BG Reads | News You Need to Know (October 4, 2022)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Business groups alarmed at proposed Austin Energy fee hikes (Austin American-Statesman)
The prospect of a big and sudden increase in a critical expense — such as the cost of electricity — can trigger nightmares for many business owners. That’s the position in which Austin Energy has put local companies, according to industry groups that are expressing alarm at the utility’s recent proposal to sharply raise some fees beginning Nov. 1. Austin Energy has said its proposed increases to so-called "pass-through" charges intended to recoup costs that are beyond its control — such as higher prices for natural gas — would boost monthly electricity bills for average residential customers by about $20, or $240 annually, not including the impact of unrelated proposed increases to the utility's base electricity rates. While the sum is significant, it's a fraction of what the city-owned utility's local commercial and industrial customers are facing.
The impact on small and medium-sized businesses could be thousands of dollars, and in some cases tens of thousands of dollars, annually in extra costs from the pass-through increases, city figures show. Meanwhile, top industrial users — such as semiconductor factories, which draw large amounts of electricity 24 hours a day and use many times the volume of residential customers and most commercial operations — would be on the hook for millions of dollars annually from the higher fees, industry experts say. The Austin City Council was scheduled to vote last Thursday on the fee increases but postponed the action for two weeks after a variety of groups — including the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association, the Austin Chamber of Commerce and the Coalition for Clean, Affordable, Reliable Energy — sought a delay. Had the City Council approved the fees according to the original schedule, it would have done so barely a week after Austin Energy first proposed them Sept. 21 — a time frame that business advocates said provided scant opportunity to assess the need for them or for the utility's customers to plan for them. "It will lead to large users seeing over 40% increases on their electric bill and business owners struggling with millions of unbudgeted costs," said Ed Latson, CEO of the manufacturers association. "It is another example of Austin Energy's disregard of their customers, who were not provided any guidance or forecast."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
'Progress is being made' on rezoning request for huge Statesman PUD (Austin Business Journal)
Despite Austin City Council's decision to again postpone addressing a rezoning request that could result in the transformation of the former Austin-American Statesman headquarters into a district of mixed-use towers, there are signs developer Endeavor Real Estate Group LLC is making progress.
City Council on Sept. 29 did not vote on the request for a planned unit development, or PUD, for the property at 305 S. Congress Ave. It was the fourth postponement of the PUD vote, which would allow Endeavor to build taller and denser on the 19-acre tract just south of Lady Bird Lake than typically allowed.
"I think we can actually get through this," Mayor Steve Adler said.
At stake is a plan to build 1.5 million square feet of office space, more than 1.6 million square feet of residential space, 220,000 square feet of hotel space and 150,000 square feet of retail space across six towers. 305 South Congress would also integrate into Austin’s South Central Waterfront Initiative, the city's long-term vision to bring dense, mixed-use development to the south side of Lady Bird Lake.
Council voted 10-0-1, with Council Member Vanessa Fuentes absent, to punt the vote to its Oct. 13 meeting.
"We were very pleased that the City Council deliberated on so many of the issues surrounding the project," said attorney Richard Suttle of Armbrust & Brown PLLC, representing Endeavor. "The mayor did a masterful job of organizing and leading the productive discussion. While an actual vote was postponed, many questions were answered and direction was given to us and the city staff. Council members were able to express their interests and the feedback was constructive. And many issues were resolved. It appears progress is being made."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Nonprofit groups getting $20M in Project Connect funds to prevent displacement (Austin Monitor)
The city has named the 14 nonprofit organizations that will use $20 million in funds from Project Connect to enact community-level programs to prevent displacement as the massive transit system moves forward.
Last week, the city’s Affordable Housing Finance Corporation approved the awards, which will be drawn from the $300 million in anti-displacement, affordable housing funds included in the voter-approved plan. The full list of recipients, award amounts and project descriptions is available here.
Some of the larger grants of $2 million were given to Goodwill Industries of Central Texas, Workers Defense Project, Business & Community Lenders, El Buen Samaritano, and Life Anew Restorative Justice.
The grants are part of the $65 million in anti-displacement funding that Project Connect leaders said earlier this year they expect to deploy through the end of 2022.
Applicants submitted their proposals for the grants in June, entering a three-step judging process that included a community evaluation based on the Nothing About Us Without Us equity report. The city’s Community Advisory Committee took the final step of making funding recommendations for the AHFC to approve… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Self-driving car company Cruise aims to launch in Austin by end of year (KUT)
Cruise, a self-driving car company, plans to start offering driverless rides in Austin by the end of the year.
Drivers might find themselves pulling up next to a tech-laden car maneuvering by itself more often as the city becomes a center for this kind of vehicle. Cruise, a subsidiary of General Motors, joins several other companies, including Lyft and Argo AI, that offer this self-driving car service in Austin.
Cruise currently has a fleet of 75 autonomous Chevy Bolts in San Francisco driving around from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., offering rides to people on a waitlist. Cruise Vice President Megan Prichard said the service will function in a similar manner in Austin and she anticipates the company will be able to scale up to a similar number of vehicles.
“San Francisco is crazy — you've got all sorts of pedestrians, bikes, jugglers, roller skate parties,” Prichard said. "It's a very complex environment. We're able to build a very repeatable platform for our service. And so as we're looking around at cities, beyond just being awesome, Austin is a great place for us to pick up that technology and bring it."
Unlike in California, Cruise does not have to obtain a special permit to operate driverless cars in Texas, which is part of what attracts so many companies to the city. A law regulating self-driving cars, which passed in 2017, holds the owners or the company liable for any damages the cars might cause and requires the cars to have dashboard cameras… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Cedar Park, Leander lift emergency water restrictions necessitated by pipe break (Community Impact)
With the repair of the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority underwater raw intake pipe completed, both Cedar Park and Leander have returned to their nonemergency outdoor watering schedules, the cities announced in Oct. 3 news releases.
