BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 3, 2022)
[HEARINGS AND MEETINGS]
Monday
Tuesday
(5PM) Urban Transportation Commission - Regular Meeting Agenda
(5:30PM) African American Resource Advisory Commission - Regular Meeting Agenda
Wednesday
Thursday
[AUSTIN METRO]
As affordability concerns linger, Planning Commission postpones enviro code changes (Austin Monitor)
The Planning Commission postponed a vote Tuesday on a complex package of environmental and water quality code amendments. Commissioners say much work remains to understand the full impact of the changes, especially as they relate to housing affordability.
While many code changes are proposed, the biggest include requiring enhanced “functional green” landscaping in most new developments, as well as upgraded stormwater infrastructure like rain gardens or biofiltration ponds instead of concrete detention ponds.
The code changes were originally part of the failed Land Development Code rewrite. City Council put the changes back on the table in June via a resolution sponsored by Council Member Kathie Tovo. Additional amendments are slated for a second phase, which will take at least six to eight more months.
The commission was set to vote on the changes Tuesday, but instead voted 8-0-1 to postpone further discussion in large part because a working group was unable to meet. Commissioner Carmen Llanes Pulido abstained, and several members were absent. The item had already been postponed by a month… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin ISD school board approves protections for construction workers ahead of bond election (KUT)
The Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees has signed off on a resolution to improve labor standards for any construction projects on district property. The board approved the measure at a meeting Thursday.
The trustees passed the measure ahead of the 2022 school bond election in November. If voters approve AISD’s $2.44 billion bond package, the district will have money to build new schools, install security vestibules, revamp sports fields and make other critical infrastructure improvements. Now, entities awarded a bid for a bond project must participate in the Better Builder Program® or something similar. That means they’ll have to provide safety training and living wages for workers, as well as independent on-site monitoring.
Ahead of the vote, union members and other advocates voiced their support for the resolution. Among them was Jeremy Hendricks with the Southwest Laborers’ District Council — an affiliate of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. He told trustees that raising labor standards was essential in Texas… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Utility plan to double developer fees threatens to throw cold water on New Braunfels growth (Austin Business Journal)
New Braunfels Utilities is proposing to more than double a fee on new building projects in an effort to better manage the area's population growth, a plan that would equate to hundreds of millions of dollars in new costs for local property developers with thousands of planned housing units in the pipeline.
The proposed increase would take the city's water impact fees to $19,448 and wastewater impact fees to $6,244, bringing them to a combined cost of $25,692 per unit. Those costs currently run developers a total of $11,240 per unit in New Braunfels, and the proposed rates would be much higher than the maximum impact fees of $8,548 and $7,200 in San Antonio and Austin, respectively… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin police oversight chief resigns after long family leave, disagreement with cops (Austin American-Statesman)
Austin's police oversight director Farah Muscadin, whose office has been at the center of a citywide debate on police accountability, has resigned, according to an internal city memo obtained by the American-Statesman.
Muscadin has not worked this year, taking a nine-month leave after having a baby in January. She was set to return to work Monday, to coincide with the start of the new fiscal year, but has instead tendered her resignation.
"While on leave, Farah has made the decision to focus on growing her family while also caring for her elderlyparents who live out of state," City Manager Spencer Cronk wrote in a memo to Austin City Council members.
Muscadin did not respond to a message seeking comment… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
New ERCOT CEO's first priority is restoring trust. Fixing the grid is more complicated. (Houston Chronicle)
Pablo Vegas, the recently named CEO of the state's grid manager, said his focus will be restoring trust and confidence in a power system that failed in the winter of 2021, struggled through record-breaking demand in the summer of 2022, and faces more challenges as electricity consumption grows with the state's population, further stretching generation. "The best thing that we can do to rebuild trust is to continue to operate and execute reliably and to be transparent about it," Vegas said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle. "We have to let people know what we're doing and why we're doing it. We've taken some steps to help kind of open up the curtain a little bit as to what's happening with the operations of the grid." Vegas assumes the leadership of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas on Sunday.
