BG Reads | News You Need to Know (November 24, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Austin City Council Special Called Meeting Agenda (11.30.2021)
Joint Meeting with Travis County Commissioners Court
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Taylor chosen as home for new Samsung chip facility (KUT)
A site in Taylor has been chosen for Samsung's new $17 billion chip-making factory.
"The implications of this facility extend far beyond the boundaries of Texas. It's going to impact the entire world," Gov. Greg Abbott said at a press conference Tuesday announcing the deal.
Abbott said this is the largest foreign direct investment in Texas on record.
The tech company had also considered locating the factory in Austin, New York or Arizona.
The site will consist of about 6 million square feet in the southwest part of the city.
Taylor, Williamson County and the Taylor Independent School District made agreements with Samsung in recent months over incentives and expectations.
That includes offering tax breaks, providing land and constructing roads around the property. In exchange, the company has promised to create 1,800 jobs and at least 24 internships for students a year.
Taylor Mayor Brandt Rydell said the city was honored to be selected for the site.
"Samsung’s decision to locate its cutting-edge semiconductor fabrication plant in Taylor is the single most significant and consequential development for the local economy since the International & Great Northern Railroad laid tracks here in the 1870’s," he said.
County Commissioner Russ Boles, who represents Taylor, said the factory may change the area, but residential developers have already brought changes. Bringing the tech giant to the small town is one of many decisions local leaders had to make for the future of the area.
"It's more of a tradeoff of fewer rooftops for the ability to have more jobs and more opportunities," he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
$1 billion capital investment in battery, solar power plant coming to Caldwell County (Community Impact)
Caldwell County will soon house a $1 billion development slated to create two battery and solar power plant facilities, expected to bring up to 400 jobs in the first year.
The Greater San Marcos Partnership announced the project in a press release, noting that it is the largest economic development by measure of capital investment in the history of the Texas Innovation Corridor, which it describes as Hays and Caldwell counties.
Chem-Energy Corp., a California-based petroleum trading firm and energy company, entered a performance-based Chapter 381 agreement with Caldwell County that should provide $22.4 million in tax revenue over the next decade. The Caldwell County Commissioners Court unanimously approved the agreement Nov. 5.
“We welcome the largest economic development win in the Texas Innovation Corridor to Caldwell County,” Caldwell County Judge Hoppy Haden said in a statement. “This is a seismic development for our region, which will establish several new opportunities in our community. We anticipate that Chem-Energy will be a long-term community partner to Caldwell County,” Haden said.
The first site built will be the solar complex near Uhland in the spring of 2022 on a 3,518-acre parcel of land, with an expected opening date to be determined in 2023, according to the announcement. The second facility will be built near Martindale but does not have a firm construction timeline and will take place after the first facility is completed… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin economy seeing ‘growth surge’ coming out of pandemic (Austin Monitor)
Driven by strong job growth, in-migration and the ongoing supply of federal stimulus funds, the Austin area is experiencing a “growth surge” that economists expect to continue for the foreseeable future.
That was the main message at a recent economic forecast presentation organized by the Austin Chamber, where the vital statistics of the national and Central Texas economies were reviewed to determine overall performance coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Economist Jon Hockenyos said all sectors of the Austin economy have strongly rebounded, with 79,000 jobs added in the past 12 months. Local gross domestic product results are above pre-pandemic levels and wages are growing at just under 5 percent.
He said with the area’s vaccination rate now over 70 percent, even entertainment and hospitality businesses are seeing strong demand.
“Whether it’s you at the nail salon, at the hotel or a performing arts center, that’s the last stuff to come back,” he said. “But as I look around the room we’re all comfortable being here together and we’re starting to get more comfortable with going out, and we see that since it’s hard to get a reservation in Austin these days. It’s almost impossible.”
While inflation approaching 6 percent nationally is a concern that is expected to linger into the second half of 2022, Hockenyos said the biggest check on local growth is the cost of housing. Recent data shows the area has less than one month’s demand for housing available, far below the recommended supply of six months, with median single-family home prices now at $539,000.
Those home price increases are abated somewhat by the growth in wages, with the average weekly wage in the area growing to $1,663.
Hockenyos said labor shortages are an issue mostly in retail businesses, with the strength of the local economy and labor needs making irrelevant the pre-pandemic push for a $15/hour minimum wage for some city contracts.
At this point in Austin more than anywhere else supply issues are the constraints on growth, be it housing or the labor force. All over town in consumer-facing areas people are looking for workers. “The new effective minimum wage in Austin is at least $15 an hour, maybe more,” he said.
