BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 9, 2021)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
Winter Storm Review Task Force - Regular Meeting Agenda (Friday, 7/9 @9AM)
Presentation of the City Manager's proposed budget (Friday, 7/9 @9AM)
The Austin Council next meets for regular business on July 22.
[BINGHAM GROUP]
What Will a Post-Pandemic Austin Look Like? (for Texas CEO Magazine)
Following a prolonged, pandemic-induced pause, Austin is on its way somewhere. Could the city be back in a significant way? That’s possible—and for most of us, it can’t happen fast enough. Arms have been jabbed with vaccines, most mask requirements have been lifted, flight traffic at Austin-Bergstrom International has picked up, and festivals are scheduled to reignite the city’s recent glory as a music lover’s destination—i.e., the “Live Music Capital of the World.”
However, taking an honest temperature of Austin means cogently visualizing both the positives and negatives laid bare during the worst of the pandemic. Yes, Austin is on its way back; but it’s how we politicians, leaders, and constituents collectively choose to steer its direction going forward that will make the difference… (LINK STORY)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
How much will Austin's next budget spend on policing, homelessness? (Austin American-Statesman)
Friday brings the first draft of Austin's budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and like a year ago at this time, all eyes will be on the potential tax impact to homeowners and the spending plan for the Austin Police Department.
Of additional interest is funding to address homelessness, an area the city has invested in heavily in the past two budgets, including $106 million appropriated this year from outside of the regular city budget using federal relief funds from the pandemic.
Last year's city budget was for $4.2 billion, and this one will probably be higher based on overall growth and on spending for new projects. The budget proposal for the next fiscal year — which begins Oct. 1 — will be presented to the Austin City Council at 2 p.m. and will be available to view live on the city's website, and also in person, at Mobile Loaves & Fishes' Community First! Village Unity Hall in East Austin.
Friday's budget proposal is a first draft, prepared by the city manager's office with consultation from department heads and the budget office. It will almost certainly look different by the time the City Council makes edits and approves the final version next month after offering amendments to support various programs.
But much of this first version will stick, as there are only so many opportunities to increase spending for one initiative before cannibalizing funding for another. There might also be challenges in digging into the city's reserves at a time when finances are tight because of the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic… (LINK TO STORY)
ZAP recommends multifamily project against neighbors’ wishes (Austin Monitor)
A rezoning for a 330-unit multifamily project is heading to City Council with the unanimous recommendation of the Zoning and Platting Commission – and against the wishes of several neighbors who spoke at the meeting.
The commission voted Tuesday to recommend the requested Multifamily-Moderate Density (MF-4) zoning that would make the project viable. The site is located at 12121 N. Interstate 35 near Tech Ridge, and is currently zoned Community Commercial (GR). City staffers recommended MF-4 zoning.
Commissioners regarded the project as inoffensive. Residents in a single-family neighborhood adjacent to the site, on the other hand, painted a dire picture of the traffic congestion, loss of privacy and increased crime the new apartment complex would cause.
Traffic was their chief concern. Because the proposed apartment complex would only have access to the one-way interstate frontage road, many car trips would be routed through neighborhood streets.
“If you want to see how a neighborhood could be destroyed, you put 1,000 to 2,000 additional trips per day on Nature’s Glen,” said Glenn Weichert, lawyer for the neighborhood’s HOA. “You’ll see for-sale signs going up right and left.”
Neighbor Ed Bos, whose backyard abuts the site, said having buildings and a parking lot so close would render his backyard unusable: “We can’t enjoy our backyards anymore. We can’t have family and friends over for cookouts.”
Bos reasoned that because people bought their homes anticipating commercial use, it would be unfair to change the zoning to multifamily. Now he may move. “We had plans of staying in this neighborhood and not ever moving again, but … the change of rezoning for multifamily could force us to relocate due to privacy, traffic, parking and other concerns.”
