BG Reads 10.24.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - October 24, 2024

October 24, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

www.binghamgp.com

October 24, 2024

➡️ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 The Austin Council Meets at 10AM + Agenda (below)

🟪 Austin City Council set to vote on police contract after failed last-minute legal maneuver (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪Austin could ban hidden rental fees in affordability, transparency push (Community Impact)

🟪 Former president Donald Trump to make stop in Austin on Friday (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Cruz, Allred in virtual dead heat in Texas Senate race: Poll (The Hill)

Read On!

🗳️ Early voting ends Friday, November 1st. Find voting locations and sample ballots here:

  • 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

🟪 (NEW) Memo: Update on Site Plan Review Process Improvement Initiative (José G. Roig, Development Services Department Director, 10.23.2024)

📺 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 City Council set to vote on police contract after failed last-minute legal maneuver (Austin American-Statesman)

The Austin City Council has been cleared to cast a much-anticipated vote on a new police union contract following a failed, eleventh-hour legal maneuver by a progressive advocacy group.

A decision on the five-year agreement — the result of months of negotiations between the city and the Austin Police Association union — is set for Thursday.

But its fate was cast into doubt when Equity Action on Tuesday filed an amended petition in its ongoing lawsuit against the city over alleged lack of enforcement of the voter-approved Austin Police Oversight Act. The group crafted the accountability measure and got it placed on last year's municipal election ballot.

In the last-ditch filing, Equity Action alleged that the tentative agreement violated the oversight act "in multiple respects" and sought a court order to remove the contract from the council's meeting agenda.

But Travis County state District Judge Catherine A. Mauzy dismissed the request late Wednesday at an emergency hearing on the grounds that the contract has not caused harm because it has yet to be approved, representatives for Equity Action and the city confirmed... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Former president Donald Trump to make stop in Austin on Friday (Texas Tribune)

As the 2024 U.S. presidential race heads into the final stretch, the Republican nominee announced Wednesday that he will be in Texas on the same day this week as his Democratic challenger.

Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to be in Austin on Friday, where he will discuss border security and immigrant crime at a 12:30 p.m. press conference at a private jet terminal in East Austin, his campaign said.

News of Trump’s visit comes a day after Vice President Kamala Harris announced that she would hold a rally in Houston on Friday with U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who is running for the U.S. Senate. The location of Harris’ rally has yet to be announced, but it is slated to take place between 3 and 8 p.m. Friday, according to a Democratic National Committee event page... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Watson questions affordable housing in Airport Overlay (Austin Monitor)

Mayor Kirk Watson has expressed serious concerns about a proposed affordable housing project within the flight path of Austin’s airport and has suggested changes that will prevent such development in the future.

In a post on the City Council Message Board, Watson wrote, “Placing an affordable housing project in an area that would have a detrimental environmental impact for future residents is not a precedent we want to start.”

Watson said Council members José Velásquez and Vanessa Fuentes learned from city staff that the multifamily project had applied for a 4 percent affordable housing tax credit.

In order for the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs to grant such a credit, the city must provide a resolution of no objection. This is a routine resolution approved by Council on a regular basis. However, in this case staff from the Aviation Department and the Housing Department have recommended that Council not consider the resolution… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

See also, CITY MEMO: RE 1501 Airport Commerce Drive (Ghizlane Badawi, Chief Executive Officer, Department of Aviation and Mandy DeMayo, Interim Director, Housing Department, 10.18.2024)

➡️ Several options on table for Riverside Drive redevelopment site (Austin Business Journal)

A pair of proposed high-rise office towers along the Colorado River near downtown Austin could soon get approval from the City Council. 

The potential rezoning of a 4-acre site at 200 E. Riverside Drive into a planned unit development would allow for two high-rise buildings that would have about 1.38 million square feet of office space and 29,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space, although plans haven’t been finalized. 

The site currently contains a 93,000-square-foot vacant office building that was built in 1970, according to city documents. 

Garwald Company Inc. is listed as the owner of the property. The PUD request is on the City Council's agenda for its Oct. 24 meeting, but Richard Suttle, a lawyer who represents the property owner, said the zoning case will be postponed.

