BG Reads 10.23.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - October 23, 2024

October 23, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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www.binghamgp.com

October 23, 2024

➡️ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Early voting runs today until Friday, November 1st.

🟪 Austin airport sets new record with over 44,000 passengers in one day (CBS Austin)

🟪 Public lines up to oppose police contract (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Texas sues US over noncitizen voting allegations (Reuters)

🟪 With Election Day 2 weeks away, 17 million voters have already cast a ballot (New York Times)

Read On!

🗳️ Early voting begins today until Friday, November 1st. To find voting locations and sample ballots, visit:

  • Item Highlight, #47: Discussion and possible action to ratify a proposed five-year Meet and Confer Agreement with the Austin Police Association relating to wages, hours, and terms and conditions of employment for police officers of the Austin Police Department.

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🟪 See also, Council Meeting Schedule (per Mayor Watson’s office on Council Message Board)

  • We will begin promptly at 10am. We will start with non-consent items 47 and 48. We will hear speakers on these items followed by a discussion and vote. Speakers will have 3 minutes per item. Speakers will be able to donate time. Speakers wishing to donate time must coordinate with the City Clerk prior to being called. All parties (speakers and donors) must be present in person to be eligible for donation of time.

  • Speaker Sign-Up (City of Austin).

🟪 The Austin Council has four (4) regular meetings left in 2024

📺 City Council Candidate Forum: District 2 - Video (9.26.2024)

📺 City Council Candidate Forum: District 4 - Video (9.19.2024)

📺 City Council Candidate Forum: Mayor - Video (10.3.2024)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

➡️ Austin airport sets new record with over 44,000 passengers in one day (CBS Austin)

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport shattered passenger records Monday as Formula 1 fans and college football spectators departed the city, with 44,043 travelers passing through TSA checkpoints.

The surge following Sunday's U.S. Grand Prix and Saturday's Texas-Georgia football game marked the busiest day in the airport's history. The previous day saw 39,380 passengers screened, ranking as the fifth-busiest day on record.

Airport officials had anticipated the record-breaking numbers, projecting more than 44,000 passengers would travel through the facility on Monday. A typical day sees fewer than 30,000 departing passengers… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Public lines up to oppose police contract (Austin Monitor)

The Austin City Council sat through hours of speeches from the public on Tuesday, mostly from citizens who oppose the proposed five-year contract with the city’s police union.

A few spoke in support, but the vast majority of the 236 speakers said they were opposed to the $218 million contract and wanted Council to instead spend the money on services such as libraries and parks or to help the homeless. Council is scheduled to vote on the contract on Thursday.

In addition to the cost of the contract, people who have been watching the issue for some time expressed concerns about APD’s lack of transparency concerning when or if the public will have full access to what is known as the G file… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Here's a look at the six candidates running to represent District 7 in the Austin City Council (KUT)

For the last decade, North Central Austin has been represented by Leslie Pool. But next month, residents will elect someone new to advocate for them on the City Council.

Now at her term limit, Pool will leave office in January. Six candidates are running for her seat. (There was a seventh candidate whose application was rejected.) She has not endorsed anyone.

The candidates are: civil rights attorney Gary Bledsoe; Pierre Nguyễn, a firefighter, EMT and U.S. Coast Guard reservist; Todd Shaw, who has worked as a planning commissioner and engineer for Austin Energy; Edwin Bautista, a planner for a grant manager company; Mike Siegel, co-founder of political nonprofit Ground Game Texas and former Austin City Attorney; and Adam Powell, an educator and union organizer… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Baby Acapulco's Barton Springs location has shuttered (Austin Business Journal)

Baby Acapulco, known as Baby A’s and famous for its potent purple margaritas, abruptly shuttered its longtime Barton Springs Road location.

The iconic Tex-Mex restaurant incorporated as Sanchez Enterprises Inc. has been in Austin since 1981, and its location at 1628 Barton Springs Road — along somewhat of a popular restaurant row — was viewed as its flagship location. It posted a sign on its front door saying it closed and directing patrons to visit its Riverside Drive or Stonelake Boulevard locations.

A company representative declined to comment. Though it's unclear why the location was closed, it appears alcohol sales have slipped some.

The business has already begun dismantling the interior of the restaurant. The land is owned by Y-Gate LLC, and was appraised at more than $5.4 million this year, according to Travis Central Appraisal District.

Baby Acapulco sits on one of Austin's most coveted streets where old and new meet. Next to the restaurant sits the original Chuy's Tex-Mex restaurant and a food trailer park. On its other side is a fenced off property that's idle, where greenery has taken over buildings on the lot. The road is also home to Juiceland, Juliet Italian Kitchen, MML Hospitality's Lou's Austin and Zoe Tong… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

➡️ Delta-8 hemp and Texas medical marijuana industries to face off in the upcoming legislative session (Texas Tribune)

The Texas hemp industry has argued in court that delta-8’s high is minimal, and if delta-8 and delta-9 products are banned, it would do irreparable harm to the industry and the state’s economy.

