BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 23, 2020)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
Early voting in Travis County runs through Friday, October 30 (Monday-Saturday, 7:00 AM-7:00 PM, Sunday 12-6 PM). Find early voting locations here (Travis County only).
***NEW*** BG Podcast Episode 111: Discussing COVID-19's Impact on Austin's Tech Scene with Amber Gunst, CEO, Austin Technology Council (SHOW LINK)
On this episode we speak with Amber Gunst, CEO, Austin Technology Council (ATC). She and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss COVID-19’s impact on the Austin tech scene, as well as major state and local policy priorities/concerns going into 2021.
Next week for Episode 112 we speak with Perla Cavazos, Deputy Administrator at Central Health.
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin’s got millions to help with rent, but giving it away is harder than expected (Austin Monitor)
The city of Austin says fewer people have applied for rental assistance than expected. It’s given out just $1.3 million so far of roughly $13 million available for tenants hit financially by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The need that was anticipated has not manifested. We are hearing stories but we’re not seeing it,” Nefertitti Jackmon, housing and policy manager with the city’s Housing and Planning Department, said. “There are so many factors that we really don’t know exactly what’s going on.”
While most Austin renters have been protected from eviction during the pandemic, housing advocates worry that those who have not been able to pay rent won’t be able to come up with what they owe to avoid eviction when bans expire. According to a census survey done in September and October, about 11 percent of Texas renters say they have no confidence they’ll be able to afford next month’s rent.
So, the city has stepped in to help.
In August, the city and the Housing Authority of Austin opened a second round of rental assistance after seeing huge interest in a similar program last spring. Eligible applicants had to make less than a certain amount and be on a formal lease. The city used its own money to pay a total of $1.3 million in rent for 1,681 households.
But the need was much greater: Nearly 11,000 people applied for help, with about half of the applicants qualifying for the program.
In response, the city prepped a much bigger program that began in August, dedicating $12.9 million to rent assistance – paid, as it was last time, directly to landlords. Much of the program uses federal dollars from the CARES Act.
The city anticipated it would pay tenants’ rents at a pace of $2 million, or about 2,000 renters, per month. But two months in, the city has given out just a little over $1 million – a fourth of what it thought it would have by now.
And according to the city, this money has a deadline. Jackmon said the federal funds need to be spent by the end of December… (LINK TO STORY)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirms 2021 opening for Travis County gigafactory (Community Impact)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said his company's Travis County gigafactory is on track to begin operations sometime in 2021 during the electric carmaker's third-quarter earnings call Oct. 21. This timeline confirms Tesla's initial projection the project could go online by the fourth quarter of 2021 when the factory was first announced in July.
Musk said on the earnings call that "Giga Texas," located east of Austin, is on a similar timeline as the also under-construction "Giga Berlin."
"For Berlin and Austin, we do expect to start delivering cars from those from those factories next year," he said. "Because of the exponential nature of the scaling up of a manufacturing plant, it will start off very slow at first, and the output will become very large."
Within 12-24 months of the factory beginning initial operations, it will operate at full capacity, he estimated.
"That is a very fast period of time, especially for new technology," Musk said… (LINK TO STORY)
Developers pull out of affordable housing plans on Kemp Street after city delays, neighborhood concerns (Austin Business Journal)
A development group that wanted to build affordable housing units in East Austin has revised its plans after a delay in city processes.
Developer 360 Construction had planned to build 33 units at 508 Kemp St., with the majority of the units developed in partnership with Habitat for Humanity and offered at below-market rate prices. Austin City Council on Oct. 15 postponed the second and third readings of the rezoning proposal, with plans to take it up again next week — but apparently that's not within the project's timeline.
"We are not moving forward with the rezoning case Oct. 29," said Tim Howard of Asterra Properties, which represents the buyer, on Oct. 22. "We were put in a situation here where we just ran out of time to get the zoning through that would have given us the ability to use (Affordability Unlocked)... we are very disappointed we couldn't get it done."
The developers now plan to build 10 units at market rate at the 2-acre site. They'll need to re-plat the site through the Planning and Zoning Commission and will not need to return to Council for final approval, Howard said.
