BG Reads | News You Need to Know (June 16, 2022)
[HEARINGS]
Thursday, June 16
Note: This is the final Council meeting before the Summer recess (June 17 - July 25)
[AUSTIN METRO]
A tale of two Austins for those who need affordable housing and transit (Austin American-Statesman)
Austinites are poised to pump an estimated $11.6 billion — and counting — into a major expansion of our public transit system, which will have massive implications on where people can afford to live and work in the city.
So you might be wondering: How are we situated right now? How much of the city’s affordable housing actually falls along the transit lines we have today?
The answer is a good deal, and astonishingly little, depending on where you look.
A fascinating analysis by HousingWorks Austin, an affordable housing advocacy group, recently found that 43% of the city’s subsidized housing units sit within a five-minute walk of a high-frequency Capital Metro transit line. Not outstanding, but not terrible, right?
But when you drill into the different City Council districts, as HousingWorks does, some stark disparities emerge.
In downtown’s District 9, an impressive 73% of the subsidized housing units are close to transit. The same goes for two-thirds of the subsidized housing units in East Austin’s District 3 and North Austin’s District 4. Rents and commuting costs are soaring everywhere, but at least these parts of town offer pockets of opportunity for people needing affordable housing and transportation.
Pan over to the west side of Austin, though, and you’ll need a magnifying glass to find transit-friendly affordable housing on the map.
In West Austin’s District 10: Just 2% of the subsidized housing units are near transit.
In Southwest Austin’s District 8: Less than 1% of the subsidized units are.
In far Northwest Austin’s District 6: None of the units are… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin ISD updates school safety protocols for next year (KXAN)
Last month’s mass shooting in Uvalde remains on the minds of many schools and parents.
Wednesday night, Austin Independent School District held a school safety and security meeting for the first time since the tragedy.
AISD introduces new safety protocols that’ll be put in place this fall before kids come back to campus.
It’ll mean new de-escalation training for its police officers and security staff.
To maximize response coverage, the district will also expand its security sectors from four to eight areas around town where its campuses are located.
“The safety of the campus and everyone around that campus is a shared responsibility,” AISD Acting Chief of Police Beverly Freshour said.
AISD also aims to have a security guard placed on every campus.
They’ll increase security staff hours from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m.
“With these hours it provides more presence prior to arrivals,” Freshour said. “As well as after dismissals during after-school activity.”... (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin near top of the heap for equity-rich metros (Austin Business Journal)
Rising home prices have made Austin one of the most equity-rich markets in the nation, according to a recent report.
Of the 107 U.S. metros with populations greater than 500,000, Austin ranked No. 2 for equity-rich properties, according to Attom Data Solution's first-quarter 2022 U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report. For Attom, equity rich means that the combined estimated amount of loan balances secured by a property was no more than 50% of the home’s estimated market value.
"Homeowners continue to benefit from rising home prices," stated Rick Sharga, executive vice president of market intelligence for Attom. "Record levels of home equity provide financial security for millions of families, and minimize the chance of another housing market crash like the one we saw in 2008. But these higher home prices and rising interest rates make it extremely challenging for first time buyers to enter the market."
In the Austin metro, 73.9% of mortgaged properties were equity rich in the first quarter of 2022. The only metro with a higher percentage than Austin was San Jose, California, with 74.4%. Nationally, about 44.9% of properties are considered equity rich… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas agencies resist releasing public records that could help clarify response to Uvalde school shooting (Texas Tribune)
In the past week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has joined the growing list of state and local officials fighting the release of records that could help bring clarity to how the emergency response unfolded during last month’s deadly shooting in Uvalde.
The governor’s office strayed from that broader opposition Monday, granting a request under the Texas Public Information Act from a Houston television station that sought the handwritten notes he used when he first spoke publicly about the shooting. The notes appear to support Abbott’s claim that he was misled when he initially praised law enforcement efforts during the mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of 19 children and two educators and left many more injured… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Residents improvise as Texas city rushes to turn water on (Associated Press)
Residents of the West Texas city of Odessa improvised emergency water supplies after a water system outage left them high and dry for days amid scorching heat, even as utility crews scrambled Wednesday to restore normal service. The city said taps in 165,000 homes and businesses lost pressure or went completely dry after a 24-inch (61-centimeter) main broke Monday afternoon. Odessa's water treatment plant was back online by about 8 a.m. Wednesday, but utility officials said it could take 12 to 14 hours to complete the “recharging” process, during which workers slowly add water back into the system to ensure there are no more leaks. Temperatures approached 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius) in Odessa Wednesday as Texas and much of the United States faced extremely hot and humid conditions. And while the city typically sees hot weather in June, the timing of the break made dealing with this week’s heat more difficult.
“I want to assure you that we're utilizing every resource at our disposal to ensure that we get this community back to the way it was before this massive line break,” City Manager Michael Marrero said in a Facebook video posted Wednesday afternoon. He and Public Works Director Thomas Kerr again urged residents to boil tap water to kill any bacteria before consuming it. Resident Nikki Friday told The Associated Press that the city was providing bottled drinking water and that people with wells were offering neighbors water from hoses. She also said tanker trucks had been parked around town to fill buckets with water. "Drinking water has not been an issue,” Friday said. “We just need water to return to our daily lives and within the community.” Lifelong Odessa resident Lynda Wright said water service had not been lost across the city in the more than five decades that she has lived there. She said she picked up water and ice from Midland, a 15-minute drive from her home. Wright said she had drinkable water stored in jugs for washing hands and brushing teeth, and that her family hooked her house up to a well on her property to provide water to flush toilets. “We just dropped a hose in the (water) line,” she said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas gubernatorial race between Abbott and O’Rourke tightens, according to first poll since Uvalde shooting (Texas Tribune)
A new Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday shows the Texas gubernatorial race has tightened between Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic nominee Beto O’Rourke in the wake of the mass shooting in a Uvalde elementary school where 19 children and two adults were killed.
