BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 11, 2021)
1801 Congress Building, part of the coming soon Texas Mall (Bingham Group 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
[BINGHAM GROUP]
EVENTS // Thursday, October 28 (6PM - 10PM0, A Night In Verde Presented by St. David’s Healthcare - benefiting the 4ATX Foundation (Austin FC’s non-profit arm).
Link-> https://seatgeek.com/a-night-in-verde-presented-by-st-davids-healthcare-tickets/mls/2021-10-28-7-pm/5497856?preview_token=5R39m8VbKk
***NEW*** BG Podcast Ep. 147: Redistricting, Austin's Mayoral Election, and a New Police Chief
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Cultural trust RFP expected as new EDC considers handling Live Music Fund (Austin Monitor)
The city’s new economic development corporation could issue its first call for development partners next month, with the goal of preserving or creating spaces that can be used by local musicians and arts groups that are increasingly being displaced.
At last week’s Music Commission meeting, Emmett Beliveau, a board member for the EDC, said the first request for proposals for the city’s long-planned cultural trust will go out by the end of November at the latest. That process will move forward while the body, which currently has one employee and is being largely run by Economic Development Department staff, conducts a search for its first CEO.
Beliveau, who also serves as chief operating officer of Austin-based concert promoter C3 Presents, said the board will discuss the recent request by the Music Commission to have the EDC administer the $2.3 million Live Music Fund program as one of its first projects. Commission members in recent talks have expressed hope that the EDC could evaluate applications and select recipients of the $5,000 and $10,000 grants at a lower cost than other outside administrators, freeing up more money for grants.
Beliveau said development areas around the South Central Waterfront district and connected to Huston-Tillotson University present attractive opportunities to install creative spaces that the city would play a part in brokering. He said the Live Music Fund and the chance to increase its funding via private giving would let the EDC log some “quick wins” on behalf of the music community.
“We have had a preliminary discussion to say we need to look at this,” he said, “and have asked our staff to present us some information about the fund, timelines, potential costs and the feasibility of whether it makes sense for the development corporation with a staff of one to take on at this time.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin cheers Tesla's headquarters move, but local home buyers left on edge (Reuters)
Austin prides itself on "keeping it weird," but the city's success at luring more big companies such as Tesla Inc. has some residents wary of getting priced out of their unique culture.
Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, said on Thursday the electric car maker will move its headquarters from Palo Alto, California, to Austin, Texas. read more
Housing prices in the Austin metro area have skyrocketed in recent years, with large tech firms including Apple Inc (AAPL.O), Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) Google and Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) building new campuses in and around the city.
"I'm really happy for all the jobs this will create, but my family is already unable to buy a house right now, and it will only get worse with Tesla," Trish Webb, 47, a resident of South Austin, said on Friday while on her lunch break from her job as a hospital administrative assistant.
Median prices for Austin houses have risen some 40% over the last two years, with the median price for a house around $549,000 in September, according to real estate brokerage Redfin.
Frequent reports of out-of-state buyers, particularly Californians, purchasing houses in cash at double the asking price have frustrated many Austinites. Over the summer, nearly three in every four houses sold in the city went for above the asking price, Redfin data showed.
Even before Musk's relocation announcement, the electric vehicle maker planned to bring some 10,000 workers to an imposing new factory east of the city center. It is unclear how many corporate workers Tesla will relocate from California, or hire in Texas.
"All these Californians coming here is also changing the culture, and I'm worried it will become too much," said Reed Chorry, 26, who moved to Austin from Houston several years ago and works in sales… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas State rolls out $250M capital campaign to bolster research, student experience (Austin Business Journal)
Texas State University unveiled Oct. 8 a $250 million capital campaign, the largest in the history of the San Marcos-based school, with the aim of elevating itself to a tier one research university.
Priorities for the campaign, dubbed "Next Is Now," are improvements to student support services, including scholarships, programming and fellowships; infrastructure improvements, including a $12.5 million renovation to the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, a new music building, new Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and renovations to Bobcat Stadium's training facility; additional endowed faculty positions; and growing the university's research capabilities.
