growing by several hundreds of students this school year and breaking its dwindling enrollment trend, the Austin school district’s student population is expected to resume a downward path and drop by 10% in the next decade, according to a new demographic report. Administrators had projected a loss of more than 1,600 students in the 2019-2020 school year, but the district actually gained 764 students, mostly in middle schools, according to the report by enrollment projection firm Templeton Demographics.
According to the demographic report, the Austin school district currently has 80,890 students. It also shows a slight growth in the kindergarten level, the first uptick in several years, demographers said. This could bring a little hope to a district that has been adding students to its middle and high schools but losing them at the elementary level. The report, however, predicts that the district’s student population will resume its decline in the medium- and long-terms. It projects that enrollment (excluding out-of-district transfers) will decrease by 4,597 students, or about 6% of the current student population, in the next five years. By the 2029-2030 school year, demographers expect Austin schools to have lost 7,796 students… (LINK TO STORY)
From tacos to takeoffs, growing Austin airport spreads its wings (Austin American-Statesman)
While most airports track growth by how many passengers travel through each year, Austin’s also measures its success by the sale of tacos, briskets and beer. For the 10th consecutive year, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport set an annual record for passengers, with more than 17.3 million in 2019. The airport also set a daily record of 31,934 the Monday after the Formula One U.S. Grand Prix weekend last fall.
Bryce Dubee, spokesman for the airport, said if the annual passenger count was not impressive enough, travelers also had a record-breaking appetite. In 2019, airport restaurants sold 1.6 million breakfast tacos, 71,798 pounds of brisket and 489 kegs of Real Ale Axis IPA. “It really was an amazing year for us numbers-wise, and in a lot of different ways,” Dubee said. “We increased our passenger travel by 9.62% from 2018.” One of the airport’s major successes last year was its $350 million, nine-gate expansion, which included six new international gates and more than 30 new and remodeled concessions. “If you think about opening 30 new restaurants in a town in a year, that’s basically what we did,” Dubee said… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS]
Evacuees From China Arrive At Lackland To Begin Two-Week Coronavirus Quarantine (KUT)
Dozens of men, women and children -- all American evacuees from China -- landed in a privately charted plane at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio on Friday. U.S. health officials were prepared to house and monitor the passengers, who may have been exposed to the coronavirus outbreak. They will be quarantined at an on-base hotel for two weeks.
The flight from Wuhan, a city in the Hubei province, landed at Travis Air Force Base in California. The travelers were then moved to a plane, which transported them to Lackland.
Capt. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of Centers for Disease Control's Division of High Consequence Pathogens and Pathology, explained in a briefing what happened next:
"We escorted the passengers off the plane. We screened them. We took their temperatures. And I am happy to report that we did not find any evidence of illness among the passengers who landed here today," she said.
The hotel is isolated from the rest of the base. Its perimeter will be fenced off, and federal marshals will patrol the region.
“We have contracted with a company who is experienced and has trained their personnel [on] how to handle the housekeeping needs of these evacuees while they're in quarantine,” McQuiston explained on Thursday. “That includes bringing them food, taking care of their rooms, linens, laundry. All of that is being handled by personnel who are trained how to go in there.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas cities go to court over state law they say loses them millions (Texas Public Radio)
AT&T, Verizon, T-mobile and other companies are building out their 5G networks — and much of it will be on public property. Texas cities are losing out on hundreds of millions of dollars as a result according to the Texas Muncipal League. Fifty-seven cities across Texas are suing the state to change the law that made it possible for the money to stay in the pockets of big telecoms. A right-of-way is a public easement used for transportation, like a road.
It’s goal was to make it cheaper and easier for telecommunications companies to rollout 5G, the next generation of wireless technology. Telecoms were pushing state lawmakers and federal officials to streamline the process, despite the 5G standards not being agreed upon at that time. While at a 2017 Texas Senate business and commerce public hearing, AT&T’s Ryan Tidwell said telecoms needed tools like 5G right away, “to keep up with the customers data demand in our network. Wireless consumption has increased over 250,000% in the last decade alone, and it's not slowing down anytime soon.” These networks need exponentially more transmitters or small-cell nodes to make 5G work, so companies wanted to use city poles and rights-of-way, rather than negotiate with exponentially more private property owners just a few feet over from the right-of-way… (LINK TO STORY)
Analysis: The politics of paying one Texan’s local sales taxes to another Texan’s city (Texas Tribune)
Sometimes, the best way to challenge something is to notice it.
Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar has proposed a change in the state’s tax rules that could scramble how online sales taxes are collected across the state. Under current law, local taxes on the things Texans buy online go to cities where the sellers are — or say they are. And those tax proceeds are often split by the cities and the companies. In other words, some companies are collecting sales taxes and then getting a portion of them back because they have a deal with a particular city.
If that sounds like a mutation of “Buy Local,” you’re thinking like Hegar.
“Nobody knows about this,” Hegar says. “This is taxation without representation.”
He has proposed sending the tax money from online sales to the buyer’s location, booting up a discussion that might eventually blossom into a reconsideration of how sales taxes work in Texas… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Microsoft, homebuilders urge suburban cities to accept more density (Seattle Business Journal)
There's common agreement that the lack of affordable housing is among the greatest threats to the Puget Sound region's prosperity, and there are plenty of ideas about what to do about it.
The business community must step up, government ought to give homebuilders more regulatory certainty and the region should approach the challenges collectively. Those were among the ideas offered during a Grow Seattle roundtable that the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties hosted.
Grow Seattle is a yearlong Business Journal initiative to drive the conversation so the region embraces growth and taps into innovative solutions.
"For a region that is made up of so many smart people, so many innovators, so many companies that are on the cutting edge of the different industries in which they work, we are in this terrible bureaucratic morass of not building enough housing in the right places," said Gabe Grant, a principal at Spectrum Development Solutions of Seattle.
He and other experts said the industry must shape the conversation about growth, density and housing, and it needs to be a regional discussion.
Microsoft Philanthropies Senior Director Jane Broom said developing "a stronger message about a regional focus" is something large employers need to work together on.
"We have employees living all over the place. I know Amazon does as well," she said.
Microsoft has pledged to invest $500 million to help fund development affordable development in King County with an emphasis on the Eastside.
A 2019 report on middle-income housing by Challenge Seattle, an alliance of 17 CEOs of the region's largest employers, states that while King County added 90,000 new housing units since 2010, only 11,000 are affordable to nurses, teachers, paralegals and other middle-income workers… (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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