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BG Reads 1.18.2024

BG Reads 1.18.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - January 18, 2024

January 18, 2024

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January 18, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

✅ Austin Council meets at 10AM (livestream link and agenda below)

✅ Error sends NXP's bid for state tax refunds back to City Hall

✅ Appeals court blocks Texas from enforcing book rating law

✅ Supreme Court to weigh whether cities can punish homeless people for sleeping on public land

Read on!

[CITY HALL WATCH]

📺 The Austin Council convenes at 10AM

Watch Here Live at ATXN

Click Here to Review the January 18th, 2024 Agenda

🔎 City Manager Search

The application process for Austin’s next city manager is open.

Click Here to review the posting

Applications will be accepted until February 12th.

🔎 2024 Austin Council Meeting Schedule

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin has a homelessness crisis. Now, city will vote on $2M contract to review strategies (Austin American-Statesman)

On Thursday, Council Members will vote on a $2 million contract with the consulting firm McKinsey & Company to facilitate a review of homelessness related contracts and strategies used by Austin and other area agencies. The City Council agenda item states the city will only be financially responsible for funding for work specifically related to the city, and that other entities would reimburse the city under the contract.

The review would encompass an assessment of strategies, programs, services and contracts by the city and other agencies, which could include Central Health, Travis County, Integral Care, and The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School, according to the scope of work for the review… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

NOTE: This appears as Item 14 on the Council agenda

Busy Council day includes a call for cease-fire in Gaza (Austin Monitor)

City Council will hear once again from a coalition asking Council as a whole to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Council members Vanessa Fuentes, Zo Qadri and José Velásquez last month issued a statement in support of the cease-fire.

According to a news release from the Austin for Palestine Coalition, the group will gather both inside and outside City Hall during today’s Council meeting in hopes of garnering support for a cease-fire and release of hostages held by Hamas.

Earlier this week, the city’s Asian American Quality of Life Advisory Commission approved a resolution supporting a permanent cease-fire. In addition, the group called for the Austin Police Department and city staff to address antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab sentiments. Although a number of other cities have approved similar resolutions, it is not clear that Austin Council members other than the three who have already addressed the issue will be willing to add their names to the resolution.

In addition to holding a press conference outside City Hall, the group has a number of speakers who will be addressing Council during the citizen communication portion of the meeting at noon. They will also be sitting in the audience, like they did in December, holding signs in support of Palestinians… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Error sends NXP's bid for state tax refunds back to City Hall (Austin Business Journal)

An error by the city is bringing NXP's aim for state incentives back to the table.

In November, Austin City Council nominated local chipmaker NXP USA Inc., a subsidiary of the Netherlands-based NXP (Nasdaq: NXPI), for the state’s Texas Enterprise Zone Program, allowing the company to apply for state tax refunds as it plans to invest $291 million to replace production lines at its two Austin factories. The program's refunds, if granted by the state, would add to the $1 million incentives package NXP already secured from the city.

However, it has come to light that NXP’s two Austin facilities are not located within an enterprise zone, as city staff previously stated, which has caused a hiccup in the company's bid for the additional incentives. To correct the issue as rapidly as possible, two resolutions amending the error for each NXP property are set to be approved by the council during its upcoming Jan. 18 meeting, which also will include an update on what NXP must pledge to be eligible for the refunds... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

NOTE: This appears as Item 11 on the Council agenda

Click here for this week’s Austin public meeting meeting times and agendas.

[TEXAS NEWS]

Appeals court blocks Texas from enforcing book rating law (Texas Tribune)

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Texas Education Agency on Wednesday from enforcing a state law requiring booksellers to rate the explicitness and relevance of sexual references in materials they sell to schools.

The appellate court, one of the most conservative in the nation, sided with booksellers who sued the state after claiming House Bill 900 violated their First Amendment rights. The court affirmed a lower court’s decision to prevent TEA Commissioner Mike Morath from enforcing the 2023 law.

Wednesday’s decision was somewhat surprising since the appellate court blocked the lower court’s ruling in November. Addressing the reversal, Judge Don Willett with the 5th Circuit wrote that a “different panel of this court” had granted the state’s appeal to block that ruling.

