BG Reads | News You Need to Know (April 25, 2022)
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[BG PODCAST]
Episode 156: Managing Growth in the City of Leander with Mayor Christine DeLisle
Today’s episode (156) features City of Leander Mayor Christine DeLisle. She and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the growth and associated challenges with one the fastest growing cities in the nation.
Elected Mayor in May of 2021, Mayor DeLisle previously served a three-year term as Place 4 on the Leander City Council.
Located just 30 minutes northwest of downtown Austin, Leander has experienced substantial growth in its population over the past decade. In May 2020, the U.S. Census Bureau announced Leander, Texas was the fastest-growing large city in America between 2018 and 2019 -> EPISODE LINK
[HEARINGS]
Tuesday (4/26)
Wednesday (4/27)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Advocacy orgs target compatibility, parking requirements in VMU2 (Austin Monitor)
As City Council discusses VMU2, a proposal to allow taller buildings on sites zoned Vertical Mixed-Use in exchange for more affordable housing, advocacy groups have rallied to scrap what they say are VMU2’s biggest shortcomings: compatibility and parking requirements.
“Eliminating barriers to housing development, like parking minimums and compatibility, is essential,” Chris Randazzo, Real Estate Council of Austin board chair, said in a statement to the Austin Monitor. “It is no longer the time to tinker at the edges of fixing the housing crisis – we need to have all options on the table.”
Compatibility and parking were not part of Council’s VMU2 discussions until earlier this month, when Council Member Chito Vela posted on the City Council Message Board in favor of getting rid of the requirements in exchange for more affordable housing.
“If we cannot make relatively simple compatibility and parking changes to VMU, I struggle to see how we solve our housing crisis,” Vela said in a follow-up post.
Compatibility dictates how tall buildings can be near single-family homes. Vela referenced a report by city staffers explaining how compatibility restricts most VMU-zoned sites from reaching their maximum allowed heights, making projects smaller or even financially infeasible. According to a separate report by city staffers, Austin has greater compatibility requirements than other cities they researched.
Advocates say removing compatibility aligns with Council’s preference for dense housing along major roads. “Compatibility alone has prevented thousands of units from being built in the very places Council has indicated they want them – in high-opportunity areas and corridors that are centrally located with access to bus and rail systems,” Randazzo said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin ISD targets increased teacher pay in 2022-23 budget (KXAN)
Austin ISD parents and students had the opportunity to preview some of the priorities of the upcoming 2022-23 budget during a presentation Saturday. District leaders outlined key focuses of the budget, including teacher and staff wages.
District officials said its core investment will be in employee compensation, increasing hourly rates and teachers’ salaries up to 3.7%. Approximately 86% of AISD’s general fund budget goes toward payroll costs, according to the district’s budget FAQ.
Officials also noted the need for Austin ISD to maintain strong cash reserves to protect its bond rating.
“We begin to run low on funds in October, and November, and so if we didn’t have that 20% in reserves, strong reserves, then we as a district would not be able to make payroll, potentially in October and November,” said Eduardo Ramos, Austin ISD’s chief financial officer… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Downtown Commission wants private developer proposals for convention center expansion (Austin Monitor)
The Downtown Commission wants the city to solicit proposals from private developers to pay for a portion of the expansion and reconstruction of the Austin Convention Center.
At last week’s meeting, the commission approved a recommendation asking City Council to direct staff to conduct a request for proposals; specifically the residential or office spaces for the upper floors of the site that is currently eyed for an ambitious overhaul costing more than $1 billion from Hotel Occupancy Tax revenues. The amended recommendation also asks for a report from city staff examining the state of convention center business around the country, with forecasts on how attendance at events is expected to recover after the Covid-19 pandemic.
The commission has a working group that has been studying the convention center expansion for months, taking special interest in the findings of convention business analyst Heywood Sanders showing most projections of future convention industry business are overly aggressive and inflated.
Commissioner Mike Lavigne said it’s possible private developers could shoulder a significant portion of the expansion cost in exchange for the opportunity to create attractive residential or commercial real estate in the heart of downtown.
“I’m hooked on the idea of a public-private partnership and it’s unbelievable to me that we haven’t explored that further. I’ve talked to some major developers in town about this specifically … and they all tell me unequivocally that it would be an amazing opportunity to put 40 floors of housing above the five floors of the convention center,” he said. “Most cities put convention centers in places where they’re trying to spur development or regrowth and we have the unique opportunity to be putting a convention center (expansion) in a place that’s already a boomtown. It’s important that we go back and ask staff to look at a new approach.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Council gives Austin Water $1.4M budget boost for staff, tech in response to February treatment breakdown (Community Impact)
Austin Water is receiving a $1.4 million budget boost to support its staffing and operations as the city continues to address the utility's role in the February citywide boil-water notice.
City Council unanimously approved the budget amendment April 21. According to city documents, the new funding will support 16 full-time positions at Austin Water, including 12 supervisors and technicians, and four support staff members at a cost of $400,000.