Parking from the proposed complex spilling over into the neighborhood concerned neighbor Tiffany Conner. “Overflow parking will put an undue, vast amount of stress and pressure on this small community, something we are not sure whether we can withstand,” she said.
“We’re not against apartments in general – we all purchased our homes with two apartment complexes less than a mile from our houses. We’re just against an apartment complex in this specific location,” Conner clarified… (LINK TO STORY)
Million-dollar homes aren't what they used to be in Austin — price point now 'entry ticket' to some neighborhoods (Austin Business Journal)
In Austin, a $1 million home is no longer quite so extraordinary.
The median home price in the city has been creeping steadily into the mid-six figures. In May, the median price in the city hit a historic high of $566,500 — and that’s just for a typical home.
In May 2018, 104 homes in the Austin metro sold for more than $1 million, according to Redfin (Nasdaq: RDFN). That amounted to about 2.9% of all home sales that month. By May 2021, the number had more than tripled. That month, 347 homes sold for higher than $1 million, making up 9.2% of total home sales.
What was once a pie-in-the-sky benchmark is now becoming commonplace in Central Texas. Gone are the days when a $1 million home meant extreme amenities.
Driven by unprecedented demand and a dearth of inventory, a new type of home has graduated into the million-dollar price bracket. Shared lots, empty acreage and “fixer uppers” are all being listed for seven figures.
“When you talk about what you can get for $1 million, for me, the real newsworthy piece of that is what you don't get for a million,” said Realtor Mark Strüb, who leads Strüb Residential Group at Compass Real Estate. “It's not as impressive a number as it used to be.”… (LINK TO STORY)
Austin looks for routes out of its homelessness crisis (Austin Chronicle)
For more than a year, the city of Austin, its social service partners, and primary and behavioral care providers have operated protective lodging facilities, mostly in converted motels acquired as part of the city's long-term strategy to end homelessness, for unhoused Austinites at high risk of dying from COVID-19. Outreach workers make referrals to the "ProLodges," and each person who is accepted gets their own room and bathroom, allowing them to isolate in place.
The ProLodges were cobbled together by motivated city staff with the help of dedicated street-level outreach workers and service providers. They came together with extraordinary speed as COVID-19 surged into Austin. Now, as the pandemic fades, so do the ProLodges – from five at the height of the pandemic, to two now, as guests exit into other housing options, or back to the street. As a public health intervention, ProLodges have clearly succeeded. Housing status is not tracked when people are tested for COVID-19, so it's unknown precisely how many Austinites who've contracted the virus are experiencing homelessness. But there has been only one known outbreak among people living together without stable housing – at Downtown's Salvation Army group shelter, which at the time was still sleeping more than a dozen people in its dorm rooms (it implemented more stringent distancing restrictions, which limited its capacity, afterward)… (LINK TO STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas Legislature moves quickly on contentious election bills as special session opens (Dallas Morning News)
The Republican-led Legislature reported for work Thursday but offered up competing visions about how to tackle the special session, with the Senate moving full steam ahead on a slate of hot-button social issues, while the House signaled it would start with efforts to restore its staffers’ pay. The Senate quickly set hearings on three items dear to the GOP’s staunchest conservatives, including a rewrite of election laws and restrictions on young athletes who are transgender and on abortion-inducing drugs. The House, a bigger and more cumbersome body, introduced bills on two of Gov. Greg Abbott’s 11 agenda items that are priorities for Speaker Dade Phelan — bail changes and elections.
But, showing it has different priorities than the Senate, as well as anger over Abbott’s veto of funding for the legislative branch, the House until late Thursday afternoon had scheduled a committee hearing on just one bill — to restore a $410 million, two-year budget for lawmakers’ offices and support agencies that Abbott had whacked. Late in the day, the House posted notices that hearings would be held Saturday on the election and bail bills.
