BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 31, 2023)
[BG PODCAST]
EPISODE 209 // Welcome to Episode 209! Bingham Group Associate Hannah Garcia CEO A.J. Bingham review the week (ending 7.28) in Austin politics and more.
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[AUSTIN METRO]
City manager delays controversial new telework policy (Austin monitor)
Interim City Manager Jesús Garza is delaying implementation of a controversial new telework policy that will require most city employees to work in the office at least three days per week.
In a July 19 email, interim Human Resources Director Rebecca Kennedy announced the policy’s start will be delayed to Jan. 1.
“As the City works to develop the best telework policy for our organization today and into the future, Interim City Manager Jesús Garza has determined the anticipated changes announced for an October 1 implementation will be extended to January 1, 2024,” Kennedy wrote. “We understand employees must make family arrangements, and this additional time provides an opportunity to make those changes. This additional time will also allow us to collect thorough data to arrive at a fair, reasonable policy focused on our commitment to customer service.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Urban Land Institute offers a glimpse at plans for UT’s many real estate holdings in Austin (Austin monitor)
From the development of the life sciences Innovation District to land eyed for possible use by federally funded semiconductor research and manufacturing, the land holdings of the University of Texas continue to play a huge role in the development efforts of Austin, both public and private.
Representatives from the area’s real estate and planning sector recently got a closer look during an Urban Land Institute Austin panel discussion. UT’s leaders have aggressive plans for what the university will look and feel like in the next 10 years, from a 350-acre swath of the Pickle Research Campus in North Austin to the creation of graduate housing in East Austin that will be accessible across the multibillion-dollar Interstate 35 project… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Capital Metro ridership, revenue, operating costs budgeted to increase in FY 2023-24 (Community Impact)
The Capital Metro board of directors received a presentation on the agency’s proposed fiscal year 2023-24 budget during the regular board meeting on July 24. FY 2023-24 will begin Oct. 1 and end Sept. 30, 2024.
The proposed $425.4 million FY 2023-24 operating expense budget is up $37.9 million from last year… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Law enforcement responds to four 'street takeover' incidents throughout Austin (Austin American-Statesman)
Law enforcement officers responded to four "street takeover" incidents overnight Saturday, one of which ended in a driver attempting to evade police and causing a wreck that injured three people, according to Austin police.
Austin police and the Texas Department of Public Safety responded to the incidents. Authorities said they received a call around 9:30 p.m. about cars doing burnouts while people hung out the windows in a Target parking lot in North Austin near Payton Gin and Ohlen roads.
Law enforcement officers responded to four "street takeover" incidents overnight Saturday, one of which ended in a driver attempting to evade police and causing a wreck that injured three people, according to Austin police.
Austin police and the Texas Department of Public Safety responded to the incidents. Authorities said they received a call around 9:30 p.m. about cars doing burnouts while people hung out the windows in a Target parking lot in North Austin near Payton Gin and Ohlen roads… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas Supreme Court snubs World Class appeal, moving prime downtown Austin sites closer to $172M sales (Austin business Journal)
One of the longest-running legal disputes involving Nate Paul's World Class Holdings appears on the verge of wrapping up — potentially clearing the way for a pair of valuable Austin sites to be sold to real estate firms with big ambitions in the Texas capital.
The Texas Supreme Court on July 28 declined to hear an appeal from Paul after a state appeals court ruled earlier this year against World Class in a lawsuit with the Roy F. and Joann Cole Mitte Foundation. The nonprofit had been an investor in World Class real estate deals until their relationship soured about five years ago, kicking off a lengthy legal battle.
The Supreme Court appeal was one of the final options open to World Class to prevent sales of two prime downtown sites: a lot at 99 Trinity St., just south of the Austin Convention Center, and three parcels surrounding The Austonian skyscraper at the intersection of Third Street and Congress Avenue. They could be sold for a combined $172 million… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
If migrant ‘invasion’ justifies Rio Grande blockade, could Texas send troops into Mexico? (Dallas Morning News)
Gov. Greg Abbott has justified National Guard deployments to the border and most recently, a floating barricade in the Rio Grande, by invoking Texas’ right to defend itself in case of invasion. The Constitution lets states “engage in War” if they are “actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.” But the idea that drug smugglers and unarmed migrants — as opposed to a foreign army — could trigger that clause has never been tested in court. It may soon be, now that the Justice Department has asked a federal judge to order removal of the buoys near Eagle Pass. The legal showdown has elevated a squabble that’s raged for years from the realm of semantics. Conservatives have long described illegal immigration as an invasion, stepping up the rhetoric as they accuse President Joe Biden of pursuing an “open border” policy.
In Congress, scores of Republicans want to formally declare an invasion and put a stamp of approval on whatever actions Abbott and other border governors might take. “We don’t have to be passive victims when the federal government doesn’t do its job,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, who has led the charge. “We have been invaded with drugs that have killed tens of thousands of Americans. That has been enabled by the cartels. This administration has ceded operational control to those cartels.” Whether or not that’s an invasion, legally, he said, it’s certainly a crisis and “it’s time for our sovereign states to fill that void for the safety of their citizens.” Constitutional experts call the idea dangerous — a radical departure from the long-standing principle that the national government alone has purview over diplomacy, national security and immigration. Some see ominous echoes of states’ rights sentiment that was discredited at great cost in the 1860s. “That’s outrageous,” said law professor Craig Green, a Temple University expert on constitutional law and American legal history who has written extensively on the “invasion” clause. “No state has made that category of claim since secessionists in the Civil War.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Political dominoes could fall in Houston as 2 longtime Democrats campaign for mayor (Texas Tribune)
The last time there was an open seat in Texas Senate District 15, it was 1982.