The plaintiffs — which include bookshops in Houston and Austin, the American Booksellers Association, the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild — argue that it is logistically impossible and cost-prohibitive to comply with the law... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Justice Department report into Uvalde school shooting expected this week (Associated Press)

The Justice Department is planning this week to release findings of an investigation into law enforcement’s response to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. The report is expected to be released Thursday. Uvalde Consolidated School District Superintendent Ashley Chohlis notified the community of the imminent report at a school board meeting Monday night. Justice Department officials have previously said the review into one of the deadliest classroom shootings in U.S. history would focus on the law enforcement response, an usual step prompted by contradictory information from authorities at the time. The DOJ has said the investigation would “provide an independent account of law enforcement actions and response that day” and identify lessons learned and best practices to help first responders prepare for active shooter events.

A panel of state lawmakers found in 2022 that nearly 400 officers responded to the shooting when a gunman stormed the school, but they waited over an hour to confront the attacker. The nearly 80-page report found that “egregiously poor decision-making” led to hundreds of heavily armed officers waiting in the hallway as the gunman fired into two fourth-grade classrooms. At least five officers have lost their jobs, including two Department of Public Safety officers and Uvalde’s school police chief, Pete Arredondo, who was the on-site commander during the attack. The town of over 15,000 has remained divided on moving forward and seeking accountability for the responding officers. Some family members of those killed have expressed frustration at the delay of investigations. Uvalde County District Attorney Christina Mitchell said in December that a criminal investigation into the police response will continue into this year before she can present her findings to a grand jury… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Supreme Court to weigh whether cities can punish homeless people for sleeping on public land (NBC News)

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a case that considers whether municipal ordinances that bar homeless people from camping on public property violate constitutional protections against “cruel and unusual punishment.”

The justices will review an appeals court ruling, the only one of its kind, which found that ordinances in Grants Pass, Oregon, are prohibited under the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment.

The ruling in question was issued by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2022 and applies to all nine states within its jurisdiction, including California. Several of those states have large populations of homeless people.

Among those asking the Supreme Court to overturn the appeals court are local officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Phoenix and other cities… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

‘We all have concerns’: Hill Democrats see flawed Biden campaign (Roll Call)

Congressional Democrats have concerns about President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, with some calling for a new approach — or risk Donald Trump returning to the White House. Some veteran Democrats see a campaign that needs stronger leadership, more diversity and a stronger message. While they credit Biden for building what they called a successful first term, Democratic members said they are concerned about the campaign’s ability to win over skeptical independents and frustrated Democratic voters.

Some senior members of Biden’s party have raised concerns about the campaign’s construction, strategy and messaging. They said the president and his campaign team need to spend more time explaining how his administration is fighting still-nagging inflation and talking about conservative Supreme Court justices’ 2022 decision to roll back Roe v. Wade and its federal abortion rights protections.

The bottom line is the Biden campaign needs to connect with voters and convince them that the president — not the legally entangled Trump — is more focused on improving their finances and lives, Democratic members said last week, before Trump steamrolled to victory in Iowa’s first-of-the-cycle GOP presidential nominating contest.

“Well, I think those of us who helped Joe Biden get elected president are not real comfortable at this point with what we’re seeing,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said last week. “It just appears that the people who were engaged in helping craft the message and direction of the 2020 campaign are not actively involved in this campaign.

“Now, that doesn’t mean — it’s not too late to broaden the participation. But I think part of that discomfort is, in order to win, you have to have your best team effort,” Thompson added. “That team effort includes who he has, but he also needs men and women of color in the room, Latino, Asian. I think it’s that the tent is too small right now.”

The concerns also include the campaign’s messaging, which so far has largely been focused on a bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden and his team have tried to convince voters would not have happened without his involvement. More recently, the president has begun to speak more forcefully about what he contends is Trump’s threat to American democracy, his efforts to overturn the 2020 elections, as well as the former president’s actions before, during and after the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[2024 Austin City Council Race Watch]

Next fall will see elections for the following Council positions, District 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and Mayor. Candidates can’t file for a place on the ballot until July 22, 2024.

Declared candidates so far are:

District 2