"The additional staffing approved by council today will improve Austin Water’s operational resiliency at our water treatment plants by allowing overlapping supervision between day and night shifts, as well as additional on-site engineering and training staff," said Rick Coronado, the utility's assistant director of operations, in an April 21 statement. "These positions are expected to post in the upcoming months and will be filled as soon as possible with qualified individuals who meet Austin Water’s licensing requirements."
Additionally, $1 million will be spent on a range of technology updates to modernize software at water treatment plants… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
In Mexico, unease after Abbott’s border inspections, and a renewed emphasis on communication (Dallas Morning News)
On April 14, Gov. María Eugenia Campos Galván of Chihuahua flew to Austin to publicly vow in front of Gov. Greg Abbott that she had a sound plan for enforcing security along the border with Texas. Days later, she was back in this city long troubled by cartel violence, flanked by a strong presence of uniformed officers and special operatives, to attend a funeral where mourners buried one of her top police commanders and three others, all ambushed separately in the span of 48 hours by alleged members of organized crime. The funeral capped off a week where Campos and three other Mexican governors were paraded before the Texas governor as he sought to secure what he called “historic” border security agreements after his stepped-up inspections of commercial vehicles snarled traffic, leading to estimates of billions of dollars in trade losses.
Those meetings were the first time Abbott — who has been in office for more than seven years — came face to face with the Mexican governors, who routinely met with his predecessors. As Campos faced nervous, skeptical crowds in Juárez, who want to know what her plan is to address spiraling crime and some a bit chagrined about the governors’ apparent obeisance before Abbott, she reflected that there’s only one solution to the complex web of problems between Mexico and the United States.
“We can only coexist with dialogue, with openness and communication,” she said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. When asked whether neighbors Texas and Chihuahua can coexist as long as Abbott is threatening to step up commercial truck inspections again if he does not think border security is adequate, Campos replied “no.” But she emphasized that the path forward as Texas and Mexico tackle drugs, guns and migration problems must start with better connections. Renae Eze, Abbott’s spokeswoman, said Saturday that a lack of communication between the administration of President Joe Biden and the Mexican government has made the border situation worse and added, “Governor Abbott and his office have been in regular contact with Mexican officials throughout his time serving Texans to ensure a strong partnership with our neighbors.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Biden administration drops fight over Texas’ Medicaid waiver, now in place until 2030 (Texas Tribune)
A federal health care program that Texas uses to help pay for health care for uninsured Texans — worth billions of dollars annually — is safe for another decade after the federal government said Friday that it would stop fighting the Trump-era agreement to extend the program beyond its expiration date later this year.
“It is not the best use of the federal government’s limited resources to continue to litigate this matter,” reads a letter sent Friday to state health officials from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “This should resolve the issue without the need for further litigation and will create no disruption to the people who rely on Texas’ Medicaid program.”
The announcement concludes a yearlong legal battle over the so-called 1115 waiver, specifically how long it should stay in effect and how parts of it should be funded… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Fort Worth city council to consider getting into cryptocurrency (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)
The city of Fort Worth could start mining bitcoin. The City Council will vote Tuesday on a resolution that would encourage the technology’s development as well as accept the donation of three bitcoin mining machines from the industry advocacy group Texas Blockchain Council. The resolution would position the city as “crypto-friendly, welcoming to the industry and to those responsible businesses contributing to the development of this evolving technology.” The three bitcoin mining machines, valued at $2,100, would be given to the city free of charge for a six-month pilot program.
It’s not clear how much the city will pay to operate the machines or whether the city will earn any revenue. Representatives for the city declined to comment ahead of Tuesday’s vote. If passed, Fort Worth would join cities like Miami and New York looking to capture investment into bitcoin and other cyptocurrency technology companies. American Venture Capital firms invested $7.2 billion into cryptocurrencies in 2021, according to reporting by Nasdaq.com cited in the city’s resolution. Bitcoin is one of several digital currencies operating on a technology called “blockchain.” It uses a network of computer servers to maintain a digital ledger of transactions. Each computer in the network maintains an identical copy of the ledger, so no one user can hack or change the data once it has been recorded. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin operate on what’s called a “proof of work model.” High powered computers race to solve a complex math problem, and whichever solves it first is awarded with cryptocurrency. The process uses high amounts of energy, which critics point to when arguing about the technology’s impact on the environment… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Twitter in talks with Musk over bid to buy platform, according to reports (NPR)
Twitter's board and Tesla CEO Elon Musk negotiated into the early hours of Monday over his bid to buy the social media platform, The New York Times reported.
Musk said last week that he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing to buy Twitter, putting pressure on the company's board to negotiate a deal.
The Times, citing people with knowledge of the situation who it did not identify, said the two sides were discussing details including a timeline and fees if an agreement was signed and then fell apart. The people said the situation was fluid and fast-moving.
Twitter had enacted an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could make a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive. But the board decided to negotiate after Musk updated his proposal to show he had secured financing, according to The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the negotiations were underway.
On April 14, Musk announced an offer to buy the social media platform for $54.20 per share, or about $43 billion, but did not say at the time how he would finance the acquisition… (LINK TO FULL STORY)