BG Reads | News You Need to Know (January 25, 2023)
[BINGHAM GROUP]
BG NOTE: Recapping Austin Mayor Kirk Watson's Texas Tribune Conversation (1.24.2023)
Bingham Group Associate Wendy Rodriguez attended yesterday’s Texas Tribune conversation with Austin Mayor Kirk Watson. Check out her recap, and along with a video link to the full interview.
[AUSTIN METRO]
Austin's new-home market keeps cooling, houses taking longer to sell (Austin American-Statesman)
As the Central Texas' housing market continues to cool, homebuilders are feeling the chill in the new-home market.
While Austin-area builders saw home sales increase last month, inventory continues to climb and it's taking longer to sell a home.
That's according to the latest new-home sales report from HomesUSA.com. The report uses Multiple Listing Services data from the Realtor associations of Austin, Houston, North Texas and San Antonio.
Ben Caballero, CEO of HomesUSA.com, said the three-month moving average of Austin’s new home sales increased in December to 752 from 740 in November. However, Caballero said his numbers show that the pace of new home sales slowed for the fifth straight month… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Street art captures attention of Austin City Hall (Austin Business Journal)
Street art serves as an eye-catching attraction that can bolster a city’s tourism and cultural allure but it also walks a fine line because of its historic ties to vandalism. Austin City Hall is trying to find a way to promote a healthy balance.
The city's Downtown Commission is launching a working group that will review the benefits of street art in the Texas capital's urban core and find ways to support the creation of more while deterring unwanted tagging.
It was not immediately clear how the working group will handle that assignment but this will be a chance for businesses to provide feedback on how street art impacts downtown… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Central Health, Ascension Texas sue over care for low-income residents (Austin monitor)
After years of failed negotiations over health care services to low-income residents and payments for those services, Central Health, the Travis County health care district, filed suit Tuesday against Ascension Texas, a nationwide chain of hospitals and health care facilities. Ascension Texas operates Dell Seton Medical Center at the University of Texas as well as Dell Children’s Medical Center.
The health care district accused Ascension of breach of contract by failing to provide medical care to low-income residents enrolled in the Medical Access Program, or MAP, and to indigent people through another program.
The suit asserts breach of contract claims against Ascension and is seeking a judicial declaration that will trigger an option for Central Health to purchase the Dell Seton Medical Center. In addition, Central Health is seeking $1 million in damages and attorneys’ fees. Attorney Casey Dobson of Scott Douglass & McConnico LLP is representing Central Health… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Construction contract for Waterloo Greenway's second phase approved (Community impact)
Austin residents can expect the second phase of Waterloo Greenway—a three-phase project that will connect 35 acres of green space along Waller Creek in downtown Austin—to break ground in spring 2023.
Waller Creek Local Government Corporation chose its preferred developer for the second phase, Jay-Reese Contractors, on Jan. 18. The company has already worked on several local projects, including the Pfluger Bridge, Boardwalk Trail at Lady Bird Lake and Second Street Bridge.
The second phase, called The Confluence, will extend from Fourth Street to Lady Bird Lake. The trail system will meander through a “cultural epicenter” of Austin, as it will sit next to Palm Park, the Rainey Street Historic District, the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center, the Austin Convention Center, Brush Square Park, and the Butler Hike and Bike Trail… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Texas Republicans passed major voting restrictions in 2021. They're not done yet. (Houston Chronicle)
Texas Republicans spent most of the 2021 legislative session focusing on election security — and this year, it’s a top priority for them again. GOP leaders are discussing a range of election security measures, from higher penalties for voter fraud to broader power for the attorney general to prosecute election crimes. Many of them target Harris County, which Republicans have spent the past two years chastising for back-to-back elections blunders. “Harris County is the big problem,” said state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, a Houston Republican who plans to file close to a dozen election bills this legislative session. “You’ve got the nation’s third-largest county that has had multiple problems with multiple election officers, to the point where one had to resign, and the problem is that it’s too big a piece of the electorate to ignore.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says he’ll run for reelection in 2026, reversing previous plan to retire (Texas tribune)
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Tuesday he will “absolutely” run for reelection in 2026, a reversal from previous comments he made saying this would be his final term.
“I really love what I do,” Patrick said, praising the collegiality of the state Senate he leads. “I’m in good health, and I just won by eight hundred and thirty-some thousand votes, so why wouldn’t I come back? I think we’ll be in good shape in ’26 in the primary and the general.”
Patrick won a third term last year by 12 percentage points, defeating Democrat Mike Collier. Patrick said prior to that election cycle that if he won reelection in 2022, “that’ll be my last term.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
Proud Boys expecting ‘civil war’ before Jan. 6, witness says (Associated Press)
The month before the riot at the U.S. Capitol, members of the Proud Boys were growing increasingly angry about the outcome of the 2020 election and were expecting a “civil war,” a former member told jurors on Tuesday as he took the stand in the seditious conspiracy case against the group’s former leader.
Matthew Greene testified in the case against former Proud Boys national chairman Enrique Tarrio and four lieutenants under a cooperation deal with the government after pleading guilty to storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, with fellow extremists.
Greene told jurors that the Proud Boys’ conversations became more heated as December 2020 wore on and challenges to President Donald Trump’s election loss were unsuccessful. The Proud Boys were getting “ready and willing for anything that was going to happen,” Greene said, adding that the group saw itself as “essentially the tip of the spear.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The AP Interview: Pope Francis: Homosexuality not a crime (Associated Press)
Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church.
“Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis said during an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press.
Francis acknowledged that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support laws that criminalize homosexuality or discriminate against the LGBTQ community, and he himself referred to the issue in terms of “sin.” But he attributed such attitudes to cultural backgrounds, and said bishops in particular need to undergo a process of change to recognize the dignity of everyone.
“These bishops have to have a process of conversion,” he said, adding that they should apply “tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Companies Tap Tech Behind ChatGPT to Make Customer-Service Chatbots Smarter (The Wall Street Journal)
Businesses hope the artificial-intelligence technology behind ChatGPT can turn ordinary chatbots into impressive fonts of information, potentially transforming customer service.
But many executives said they are proceeding with caution, given the limitations of ChatGPT—fine-tuned from GPT-3.5, a model created by startup OpenAI—as well as OpenAI’s older AI language system, GPT-3, which companies are already starting to integrate into digital products.
ChatGPT, launched by OpenAI in November, quickly went viral for its often elegant, information-packed responses to various questions, gripping the imaginations of regular people, business leaders and investors including Microsoft Corp. , which began backing OpenAI in 2019 and said Monday that it would make a multibillion-dollar investment in the startup.
OpenAI last week said it would soon add ChatGPT, which stands for chat generative pre-trained transformer, to its application programming interface, or API, which lets developers embed OpenAI technology into their own products… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[MEETINGS/HEARINGS THIS WEEK]
TODAY
TOMORROW