BG Reads | News You Need to Know (March 31, 2022)
[MEETING/HEARINGS]
AGENDA - Regular Meeting of the Austin City Council (Thursday, April 7, 2022)
OF NOTE
Sponsors: Mayor Pro Tem Alison Alter, Mayor Steve Adler, Council Member Vanessa Fuentes, Council Member Paige Ellis.
[BG Podcast]
Episode 153: Discussing the City of Austin's cryptocurrency study
Today’s episode (153) features Austin Council Member Mackenzie Kelly (District 6). She and Bingham Group CEO discuss her recently passed resolution "directing the City Manager to conduct a fact-finding study on the adoption, use, and holding of Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies by the City of Austin."
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
'More busy days ahead': ABIA working to address traffic, TSA backups with record traveler count forecast (Community Impact)
Days after high travel volume backed up its traffic and security screening lines, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport officials said passengers will continue to face frequent congestion when traveling through Austin.
"Austin-Bergstrom International Airport expects more busy days ahead for airline passengers. Tomorrow through Monday, the airport expects an estimated 28,000 passengers will fly in and out of the airport each day and expects these trends to continue regularly on Thursdays, Fridays, Sundays and Mondays. The busiest time is early in the morning, before 8 a.m.," the airport said in a March 30 statement.
ABIA officials released the operational update following a weekend that saw nearly 9,000 passengers March 27 and more than 8,200 passengers March 28 pass through ABIA gates before 8 a.m. alone. The airport experienced backups at rental car return lines and Transportation Security Administration checkpoints, and also issued a fuel shortage alert asking airlines to fly into Austin with extra jet fuel.
The steady stream of busy travel days is putting the airport in position to shatter its single-year travel record by the end of 2022. With air travel continuing its pandemic bounce-back, around 20 million passengers are now expected to pass through ABIA gates this year—a 15% jump from the previous record set in 2019.
For passengers heading directly to the main terminal, ABIA officials said drivers and passengers should use either the arrival or departure level depending on congestion levels. The airport is also advising travelers to budget extra time ahead of their flights… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Committee tells auditor to seek water audit contract with UT (Austin Monitor)
On Wednesday, City Council’s Audit & Finance Committee directed City Auditor Corrie Stokes to move forward with an interlocal agreement with the University of Texas to conduct an audit to review problems at Austin Water. The city has just released its internal report on the events that led to the boil-water notice in February.Council has already directed Stokes to figure out how to find the appropriate contractor to investigate the February event and four other “recent significant negative water quality events and water supply interruptions.”
Stokes said she would like to be able to conduct the audit with her staff, but would not be able to do so because of a personnel shortage. She told the committee there were two different ways they could move forward with the contract: either go through a procurement process to hire a private contractor to do the research, or use an interlocal agreement. She explained that the city already has a basic interlocal agreement with UT.
Stokes said she had conversations with another university, but that institution has contracts with other entities such as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, and was concerned about a conflict of interest. She added that several private contractors that work for Austin Water would not be suitable because of a possible conflict of interest… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
A planned 74-story tower would be the tallest in Austin — and maybe the tallest in Texas (Austin American-Statesman)
Developers say they hope to start construction in the next few months on a 74-story tower in downtown Austin's Rainey Street area — a skyscraper that would become the tallest tower in Austin and possibly the tallest in all of Texas.
Lincoln Property Co. and Kairoi Residential are developing the high-rise, which is planned for 98 Red River St., along Waller Creek.
The project's plans call for 352 apartments, 686,000 square feet of office space and a 251-room hotel, said Seth Johnston, a senior vice president with Lincoln Property Co. The hotel brand has not yet been announced.
Johnston said the project planned for 98 Red River has not been officially named yet. More information will be released in the coming weeks, he said.
Johnston said the developers are negotiating a construction loan, but he declined to discuss additional financing details or an estimated construction cost for the project. However, a filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation lists the project's estimated cost at $520 million.
Johnston said the project will need a building permit from the city of Austin before developers can break ground.
The developers did not provide an estimated height for the tower — but in a post online, Augustine Verrengia, civil market leader with WGI, the project's civil engineering firm, said the Lincoln/Kairoi tower will be more than 1,000 feet tall. That height would make it the tallest in Texas once built, Verrengia wrote… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How rising rents are forcing out Austin musicians (AXIOS)
The long view: "Revenue from gigs is stagnant," A. Michael Uhlmann, who handles promotion for Austin clubs and bands, tells Axios. "A band that got booked for roughly $250 20 years ago in the club circuit is still paid $250 these days. Inflation was never adapted to musician's pay."