The campaign was launched in 2014, and raised $172 million from 40,000 donors during its silent phase, which pushed the school's endowment from $165 million to $300 million. Donations have already been used to construct or renovate nine facilities at the school's San Marcos and Round Rock campuses ($26.9 million), including the $7.1 million Bruce and Gloria Ingram Hall for science and engineering and the $5 million Willow Hall Health Professions Building in Round Rock; improve facilities and programs for student athletes ($10 million); expand research; fund faculty positions; and more.
"Texas State has come a long way in the past decade, and we're excited about what comes 'Next,'" Texas State President Denise Trauth said in a statement. "Our top priority remains fundraising for undergraduate scholarships and graduate fellowships that bring a Texas State education within reach of brilliant students. Next Is Now is also laser focused on moving the university closer to our goal of becoming a Tier 1 research institution which brings tangible benefits to our students and to the state of Texas. Research creates new knowledge with the power to solve real-world problems. By recruiting outstanding faculty, we are elevating the university’s academic rigor and giving our students an exemplary education. Our donors are partners in these efforts, equipping Texas State to break new ground."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Bexar County judge's seat is up for grabs in 2022 - Peter Sakai is first candidate to declare (San Antonio express-News)
Peter Sakai is running for Bexar County judge. Just a day after Nelson Wolff publicly confirmed that he will not seek another term as county judge, Sakai, who has presided over the 225th District Court for the past 15 years, sent out a text message blast to Democratic precinct chairs and other potential supporters with news of his candidacy for Wolff’s seat. “I wanted you to know that I am running for County Judge,” Sakai said in his text. He said he had waited for Wolff “to make his announcement out of respect,” adding: “Thank you for your friendship and support.” In early September, Sakai announced his resignation from the bench, effective Oct. 31. His announcement prompted considerable speculation about his plans. Sakai is one of the most respected figures in the Bexar County court system, frequently lauded for his sensitive handling of family law cases and his advocacy for foster children and victims of domestic violence. He has been elected to four terms on the District Court bench, the last three without opposition.
Before that, he served 11 years as the first-ever judge of Bexar County Children’s Court, which is supervised by the 225th District Court. It’s an open question whether Sakai’s text announcement constitutes a formal statement of candidacy. That question is relevant because the judge intends to keep his seat until the end of this month, and the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct states that “a judge shall resign from judicial office upon becoming a candidate in a contested election for a nonjudicial office either in a primary or in a general or in a special election.” Sakai did not respond to a request to be interviewed for this column. Wolff, 80, has been county judge since 2001. His decision to retire at the end of next year creates the first open seat race for the position since 1992, when Cyndi Taylor Krier defeated Tommy Adkisson in the general election. Given how coveted the county judge’s post is, and how rarely it’s up for grabs, it would be understandable for county commissioners to give this race a close look. But that might not happen. Two of Wolff’s four colleagues on the Commissioners Court — Rebeca Clay-Flores and Trish DeBerry — are in their first year in office. Justin Rodriguez was elected to his first full term less than a year ago, after winning appointment to the Democratic-dominated court in 2019… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Houston City Council could vote on outside investigation into former housing director’s claims (KHOU-11)
City Attorney Arturo Michel said Thursday he’ll recommend Houston City Council members vote the following week on whether an outside firm should look into accusations made by the city’s former housing director.
Mayor Sylvester Turner fired Tom McCasland hours after he publicly accused the mayor of steering $15 million in federal Hurricane Harvey relief dollars toward a preferred developer.
“I am being forced to participate in a charade that this was a competitive process when I know it was not a competitive process,” McCasland told the city council’s housing committee during their September 21 meeting.
McCasland said the Huntington at Bay Area project, a proposed 148-unit apartment complex in the Clear Lake area, would create 88 affordable housing units for seniors.
However, he told council members 362 units could have been built had the administration gone with his staff’s recommendation.
“This administration is bankrolling a certain developer to the detriment of working families who need affordable homes,” said McCasland during the meeting.
McCasland told council members he was not alleging fraud while criticizing “a culture of ‘do it because I said so.’”
During Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Council Member Michael Kubosh brought up McCasland’s allegations.
“The allegations were so egregious that we need to clear the air,” said Council Member Kubosh, At-Large Position 3.
