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BG Reads 1.9.2024

BG Reads 1.9.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - January 9, 2024

January 09, 2024

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January 9, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

✅ Bundle up, Austin: Freezing temperatures expected next week

✅ One interim CEO replaces another at Austin airport

✅ New National Association of Realtors president resigns

✅ 4 things to know about Taiwan's 'crucial' election — and where the U.S. fits in

✅ BG Podcast (EP 231) - The City Manager Search is Officially On - Listen Here

Read on!

[CITY HALL WATCH]

🔎 City of Austin Public Meetings (Week of 1.8.2024)

(Hearings with agenda links)

🔎 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]

Bundle up, Austin: Freezing temperatures expected next week (Community Impact)

Austin-area residents can expect the coldest temperatures of the winter season to hit early next week, meteorologists from the National Weather Service said.

Local meteorologists are expecting an arctic cold front with temperatures below freezing in the Austin area between Jan 14-18.

Experts are not expecting any wintry precipitation to accompany the cold front, which contributed to downed power lines and outages during winter storms Uri and Mara. However, meteorologist Keith White said the chances of rain or snow could increase as the cold front nears… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

One interim CEO replaces another at Austin airport as part of administrative restructuring (Austin American-Statesman)

Austin's city-owned airport has a new interim chief executive.

Building upon a number of administrative shifts at the airport in recent weeks, City Manager Jesús Garza on Friday announced Ghizlane Badawi would replace Jim Smith, who has led the city's Aviation Department and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport since the previous CEO's sudden resignation last spring.

Badawi, 45, had worked as deputy CEO prior to the appointment and has held various executive roles at the airport for more than 15 years, including stints as the airport's chief operating officer and chief experience and performance officer.

"She will now bring that diverse and extensive background in airport management to her new role," Garza said in a memo to City Council members… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

WeWork lease termination at SXSW Center adds to glut of vacant office space downtown (Austin Business Journal)

The biggest coworking firm in Austin has quietly trimmed back its local office space to correct its finances.

WeWork Inc.'s space at downtown’s SXSW Center, where it had roughly 65,000 square feet of office space spread across three floors, is now being marketed as available. WeWork has shed plenty of real estate in other markets across the country following its Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in November, but at the time it appeared the company's real estate holdings in the area had been spared. Now, it looks like the termination of the lease at 1400 Lavaca St. is the first domino to fall in the Austin area amid the company's financial troubles.

It's unclear when the site closed, but a company representative said in a statement that the agreement to terminate its lease was signed prior to its bankruptcy filing…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

(Click above for meeting times and agendas of this week’s Austin public meetings)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Six years after Hurricane Harvey, the city of Houston still hasn’t allocated $200 million in relief funds (Texas Tribune)

More than six years after Hurricane Harvey flooded thousands of homes and killed more than 80 people on the Texas Coast, the city of Houston has yet to allocate $200 million in federal relief funds to victims, according to the state's General Land Office.

In a letter to newly inaugurated Houston Mayor John Whitmire, General Land Office Commissioner Dawn Buckingham offered her office’s staff to help Whitmire ensure the remaining hurricane relief dollars are distributed appropriately and quickly. She said her office has historically had a “strained” relationship with the city of Houston and that the city’s housing office has struggled with staffing issues, preventing them from managing the recovery funding.

Buckingham’s offer signals an early opportunity for Whitmire to fulfill his campaign promise to improve relations between the state’s most populous city and the state.

Whitmire, a former Democratic state senator, served alongside Buckingham, a Republican, in the state legislature from 2017-2023. Last month, he defeated U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a landslide victory to gain control of the nation’s fourth most populous city… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

City Council torn over how, or if, to reprimand Marc Whyte after DWI charge (San Antonio Express-News)

More than a week after Council Member Marc Whyte was arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated, most of his City Council colleagues are struggling over whether to formally reprimand him.

That's a far cry from council's reaction after Council Member Clayton Perry, Whyte’s predecessor in District 10 on the Northeast Side, drunkenly crashed into a Honda Civic on a busy North Side street and fled the scene Nov. 6, 2022. A day after a police report of the incident involving Perry was made public, Mayor Ron Nirenberg called for his resignation. Eight days after the accident, Nirenberg stripped Perry of his committee assignments, and council members cast a 9-0 vote of no confidence.

The San Antonio Police Department was quick to release body camera footage in Perry's case — it was available four days after the crash. It showed Perry answering an officer's question in the backyard of his home, barely coherent and with a bleeding head wound. Body camera video of Whyte's interaction with police and his arrest the night of Dec. 29 has yet to be released. Most council members don’t want to speak publicly about Whyte’s situation or say they need more information before deciding how to move forward.