ERCOT's board of directors named Vegas as CEO in August, replacing interim CEO Brad Jones, who took the helm of the state's grid manager after the 2021 power outages plunged millions into freezing darkness for days on end. Even with that pay, Ed Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, said he would not take the job. He said Vegas will largely be an administrator working to enact the decisions of others. "This is like being appointed the new coach of the Dallas Cowboys," Hirs said. "He has no control over the players he’s inheriting, he has no control over the situation he’s inheriting, and he really has no ability to change it without the cooperation of his CEO, which would be Gov. (Greg) Abbott or the Legislature." Vegas is no stranger to Texas, though. He was the head of American Electric Power, or AEP Texas, for years before leading that company's Ohio division and eventually becoming president of NiSource, a utility with operations in six states. He said those experiences helped him branch out from technical skills honed in control rooms, using computers to control and direct the outflow of power. They taught him the importance of personal relationships, he said. "You can never accomplish anything you need without buy-in and support," he said. "You can't make everybody happy with every decision. But what you do is you try to keep the end goal at the forefront of your planning process, and you work towards that end goal, and in the end you find ways to compromise and a chart pathways forward."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Cryptocurrency miners line up to come to Texas, and rural counties are welcoming them (Texas Tribune)
Jacob Rodriguez was driving a John Deere tractor in a West Texas cotton field when he received a phone call that would change his life.
“I was pulling a 59-foot air seeder … and at the same time I was on the phone having my interview,” Rodriguez, 29, said.
On the other end of the phone early this year were representatives from a new business that was coming to Dickens County, a community of around 2,000 people an hour east of Lubbock.
By March, Rodriguez had quit farming cotton — something he called “just another job” — and began training to work in a cryptocurrency mine.
The county had exactly what London-based Argo Blockchain was looking for: plenty of open land and easy access to affordable power, thanks to a large wind farm built there more than a decade ago.
Texas political leaders have been promoting the state as a destination for companies producing bitcoin and other digital currencies, touting the state’s reputation for low taxes and cheap power. Around 30 have come in the past decade, and dozens more have expressed interest in moving to Texas.
But instead of moving to the state’s large urban areas — which have the extensive infrastructure and large workforce that attracts most relocating companies — cryptocurrency companies have largely done the opposite and located in rural areas, according to Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, a group promoting crypto growth and innovation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Dallas judge blocks impeachment hearing for Texas-based LULAC president García (Dallas Morning News)
A Dallas judge blocked a hearing in which the League of United Latin American Citizens board was set to vote on a proposed impeachment for its President Domingo García. On Friday, Dallas County District Judge Maricela Moore issued the temporary restraining order, blocking the impeachment hearing from proceeding. Still, some LULAC board members attended a Saturday meeting to decide the next steps, arguing the organization’s democratic process was at risk. Members said the use of a temporary restraining order in this instance is rare in the history of the organization. Around 20 members attended the meeting in the downtown Hamilton Hotel. “What is happening in D.C. is completely illegal and unconstitutional,” said García, who didn’t attend the meeting and presided over the monthly Chorizo and Menudo event in Dallas, a gathering of community leaders and elected officials.
In July, a different Dallas County district judge issued a temporary restraining order to suspend the election of a new LULAC president, scheduled for the final day of this group’s annual convention in Puerto Rico. The order came the night before the election without prior notice from the council. As a result, 21 council members in Texas, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, and Puerto Rico sent the LULAC treasurer a petition to impeach García, alleging that he violated the LULAC constitution. By Saturday, the board had drafted 77 articles of impeachment. The latest restriction order cites that “defendants, in holding the upcoming October 1 Meeting (as defined in the Application), have and continue to engage in a fraudulent and illicit scheme to place LULAC under the irreversible control of a foreign political party in violation of LULAC’s internal governing rules.” Members allege García neglected his duties by suspending the LULAC election and several national and state members without authorization from the executive board. In the legal effort to suspend the national elections in July, García and supporters said the election had been rigged by the establishment of additional councils in Puerto Rico to sway the results… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Episode 167: Discussing the Austin Monitor with CEO Joel Gross
Today's episode (167)is an introduction to the Austin Monitor.
The Austin Monitor is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization covering important issues and key decisions at the intersection between the local government and the community.
Joel and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss its history, present, and future.
NOTE: A.J. serves on the Austin Monitor board as Vice-Chair.
-> EPISODE LINK <-
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