BG Reads | News You Need to Know (May 14, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[THE 87TH TEXAS LEGISLATURE]
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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Public, Council members push for new emergency plan after winter storm (Austin Monitor)
The head of the city’s new task force examining the impact of Winter Storm Uri says the city must create an updated and far more robust emergency response plan.
Sareta Davis, chair of the Winter Storm Review Task Force, also wants the city to study the work done by community organizations such as Austin Mutual Aid and the Community Resilience Trust to provide water and other essentials to residents who lacked the basic services for several days. The storm brought single-digit temperatures to the Austin area and strained the state’s power grid to the point of near collapse, causing days-long blackouts in addition to making many roads impassable due to snow and ice.
Davis told the Austin Monitor that City Manager Spencer Cronk’s prior experience in the cold-weather climate of Minneapolis should have helped him make the city more prepared for the impacts of severe cold weather.
“Must-haves are an actual emergency response plan,” she said. “I found it very concerning that we have a city manager who was in the city of Minneapolis and should definitely know what it’s like to deal with extreme weather, and also have unhoused individuals, yet there was no response plan here.”
The task force’s main responsibility is to coordinate a series of online community listening sessions to let residents from Austin and other affected areas share their experiences from the storm. The second of five sessions takes place today at 6 p.m. at SpeakUpAustin.org. The remaining three sessions are May 28, and June 11 and 23, all beginning at 6 p.m.
The March resolution that created the task force also called on the city auditor to examine the city’s emergency preparation steps, response and coordination during the storm, recovery efforts in the aftermath, and steps the city has taken so far to provide critical services during a similar emergency in the future.
The city’s current emergency response plan was last updated in 2016 and contains one paragraph about the prospects of winter storms, acknowledging the impacts of ice accumulation on utility lines and trees and stating that Austin typically experiences one winter storm event per year.
Davis said part of the next emergency response plan should include training medical and public safety teams to drive safely in severe weather conditions so they will be able to reach residents in trouble… (LINK TO STORY)
Many Austin businesses will keep requiring masks after CDC eases guidelines (Austin American-Statesman)
Updated COVID-19 safety guidelines announced Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention caught many Austin retail and restaurant owners by surprise.
In an unexpected move, the CDC eased mask-wearing guidance for fully vaccinated people, allowing them to stop wearing masks outdoors in crowds and in most indoor settings.
Many Austin merchants, including grocery giants H-E-B and Whole Foods, continued to require that employees and customers wear masks after Gov. Greg Abbott lifted the state mask mandate March 10.
Some said Thursday that they will continue with the protocol, just as they did after the Texas mandate ended.
The CDC guidance still calls for wearing masks in crowded indoor settings such as buses, planes, hospitals, prisons and homeless shelters, but it helps clear the way for reopening workplaces, schools, and other venues — even removing the need for social distancing — for those who are fully vaccinated… (LINK TO STORY)
How will Elon Musk use all that land east of Austin (Austin Business Journal)
When the rising Tesla Inc. gigafactory comes into view from State Highway 130, the sight is striking.
In what feels like the blink of an eye, the company has built the shell of a gargantuan facility off the toll road in eastern Travis County. It takes about a minute to drive past the project at the speed limit — and much longer to forget once it's out of sight.
But the factory is only one small piece of the puzzle that is Elon Musk's plans for the Austin area.
Colorado River Project LLC, the entity Tesla has used to buy land in Travis County, owns more than 2,500 acres off SH 130, and it’s possible the company will purchase another thousand acres. It’s not clear exactly how much land the current factory encompasses, but it's just a small portion of what Tesla owns — there are roughly 1,100 acres north of the plant and 750 acres to the west that have yet to be developed, according to Austin Business Journal research. For comparison, downtown Austin is roughly 1,150 acres and the nearby Austin-Bergstrom International Airport covers over 4,200 acres.
It’s unclear exactly what Tesla has planned for all that land. Company executives and project representatives declined to comment for this article. Multiple requests to view site plans filed with Travis County were unsuccessful by press time.
But interviews with multiple experts provide a range of possibilities, while a close examination of the company's incentives deal with Travis County lays the framework for what can actually be built out there.
