BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 18, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Amid high costs, officials re-examining Austin transit plans (AXIOS Austin)
With project costs soaring, transit officials are looking at ways to revise the city's marquee transit expansion effort — including possibly paring down planned subways in downtown Austin… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
District 3 Council candidates chat with the ‘Monitor’: Part I (Austin Monitor)
Council Member Pio Renteria has served District 3 as a lifetime resident and community activist. After two terms, he’s stepping down. The candidates vying for his seat have taken on community engagement roles through education and local committees while others have budget ideas through backgrounds in sales and accounting.
It’s a crowded race with six candidates. Top of mind for many are affordability issues, and the candidates also shared the approaches they’d take on policing, housing and climate… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
In September, the Austin area saw the highest number of active home listings since 2011 (KVUE)
Prospective homebuyers can start breathing a little easier, according to new data from the Austin Board of Realtors (ABoR).
The ABoR reports that in September, home sales declined 18.5% to 2,992 closed listings as active listings were up 162.4% to 9,671 listings. That's the highest number of active listings in the area since July 2011, according to ABoR… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Can robots and humans co-exist in public? UT campus study will offer answers (UT News)
Autonomous robots will soon rove the buildings and streets of The University of Texas at Austin campus. But unlike other commercial delivery services, this fleet of robots will help researchers understand and improve the experience of pedestrians who encounter them.
A new grant to an interdisciplinary team of researchers at UT Austin will support the creation of a robot delivery network on campus, with the first deployments scheduled for early 2023. The researchers plan a five-year study focusing on what it takes to create, safely operate and maintain this kind of robot network, while also adapting with the humans who live and work around it… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin is looking for a place to store massive amounts of water to pull from during droughts (KUT)
Austin is planning a big underground water storage project that would provide it with another source of water during droughts. But city planners are not sure exactly where to put it. This week, they'll meet with residents of Lee, Bastrop and Travis counties, the three counties that may end up playing host to the project.
Currently, Austin gets its water from reservoirs in the Highland Lakes along the Colorado River. The new plan is to pump some of that water underground when there’s plenty of it, then pull it back up in times of scarcity.
The system, called aquifer storage and recovery, has been done in other parts of the state — including El Paso and Kerrville — to protect regions from the threat of big droughts… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
In Texas, where money has long dominated politics, Greg Abbott is in a league of his own (Texas Tribune)
Since Greg Abbott first declared he would run for governor on July 14, 2013, he’s raised the equivalent of $83,793 per day to fund his pursuit of power.
That’s $20,000 more than the median Texas household earns in a year.
Throughout his political career, Abbott has amassed a mountain of campaign cash unrivaled in Texas. He is easily the most prolific fundraiser in state history — even compared with his two predecessors, George W. Bush, who went on to become president, and Rick Perry, who served as governor for a record-breaking 14 years. Since 1995, when Abbott made his first bid for statewide office for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court, he has raised $348 million in campaign donations when adjusted for inflation, a sum greater than the cost to build the new Longhorn basketball arena at the University of Texas at Austin… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Minority rule: How 3 percent of Texans call the shots (Texas Monthly)
As the state as a whole has moved toward the political center, its Republican party has lurched to the right, enacting some of the country’s most reactionary policies and helping make Texas an international byword for extremism. During the 2021 legislative session, the Republican majority banned abortion after six weeks, promising a $10,000 bounty to any citizen who reports a violation. (The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade this summer triggered another law banning all abortions except to save the life of the mother.) And they passed a bill allowing Texans 21 and older to openly carry a handgun without a license or training. Neither of these measures enjoys broad public support; polls show that most Texans hold moderate positions on abortion, gun rights, and many other key issues. But state lawmakers have made sure that doesn’t matter. During a special session last fall, legislators created new districts for themselves (and for members of Congress) as part of the once-a-decade redistricting process that occurs after every census. Drawn behind closed doors, using highly sophisticated computer models, the new maps guaranteed that most incumbents, both Republican and Democratic, remained in safely red or blue districts… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How Texas’s gun laws allow Mexican cartels to arm themselves to the teeth (The Guardian)
