BG Reads | News You Need to Know (August 21, 2023)
[BG PODCAST]
Welcome to BG Podcast Episode 212! Bingham Group Associate Hannah Garcia CEO A.J. Bingham review the week (of 8.14.2023) in Austin politics and more. This week we focus Austin Council's passage of the FY 2024 city budget.
>>> SHOW LINK <<<
Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
[AUSTIN METRO]
CHIPS Act: A year later, Austin's semiconductor industry to see boost (Austin American-Statesman)
Central Texas is still expected to benefit from unprecedented investment in the semiconductor industry by the United States, a year after key federal legislation was signed into law.
Companies are waiting to hear if their projects will be funded by federal legislation, which was designed to boost the industry in the United States amid a global shortage of semiconductors. The CHIPS Act includes more than $52 billion in funding for companies that manufacture computer chips, billions more in tax credits to encourage investment in chip manufacturing, and tens of billions of dollars to fund scientific research and to encourage innovation and development of other U.S. technologies.
The United States Department of Commerce has opened up applications, and while no announcements have been made yet as to which projects will receive funding or when, Central Texas has long been considered one of a handful of regions likely to see significant investments.
Ed Latson, executive director of Austin Regional Manufacturing Association, said he expects the legislation to further boost the regions manufacturing jobs and facilities.
"CHIPS was a huge momentum builder for the semiconductor industry," Latson said. "We've seen a lot of expansions and plans for new suppliers moving into the area. While the Commerce Department has not actually issued any checks yet, we expect a lot of the money to end up in Central Texas."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
(Note: The Austin Regional Manufacturing Association is a Bingham Group client)
City says Austin Energy’s budget reflects needs (Austin Monitor)
All Austin Energy customers will see a small increase in their electric bills this fall – about $1.04 a month for the typical residential customer. According to the utility, its residential bills are still among the lowest in the state.
However, Austin Energy is facing a number of challenges, and several recently were addressed by the Electric Utility Commission, which offers advice to City Council and the utility. At the top of that list: making sure that the budget includes sufficient funds for tree trimming in upcoming years.
Customers who suffered through Winter Storm Mara, which brought down many trees, branches and utility lines in January and February, are hoping not to go through an experience like that again. In an April report to Council, Stuart Reilly, then serving as Austin Energy’s interim general manager, said the utility would be “looking into opportunities to upgrade and repair its vegetation management infrastructure with a focus on resiliency.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Zilker’s mini-train 'back on track' to reopen after being out of service since 2019 (KUT)
The Austin Parks Foundation, which operates the train, announced the news in a tweet Friday, saying plans to restore the train were moving along “after facing some challenges and setbacks."
The Austin Parks Foundation said it partnered with a group of local engineers who were able to make the train safe and functional.
The mini-train was introduced to the park in 1961. Back then it was called the Austin Eagle. Most recently, it was called the Zilker Zephyr.
But that train has been out of commission since May 2019, after a storm caused erosion that washed out the ground beneath some of the tracks… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Ken Paxton’s team said there was no evidence to support impeachment. The House published nearly 4,000 pages. (Texas tribune)
Texas House impeachment managers have submitted nearly 4,000 pages of exhibits providing new and exhaustive details of their allegations of abuse of office by suspended Attorney General Ken Paxton ahead of his impeachment trial.
The Senate, which is conducting the trial slated to begin Sept. 5, published the exhibits Thursday night on a website the chamber maintains for impeachment-related documents. The document dump provides granular detail of how Paxton allegedly misused his office to help his friend Nate Paul, an Austin real estate investor and campaign donor, who was being investigated by federal authorities as his businesses were floundering… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
3 key takeaways from nearly 4,000 pages of evidence against Ken Paxton (KUT)
The Texas Senate late Thursday published nearly 4,000 pages of documents submitted by House impeachment managers prosecuting the case against embattled Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. The documents, included in three sets of exhibits, were submitted as further proof of Paxton’s alleged abuse of office and come three weeks ahead of the Texas Senate trial that will ultimately determine Paxton’s fate. According to transcripts of interviews made to Paxton’s top staff by the House-hired investigators, the now-suspended attorney general was told over and over not to trust Paul and urged to resist Paul’s calls that Paxton launch an investigation.
David Maxwell served as director of Criminal Law Enforcement for the Office of the Attorney General from 2015 to 2020. Maxwell interviewed Paul and his attorney on multiple occasions after Paxton asked his department to do so. Maxwell heard Paul accuse the federal government of wrongdoing for executing a search warrant against him… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
'Next steps re: downtown' — Inside the city's secret effort to woo Spurs to a new downtown arena (San Antonio Express-News)
Months before the Spurs landed French phenom Victor Wembanyama in the NBA draft lottery, a stroke of luck that instantly brightened the team's prospects, San Antonio officials approached the franchise to engineer a transformation of their own — a new basketball arena to revive the city's sleepy downtown. And they did it without informing Bexar County officials, even though the Spurs are the anchor tenant of the county's $175 million Frost Bank Center (previously the AT&T Center) on the East Side. "The Spurs didn't approach the city — the city approached the Spurs, without talking to the county first," said a person who was briefed on the discussions.