Some think the area will be a landing spot for Musk's other companies — Neuralink, The Boring Company or SpaceX — while others are convinced it will eventually be home to the headquarters of Tesla, which is currently based in Palo Alto, California. Some go as far to predict Musk will attempt to create his own city in the extraterritorial jurisdiction outside Austin. That's not too far fetched — he’s trying to do so in Boca Chica, the South Texas border town where SpaceX has a rocket testing facility.
What we do know is that the Tesla factory is expected to be complete this year. Construction crews are working around the clock to meet Musk’s expectations — he has repeatedly said cars will drive off the production line by the end of this year. Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) intends to produce its Cybertruck, Model 3, Model Y SUV and Semi tractor-trailer in Travis County.
“First [Elon Musk] wants to see the factory up and running and producing cars. And then just before that, or afterward, he's going to make other decisions,” said economist Angelos Angelou, head of Austin-based consulting firm AngelouEconomics and a former Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce economic development official. “Tesla is going to want to have other key suppliers with just-in-time inventory for their factory. ... His other companies might do business there. Obviously, he likes Austin, and he is probably one of the greatest recruitments that we've ever done.
“All these options are definitely ones that he can exercise at any given point in time.”
In the meantime, the Tesla effect is in full effect. Prominent developers and corporate giants are eager to move on sites around Musk's property. It's one of the few rural niches remaining on Austin's periphery, brimming with ranches and two-lane country roads that weave between small towns.
Forget for a moment the possibility of a Musk mecca in eastern Travis County. Site selectors said there are plenty of things that Tesla could do with the land, based on its other gigafactories and the nature of car manufacturing.
David Whiston, a U.S. auto equity analyst for Morningstar, said in a statement that Tesla will likely continue to add to its manufacturing operations. He said the land could be used for further production of their battery cells — a growing priority for the company — or other vertical integration.
In terms of raw land, the only other gigafactory that comes close to what Tesla owns outside Austin is its Nevada plant. The 5.3-million-square-foot factory sits on 2,800 acres outside Reno and, according to the Tesla website, the current footprint is only 30% of what the company has planned. The Nevada factory strictly produces motors and battery packs for its electric cars, along with supplier Panasonic, and the Tesla Powerwalls and Powerpacks.
Factories in California, New York, Europe and Asia range from less than 100 acres to just over 700 acres, according to ABJ research.
Site selectors said Tesla is likely to mirror the Texas factory after its facility in Fremont, California, across San Francisco Bay from its HQ in Palo Alto. If Tesla continues to add production operations on its expansive campus outside Austin, it could lead to the largest car production facility for the company, in terms of square footage. And if it chooses to expand to 3,500 acres, the Austin area would be home to Tesla's largest presence in the world.
The Fremont facility is roughly 5.3 million square feet of manufacturing and office space on a few hundred acres. It houses more than 10,000 employees, according to Tesla’s website, which is the headcount Musk has hinted at in Austin. The company produces its Model S, Model Y, Model X and Model 3 in Fremont, and the facility includes an employee training center, cafeteria and food trucks, gym, 24/7 in-house medical center and outdoor space, according to Tesla’s website.
Several site selectors said Tesla will likely locate some of its suppliers next to the Austin-area factory, or on the land it owns across SH 130. Experts have long said dozens of companies will follow Tesla to Austin to join in on its supply chain, and some have predicted that Tesla will want some of its suppliers nearby. The company reportedly has hundreds of suppliers, though it's unclear which companies will work with Tesla at its Texas factory.
“Tesla is going to sell them land or allow them to locate next to the plant,” Angelou said. “Others may just have warehouse distribution centers at the plant that they will be constantly filling up with material for just-in-time inventory, while their operations may be somewhere else in Austin or the region.”
Angelou, who spent 12 years at the Greater Austin Chamber as vice president of economic development and chief economist, said that was the same strategy semiconductor equipment maker Applied Materials used at its Austin campus, while other suppliers opted to build their own presence in the region. He added that nearly 60 companies followed Applied Materials to Austin, according to records during his time at the Chamber. Angelou’s economic consultant firm has done strategic planning work for over 600 cities and its corporate site selection practice has worked with $18 billion worth of projects globally.
Others said it’s unlikely that Tesla will be quick to sell its land, especially in a city like Austin where land is at a premium.