Opening-day sessions in the two chambers were brief, with several GOP senators posing for selfies and two House members quizzing Phelan about possible actions to punish one side or the other in the divided state government: Arlington GOP Rep. Tony Tinderholt asked the speaker how quickly the House could move on Tinderholt’s House Resolution 5, designed to discourage a quorum break such as that House Democrats used to stop an elections bill from passing near the end of this year’s regular session. Under it, the chamber could strip committee chairmanships and seniority privileges of those who break quorum, as well as membership on nonsubstantive panels, such as Calendars, which decides which bills go to the floor… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has colossal $55 million war chest for 2022 reelection bid (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott is starting his 2022 reelection campaign with $55 million in the bank, a staggering figure even by the already high standards for which his fundraising is known.
His campaign coffers hit the balance after he raised over $18.7 million during the last 10 days of June, his campaign announced Thursday.
The campaign said the cash-on-hand total was larger “than any other statewide candidate in Texas history.”
Seeking a third term next year, Abbott already faces at least three primary challengers. They include former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas and Texas GOP Chair Allen West, who announced his campaign Sunday.
“Our record-breaking fundraising period is a testament to the success of the 87th Legislative Session and paints a clear picture of what matters most to Texans: freedom, opportunity, and economic prosperity,” Abbott said in a statement.
His campaign released the numbers about an hour before state lawmakers were set to reconvene in Austin for a special session on Abbott’s priority elections bill as well as 10 other items largely centered on conservative priorities.
Abbott and other state elected officials had only 10 days to replenish their campaign accounts in June due to the fundraising blackout around the regular legislative session. Of the $18.7 million that Abbott raked in from June 21-30, over $17.6 million came from Texans, according to his campaign… (LINK TO STORY)
Texas native tapped to lead U.S. Census Bureau set for confirmation hearing (Houston Chronicle)
Robert Santos, the San Antonio native who President Joe Biden has tapped to lead the U.S. Census Bureau, will face the Senate Homeland Security Committee for his confirmation hearing July 15. Santos, who is Mexican American, would be the first person of color to lead the federal government’s largest statistical agency full time. He is currently serving as the president of the American Statistical Association and is vice president and chief methodologist at the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, a think tank that conducts economic and social policy research. Santos will appear before the Democrat-led committee at a critical moment for the bureau, with federal officials working through the 2020 Census data that will inform state and federal redistricting processes across the nation. The agency is expected to deliver the data to all states by Sept. 30.
He would also lead an agency re-evaluating how it accurately gathers and reports information about communities of color — a subject that Santos has said he cares deeply about. “When I fill out the census form, I check the Latino-Hispanic-Mexican American box,” Santos told KERA in 2019. “
And when it comes to race, I mark ‘other’ and insert ‘mestizo’ because that’s how I feel about race and ethnicity.” Santos, who has had a career in research, math and leadership for more than 40 years, has a résumé that is 13 pages long. He also has strong ties to Texas. Santos grew up just south of Woodlawn Lake and attended Little Flower Catholic School and then Holy Cross High School in the early 1970s. His parents both worked at Kelly Air Force Base. He attended San Antonio Community College and later earned an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Trinity University in 1976. On the side, Santos has worked as a photo crew chief at the SXSW Festival in Austin, where he has helped manage about 100 photographers each year… (LINK TO STORY)
Dallas-Houston bullet train opposition group wants Texas Supreme Court to reconsider its case (Dallas Morning News)
A group opposed to the construction of a rail line for a 90-minute bullet train between Dallas and Houston wants a rehearing after the Texas Supreme Court declined to hear its case last month. The organization, Texans Against High-Speed Rail, is made up of property owners, business owners and elected officials who are concerned about the rail company’s possible use of eminent domain. Texas Central, a private development company based in Houston, wants to create the high-speed Dallas-to-Houston rail, which would have one stop near College Station. It would stretch over 240 miles and replicate the Japanese Tokaido Shinkansen bullet train system. The company has said it will try to avoid using eminent domain, which allows it to buy private property for its use.