Montopolis neighborhood members had largely opposed the project, suggesting it would accelerate gentrification in the area and harm a nearby preserve. The development team's original plans did not include affordable housing, but it later became a major focus of the project after developers decided to participate in the city’s Affordability Unlocked program, Howard said. There was a valid petition against the rezoning case, meaning nine Council members would have had to vote in favor for the proposal to be approved.
Council member Greg Casar had supported the rezoning and the use of Affordability Unlocked, a program he sponsored last year. Casar could not be reached for comment by press time, but he spoke at the work session on Oct. 13 about the need for more affordable housing.
“It is important for people in the community to know that this is a project where the majority of homes will be Habitat for Humanity homes, with a minority of them being market-rate homes," he said. "That is housing that we need in the community."
The affordable units would have been geared toward people with 60%-80% median family income, Casar said. Now, there will be no affordable housing options and Habitat for Humanity is no longer involved, Howard said.
"Now, there will be no affordability to affect their home values ... Unfortunately, that's worse for the community, worse for the neighborhood, and it's going to result in the exact thing that the neighborhood was against: gentrification and increase in tax rate," Howard said. "It's going to be accelerated dramatically by the fact that we don't have Affordability Unlocked on that project."… (LINK TO STORY)
See, Affordability Unlocked Development Bonus Program (City of Austin)
[TEXAS]
Second whistleblower fired from Texas attorney general's office after accusing Ken Paxton of bribery (Texas Tribune)
A second whistleblower has been fired from the Texas attorney general’s office after reporting his boss, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, to law enforcement for crimes including bribery and abuse of office, according to a former senior official with the agency who had knowledge about the firing but did not want to be named for fear of legal repercussions.
Blake Brickman, who had served as deputy attorney general for policy and strategy initiatives for less than a year, was fired Tuesday, the official said. Lacey Mase, the deputy attorney general for administration, was also fired Tuesday, The Texas Tribune reported earlier this week.
“It was not voluntary,” Mase said of her departure from the office, but declined to comment further.
Brickman and Mase were among seven top aides in Paxton’s office who alerted law enforcement weeks ago that they believed their boss had run afoul of the law. In internal emails obtained by the Tribune, they accused Paxton of using the power of his office to serve the financial interests of a donor, Nate Paul.
The most senior aide to Paxton, Jeff Mateer, resigned weeks ago. Paxton placed two other top aides on leave. The agency has not answered repeated questions about the employment status of the other whistleblowers, or what cause Paxton had to fire Mase and Brickman… (LINK TO STORY)
The oil industry is consolidating. That's bad news for workers in Houston. (Houston Chronicle)
Mergers and acquisitions are sweeping the oil and gas industry, creating ever larger companies that can better withstand the crude market’s boom and bust cycles. ConocoPhillip’s $9.7 billion takeover of Concho Resources and Pioneer Natural Resources’ $4.5 billion pursuit of Parsley Energy — both announced this week — are the latest attempts by beleaguered energy companies to pool resources and slash costs in the wake of the historic oil bust caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The deals come on the heels of Chevron’s nearly $12 billion acquisition of Houston-based Noble Energy this month, and Devon Energy’s plans to purchase WPX Energy for nearly $2.6 billion.
But this new wave of consolidation will leave behind a smaller industry with fewer players employing fewer workers, analysts say. That’s bad news for Houston, the nation’s energy capital, which has already lost thousands of jobs in recent oil busts. “Everybody knows that when two companies come together, the sum of the two is not going to survive,” said Karr Ingham, a petroleum economist with the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. “If Company X has 1,000 employees and Company Y has 1,000, you’re not going to have a combined company with 2,000 employees. The tendency is that consolidation causes job loss.” Energy companies have laid off 17,500 drilling-related workers in the Houston region since 2018, with more than 70 percent of those cuts coming during the past six months of the pandemic, according to the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers. While it appears the job losses stemming from the pandemic are slowing this fall, more layoffs could be coming as companies merge and cut redundant positions… (LINK TO STORY)
Beto O’Rourke and Julian Castro fume that Biden has neglected Texas, demand ‘crunch time’ investment (Dallas Morning News)
Two of Joe Biden’s top allies in Texas pleaded Thursday for him to pay attention to the state, venting frustration at his lack of investment despite vast resources and signs that Texas is closer than it’s been in decades to slipping from the GOP grip. “We need some help from the national ticket,” said Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman who nearly toppled Sen. Ted Cruz two years ago. “The voters in Texas are doing their part,” he said on a Texas Democratic Party call to preview Thursday night’s presidential debate in Nashville.