“Certain suppliers don’t want to be immediately adjacent or on the same property. It’s a question of access and the kind of demand that gets put on the suppliers by the [original equipment manufacturer],” said John Longshore, principal and vice president of South Carolina-based site selection firm Global Location Strategies. “Certain suppliers need to be closer, but I wouldn’t imagine that would be a high priority for [Tesla]. It’s a possibility, but … it’s not likely they’re going to develop their own little industrial park for their suppliers. They want to be able to hold on to that land.”
Back in 2014, it was estimated that Tesla's suppliers would need around 1 million square feet of additional industrial real estate in the Fremont area as the car factory grew. One of those suppliers, an Australian company called Futuris Automotive that makes car seats and auto interiors, had co-located inside the Tesla plant, but ended up taking over and refurbishing a nearby distribution center to handle its growth.
Longshore, who has experience with manufacturing site selection, added that Tesla will also set aside space for testing tracks and many acres of solar panels, adding the amount of energy it takes to power car manufacturing operations is much more than what rooftop solar panels can provide.
“It definitely begins to add up,” Longshore said of the acreage. “And for a company like Tesla and the new things they’re developing, not being restricted on space will be for the better. You just don’t know what the next thing is going to be.”
Michelle Comerford, industrial and supply chain practice leader for Princeton, New Jersey-based site selection firm Biggins Lacy Shapiro and Co., said it’s typical for car manufacturers to buy massive tracts of land in case they need to grow operations in response to demand.
“For an emerging industry that seems to have really strong projections for growth, I could see why they would buy that much land," Comerford said. "And, why not, if you can secure it? You're mitigating risk of not being able to add capacity because of land, and that’s an easy way to protect their technology. It can also be almost a defensive move to say, ‘Our security is going to be really strong here because we're going to have all this buffer that no one can really be around or build around.’”
Musk plans to make some portion of the Austin campus open to the public. He announced last year that the Austin factory site would be an "ecological paradise" with a boardwalk and trail along the Colorado River.
What can Tesla do now?
Tesla hinted at its plans for the land in a performance agreement with Travis County last summer. Flexibility in the contract means Musk has a wide range of ways to satisfy government requirements.
The basics of the agreement are that Tesla will receive property tax rebates for investing $1.1 billion into an electric car manufacturing facility on up to 3,500 acres off Harold Green Road. It's also supposed to create at least 5,000 jobs. The percentage of tax rebate — between 70% and 80% — varies by Tesla’s level of investment. Overall, the company could receive an estimated $60 million in incentives from Travis County and a separate agreement with Del Valle Independent School District, although that figure could vary widely based on how much Tesla invests.
If other Musk companies end up on the 2,500-plus acres but don't contribute to electric car manufacturing operations, then that portion of the land, plus any facilities and personal property, will not be eligible for tax savings.
According to the agreement, the land purchased last year that is used for electric car manufacturing operations — both the gigafactory and ancillary facilities — will receive a tax rebate, as long as other requirements are also met. For example, Tesla can locate battery cell operations on the site as planned, or add any affiliate companies that meet the other terms of the agreement. If the company chooses to expand up to 3,500 acres, it will need to inform the county to activate those tax savings.
But if Boring Co. — Musk’s tunneling company, which has hinted at drilling in the Austin area — created a facility on the land, that portion would not be included in incentives calculations. That would also be the case if the Tesla HQ moves to the site, the documents suggest, although details could always shift. Travis County commissioners were considering undisclosed changes to the agreement in executive session May 11.
The flexibility in the agreement may give credence to the theories that Musk will gather his companies in that area of Travis County, depending on how important the overall tax savings is to the company. The state has relatively high property taxes in lieu of a state personal income tax, and manufacturing companies typically have to pay more in property taxes because of the expansive real estate and pricey machinery.
Multiple sources close to SpaceX have said the company is planning to build a manufacturing facility on the west side of SH 130, across from the Tesla gigafactory. No permits had been filed with the city by publication time.