Blake Beckham, a Dallas attorney who represents Texans Against High-Speed Rail and landowners along the planned route for the bullet train, said construction would have negative consequences for many Texans, particularly thousands of landowners at risk of losing their land and the possible environmental effects of the rail. “Nobody has any understanding of all of the ripple effects,” Beckham said. “At least with having some land taken, get something paid for. How about the guy that’s next door to it? He’s got to see it and hear it,” he added. In 2020, the Federal Railroad Administration published the project’s final environmental impact statement, moving the project forward. The 10,000-page document was reviewed by the U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and had been in the works for four years, according to Texas Central… (LINK TO STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Biden to urge more scrutiny of tech mergers and data privacy (New York Times)
President Biden on Friday will encourage federal agencies to crack down on the way major tech companies grow through mergers and gain a competitive advantage by leveraging reams of consumer data, as part of a larger executive order aimed at dispersing corporate consolidation throughout the economy. The executive order includes several measures specifically targeting big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon, people with knowledge of its contents said. The order will tell the federal agencies that approve mergers that they should scrutinize the tech industry’s practices more closely. A second provision will encourage the Federal Trade Commission to write rules limiting how the tech giants use consumer data, a response to criticism that companies like Amazon can leverage what they know about users to gain the upper hand on competing services and businesses.
The order is Mr. Biden’s latest acknowledgment of concerns that the tech giants have obtained outsize market power, becoming gatekeepers to commerce, communications and culture. A growing group of lawmakers, academics and rival companies say government regulators failed to check the growth of the companies for more than a decade. To address the companies’ market power, they say, policymakers need to aggressively enforce antitrust laws and possibly rewrite them to better capture Silicon Valley’s business models. Mr. Biden has already put some vocal critics of Big Tech in leadership positions. In the White House, he appointed Tim Wu, a Columbia University law professor and outspoken proponent of breaking up companies like Facebook, as a special adviser on competition. He named Lina Khan as chair of the Federal Trade Commission. Ms. Khan has also called for the breakup of big tech companies and worked on a House antitrust investigation into Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google.
Big Tech’s critics also often argue that the economy on a whole has become more concentrated to the detriment of consumers — including in industries like agriculture, medicine and fashion. And some White House officials hope the order will hark back to the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who highlighted the rise of big business and installed government officials opposed to concentration, the people said… (LINK TO STORY)
Toyota will stop donating to Republicans who objected to election certification (NBC)
Japanese automaker Toyota announced Thursday it will stop contributing to Republican members of Congress who on Jan. 6 voted against certifying the 2020 election results after a PAC said it would begin running ads criticizing companies for such donations. Toyota's decision to donate to those lawmakers after Jan. 6 "troubled some stakeholders," and for that reason "we have decided to stop contributing to those Members of Congress," the company said in a statement. The move came after an announcement by the Lincoln Project, a PAC formed by Republicans to defeat then-President Donald Trump in 2020, that it would target corporations that donated to Republicans who opposed the formalization of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential victory. An advertisement aimed at Toyota ran on Thursday.
"Toyota made the right choice today," the Lincoln Project posted on Twitter after Toyota's reversal. The Lincoln Project also criticized the cable company Comcast for refusing to air their advertisement and "opting instead to shield corporate advertisers," the group said in a tweet. Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of NBC News. A representative for Comcast did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump and his supporters spent months trying to cast doubt on and overturn the results of the election, culminating in an effort to derail the official counting of Electoral College votes on Jan. 6 when a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol. After the mob had been cleared from the building, 147 Republicans voted to sustain the objections to the counting of the results in Arizona. Toyota had previously defended their donations, saying the contributions were "based on their position on issues that are important to the auto industry and the company." "
We do not believe it is appropriate to judge members of Congress solely based on their votes on the electoral certification. Based on our thorough review, we decided against giving to some members who, through their statements and actions, undermine the legitimacy of our elections and institutions," a company spokesperson said previously… (LINK TO STORY)