“I think we’re at a point where we need to learn more details,” District 5 Council Member Teri Castillo said. Those details include the results of Whyte’s blood alcohol test, which aren't expected for several weeks. She said she was "grateful no one was hurt." The details in Perry's police report were shocking — enough so that most on council quickly decided to penalize the three-term council member. In Whyte's case, the few details that have come to light so far seem less egregious… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Proposals to update Dallas’ charter include changes to council pay, terms, and elections (Dallas Morning News)

Increasing the size of the Dallas City Council, bumping up members’ pay and term lengths, and moving local elections from May to November are among the ideas that could make their way to voters’ ballots this fall. Dallas is in the midst of a once-a-decade review of its city charter, which is being headed by a City Council-appointed group aiming to approve a recommended list of updates by April. The City Council would get that list in May and ultimately could greenlight a final series of charter amendments for Dallas voters to weigh in on in November. The charter defines the powers, functions and structure of Dallas’ government. The last review happened in 2014, when voters approved updates like increasing the annual salaries of the mayor to $80,000 and council members to $60,000, expanding the definition of people that can’t be discriminated against for city employment, and banning city officials and employees from having financial conflicts in public contracts.

One suggested amendment proposes adding four more seats to the 15-member Dallas City Council and expanding the number of city districts from 14 to 18. Another proposal would increase the council seats by six. Dallas’ system of having 14 council members elected by district and a mayor elected citywide has been in effect since 1991. Both proposals, made by Hany Abdel-Motaleb and former council member Philip Kingston, say the change would help account for the city’s growing population since the 1990s. Albert Mata, who ran to represent North Oak Cliff on the City Council last year, said he would support adding more elected officials to Dallas’ roster. “I think increasing City Council seats not just increases representation, but increases the likelihood that those kinds of neighborhoods get to be represented by the candidate of their choice,” he said. He mentioned District 2 as an example that could benefit from being split, noting how the boundaries run near west Dallas, through downtown and covers portions of east Dallas. “You can do something that benefits the east side of the district and the west side of the district doesn’t care because it’s just completely, geographically isolated from another part of the district,” Mata said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Apple Vision Pro headset launches in U.S. on Feb. 2, preorders begin Jan. 19 (CNBC)

Apple’s Vision Pro will launch in the U.S. on Feb. 2, the company said in a press release Monday, with preorders beginning Jan. 19.

Preorders will open at 5 p.m. Pacific Time on Jan. 19, according to the Vision Pro’s product page.

The company also said that prescription lens inserts for the Vision Pro would cost $149, and that the headset would have 256 GB of storage.

Apple shares rose three-quarters of a percent during premarket trading Monday.

The $3,500 headset is Apple’s answer to Meta’s Quest headsets and has reportedly been in development for years. Apple announced the product at its Worldwide Developers Conference in 2023.

“The era of spatial computing has arrived,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in Monday’s release. The headset is powered by Apple’s M2 chip, the same one used in its computers… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

4 things to know about Taiwan's 'crucial' election — and where the U.S. fits in (NPR)

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Nearly 20 million voters will head to the polls on Jan. 13 in Taiwan, in a presidential election that analysts say will be "crucial" for the future of the Asian island and its relationships with both the United States and China.

Here's a brief guide to understanding what's at stake... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

New president of realtors group abruptly resigns (New York Times)

The president of the embattled National Association of Realtors has resigned, just four months into her tenure. Tracy Kasper is the second president to abruptly step down from N.A.R. — an organization that has seen its power and influence wane in recent months in the wake of losing a major antitrust lawsuit and amid allegations that leaders had ignored sexual harassment allegations. N.A.R. announced Ms. Kasper’s surprise exit on Monday in a brief news release that implied that Ms. Kasper had received a blackmail threat. She “recently received a threat to disclose a past personal, nonfinancial matter unless she compromised her position,” and she reported the matter to the police, according to the news release.

The organization gave no specifics and declined to provide further comment; Ms. Kasper did not immediately respond to a further request for comment. N.A.R. is the largest professional organization in the United States and for more than a century has wielded immense power over the nation’s housing industry.

The organization holds more than $1 billion in assets, operates the number one political fund-raising organization in the country and holds the trademark to the word “Realtor.” To gain access to nearly all U.S. home listings and to call themselves Realtors, its 1.5 million members each pay hundreds of dollars in annual dues. In August, The New York Times exposed widespread allegations of sexual harassment by its then president, Kenny Parcell, as well as the organization’s practice of providing payouts and nondisclosure agreements to women who reported sexual misconduct. Mr. Parcell resigned two days after the investigation was published, and Ms. Kasper, 55, already president-elect, stepped into the role earlier than planned. She is a longtime broker from Boise, Idaho. In her short tenure, Ms. Kasper tried to navigate the organization through several crises, including a landmark jury verdict in federal court in Missouri.

The jury ruled that N.A.R. and several large brokerages conspired to enforce a N.A.R. policy that required home sellers to pay commissions to the agent representing the buyer. Three plaintiffs, representing half a million home sellers, claimed that they had paid excessive fees as a result of the policy… (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