A site plan filed April 30 with the city shows at least one more step in Tesla's plans. There weren't many details by press time, but an industrial facility is planned on up to 150 acres off Harold Green Road. A 65% impervious cover limit in the Austin ETJ means development could be at most about 97 acres, which would include the facility, driveways, sidewalks, roads and parking lots, among other factors… (LINK TO STORY)
'Signs of hope' on the horizon at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport after year-plus dip in air travel (Community Impact)
While the number of passengers passing through Austin-Bergstrom International Airport each month remains well below pre-pandemic levels, a continuing increase in COVID-19 vaccinations, expanding flight options and the persistent appeal of Austin and its economy could all signal an airport poised for recovery through 2021.
"Seeing the strong economy of the city of Austin and the recovery efforts that’s happening, what we’re seeing is some initial signs of hope," Austin-Bergstrom Executive Director Jacqueline Yaft said May 13.
Yaft highlighted several aspects of the airport's operations which she said could lay the groundwork for a surge in travel this summer and beyond during a media briefing on mobility in Austin. Even with several potential positives on the horizon, however, the airport still remains in a passenger traffic dip that has now stretched well over one year.
Following the official designation of a global pandemic, Austin-Bergstrom's passenger volume plummeted 96.61% from April 2019 to April 2020. Monthly counts have gradually increased since that point, and the most recent available data covering March 2021 shows the airport surpassed its March 2020 traffic by 4.94%.This March's 735,270 passengers passing through Austin-Bergstrom represents just over half of the 1,463,016 people recorded in March 2019. Still, Yaft said several operations changes, including the recent arrival of Central Texas's only nonstop Honolulu flights, new American Airlines routes and the upcoming launch of Allegiant Travel Co.'s base at the airport could facilitate additional growth alongside increasing traveler demand.
And while the airport has seen an uptick in bookings in the short-term, Yaft also said some uncertainty over the sustainability of current travel trends remains, especially in relation to protocols surrounding vaccinations, possible vaccination passports, and the opening of international borders… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
CDC lifts mask guidance for fully vaccinated people — but less than a third of Texans are fully vaccinated (Texas Tribune)
Federal health officials reversed course Thursday and advised that people who are fully vaccinated can stop wearing masks and observing social distancing in most indoor and outdoor settings.
It’s welcome news for many who have grown weary of the safety precautions more than 14 months into the global public health crisis and is a significant milestone in returning to pre-pandemic life. But the announcement will likely give new life to the debate about requiring vaccinations that has been playing out in Texas and across the nation — and it comes as less than a third of Texans are fully vaccinated.
“We have all longed for this moment,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said from the White House on Thursday. “If you are fully vaccinated, you can start doing the things that you had stopped doing because of the pandemic.”
But Walensky cautioned that the CDC’s guidance comes with exceptions. Vaccinated people should continue to wear masks and distance themselves from others in medical settings and around high-risk populations, such as doctor’s offices, hospitals and long-term care facilities, and while traveling aboard airplanes, busses and trains. Incarcerated people and people in homeless shelters should also continue to observe safety precautions… (LINK TO STORY)
Bill that would ban abortion at six weeks heads to governor's desk to become Texas law (Texas Tribune)
Legislation that would ban abortions after as early as six weeks — before many women know they are pregnant — and let virtually any private citizen sue abortion providers and others was given final approval by lawmakers Thursday and is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott, who has signaled he will sign it into law.
Senate Bill 8, a Republican priority measure, is similar to “heartbeat bills” passed in other states that have been mostly stopped by the courts. But proponents of the Texas legislation believe it’s structured in a way that makes it tougher to block.
The bill was denounced by hundreds of lawmakers and doctors — in letters circulated by opponents of the measure — who said its broad legal language could open the door to harassing or frivolous lawsuits that could have a “chilling effect” on abortion providers and leave rape crisis counselors, nurses and clinic staff “subject to tens of thousands of dollars in liability to total strangers.” Abortion rights advocates say it is among the most extreme restrictions nationwide.
The bill, which would take effect later this year, bans abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected without specifying a time frame. A legislative analysis and the bill’s proponents have said that can be as early as six weeks, though state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, in a floor debate cited medical experts who say there is no fully developed heart at that gestational age and that the sound referred to as a heartbeat is actually “electrically induced flickering” of fetal tissue.
The bill makes an exception allowing for abortions in the case of a medical emergency but not for rape or incest.
It would be enforced by private citizens empowered to sue abortion providers and others who help someone get an abortion after six weeks, for example, by driving them to an abortion clinic.