Saying he wants to make the US-Mexico border as safe as possible for his state, Texas’s governor Greg Abbott last month signed an order designating Mexican drug cartels as “terrorist organizations” and urged the Joe Biden White House to do the same. But the same border that Abbott insists he wants to make safer is actually being destabilized by Texas’s lax gun laws, which the governor defends and which the Mexican cartels exploit to arm themselves – legally – to the teeth, according to officials left to grapple with the situation. Despite Mexico’s well-documented high levels of violence, legally purchasing guns there is actually quite difficult. The nation of nearly 130 million people has a single store that can legally sell guns. On a military base in Mexico City, that store was selling fewer than 40 guns a day in recent years, and it’s prohibited from even advertising its wares. But the infamously violent cartels that Abbott and other Republicans blame for violence along the border have found another route to stockpile weapons: the United States… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Hidalgo-Mealer county judge race is a showdown over Harris County budget and its role in voters' eyes (Houston Chronicle)
Dozens of supporters for Alexandra del Moral Mealer, the Republican candidate challenging Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, packed the room at the Sept. 13 meeting of Commissioners Court, each wearing "Alex's Army" T-shirts and loudly scoffing when Hidalgo spoke. Tensions ran high as the court's two Republican members skipped the meeting, blocking the three Democrats from passing their proposed tax rate unless they agreed to specific terms for funding law enforcement. Hidalgo argued Republicans are forcing the county to scale back other essential services, and as she commented on the impacts to various departments, Mealer supporters rolled their eyes, laser-focused on their candidate’s goal of hiring more patrol officers. The ongoing political showdown over the county's annual budget process has pitted the Mealer and Hidalgo camps firmly against one another, offering voters a clear view of the candidates’ different visions for the role Harris County government should play… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas regulators probe crypto trading site and its billionaire founder (Dallas Morning News)
FTX Trading and its billionaire founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, are being probed by the Texas securities regulator over whether certain lending offerings violate state law. Texas is investigating whether the company’s yield-bearing crypto accounts are illegal securities offerings being sold to U.S. residents, according to a Oct. 14 court filing in the bankruptcy of Voyager Digital Holdings. Until the state determines FTX is complying with the law, the agency said the company shouldn’t move forward with its $1.4 billion purchase of Voyager assets announced last month. Texas State Securities Board enforcement director Joe Rotunda said he was able to access the company’s earn program despite FTX not being registered with the state, according to the filing. Generally, investments are labeled as securities when there’s an expectation of profit from management… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Who counts as Black in voting maps? Some GOP state officials want that narrowed (NPR)
Who counts as Black?
The thorny question has quietly found its way before the U.S. Supreme Court again, ensnared in a major legal battle over the Voting Rights Act that could further gut the landmark law and make it harder to protect the political power of voters of color.
The battle is playing out over new maps of congressional voting districts created by Republican-led legislatures in Alabama and Louisiana after the 2020 census. The fate of the maps rests on how the Supreme Court rules first in the case out of Alabama — Merrill v. Milligan — which the high court heard this month and may set a precedent for lawsuits about Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
As home prices and mortgage rates stay high, prospective buyers put down payments on ice (Wall Street Journal)
Many Americans who spent years socking away enough money for a down payment to buy a house are now waiting on the sidelines until mortgage rates or home prices drop.
Fannie Mae forecasts that mortgage lenders will complete 49% fewer single-family-home loans in 2022 than 2021. With mortgage rates pushing 7% and home prices still high, buyers often park their down-payment money in low-yield accounts, financial advisers say. While relatively safe, the funds often collect more dust than interest… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 168: Market Talk - Lobbying in Philadelphia with Mustafa Rashed of Bellevue Strategies
Today's episode (168) features a discussion on entrepreneurship and lobbying with Mustafa Rashed, Founder and President, of Philadelphia-based Bellevue Strategies.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. also discuss current municipal issues in the Philadelphia market.
Enjoyed this episode? Please like, share, and comment!