"In the past you were able to rent a house for $500 and split it with your bandmates or other folks. Austin had a very creative and connected community, and that to a certain degree got lost," Uhlmann adds.
By the numbers: Last summer, the Austin City Council elected to dedicate $4 million of federal COVID relief money to support the music industry.
$1.5 million was distributed by the end of last year.
The funds help "ensure workers in this vital sector can afford immediate needs like rent and groceries," Veronica Briseño, chief economic recovery officer for the city of Austin, said in January, after opening up $2,000 grants for professional musicians, independent promoters and music industry workers facing the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
You know the blue square. But popular Instagram When Where What Austin has eyes on the whole world. (Austin American-Statesman)
What exactly is When Where What Austin?
If you were to ask one of the 244,000 or so people who follow @whenwherewhataustin on Instagram, they would probably tell you that it is an account dedicated to promoting events and deals happening around Austin — which more often than not include free booze.
Posts usually look like blue squares overlaid with a white sans serif font that gives you the “when,” “where” and “what” of a given event. Just like we practiced in middle school.
If you ask founder Chris Cates the same question, though, the answer is a bit more complicated. Sure, When Where What may have started in 2015 as an Instagram account, he told the American-Statesman, but it has since evolved into a trademarked brand and growing startup company, complete with office space at Native Hostel in East Austin and five full-time, salaried employees. An additional five seasonal contract employees helped the team navigate what is arguable the account's busiest time of year earlier this month: Austin's South by Southwest… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas schools won’t lose funding for attendance drops during the pandemic (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Education Agency announced Tuesday that public school districts may not lose funding because of low attendance rates caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Texas, schools are funded based on the number of students enrolled and the daily attendance on campus. Currently, schools receive a base allotment of $6,160 per student each year. The pandemic disrupted not only learning, but also enrollment, as some school districts reported lower figures than in non-COVID years.
The average daily attendance is calculated by the sum of children present divided by days of instruction that schools are required to give. Texas schools have to be open for a minimum of 75,600 minutes over a school year, which includes recess and lunch… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Activists and authorities prepare as Ukrainians and Russians arrive in the U.S. through Mexico (Dallas Morning News)
U.S. and Mexico immigration officials are seeing an increase in the number of Ukrainians and Russians attempting to cross the U.S. border, where they can request asylum. The number of migrants arriving in Mexico from those two countries accelerated in the months before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and many are now waiting for opportunities to enter the United States, mostly in and around Tijuana on Mexico’s west coast. There have been no reports yet of high numbers of Ukrainians or Russians fleeing the war arriving along the Texas border, and any influx would be relatively minor compared to the thousands of migrants arriving daily from Mexico and Central America. In 2020, 30,660 migrants from Russia arrived in Mexico; in 2021, the figure was 75,446. In January 2022 alone, 16,172 Russians entered the country, according to the office of Mexico’s Interior Minister.
While 12,718 Ukrainians arrived in Mexico in 2020, 28,228 arrived in 2021. In January 2022, 6,006 Ukrainians entered the country. Before the war, many migrants flew out of Russian cities or Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, with connections through Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to Cancún or San José del Cabo in Mexico, paying $700 or more for tickets. In the days after the outbreak of war, after all civil flights out of Ukraine were suspended and Russia’s Aeroflot ended international service, more began to migrate through Eastern European countries and Germany. Emelia Velázquez, a Mexico City-based lawyer specializing in migration, said that these migrants usually have credit cards or enough savings to pay for their trip and their stay in Mexico while they plan to travel to the border to petition for asylum. “It’s usually a more discreet migration; it is very rare for them to be seen in shelters in Mexico because they prefer to stay in hotels or with acquaintances,” Velázquez said. “It’s a migration of well-prepared people. Most of them speak English and are professionals with postgraduate degrees who can afford to travel this far.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Florida, Texas lead nation in tech job gains (Wall Street Journal)
Technology workers continue to flock to companies far away from Silicon Valley as fallout from the Covid-19 pandemic reshapes workplaces, labor markets and the economy, employers and industry analysts say.
Net tech employment in both Texas and Florida last year grew twice as fast as it did in California, including new software engineers, app developers and other tech workers entering the market, information-technology trade group CompTIA said in a report this week ahead of the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report Friday.
Key attractions include more affordable housing markets, a lower cost of living and a ready availability of schools and other services. At the same time, the adoption of remote and hybrid work models at many companies has made tech jobs more portable.
“There’s been a boom in tech jobs and it’s booming more outside California,” said Richard Florida, a professor at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities and Rotman School of Management… (LINK TO FULL STORY)