Those private citizens would not need to have a connection to an abortion provider or a person seeking an abortion, and would not need to reside in Texas… (LINK TO STORY)
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson calls Election Day issues at nine voting sites ‘disturbing.’ City refuses to pay county $1.5 million for runoffs (Dallas Morning News)
Almost two weeks after Dallas voters were turned away from several polling sites that didn’t open for hours — most in South Dallas — the city’s elected leaders refused to commit paying nearly $1.5 million for the county to oversee the June 5 runoff elections. The City Council earlier this year promised to pay the county up to almost $1.7 million for the May 1 general election, and a resolution discussed during a meeting Wednesday would have increased the estimated payout. Michael Scarpello, Dallas County’s elections administrator, told council members that nine voting sites experienced issues that delayed their 7 a.m. opening time anywhere from about an hour to four.
The issues included broken voting machines, workers who couldn’t access buildings or supplies because they didn’t have keys, or too few electrical outlets or extension cords. He said two other locations reported problems but the sites either opened on time or the specific issue wasn’t clear. Scarpello also listed other Election Day issues: a tool the county uses to track whether sites were open and accepting voters failed, and workers’ requests for help got lost. The county also had fewer technicians than planned. Mayor Eric Johnson called the administrator’s account of the problems “very disturbing,” and said he should have been outraged by what happened. “They ought to say ‘Our bad. We’re sorry that we blew your election so badly in the first round,’” Johnson said. “I don’t support us paying any more money for what is just an egregious failure to do your job in this case.” The mayor added that they’ll never know how many people ultimately failed to vote on Election Day because they didn’t have time, transportation or know that they could go elsewhere. He said the county should cover the remainder of the city’s runoff election costs… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
‘A perpetual motion machine’: How disinformation drives voting laws (New York Times)
When State Representative Bobby Kaufmann of Iowa spoke in February in support of a restrictive voting bill he was sponsoring, he made what might once have been a startling acknowledgment: He could not point to any problems with November’s election that demonstrated a need for new rules. But many Iowans believed there had been problems, he said. And that was reason enough to allow less early voting, shorten Election Day polling hours, put new limits on absentee balloting and forbid counties to have more than one ballot drop box. “The ultimate voter suppression is a very large swath of the electorate not having faith in our election systems,” Mr. Kaufmann, a Republican, said in defense of his bill, which was signed into law in March. “And for whatever reason, political or not, there are thousands upon thousands of Iowans that do not have faith in our election systems.”
Former President Donald J. Trump’s monthslong campaign to delegitimize the 2020 election didn’t overturn the results. But his unfounded claims gutted his supporters’ trust in the electoral system, laying the foundation for numerous Republican-led bills pushing more restrictive voter rules. The bills demonstrate how disinformation can take on a life of its own, forming a feedback loop that shapes policy for years to come. When promoted with sufficient intensity, falsehoods — whether about election security or the coronavirus or other topics — can shape voters’ attitudes toward policies, and lawmakers can cite those attitudes as the basis for major changes. The embrace of the falsehoods also showcases the continuing power of Mr. Trump inside the Republican Party, which has widely adopted and weaponized his election claims. Many Republicans, eager to gain his support, have raced to champion the new voting laws. Those who have stood up to his falsehoods have paid the price. Representative Liz Cheney was ousted from her House leadership post on Wednesday after repudiating what she called the “big lie.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Leaked Video: Dark money group brags about writing GOP voter suppression bills across the country (Mother Jones)
In a private meeting last month with big-money donors, the head of a top conservative group boasted that her outfit had crafted the new voter suppression law in Georgia and was doing the same with similar bills for Republican state legislators across the country. “In some cases, we actually draft them for them,” she said, “or we have a sentinel on our behalf give them the model legislation so it has that grassroots, from-the-bottom-up type of vibe.” The Georgia law had “eight key provisions that Heritage recommended,” Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action for America, a sister organization of the Heritage Foundation, told the foundation’s donors at an April 22 gathering in Tucson, in a recording obtained by the watchdog group Documented and shared with Mother Jones. Those included policies severely restricting mail ballot drop boxes, preventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters, making it easier for partisan workers to monitor the polls, preventing the collection of mail ballots, and restricting the ability of counties to accept donations from nonprofit groups seeking to aid in election administration. All of these recommendations came straight from Heritage’s list of “best practices” drafted in February. With Heritage’s help, Anderson said, Georgia became “the example for the rest of the country.”