The poll, the first to come out since the May 24 shooting, found that 48% of registered Texas voters polled prefer Abbott while 43% prefer O’Rourke. That has narrowed slightly from a December Quinnipiac poll in which 52% of the registered voters who responded said they would vote for Abbott, versus 37% who chose O’Rourke.
“The race tightens,” Quinnipiac University polling analyst Tim Malloy said in a press release Wednesday. “Abbott, considered strong on leadership, slips. O’Rourke, considered long on empathy, rides the momentum of support from women and young Texans in the horse race to Austin.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas loses U.S. Supreme Court case against Native American tribes over bingo (Houston Chronicle)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with Native American tribes in Texas over the state, which has tried for years to shut down bingo facilities on their reservations. The court ruled 5-4 that Texas doesn’t have a say over games offered on reservations if it allows those same games elsewhere — even if they are highly regulated. Texas permits some bingo facilities to operate, but the proceeds have to go to charity and must be approved through local elections. “Texas contends that Congress expressly ordained that all of its gaming laws should be treated as surrogate federal law,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in the majority opinion. “In the end, however, we find no evidence Congress endowed state law with anything like the power Texas claims.”
The justices sent the years-long dispute back to the Fifth Circuit, which had previously sided with Texas, saying the lower court misunderstood federal law and needs to reconsider the case. At issue is whether two tribes in Texas can offer bingo on their reservations, an enterprise that helps fund everything from their police and fire departments to Head Start and health programs. The Ysleta del Sur Pueblo of El Paso was the plaintiff in the case, though the Alabama-Coushatta of East Texas had its federal recognition restored in the same act of Congress and is therefore equally impacted by its outcome. "The Court’s decision is an affirmation of Tribal sovereignty and a victory for the Texas economy,” said Ricky Sylestine, the Chairman of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas' Tribal Council. “The highest Court in the land has made clear that our Tribe has the right to legally operate electronic bingo on our reservation, just as we have the past six years." The tribes argue they are free to offer bingo under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, which regulates gaming on tribal lands. That law created the National Indian Gaming Commission, which gave the green light to both tribes… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Elon Musk says he voted Republican for the first time in Mayra Flores' Texas special election (Houston Chronicle)
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, of Tesla and SpaceX fame, said he voted Republican for the first time on Tuesday — and it was in a South Texas special election. “I voted for Mayra Flores - first time I ever voted Republican,” Musk tweeted. “Massive red wave in 2022.” Flores made history on Tuesday when she won the special election for the 34th Congressional District, flipping a longtime Democratic stronghold and soon becoming the first congresswoman born in Mexico. She is the first Republican elected to represent that area of the Rio Grande Valley in more than 150 years.
“Welcome to the Republican Party!” Flores replied. “We welcome all walk aways from all walks of life. The party of opportunity, prosperity, and freedom is here to stay. We look forward to working together and building a better future for all of America.” Musk, who is registered to vote in Cameron County, has become increasingly involved in Texas affairs in recent years. He moved Tesla’s corporate headquarters to Austin last year, while SpaceX has a facility in Boca Chica and The Boring Company — Musk’s infrastructure and tunnel construction business — is based in Pflugerville. “Welcome to the party!” Attorney General Ken Paxton replied to Musk’s tweet. “Keep Texas Bright Red!”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The city manager is safe, for now, but the mess remains (D Magazine)
The attempt to expedite the performance review of City Manager T.C. Broadnax has devolved into a messy, confusing trash heap of allegations and backroom chatter presided over by a mayor who has made clear his preference to see Dallas’ chief executive removed from his position. After Mayor Eric Johnson went public in support of firing Broadnax—first in a statement calling for “a change in city management” and then in an email newsletter with the subject line “I made the call”—some of his colleagues walked back their support. And this is where things get complicated. Let’s start from the top. Last Wednesday, five council members signed what’s known as a five-signature memorandum. That’s a mechanism for a bloc of representatives to request that the mayor place an item on a City Council committee agenda and during a regular briefing for the entire body to hear.
It basically fast tracks a priority issue. Council has used this in the past to motivate staff to develop a housing policy and reconsider plans for the ball field at Reverchon Park. Yesterday, this all blew up. The mayor announced there would be no executive session, and Willis, Blackmon, and Mendelsohn canceled the special meeting. The city manager has a standard performance review tentatively scheduled for June 23, an annual, consultant-led discussion. Those three council members issued a joint statement: “After listening to our colleagues, we have requested the city secretary cancel Wednesday’s special called meeting. We believe it is important for all colleagues to feel this process is fair and transparent and we are looking forward to a frank performance review discussion.” And then the backtracking and equivocating began. Councilman Bazaldua, one of the members who signed the original five-signature memo, wrote on Facebook, “the mayor’s staff fabricated this memo and submitted it to [sic] themselves.” He alleged that “my digital signature was used for this memo, without my consent.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 159: Talking Austin Real Estate Development and Entrepreneurship w/ Ari Rastegar
Today’s episode (159) features Ari Rastegar, Founder and CEO of Austin-based Rastegar Property Company. He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss real estate development in Austin, as well as Ari's entrepreneurial path.
Rastegar Property has a portfolio spanning more 13 states and over 3.5 million square feet. It recently announced its 809 Skyline office development project in Austin, as well as a 318-acre planned community in Kyle, TX. -> EPISODE LINK
Enjoyed this episode? Please like, share, and comment!