Julián Castro, the former Obama housing secretary and San Antonio mayor echoed the demand. “My hope is that we will see from the DNC and from the Biden campaign investment in Texas in these last 12 days, because this is it. It’s crunch time. It’s now or never,” he told reporters ahead of the final Biden-Trump showdown. Castro noted that Biden has $180 million more cash than President Donald Trump, and the gap may widen as donors see victory as a real possibility. “There are big priorities,” he conceded, "like making sure that Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are locked down. The Biden campaign is doing a fantastic job of locking those states down, and they need to. “But to have Texas at 48-47, 48-48 -- that’s just too much to ignore. The resources and investments ought to be made,” he said. The public reprimand marks an escalation. They and other Texas Democrats have expressed annoyance at the Biden campaign’s relatively casual approach to Texas. Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic nominee to win the state, in 1976, and through the Reagan and Bush eras the GOP solidified their control… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATION]
Finally, a real debate (AXIOS)
A more disciplined President Trump held back from the rowdy interruptions at tonight's debate in Nashville, while making some assertions so outlandish that Joe Biden chuckled and even closed his eyes. A Trump campaign adviser told Axios: "He finally listened."
The result: A real debate.
With a firm moderator, NBC News' Kristen Welker — along with threats of mic cutoffs and advisers' pleas for Trump to cool it — voters finally heard clear contrasts.Trump swung several times, but never quite landed a punch as he tried to connect Biden to a nebulous cloud of allegations about business dealings by his son Hunter.
Between the lines: Trump didn't focus on assuring women voters or seniors. But his economic argument could reassure some men in swing states.
Trump went back to 2016 mode — the outsider, chiding career politicians. But he's one of them now.
During an exchange about race in America, Trump said: "Nobody has done more for the black community than Donald Trump, with the exception of Abraham Lincoln — possible exception. ... I'm the least racist person in this room."
Biden retorted sarcastically, referring to Trump: "Abraham Lincoln here is one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history."… (LINK TO STORY)
Trump weighs firing FBI director after election as frustration with Wray, Barr grows (The Washington Post)
President Donald Trump and his advisers have repeatedly discussed whether to fire FBI Director Christopher Wray after Election Day - a scenario that also could imperil the tenure of Attorney General William Barr as the president grows increasingly frustrated that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost that the FBI provided in 2016, according to people familiar with the matter. The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped - indicate that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, or other Biden associates are under investigation, these people say. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.
In the campaign's closing weeks, the president has intensified public calls for jailing his challenger, much as he did for Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016. Trump has called Biden a "criminal" without articulating what laws he believes the former vice president has broken. People familiar with the discussions say that Trump wants official action similar to the announcement made 11 days before the last presidential election by then-FBI Director James Comey, who informed Congress he had reopened an investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state after potential new evidence had been discovered. Trump emphasized the point in an interview Tuesday with Fox News, saying "we've got to get the attorney general to act" and that Barr should do so "fast." The president was alluding to information about Hunter Biden recently touted by Trump's private lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and based on the contents of a laptop computer purportedly belonging to the former vice president's son. "This is major corruption," Trump added, "and this has to be known about before the election."… (LINK TO STORY)
Senate subpoenas could force Zuckerberg and Dorsey to testify on New York Post controversy (Tech Crunch)
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of issuing subpoenas for Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Thursday, meaning that there might be two big tech CEO hearings on the horizon.
Republicans in the committee declared their interest in a hearing on “the platforms’ censorship of New York Post articles” after social networks limited the reach of a dubious story purporting to contain hacked materials implicating Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, in impropriety involving a Ukrainian energy firm. Fox News reportedly passed on the story due to doubts about its credibility.
Tech’s decision to take action against the New York Post story was bound to ignite Republicans in Congress, who have long claimed, with scant evidence, that social platforms deliberately censor conservative voices due to political bias. The Senate Judiciary Committee is chaired by Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a close Trump ally who is now in a much closer than expected race with Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison…(LINK TO STORY)