“This is not a procurement issue,” responded Mayor Turner. “There was no bidding.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Southwest Airlines cancels more than 1,000 Sunday flights (Associated Press)
The airline canceled more than 1,000 flights in total, or 29% of its schedule, as of 7 p.m. ET Sunday, according to flight tracker FlightAware. That was the highest rate by far of the major U.S. airlines. Next in line was Allegiant, which canceled 6% of its flights. American Airlines canceled 5% of its flights, while Spirit canceled 4% on Sunday, according to the flight tracker. On Saturday, Southwest Airlines canceled more than 800 flights.
Southwest Airlines said in an emailed statement that it had experienced weather challenges in its Florida airports at the beginning of the weekend, which were compounded by unexpected air traffic control issues in the same region. Those issues triggered delays and prompted significant cancellations for the airlines beginning Friday evening.
“We’ve continued diligent work throughout the weekend to reset our operation with a focus on getting aircraft and crews repositioned to take care of our customers,” said Southwest Airlines. “With fewer frequencies between cities in our current schedule, recovering during operational challenges is more difficult and prolonged.”
The company said that it’s allowing customers to explore self-service rebooking options on Southwest.com, where they can get updates on the status of their travel… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Rock star Miami police chief Art Acevedo's future is on thin ice 6 months into job (CNN)
Six months after Art Acevedo resigned as Houston's police chief to take the top job at the Miami Police Department, his future with the agency is on thin ice after city commissioners called for his ouster during two contentious meetings.
The commission held hourslong meetings on September 27 and October 1 to discuss decisions and behavior by Acevedo that they say are questionable, just a few days after the chief wrote a bombshell memo to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and City Manager Arthur Noriega on September 24.
In the memo, Acevedo accused city Commissioners Joe Carollo, Alex Diaz de la Portilla and Manolo Reyes of interfering with reform efforts and a confidential internal investigation.
Commissioners Carollo, de la Portilla and Reyes could not be reached for comment when contacted by CNN. Mayor Suarez and City Manager Noriega also could not be reached for comment.
The second meeting concluded with the commissioners voting unanimously to form a panel that will investigate Acevedo's hiring and the allegations against the commissioners laid out in his memo.
Acevedo, the first Latino to lead the police department in Houston, was dubbed by Miami's mayor as the "Tom Brady or the Michael Jordan of police chiefs," when he was hired... (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Democrats edge toward dumping Iowa's caucuses as the first presidential vote (Washington Post)
President Joe Biden is not a big fan. Former Democratic National Committee chair Tom Perez is openly opposed. And elsewhere in the Democratic inner sanctum, disdain for Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential caucus has been rising for years. Now the day of reckoning for Iowa Democrats is fast approaching, as the national party starts to create a new calendar for the 2024 presidential nomination that could remove Iowa from its privileged position for the first time since 1972, when candidates started flocking to the state for an early jump on the race to the White House. The caucuses' reputation has been damaged by high barriers to participation, a dearth of racial diversity, the rightward drift in the state's electorate and a leftward drift in the Democratic participants. The state party's inability to count the results in 2020 only deepened dismay in the party.
Biden, who handily won the party's nomination in 2020, noted the lack of diversity in the caucus during the campaign - "It is what it is," he said of the calendar - and called his fourth-place finish in the state a "gut punch." "We have to be honest with ourselves, and Iowa is not representative of America," Perez said Friday in an interview. "We need a primary process that is reflective of today's demographics in the Democratic Party." Others in Biden's extended orbit have come to similar conclusions about the caucuses, for varied reasons. "It is not suited to normal people, people that actually have daily lives," South Carolina State Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a former chairman of that state's Democratic Party and a longtime Biden ally, said of the caucuses. He described the laborious process of participating, over multiple hours, in person, on a weeknight, as far more restrictive than the requirements of a new voter law in Texas that Democrats universally oppose.
"I just think the caucus process as it exists in Iowa is not suitable in 21st-century America," he said. Those views are broadly held among party officers, even though Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison, a former South Carolina party chair, says no decisions have been made. He intends to "let the process play out," according to a statement to The Post. That process will be controlled by Biden and a small group of his allies, following the party's tradition of granting the sitting president control over party decisions… (LINK TO FULL STORY)