BG Reads 10.25.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - October 25, 2024

October 25, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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October 25, 2024

➡️ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin City Council passes new police contract (KUT)

🟪 New scenarios for HealthSouth site could revive redevelopment push from Council (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Why Austin school district leaders say a higher tax rate will help keep teachers (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 The presidential race comes to Texas on Friday with dueling Harris and Trump campaign visits (Texas Tribune)

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 (3) 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 passes new police contract (KUT)

Austin City Council approved a five-year, $218 million contract with the city's police union Thursday. The deal passed on a 10-1 vote.

The approval came after hours of impassioned testimony from scores of Austinites.

Supporters argued the contract is necessary to stem years of attrition at the police department and address crime throughout the city. Opponents argued the five-year deal would likely siphon off money from other city services and could undermine recent strides to increase accountability at the department. 

All told, nearly 300 people signed up to speak on the contract, with testimony lasting more than eight hours.

The approval came after a last-minute effort by nonprofit Equity Action to delay the vote. The group filed a restraining order on Wednesday to halt Thursday's vote, claiming the contract didn't comply with the Austin Police Oversight Act (APOA).

That voter-approved measure expanded access to the Austin Police Department's so-called "G-files," allowing previously confidential police files to be released to the public. A state district judge dismissed the challenge by Equity Action Wednesday evening, and the vote went ahead.

City staff reiterated the contract would not violate the APOA and that the city will no longer keep police employment files confidential.

Council Member Zo Qadri was the lone "no" vote on the contract. Qadri's district includes downtown Austin, and he said the process was rushed and that the $218-million deal would be "chipping away" at city-funded social services over the five-year term… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ New scenarios for HealthSouth site could revive redevelopment push from Council (Austin Monitor)

A pair of new scenarios for redeveloping the former HealthSouth properties downtown could revive the city’s efforts to use the sites to provide hundreds of units of affordable housing.

A memo released last week from Mandy DeMayo, interim director of the Housing Department, includes analysis of two new scenarios for the properties, which had been placed on City Council’s back burner earlier this year because of a lack of financially attractive redevelopment options. The scenarios were prepared by financial consultant Economic & Planning Systems Inc. in response to a Council resolution passed late last year.

Because the properties had generated four earlier redevelopment scenarios, the new options are referred to as Scenario 5 and Scenario 6.

Scenario 5 involves utilizing the Downtown Density Bonus Program to maximize the sites’ potential for affordable housing. Rather than paying an in-lieu fee to meet affordable housing requirements, this scenario calls for the direct provision of 96 affordable units on-site.

That approach would generate similar numbers of affordable units, both on-site and off-site, as earlier proposals like the “Rainey Bonus” scenario, with the main benefit that it would directly increase the city’s affordable housing stock without relying on payments to fund affordable units elsewhere… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Facing budget gap, SIMS Foundation suspends mental health care services for musicians (KUT)

The SIMS Foundation says it's pausing its mental health care services for new patients for at least 90 days.

The nonprofit, which provides no- and low-cost services to connect musicians with mental health care, says it's staring down a $500,000 gap in funding. SIMS said it would move existing clients over to "existing resources" and that it expects that to be completed in February.

In a letter to clients, Marissa Rivera, chair of the nonprofit's board of directors, said "many aspects of our service are just no longer sustainable."

"The reality is simple: we need more funding to continue to operate at our current service levels, and we need to restructure our service model to ensure that we are maximizing all of the resources and efficiencies that are now available," she said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Nate Paul filing: ‘10-day jail sentence is imminent’ (KXAN)

Recent federal court filings show Austin real estate developer Nate Paul battling on two legal fronts. On one side he’s fighting a potentially “imminent” 10-day jail sentence for criminal contempt issued by a Travis County district judge in a civil case. On the other side, Paul is seeking to get a dozen criminal counts of bank and wire fraud dismissed.

Paul has been ensnared in legal proceedings for years, including civil litigation with the nonprofit Mitte Foundation, which sued Paul over millions of dollars it invested in his real estate company, World Class. The lawsuit tied Paul to allegations against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that Paxton disregarded his official duties to help Paul. Paxton was impeached for those and other allegations but was acquitted last September.

The Mitte Foundation invested in World Class in 2011 but sued the company in 2018 after a disagreement over access to financial records and regaining their funds, according to court filings. An arbitrator sided with the Mitte Foundation in 2021 – a decision that was upheld after the Texas Supreme Court denied an appeal. Amid those court battles, Paul violated orders by Travis County District Judge Jan Soifer, according to her court order… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Why Austin school district leaders say a higher tax rate will help keep teachers (Austin American-Statesman)

About 85% of Austin school district employees would get a pay raise if voters approve a tax rate increase proposal on the Nov. 5 ballot. Without it, Superintendent Matias Segura said this week, the district likely won’t be able to give meaningful raises for the foreseeable future.

Although some voters, including former school board members, have expressed concern over the cost of raising taxes, district officials believe without meaningful pay raises, the district could be at jeopardy of losing teachers, staff members and students to surrounding areas.

Early voting is underway for Proposition A, the ballot measure to raise school district taxes by 9.01 cents from 85.95 cents per $100 of valuation to 95.05 cents. The tax rate jump would prove the district with $41 million in additional revenue. An additional $130 million the proposal would raise, however, would go to the state through a program called recapture, which takes revenue from districts that collect revenue more than their state-determined need for education and redistributes those overages to districts that collect less in property tax revenue than their state-determined need.

Of the $41 million the Austin district would keep, $17.8 million would pay for employee raises, $3 million would go toward hiring instructional aids and the rest would pay down the districts $119 million deficit.

The proposed compensation package is meant to bring staff members up to a pay level that’s competitive with surrounding school districts, said Brandi Hosack, chief of talent strategy… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

➡️ The presidential race comes to Texas on Friday with dueling Harris and Trump campaign visits (Texas Tribune)

The presidential race comes to Texas on Friday, when both Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are holding rallies and boosting their party’s senate candidates.

Harris will deliver remarks at a rally in Houston, where she’ll focus on abortion and women’s health and flex her star power support with a performance by Beyoncé, according to media reports. Just hours before, Trump will speak to reporters at a private jet terminal in Austin on the border and crime. He's reported to appear on popular podcaster Joe Rogan’s show during a taping in Austin and at a rally in Houston at Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale’s store.

With just 11 days until Election Day, it’s unexpected that the presidential candidates would spend their precious time in Texas, especially after the Harris campaign made it clear Texas was not seen as a battleground state.

However, both parties contend the Senate race will be much more competitive, with U.S. Rep. Colin Allred of Dallas challenging Sen. Ted Cruz in his second reelection bid. Both Allred and Cruz will be with their parties’ candidates during their Friday visits to Texas… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

➡️ Harris to give her campaign’s closing argument at the Ellipse, where Trump helped spark Capitol riot (Associated Press)

Vice President Kamala Harris plans to lay out her campaign’s closing argument by returning to the site near the White House where Donald Trump helped incite a mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021 — hoping it will crystalize for voters the fight between defending democracy and sowing political chaos.

Her campaign says Harris will give a speech at the Ellipse on Tuesday — one week before Election Day — and will urge the nation to “turn the page” toward a new era and away from Trump.

The site is symbolic, since it’s where Trump delivered a speech on Jan. 6, 2021, as Congress was convening to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the election that past November. In it, Trump lied repeatedly about widespread voter fraud that had not occurred and urged supporters to fight. Hundreds then stormed the Capitol in a deadly riot... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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