The last time there was an open seat in Texas’ 18th Congressional District, it was 1989.
Now, the heavily Democratic districts in Houston could be vacant again. It all comes down to the city’s election this November as incumbents in both seats are running for mayor, raising the prospect of one or both relinquishing their long-held seats.
Neither state Sen. John Whitmire nor U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has said how they plan to handle the conundrum, fueling suspense for declared and potential candidates hoping to succeed them… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas A&M University System regents name Mark Welsh interim president of flagship campus (TExas tribune)
The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents voted unanimously Sunday evening to make acting President Mark A. Welsh III the interim-president of its flagship university, 10 days after former Texas A&M University President M. Katherine Banks resigned.
Banks, who had served as president for two years, resigned amid fallout from the bungled hiring of Kathleen McElroy, a Black journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, to revive A&M’s journalism program… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Pharmaceutical president's conviction offers glimpse into Houston's 'Purple Drank' issue (HOuston Chronicle)
A Florida-based pharmaceutical company president will not only spend time behind bars, he’ll also hand over his McLaren sports car, after a federal judge in Texas sentenced him for helping drug traffickers in Houston distribute misbranded and counterfeit cough syrup — feeding what some doctors say is a growing and expensive addiction. U.S. District Judge Marcia A. Crone sentenced Adam P. Runsdorf, 48, to six years for allowing Byron A. Marshall, 43, of Houston, to use the facilities owned by Woodfield Pharmaceutical LLC to produce more than 500,000 pints of counterfeit cough syrup.
With Runsdorf’s assistance, Marshall sold the counterfeit drugs across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Wisconsin, California, Florida, Arkansas, and Ohio. Prices ranged from $100 to more than $1,000 per one-pint bottle. The market and brand of cough syrup could raise prices to as high as $3,800 to $4,000 per pint.
Nine others were named in the indictment. Six of the people named, including Runsford, have been sentenced to anywhere between five to 12 years in prison. Marshall and four others are awaiting sentencing. “In his role as owner and president of Woodfield Pharmaceutical LLC, Adam Runsdorf knew his company was producing thousands of gallons of counterfeit cough syrup — labeled to be nearly identical to a discontinued product — to be distributed to drug traffickers in Texas and other states,” said U.S. Attorney Damien M. Diggs in a Justice Department news release.
Many buy cough syrup to battle a cold or a case of the sniffles, but some mix the medicine with soda, like Sprite or Mountain Dew, to create a drink called Lean, or more commonly called, “Purple Drank,” said Mike Leath, the medical director for Memorial Hermann Prevention and Recovery Center. Lean contains promethazine and codeine, and when the allergy drug and pain reliever are mixed, the user experiences a heightened affect, according to Leath. Once the drugs are in a cup, candy and soda are often added to the concoction to make it more palatable, he said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
US VP Harris embraces new attack role, draws fresh Republican firE (Reuters)
Vice President Kamala Harris has shown a punchy side during a tour of nearly a dozen U.S. states in recent weeks, attacking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for backing "revisionist history" about slavery, telling Iowa healthcare workers to rebel against the state's new restrictive abortion laws and rallying Latinos in Chicago to fight "extremist" Republicans. On Saturday, Harris, the first woman and first woman of color to serve as vice president, opens the NAACP's annual conference in Boston, a key political event for Black Americans that will help define the issues Democrats focus on in the 2024 election. The high-profile speeches are part of an expanded role for U.S. President Joe Biden's much-scrutinized governing partner ahead of the election, senior Democrats say.
She'll engage in many more campaign-style events in months to come, designed to reacquaint Harris with loyal supporters, burnish her image with independents and reach out to Democrats' who haven't been hearing the Biden administration's message. It's a move that couldn't happen too soon, some influential Democrats say. "We have constantly said to the White House that they need to send her out more because we need the base – that is Black voters and others - to understand what you are doing," Reverend Al Sharpton, a veteran civil rights activist and head of the National Action Network, told Reuters. Biden credits Black voters for his 2020 victory, with exit polls showing he carried 87% of the vote. But recent polls and turnout in the 2022 midterms reveal erosion in enthusiasm among the bloc that needs to be shored up before next November… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
UFO-curious lawmakers brace for a fight over government secrets (The HIll)
A bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee says a high-profile hearing on UFOs is just the start of their push for answers.
And they are threatening to use heavier-handed tactics if the Pentagon and intelligence agencies stand in their way. Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) and Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) want more information on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP) — commonly referred to as UFOs — beginning with new laws, a classified hearing and the possible creation of a select committee.
The lawmakers said they are willing to use subpoena power if needed to get the answers they’re seeking from the federal government.
“If there’s not a cover-up, the government and the Pentagon are sure spending a lot of resources to stop us from studying it,” Burchett told The Hill… (LINK TO FULL STORY)