City contracted Mosaic Public Partners will “officially” open the application process on January 8th.
Council Members have been asked to provide a list of stakeholders they would like included in the process. Offices will have further meetings to discuss other aspects of the search, including views on the next manager’s qualities.
The application process will close on February 12th.
Mosaic will review candidates with Council in early March and we will arrive at a group of finalists.
The goal (with an emphasis that Council shouldn’t feel rushed in any way) is for Council to decide on a new City Manager in early to mid-April, under two possible timelines:
- (1) Pick someone and they can start very soon after chosen; or
- (2) pick someone but they have a later start date.

WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT

The City Manager is the highest ranking city employee akin to the CEO. They can only be hired or fired by the City Council.
The office carries strong executive power over the day-to-day operations of the city, as well as responsibility for carrying out Council policy directives.

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Worsening Austin EMS response times linked to staffing shortages and high cost of living (CBS Austin)

According to city data, Austin-Travis County EMS saw a decline in response times last year.

Comparing December of 2022, to December of 2023, ATCEMS saw a 5% decrease in on-time responses in Austin and Travis County combined.

"I absolutely think that our longer response times are due to our staffing shortage," said Selena Xie, Austin Travis County EMS Association President.

"On some days we have shut down up to ten ambulances, and that means that we have fewer ambulances to run more calls. So of course, our response times are going to be longer."

After the pandemic, emergency medical responders across the nation saw a spike in staff vacancies, and experts say we're still facing those effects today. But here in Austin, Xie said the reasoning is dollars and cents… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Ryan Alter reflects on ‘tangible results’ of his first year in office (Austin Monitor)

When Council Member Ryan Alter was running for office in 2022, he stressed the need for housing affordability, specifically rejecting the slow approach favored by his predecessor. When he came into office in January, he began to work on that issue along with his colleagues.

Alter told the Austin Monitor, “I came into office, I think, with a mandate to address our affordable housing issues. Austin is struggling with housing throughout the city,” not only newcomers, but also “people who have lived here for a long time,” including teachers, nurses and people with higher-paying jobs.

“This Council was very aggressive in implementing reforms to address our affordable housing crisis,” he said. Alter authored a resolution to start a program called Opportunity Unlocked and helped sponsor reforms to allow simpler subdivisions…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

Mackenzie Kelly seeks common ground while pursuing public safety, housing goals in 2024 (Austin Monitor)

The photo above the light switch in City Council Member Mackenzie Kelly’s office captures her slim 4 percent win in the 2020 election for the District 6 seat. It serves as a reminder that she works for the 48 percent of the voters who didn’t select her, as well as the 52 percent who did.

Kelly said that reminder helps guide her while she interacts with the other members of Council, whose political views frequently differ from her conservative positions on many issues.

“I’ve always had this philosophy of killing people with kindness. I thought that if I’m kind and if I consider opinions and if I talk to people that I might not personally if I’m not in an elected position, then I might not get outside of my comfort zone. That interaction would make me grow as a person and represent the community better,” she said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

New report shows Austin's real estate market is still holding strong (KVUE)

While the Austin area housing market is still seeing plenty of movement, a new study from Redfin says our area is seeing a cooldown it hasn't seen in almost a decade.

Not long ago, homes in Austin were flying off the market. Some never even made it there before they were sold.

But a new report from Redfin shows Austin's market has changed. Analysts say the Austin area is seeing an 8-year-high for housing inventory with the average home sitting on the market for at least two months… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

More than a third of state agencies are using AI. Texas is beginning to examine its potential impact. (Texas Tribune)

When the Texas Workforce Commission became inundated with jobless claims in March 2020, it turned to artificial intelligence.

Affectionately named for the agency’s former head Larry Temple, who had died a year earlier, “Larry” the chatbot was designed to help Texans sign up for unemployment benefits.

Like a next generation FAQ page, Larry would field user-generated questions about unemployment cases. Using AI language processing, the bot would determine which answer prewritten by human staff would best fit the user’s unique phrasing of the question. The chatbot answered more than 21 million questions before being replaced by Larry 2.0 last March.

Larry is one example of the ways artificial intelligence has been used by state agencies. Adaptation of the technology in state government has grown in recent years. But that acceleration has also sparked fears of unintended consequences like bias, loss of privacy or losing control of the technology. This year, the Legislature committed to taking a more active role in monitoring how the state is using AI... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Mayor Cherelle Parker outlines plans for business-friendly administration, touts steps to reduce red tape (Philadelphia Business Journal)

In her remarks, she spelled out the need for business leaders and the business community as a whole to have a seat at the table in her administration. She outlined plans to begin an initiative to remove red tape around starting a business, launch a roundtable with business leaders, work with developers to add 30,000 new housing units, conduct a review of the city's land bank, and prepare Philadelphia for the 2026 semiquincentennial.

"We want all people on a path to self sufficiency here in the city of Philadelphia, but they can't do that without access to an economic opportunity, a career, learning new skills so that they can earn a living wage, have health care, earn retirement security and take care of their families," Parker said. "I want each and every one of you who are here today to know that we can't do that without the business community. I've been so frustrated over the past few years at times when I've seen this us-versus-them attitude as it relates to business as if Philadelphia doesn't need businesses here in our city."

She pointed to city revenue and how integral wage and business profit taxes are in keeping operations going. Parker, along with new City Council President Kenyatta Johnson, outlined a plan to rid the city of needless processes around starting a business, a long-held gripe from entrepreneurs. Parker said that in her first 100 days, she will announce the PHL Open for Business initiative, which will require each city department to submit a list of potentially unnecessary permits or regulations... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Suburbs put the brakes on migrant bus arrivals after crackdowns in Chicago and New York (Associated Press)

In Edison, New Jersey, the mayor warned he would send people back to the border if they came to his city in buses. In Rockford, Illinois, authorities said 355 migrants who landed on a charter flight wouldn’t be staying.

“NO MIGRANT BUSES THIS EXIT,” signs along Interstate 55 in Grundy County, Illinois, southwest of Chicago said ahead of Christmas weekend.

Nervous officials in suburbs and outlying cities near Chicago and New York are giving migrants arriving from the southern border a cold shoulder amid attempts to circumvent restrictions on buses in those two cities, opening a new front in response to efforts led by Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to pay for migrants to leave his state.

The suburban backlash comes amid what the acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection calls “unprecedented” arrivals, with illegal entries topping 10,000 several days last month. For months, big-city Democratic mayors including Eric Adams of New York and Brandon Johnson of Chicago have pleaded with the Biden administration for help addressing the influx… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Welcome to the Neighborhood! Wall Street Designed It (Wall Street Journal)

Your new suburban rental has granite kitchen countertops, built to withstand even the most hard-wearing tenant. The neighbors next door have the exact same laundry machine. Welcome to the community where every detail has been designed to keep costs down for the Wall Street landlord.

Big investors are bullish about America’s family homes. So bullish they are willing to build entire new neighborhoods as it becomes harder to buy houses from the usual channels. Interest rates are at multiyear highs and fewer homes are for sale as owners don’t want to give up their cheap mortgage rates. Homes are also eye-wateringly expensive. In October, prices hit a fresh record according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index.

Wall Street investors in housing can’t meet their return hurdles when both homes and debt are this costly. During the third quarter of 2023, big landlords that own anywhere from 100 to more than 1,000 housing units purchased just 1% of all the homes sold in the U.S. This is down from roughly 3% throughout 2022, according to data from John Burns Research and Consulting. America’s rental market remains dominated by mom-and-pop landlords, who buy nearly one-in-five of all the U.S. family homes that come up for sale… (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