In Cedar Park, this means residents can run their outdoor irrigation system on their two designated water days per week, and residents in Leander can water once per week on their designated day, according to the release.
Due to drought conditions and in an effort to save water, both Cedar Park and Leander remain in Phase 2 of their water conservation plans.
Residents in Cedar Park in Leander had been under emergency water restrictions since early September. In Cedar Park, these restrictions allowed only handheld hose water with a shutoff sprayer, while residents in Leander were prohibited from all forms of outdoor watering.
The emergency restrictions were necessitated by a leak in the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority pipe that feeds water from Lake Travis to the utility authority’s water treatment plant. The portion of pipe that broke was previously repaired in May 2021 after a leak was found in December 2020… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Firefly Aerospace successfully sends rocket, small satellites into orbit (Austin Business Journal)
The rocket rumbled on the launch pad, blasted off with fiery force and, minutes later, punched through Earth's lower atmosphere and into orbit.
It was the landmark launch that hundreds of people, mostly based in the Austin area, have been working on for years at Cedar Park-based rocket company Firefly Aerospace Inc. The company declared the launch and subsequent satellite deployments a "100% mission success."
“With the success of this flight, Firefly has announced to the world there is a new orbital launch vehicle, available today, with a capacity that is pivotal to our commercial and government customers,” CEO Bill Weber stated. “Proving our flight and deployment capabilities on only our second attempt is a testament to the maturity of our technology and the expertise of our team."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Parks board recommends Brodie Oaks development (Austin Monitor)
Last week, the Parks and Recreation Board voted to recommend the Brodie Oaks planned unit development as superior to City Council, contingent on the applicant complying with a list of board recommendations concerning public access to the on-site park and related facilities.
The proposed PUD, located at Loop 360 and Highway 290, would reimagine the shopping center that was once home to Toys R Us. The applicant is proposing a walkable, mixed-use development with 1,700 residential units on 37.6 acres. The area is also an Imagine Austin activity center.
The proposal includes a series of interconnected parks throughout the development, which would add up to 11.6 gross acres of parkland across three separate parks. The design includes a central park, a trailhead overlook park that would connect to the Barton Creek Greenbelt, and a nearby 2-acre neighborhood park that would be constructed during the project’s second phase.
After deductions for stormwater infrastructure, the project will contain 7.6 credited acres of parkland or 20 percent of the gross site area. The 76 percent of the remaining parkland requirement will be paid via fee-in-lieu at an estimated $4 million price tag.
“That is superior to what we would be able to require under current code,” said Thomas Rowlinson, principal planner for the Parks and Recreation Department. “Right now for an infill urban core project like this we would be capped at 15 percent of the gross site area. So really this application is doubling that amount.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Inside the stress elections officials face ahead of the midterms (Texas Tribune)
Although election deniers at one point concentrated their efforts in states like Arizona and Georgia, supporters of former President Donald Trump have since sent a barrage of public information requests to elections offices nationwide, including those in the smallest and reddest Texas counties, where Trump won handsomely.
So on top of fulfilling their normal job duties, such as preparing ballots and updating polling information, officials are fielding questions from concerned voters. The increased demands have left some workers burned out. According to the secretary of state’s office, 30% of Texas elections workers have left their jobs since 2020. In one county, the entire elections administrator’s office resigned… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Supreme Court opens a new and likely contentious term with some Texas cases on the line (Dallas Morning News)
After a controversial U.S. Supreme Court term that featured a milestone decision to reverse Roe vs. Wade, justices begin oral arguments in its new term Monday amid historically low public trust. Upcoming cases could yield landmark decisions on First Amendment protections for social media platforms, voting rights and more. One of the most anticipated hearings in the upcoming session is a Big Tech, First Amendment case that hasn’t even made it to the docket yet. On Sept. 21, Florida’s attorney general asked the Supreme Court to decide if states have the right to regulate social media companies and how they moderate content. This case could directly impact state laws in Texas and Florida that prevent social media platforms from blocking certain political speech. The Supreme Court is being asked to weigh in after conflicting rulings in federal appeals courts.
The Texas law passed last year also is being contested in federal court. The 5th Circuit upheld a Texas law signed by Gov. Greg Abbott that bars social media companies from removing posts based on political affiliation or viewpoint. The judges sided with Texas’ finding that social media companies qualify as “common carriers” that are subject to government regulation, like phone companies. The judges also argued the First Amendment does not allow social media companies to regulate or block speech. “The implications of the platforms’ argument are staggering,” Circuit Judge Andrew Oldham wrote in the decision. “On the platforms’ view, email providers, mobile phone companies and banks could cancel the accounts of anyone who sends an email, makes a phone call, or spends money in support of a disfavored political party, candidate or business.” On the other side, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked similar social media regulations passed in Florida, arguing they infringed on the companies’ First Amendment rights. Republican leaders including Abbott and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton have argued social media companies tend to eliminate conservative voices and ideas, while social media companies argue the Texas and Florida laws would prevent them from stopping the spread of harmful content and misinformation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gov. Greg Abbott appoints first school safety chief four months after Uvalde shooting (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday appointed former U.S. Secret Service agent John P. Scott as the Texas Education Agency’s first chief of school safety and security, a position the governor created in response to the Uvalde mass school shooting that left 19 students and two teachers dead.
Scott formerly served as a Secret Service agent in the Vice Presidential Protective Division from 2006 and 2010 during the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, according to his LinkedIn profile. He later helped lead the Secret Service field office in Dallas.
In his new role, which started Monday, Scott will “take every action possible to ensure schools are using best practices to safeguard against school shootings or other dangers,” according to a press release from Abbott’s office… (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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