Former Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said that's his understanding, too. Charlie Amato, a Spurs investor and chairman of SWBC, a San Antonio insurance and financial services company, said "it wouldn't surprise me" to learn that city officials initiated the talks with the Spurs. "There's a big movement right now to revitalize downtown," he said. City Manager Erik Walsh has confirmed he met twice with Spurs executives and once with the owners of the San Antonio Missions minor league baseball team, who are scouting for a location for a stadium in the urban core. Sources have said the teams — who have several investors in common, including Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt — are exploring the idea of a downtown professional sports district with a basketball arena, a baseball stadium and restaurants, bars and retail outlets for fans. San Antonio's central business district, which is still struggling to get over the COVID pandemic, could use the excitement. The convention and meeting business, anchored by the Henry B. González Convention Center on East Market Street, is recovering but slowly. Many downtown firms, whose employees now work from home or come to the office only once or twice a week, are reconsidering how much space they need to lease. That means slower lunch hours at restaurants and fewer people meeting for drinks after work… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Why the Democratic establishment has rushed to support Henry Cuellar (Texas Monthly)
Days after U.S. representative Henry Cuellar finished a bitter, drawn-out primary race against human-rights lawyer Jessica Cisneros, he was irate. The ten-term representative from Laredo had almost lost his congressional seat and was ready to harangue the progressive organizations that had buoyed his 29-year-old opponent. “Somewhere down the line,” he told a reporter, “somebody came up with a standard that if you don’t agree with me, then you’re against me . . . Go and open up a dictionary and see what the word ‘progressive’ means: Open to new ideas—not only their ideas.” National Democrats, he added, “need to understand that we all have our own issues that we understand better, and, like I told some people, ‘Hey, let me be me and I’ll keep this seat as a Democrat.’?”
Cuellar hasn’t been wrong so far. His primary races in 2020 and 2022 were both hard-fought—he eked out wins by just thousands and then hundreds of votes, respectively—but, come November, Cuellar doesn’t see close races. Last year, he easily knocked down his well-funded Republican challenger Cassy Garcia by a margin of 13 percentage points… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Rains slow as Hilary moves north and leaves Southern California underwater (NPR)
Tropical Storm Hilary poured rain across Southern California throughout Sunday night, leaving millions of people at flood risk, thousands of homes without power and the country's second-largest school district closed.
The first tropical storm to hit the region in nine decades dropped as much as 7 inches of rainwater in some mountain regions and up to 4 inches in lower lying areas.
Early Monday, officials reclassified the storm as a post-tropical cyclone. The center of the storm is expected to travel north through Nevada today. Officials in Las Vegas warned of wind gusts of up to 75 miles per hour. Flash flood warnings will remain in effect there until 6:30 a.m. PDT… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Manchin claims both parties ‘villainize’ each other amid speculation about No Labels bid (The Hill)
Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) accused both parties of villainizing each other Sunday, as the moderate Democrat continues to fuel speculation about a potential third-party White House bid with the bipartisan group No Labels.
“If you’re a Democrat, they expect you to villainize every Republican. And if you’re a Republican, you should villainize the Democrats,” Manchin told radio talk show host John Catsimatidis on WABC-AM’s “The Cats Roundtable.”
“That’s not the way our founding fathers intended for this democracy to work,” he added. “It was intended for us to work together.”
Manchin commended the efforts by No Labels, which has been pushing a potential “unity ticket” as a third option in the 2024 presidential race, to present Americans with additional choices.
“All they’re asking for is, ‘Do the citizens of the United States want some other options?’” he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Meta’s Threads App to Launch Web Version as Rivalry With X Enters New Stage (Wall Street Journal)
Meta Platforms plans to launch a web version of microblogging app Threads early this week, the biggest new feature to be introduced on its competitor to Elon Musk’s X.
The desktop version would address one of the biggest of a long wish list of features users have sought for Threads. The text-first social-media app appeared on track to be a smash hit out of the gate when Meta launched a bare-bones version in early July, but use of it has plunged in recent weeks.
Users have been able to see specific Threads posts on the web but their access is limited, as the app is mostly geared for mobile phones.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, said on Friday on his Instagram profile, that the web version of Threads would be launching soon and is already being tested internally at Meta. People familiar with Meta’s plans said it will launch early this week, although the launch plans aren’t final and could change.
“It’s a little bit buggy right now, you don’t want it just yet,” Mosseri said. “As soon as it is ready we will share it with everybody else.”
Meta rushed to launch Threads to take advantage of the growing interest for an alternative to X, formerly known as Twitter. Threads became the fastest app to reach 100 million downloads, hitting the mark in five days… (LINK TO FULL STORY)