The leaked video reveals the extent to which Heritage is leading a massive campaign to draft and pass model legislation restricting voting access, which has been swiftly adopted this year in the battleground states of Georgia, Florida, Arizona, and Iowa. It’s no coincidence that so many GOP-controlled states are rushing to pass similar pieces of legislation in such a short period of time. Republican legislators claim they’re tightening up election procedures to address (unfounded) concerns about fraud in the 2020 election. But what’s really behind this effort is a group of conservative Washington insiders who have been pushing these same kinds of voting restrictions for decades, with the explicit aim of helping Republicans win elections. The difference now is that Trump’s baseless claims about 2020 have given them the ammunition to get the bills passed, and the conservative movement, led by Heritage, is making an unprecedented investment to get them over the finish line. “We’re working with these state legislators to make sure they have all of the information they need to draft the bills,” Anderson told the Heritage Foundation donors. In addition to drafting the bills in some cases, “we’ve also hired state lobbyists to make sure that in these targeted states we’re meeting with the right people.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Roy to challenge Stefanik for Cheney's old position (The Hill)
Conservative Rep. Chip Roy (Texas) will launch a last-minute, long shot bid for House Republican Conference chair, sources said, challenging Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), who has the endorsement of former President Trump and top House GOP leaders.
Stefanik had been running unopposed for the No. 3 leadership post that became vacant when House Republicans on Wednesday voted to remove Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.) from the job for repeatedly calling out Trump’s falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen.
Both Stefanik and Roy are expected to address rank-and-file Republicans during a candidate forum later Thursday, with a closed-door vote set for Friday morning. A spokesman later confirmed that Roy is running for GOP Conference chair, a role which oversees messaging for House Republicans.
Roy, a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus, made waves earlier this week when he sent a memo to colleagues raising concerns that Stefanik was too liberal to represent the 212-member conference and that GOP leaders were rushing to “coronate” her.
Stefanik previously was a leader of a group of moderate Republicans before becoming one of Trump’s most vocal defenders on Capitol Hill.
Roy specifically pointed to Stefanik's past votes against the 2017 tax cut law and in support of Democratic bills to end Trump's emergency declaration to fund a border wall, keep the U.S. in the Paris climate pact and ban discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
"We must avoid putting in charge Republicans who campaign as Republicans but then vote for and advance the Democrats’ agenda once sworn in – that is, that we do not make the same mistakes we did in 2017," Roy wrote in the memo.
"Therefore, with all due respect to my friend, Elise Stefanik,” he added, “let us contemplate the message Republican leadership is about to send by rushing to coronate a spokesperson whose voting record embodies much of what led to the 2018 ass-kicking we received by Democrats.”
Outside conservative groups like Club for Growth and FreedomWorks also have complained about Stefanik’s voting record. Both groups endorsed Roy on Thursday.
Roy had spent the better part of the week trying to recruit a conservative colleague to challenge Stefanik. But hours before Thursday’s candidate forum, Roy decided he had to jump in himself.
“I don’t believe there should be a coronation,” Roy told reporters a day earlier. If House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “wants us to be united, then he should take the time to do this the right way. … I do not believe she should run unopposed.”
But after Cheney’s removal highlighted deep GOP divisions this week, the last thing McCarthy wants is a long drawn-out fight between moderates and conservatives over who should replace her. McCarthy has endorsed Stefanik, as have Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), another top Trump ally who was the founding chairman of the Freedom Caucus.
Moments after news broke that Roy was running, Trump himself sent out a statement mocking Roy.
"Can’t imagine Republican House Members would go with Chip Roy — he has not done a great job, and will probably be successfully primaried in his own district. I support Elise, by far, over Chip!"… (LINK TO STORY)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG Podcast EP. 139: Q1 20201 Review: COVID-19's Impact on the Built Environment with Michael Hsu
On today’s episode we speak with return guest, Austin-based Michael Hsu, Principal and Founder of Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. catch up from their June 2020 show, updating on impacts to the design/built environment sector through Q1 2021.
You can listen to all episodes on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. New content every Wednesday. Please like, link, comment and subscribe!