“That’s interesting from a public policy perspective because a couple of years ago the city was trying to mandate $15 an hour as a minimum requirement for a number of economic development deals, and that’s no longer an issue since the number now is probably closer to $18 to get somebody to stick around.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Beto O’Rourke targets South Texas in bid to win back Democratic voters he’ll need to beat Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022 (Texas Tribune)
In the first days of his campaign for governor, Beto O’Rourke made a beeline to this southernmost corner of the state, saying it was no mistake he was choosing to start his run in a part of Texas where Democrats have their work cut out for them after the 2020 election.
His supporters know it, too.
“We are being attacked at all ends,” Amanda Elise Salas said as she introduced him here Wednesday night. “This is a Democratic area, and there is no way we are gonna let Republicans come in here and take over.”
“They’re knocking at our door,” Mario Saenz, a Democratic precinct chair from Brownsville, said afterward. “We cannot let them in.”
A lot of Democratic hopes are riding on O’Rourke this election cycle, but few may be more consequential to the party’s future in Texas than his ability to stave off a strong GOP offensive in South Texas. Emboldened by President Joe Biden’s underwhelming performance throughout the predominantly Hispanic region last year, Republicans have been pushing hard to make new inroads there, and O’Rourke faces an incumbent in Gov. Greg Abbott who been working for years to win Hispanic voters… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
GLO review finds city Harvey housing program ‘undermines’ competitive process (Houston Chronicle)
The city used too much personal discretion from the mayor and housing staff in granting money to developers, incorrectly scored applicants and undermined the competitive process for distributing federal relief funds in Houston’s $450 million Hurricane Harvey multifamily housing program, a review by the Texas General Land Office found. The land office’s 11-page report, delivered to city officials Tuesday, spells out five findings and requires the city to take corrective actions before submitting any more projects for approval. The agency said it could seek to claw money back if the city does not prove it has corrected the alleged issues. The report has broad implications for the city’s multifamily housing program, and it halts — at least for now — seven developments in the city’s. The GLO named five deals in particular it no longer would approve, and it said the most recent funding round would have to be presented anew, meaning the two projects chosen so far would need to reapply.
The findings include: inconsistencies in the criteria and methodology of the city’s three funding rounds used to award the money, incorrect scoring of applicants, lack of documentation to support the qualitative and discretionary processes used to choose winners, deficient internal controls to enforce the conflict of interest policy, and the use of subjective factors that undermine a competitive process. The city must strengthen its funding structure and new rounds, strengthen its scoring method, ensure project awards are adequately documented and strengthen its conflict of interest function, the GLO said. The review was spurred by former Housing Director Tom McCasland’s allegations that Mayor Sylvester Turner’s administration ordered the third funding round to benefit the developers of a proposal called Huntington at Bay Area, a charge the mayor has denied. However, the GLO’s report did not include that controversy because the development in question never was submitted to the state for approval. Turner later withdrew the recommendation to fund the Huntington project, saying the scrutiny of it had become a “distraction” for his administration and the city. His former longtime law partner, Barry Barnes, was a co-developer on the deal, a fact Turner and McCasland both said they did not know until the Chronicle reported it… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
The Buttigieg presidential buzz has penetrated the White House (Politico)
Pete Buttigieg has long been a man in a hurry.
Since 2010, he has run for treasurer of Indiana, mayor of South Bend, chair of the Democratic National Committee, and president of the United States. At 39, he is one of the most omnipresent and newly-powerful members of President Joe Biden’s Cabinet. But he says he’s not thinking about what comes next, even as he’s buzzed about as a potential Biden heir.
“I’d say the other thing that I'm really enjoying about this job, although it's very demanding and obviously requiring a lot, is that this is the least I have had to think about campaigns and elections in about a decade and that's a very good thing,” he told POLITICO on Friday, amidst people in hard hats and bright yellow safety vests in a construction zone near Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport.
While Buttigieg says he’s not contemplating the race to be Biden’s successor, inside the West Wing, others are imagining it for him. His name is sometimes discussed by aides as a natural Democratic presidential nominee in 2028 — or 2024 if the president opts not to run.
“Nobody in the West Wing shuts that down,” said one person with direct knowledge of the conversations. “It’s very open.”
The chatter has frustrated some staffers of color who see it as disrespectful to Kamala Harris — the first Black woman vice president — and think senior officials should tamp it down. Some of Buttigieg’s former campaign staffers also question whether challenging Harris is feasible given how critical the Black vote is in any Democratic primary, and how Buttigieg struggled to attract those voters the last time around. But there is some existing infrastructure waiting in the wings… (LINK TO FULL STORY)