BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 5, 2020)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 77 - A Talk with Austin Brand Entrepreneur Doug Guller (LINK TO SHOW)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Health Officials Say There’s No Evidence Canceling SXSW Will ‘Make This Community Safer’ (KUT)
There is no evidence canceling South by Southwest will make the city safer from the spread of the new coronavirus, Austin public health officials said Wednesday, adding that they are reevaluating the situation on a daily basis.
"If there's any evidence that our community will be safer by closing down public events, we will do that," Dr. Mark Escott, the interim director of Austin Public Health, said.
Escott said he has convened an expert advisory panel made up of about a dozen doctors from around the state, which met Tuesday night for the first time to discuss "mass gatherings" coming up, including SXSW.
He said he expects there will be modifications to major events, church gatherings or school attendance in the future, but questioned whether the city was at that point now.
Even if SXSW is shut down, the director said, people will still be coming to Austin… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Demographer’s land code analysis scrubbed from Austin city report (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin’s city demographer was ordered to alter a city report last week after critics of the Austin City Council’s overhaul of the land development code pounced on the report as proof the effort was unnecessary. In his latest quarterly report on new multifamily housing developments in Austin, demographer Ryan Robinson concluded that sustained growth in the sector contradicted “the false narrative that housing production within the city is somehow severely constrained by the city’s land development code.”
“And even if the code were to be dramatically opened up with vast increases in entitlements,” Robinson’s analysis continued. “I’m just not sure we would see levels of production much above what we’re currently seeing — the pipeline of production must be nearing a maximum threshold of sorts.” Robinson’s analysis could be explosive because it directly conflicts with a central premise of the controversial effort to update codes governing what can be built and where in Austin: that the city’s housing affordability crisis is exacerbated by a decades-old code that is preventing the creation of much-needed housing amid a population boom. One day after Robinson’s report garnered the attention of opposition group Community Not Commodity, any mention of the land development code was scrubbed from his analysis… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Bernie Sanders supporters in Texas are “pissed off.” But Texas Democrats need them in November. (Texas Tribune)
The brewery broke out in a standing ovation and raucous applause at an election night watch party in East Austin Tuesday evening after early statewide vote returns showed Bernie Sanders with a solid lead over Joe Biden.
Amid the excitement, a Sanders campaign organizer encouraged attendees to fill their cups with beer and other libations and stock up on a menu that included pizza and burgers.
“In Travis County, Austin, we just delivered for Bernie Sanders really freakin’ big,” Austin City Council Member Greg Casar, who publicly endorsed Sanders in January, told an already brimming crowd. “The moment is upon us.”
But that moment quickly faded… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
MJ Hegar, Royce West head to runoff in Democratic primary to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (Texas Tribune)
MJ Hegar and Royce West are advancing to a runoff for the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Hegar, the former Air Force helicopter pilot backed by national Democrats, clearly established herself as the leading vote recipient Tuesday night in the 12-way primary. However, it was not clear until Wednesday afternoon that West, the Dallas state senator, was the runner-up. With almost all polling locations reporting, Hegar had 22% of the vote and West 14.5%.
"I believe we are well-positioned to win the runoff," West said in a statement thanking his competitors for their ideas and effort. "The runoff is a brand new day."
West was closely followed in the results by progressive organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who got 13.2% and conceded late Wednesday afternoon… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
SF poised to pass Prop E, which could significantly reduce new supply of startup office space (TechCrunch)
San Francisco is poised to pass a controversial proposition that would almost certainly limit further office space development in the city, perhaps pushing more tech companies and startups to set up their HQs elsewhere.
Prop E‘s passing, which seemed likely Wednesday afternoon following Tuesday’s election, ties office development approval to the city’s ability to meet affordable housing goals, something that the city and its developers haven’t proven themselves all that capable of doing in recent years. Amid skyrocketing rents and a homeless crisis, there have been ample concerns that the structures in the city are being overstressed, low and moderate income residents are being pushed out and that the influx of tech startups is exacerbating the problem.
San Francisco had already been operating under voter-imposed annual limits for new office space via Prop M, a 1986 ballot measure that has limited annual office space allocations to 875,000 square feet of large office space (defined as a building with more than 50,000 square feet). Prop E ties this office space maximum to regionally determined affordable housing goals, ones aimed much higher than San Francisco has been able to hit in recent years.
In the past decade, SF has built an average of 712 affordable housing units per year, according to the chief economist’s report. In the past 20 years, San Francisco’s annual affordable housing production has popped above 1,000 units only once. The latest goals, set by a state program, pin annual affordable housing production at 2,042 units per year. With Prop E, if San Francisco fell short of that annual goal, only building one-third of those 2,042 units, they would also only be able to allocate one-third of its 875,000 large-space square footage to new large-space projects… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
For growing number of US cities, the downturn has arrived (Wall Street Journal)
A decade of growth in the U.S. economy allowed cities to patch fiscal holes left by the financial crisis and recession. A surprising number now see new signs of trouble. The proportion of American cities expecting general-fund revenue to drop more than 3% when the books close on the 2019 fiscal year increased to 27% from 17% in fiscal 2018, when adjusted for inflation. That is one of the findings from a Wall Street Journal analysis of data collected from 478 U.S. municipalities by the National League of Cities, an advocacy group.
The total general-fund revenue reported by these cities—locales that span the U.S.—is expected to be lower in fiscal 2019 than in fiscal 2018, adjusted for inflation, the first such dip in seven years. Cities in the survey range in population from the low tens of thousands to the millions. General-fund revenue typically represents dollars not earmarked for a specific purpose, a flexible pot of money to spend on public goods and services. “It’s a big deal when you have this many cities concerned about the near-term future,” said Matt Fabian, a partner with municipal bond research firm Municipal Market Analytics. “Maybe they don’t hire new police as quickly as they did before…Maybe they put off plans to address the big challenges that cities are facing like pensions and climate change.” American cities are generally doing better than rural communities, buoyed by the U.S. expansion. Yet the boom in such metropolitan areas as Denver, Salt Lake City and Nashville, Tenn., masked fiscal weakness in cities tied to manufacturing and other shrinking industries… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Ending campaign, Bloomberg says defeating Trump his priority (Associated Press)
In just over 100 days, Mike Bloomberg spent over $500 million of his own fortune in a quixotic bid for the presidency that collapsed in stunning fashion on Super Tuesday, when he won just one U.S. territory, American Samoa.
By Wednesday morning, he quit the race and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, saying his continued presence in the rapidly shrinking field would make it harder for the party to defeat President Donald Trump in November, his ultimate priority. The businessman, worth an estimated $61 billion, pledged to keep spending to defeat Trump.
“I entered the race for president to defeat Donald Trump, and today, I am leaving the race for the same reason: to defeat Donald Trump,” he said at a rally of staff and supporters at a Manhattan hotel.
In a rare show of emotion, the stoic mayor became tearful when closing his speech, saying he was “amazed at how many people have stood with me shoulder to shoulder.”… (LINK TO FULL 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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