BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 12, 2023)
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson lays out his vision for the city's progression (CBS AUSTIN)
After being sworn in last week, Austin Mayor Kirk Watson is detailing how he plans to move the city forward.
From campaigning to taking the oath for a third time, Mayor Watson says Austin has evolved tremendously in terms of growth since his last term in office.
“Back then we were becoming a big city. I was mayor and helped navigate through the first tech boom that Austin really went through,” said Mayor Watson… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
UT report offers ‘roadmap’ for changes at Austin Water (Austin Monitor)
In the wake of five incidents between 2018 and 2022 related to water quality problems, including three boil-water notices and a zebra mussel invasion, Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros resigned and City Council asked the city auditor to identify a group to study problems at the utility and report back.
City Auditor Corrie Stokes led the search, contracting with the University of Texas Center for Water and the Environment. The 203-page report was issued Wednesday and its authors are scheduled to appear at next week’s Council Audit and Finance Committee meeting.
Although Austin Water operates three treatment plants, including Handcox, Davis and Ullrich, the review focused on Ullrich, which was “at the center” of four of the five incidents… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin suburb again ranked among nation's hottest ZIP codes (Austin business Journal)
A neighborhood in Williamson County has again ranked among the nation's hottest, in terms of home sales.
The 78641 ZIP — which encompasses the western part of Leander, including much of the Balcones Canyonlands — was ranked as the ninth “hottest” neighborhood in the U.S. in a Jan. 5 report from Opendoor Labs Inc. That's based on analysis of the total homes that went into contract within 90 days of listing in the cities where Opendoor operates.
The same neighborhood came in at No. 2 in last year's ranking.
It comes as no surprise as Leander has been one of the fastest-growing cities not only in the Austin metro, but the entire country. It was the fastest-growing large city in the country between 2018 and 2019. The population has boomed from 26,521 in 2010 to 67,124 in 2021, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.
Leander has attracted some large-scale commercial development lately. The 115-acre Northline development is expected to serve as the city's new downtown, with millions of square feet of retail, office and housing development -— all at the north end of the CapMetro red line train station… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
State agency that oversees Texas power grid needs more money to do its job, Sunset Commission findS (Texas Tribune)
The Public Utility Commission needs more state funding to ensure that Texas’ electric grid doesn’t fail again as it did during the devastating 2021 winter storm, the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission said Wednesday.
The commission, which regularly reviews state agencies and recommends potential improvements or abolishment to the state Legislature, voted Wednesday to suggest that legislators increase the PUC’s funding and staffing.
“Chief among PUC’s needs is additional resources, specifically for the agency to independently analyze electric industry data and support its regulation of water and wastewater utilities,” Sunset project manager Emily Johnson told commissioners at a hearing in December… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Effort to ban Democratic chairs fails in Texas House, but rule passes to penalize future quorum-breakers (Texas Tribune)
Texas House leadership on Wednesday shut down a long-building push to ban Democratic committee chairs, deploying procedural legislative maneuvers to defeat multiple proposals on the issue.
The chamber also approved new punishments for members who break quorum, as most House Democrats did two years ago in protest of GOP-backed voting restrictions. Those members left for Washington, D.C., for weeks to stop the House from being able to do business in an effort to prevent passage of the bill. Under the new rules, quorum-breakers can now be subject to daily fines and even expulsion from the chamber.
The chamber passed the overall rules package by a vote of 123-19, with Democrats making up most of the opposition… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Universal’s new park could accelerate Frisco’s already hot housing markeT (Dallas Morning News)
Frisco is one of the hottest cities in North Texas for homebuyers. Wednesday’s announcement of a new Universal theme park could throw more fuel into that fire — and community members have mixed reactions to the news. Universal Parks & Resorts has bought a site on the Dallas North Tollway for a new, kid-friendly theme park in the $10 billion Fields development along the Dallas North Tollway, where the PGA of America also recently built its new headquarters. Universal’s project will be designed to appeal to families and will include a 300-room hotel. “Everybody is completely buzzed about this,” said Christie Cannon, a real estate agent with Keller Williams in Frisco who has lived in the area for 20 years. “It confirms everything people have been saying for years that Frisco is a destination.”
Frisco and surrounding cities are known for being big magnets for families, so it’s not a shock to real estate agents that Universal would build a kid-centric park in town. Blair Taylor, a broker at Re/Max DFW Associates in Frisco, said he was initially excited about the idea of a Universal Studios park similar to the existing parks rather than one aimed at kids, but the kid-friendly concept fits in an area that’s already “a mecca of family entertainment.” “This plays into that, being something else for the kids,” he said. “I see what they’re doing.” Craig Drenowatz, secretary of the homeowners association in the Trails of West Frisco neighborhood, said half of his neighbors are ecstatic about the park and the city’s growth, and the other half is concerned about the impending influx of tourist activity on issues like traffic and parking. “Those concerns are absolutely out there. People were already concerned about PGA and Fields,” Drenowitz said. Still, he says, city officials have “mitigated those concerns with every project they’ve done, so give them a chance to do it again this time.” Traffic was the major concern of residents who attended a meeting held by city officials Wednesday night at nearby Trent Middle School. Most residents wanted to know about the volume of traffic in and out of the park and traffic flow through nearby neighborhoods… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Airlines hope for return to normal Thursday after FAA outage snarls U.S. travel (Reuters)
The U.S. aviation sector was struggling to return to normal on Wednesday after a nationwide ground stop imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) over a computer issue that forced a 90-minute halt to all U.S. departing flights.
More than 10,000 flights have been delayed so far and over 1,300 canceled, according to FlightAware, in the first national grounding of flights in about two decades. Many industry officials compared the grounding to what occurred after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
DeSantis fields growing criticism from fellow 2024 Republicans (The HIll)
Potential Republican presidential candidates and their allies are stepping up attacks on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as he emerges as the early front-runner for the GOP’s 2024 nomination.
In recent days, DeSantis has found himself on the receiving end of criticism from fellow GOP heavy hitters, like South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu. He’s also rankled former President Trump, who’s running for the White House once again and sees DeSantis as perhaps his biggest obstacle to securing the GOP nod… (LINK TO FULL STORY)