“Any bans or excessive legislation of hemp-derived cannabinoids, as suggested by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and others, will negatively impact an industry that has an $8 billion economic impact, pays $1.6 billion in annual wages, and supports more than 50,000 workers,” said Lukas Gilkey, CEO and co-founder of Hometown Hero, the company who filed a suit against the state and is defending the hemp industry in the state’s Supreme Court… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Controller calls for ethics probe expansion into Mayor John Whitmire's State of the City address (Houston Chronicle)

Controller Chris Hollins penned a letter Tuesday to the Office of the Inspector General and City Council Ethics Committee calling on Mayor John Whitmire’s State of the City address to be included in “pay to play” ethics probe requested against him.

Whitmire asked for the investigation into Hollins after he solicited sponsorships for Tuesday’s City of Houston Investor Conference — Hollins’ first as controller. In a Thursday news conference, Whitmire said banks called and told him the sponsorships gave the appearance of a “pay to play” system.

Hollins fired back later in the day and called Whitmire a “walking conflict of interest,” saying the State of the City address featured plenty of sponsors with city contracts. Whitmire wrote in a statement Tuesday that the investigation requested is "in response to (Hollins) soliciting $100,000 from vendors for a private meeting with him." The mayor added that he did not solicit sponsorships for State of the City and that the "controller's attempt to divert attention from the appearance of the pay to play is under investigation."

"It is the practice of the mayor's office not to comment on active investigations," Whitmire wrote. "I did my job by brining this to light." The letter obtained by the Chronicle states that the controller's office used the same fundraising model the mayor used for the State of the City event.

According to the letter, those similarities included: Both events being marketed to city vendors, Both events selling sponsorships, Both featuring VIP receptions for those who gave large monetary contributions, Both using their respective official's names and likenesses in marketing the events, and Both providing respective visibility of both offices.

The only difference in the events, Hollins wrote in his letter, was who controlled the proceeds. The mayor controls the money for the State of the City, he said, while funds from the Investor Conference went to BankOn Houston and an independent body… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas sues US over noncitizen voting allegations (Reuters)

Texas’s Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Tuesday, saying the federal government was not providing the help it needed in assessing the citizenship status of some of its registered voters.

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas accuses the Biden administration and specifically the Department of Homeland Security of refusing to help it determine the citizenship status of 450,000 of the 17.9 million registered voters in the state. It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in U.S. federal elections and state and private reviews have turned up very few instances of them doing so. Still, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and his allies have argued that large numbers of noncitizens could vote in the Nov. 5 election, when he faces Democrat Kamala Harris.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Trump has falsely claimed that his 2020 loss to Biden resulted from widespread voter fraud. Paxton’s office said he sent a letter earlier this month asking the U.S. government to verify the citizenship status of people who may be unlawfully registered to vote in Texas by Oct. 19.

His office said he proceeded with a lawsuit when his request was not answered. His office said there were nearly half a million voters whose citizenship status has not been verified but acknowledged that the majority of those voters were likely citizens and hence eligible to vote. “While the majority of the voters on the list are likely citizens who are eligible to vote, Texans have no way of knowing whether or not any of the voters on the list are non-citizens who are ineligible to vote without additional information,” his office said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

➡️ With Election Day 2 weeks away, 17 million voters have already cast a ballot (New York Times)

With two weeks until Election Day, more than 17 million people have already cast their ballots, the clearest sign yet that voting habits were forever changed by the coronavirus pandemic and that early voting has become a permanent feature of the American democratic process. While many people cast a mail-in ballot or voted early in the 2020 election out of necessity amid a dangerous pandemic, a lot of voters are choosing to vote early in this election, too.

Some are taking advantage of new laws that expanded early voting options; others simply favor the process that exploded in popularity four years ago. Many states have set records for the first day of early voting. On Thursday, more than 353,000 ballots were cast in North Carolina, a record for the swing state still reeling from Hurricane Helene. On Friday, nearly 177,000 voters cast a ballot in Louisiana, a record for the deep-red state.

The shift has been starkest in Georgia, where voters have set a daily record for in-person early voting nearly every day since polls opened last Tuesday. More than 1.5 million voters have already cast an early ballot in the critical battleground state. The persistent preference of many Americans to vote early — both by mail and in person — comes after the 2020 election prompted a sea change in voting habits for the country.

With many fearful of voting in person during the pandemic, 65.6 million people voted by mail that year, and another 35.8 million voted early in person in an attempt to avoid large crowds. Yet as people flood early voting centers this time around, distilling a partisan advantage or what the early vote presages for overall turnout is difficult. The key to parsing early voting trends rests in comparing current turnout with historical trends to try to glean enthusiasm or other advantages for Democrats or Republicans… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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