Suttle told the Austin Planning Commission on Sept. 10 that plans for the site include anywhere from two to four buildings, noting that housing or hotel usages might be added. Long-term plans to add light rail to the area will influence the decisions, he said at the time.

Although the zoning change still needs approval and the site's exact uses aren’t finalized, city documents indicate the project would be built in one phase and is anticipated to be completed sometime in 2026. 

If any redevelopment happens at the location, it would be one of several projects in the Riverside area with the potential to change Austin’s skyline over the next few years… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Austin could ban hidden rental fees in affordability, transparency push (Community Impact)

Landlords in Austin could soon be required to disclose all tenant fees from the very start of the leasing process under a new city policy aimed at transparency in the housing market."It’s really important, as people look around to find housing that’s affordable, that they know just how much they’re going to pay every single month," said council member Ryan Alter, who sponsored the proposal up for a vote Oct. 24. "That is sometimes easy with various apartments, and sometimes very difficult. And so I think everybody should be playing by the same rules.”

Alter said current conditions can allow landlords to attract interested tenants based on a certain advertised rental rate and charge tens or hundreds of dollars for an application. At that point, expected monthly rent costs can be raised even further through added fees that weren't initially disclosed… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

➡️ Kamala Harris to hold a rally in Houston amid early voting in Texas (Houston Chronicle)

Vice President Kamala Harris is coming back to Houston for a campaign rally on Friday as the first week of in-person early voting wraps up. The Democrat’s campaign has not announced the exact location, but the rally will be between 3 and 8 p.m. In a statement promoting the event, the campaign said they are coming because the state is ground zero for Donald Trump’s "extreme abortion bans."

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas began banning the procedure without exceptions for rape or incest. Harris is expected to be joined by women who have been impacted by the state's restrictions. It will be Harris’ first stop in Texas since July, when she spent four of her first 10 days on the campaign trail in Houston for speeches and fundraising events.

The visit will be a rare one for a presidential contender this close to Election Day. Texas is not considered one of the nation’s battleground states, where White House contenders spend most of their time. If the state is going to get tighter or flip to Democrats, they need a big turnout in Harris County where Harris will be.

The state’s most populous county has become increasingly blue in presidential elections. Joe Biden won 56% of the vote in the county in 2020, the largest percentage for a Democratic presidential contender since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Trump was in Houston and Midland earlier this month for fundraisers but hasn’t done any other in-person campaign events in Texas since speaking at the National Rifle Association Convention in Dallas in May… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Cruz, Allred in virtual dead heat in Texas Senate race: Poll (The Hill)

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and Rep. Colin Allred (D) are in a virtual dead heat in the state’s Senate race, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The Emerson College Polling/The Hill survey found Cruz just ahead of Allred by 1 percentage point, 48 percent to 47 percent, with 5 percent undecided. This is even tighter than Emerson’s previous poll of the race from September, when Cruz led by 4 points, 49 percent to 45 percent.

The candidates are roughly even with each other in their net favorability rating, calculated from subtracting the percentage that views them unfavorably from the percentage that view them favorably, with Cruz having a rating of -1 point and Allred having a rating of +2 points… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

➡️ McDonald's tries to reassure customers after deadly E. coli outbreak (NPR)

McDonald’s worked Wednesday to reassure customers that its U.S. restaurants are safe as federal investigators tried to pinpoint the cause of a deadly E. coli outbreak linked to fast-food giant's Quarter Pounder hamburgers.

McDonald's pulled Quarter Pounders from one-fifth of its U.S. stores Tuesday as a result of the outbreak, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said had sickened at least 49 people in 10 states. One person died and 10 were hospitalized, according to the CDC.

A preliminary investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration suggested fresh slivered onions that are served raw on Quarter Pounder hamburgers were a likely source of the contamination… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

_________________________

We are proud to represent and have represented a wide range of clients in the Austin Metro and Texas Capitol at the intersection of government and business.

Learn more about Bingham Group’s experience here, and review client testimonials here.

⬇️

Email icon
Facebook icon
Instagram icon
LinkedIn icon

Copyright (C) " target="_blank">unsubscribe