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October 27, 2023

In today's BG Reads:

✅ HOME proposal draws a crowd of speakers, both pro and con  

✅ The Texas GOP is at war with itself.

✅ Inflation trends likely to keep fed rate-hike pause on track

Read on!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

Council to consider city manager search firm this week 🎙️ BG Podcast Ep. 222:

• On this episode the Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham and Associate Hannah Garcia wrap up the week of October 9th in Austin politics.

• The BG Podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

🔎 Jobs List

• Austin Convention Enterprises, Inc.: Project Administrator

• Austin Economic Development Corporation: General Counsel

• Cruise: Senior Government Affairs Manager, Southern California ($135,700/yr - $199,500/yr)

• Lime: Regional General Manager ($122,000/yr - $163,000/yr)

• Opportunity Austin: Vice President of Policy & Advocacy ($110,000/yr - $125,000/yr)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

HOME proposal draws a crowd of speakers, both pro and con (Austin Monitor)

A total of 297 interested citizens signed up to address a joint meeting of City Council and the Planning Commission on Thursday about proposed changes to the city’s zoning regulations intended to increase the amount of housing available to middle-income residents. Although opponents of the HOME initiative have been loudest in their concerns about what the changes might do to their neighborhoods, there were more supporters of the changes than opponents waiting to speak Thursday afternoon. Approximately 58 percent of those who registered to speak said they were in favor of the changes, while 39 percent were against and about 4 percent were neutral.

Planner Andrea Bates described what is available currently on properties zoned SF-3, the most common zoning category. She explained SF-3 properties can currently include an interior apartment for someone who is disabled or over 60 years old, a separate guest house or an accessory dwelling in addition to a single-family home. Duplexes are allowed on some larger lots but not all.

The HOME proposal would allow up to three homes on properties zoned SF-1, SF-2 and SF-3; remove regulations about accessory apartments and guesthouses; and limit applicability of McMansion standards to lots with just one home. The proposal would also allow tiny homes – generally up to 400 square feet – on those lots. A memo from city staff explained there needed to be more study of proposals concerning recreational vehicles... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Judge sides against Nate Paul's World Class Holdings in battle over former 3M campus, other sites (Austin Business Journal)

Nate Paul and his troubled real estate firm World Class Holdings were dealt another legal blow Oct. 25 — one that will allow some of his biggest adversaries to rest more comfortably on all the land they've wrestled away from the damaged investor.

Travis County Judge Catherine Mauzy granted a summary judgment on Oct. 25 that dismissed the claims World Class made in its suit against California-based Karlin Real Estate LLC and Austin-based Pennybacker Capital, according to court filings.

World Class sued the two companies in June 2021. Paul's firm claimed that Karlin and Pennybacker disregarded foreclosure procedures and artificially deflated the sales price of multiple properties that the two firms purchased at a raucous 2021 auction. But the judge didn't buy the allegations that there was an effort to “steal” the properties from World Class, as it alleged... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

MetroBike wins $11.3 million federal grant to fund transition to electric bicycles (Austin Monitor)

Austin’s MetroBike program is the winner of a $11.3 million federal grant that will pay to expand and enhance its services, as well as allow it to transition to a fully electric bicycle fleet.

The grant is funded by the Texas Department of Transportation’s Transportation Alternative Set-Aside grant program, which is funded through the Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration.

The grant will enable Capital Metropolitan Transportation Authority to replace and expand its 81 stations and 800 bicycles, more than tripling the reach and density of the system throughout the city’s urban core north and east to U.S. Highway 183 and south to Ben White Boulevard. The number of both the stations and bicycles it maintains will increase.

MetroBike launched in 2013 and has steadily grown in popularity since 2019, reaching 12,000 trips per month during the pandemic. In 2022, the nonprofit that operated the program entered into an interlocal agreement to formalize its relationship with the city’s Transportation Department and Capital Metro and kicked off a 10-year expansion project. After adding ebikes to the fleet in April, MetroBike reached nearly 28,000 monthly trips as of April… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

In crowded field, Houston mayor's race centers on prominent Democrats Sheila Jackson Lee and John Whitmire (Texas Tribune)

As Houston grapples with crime, a looming budget crisis and growing housing unaffordability, the race to lead the nation’s fourth-largest city has mostly come down to two longtime fixtures in local politics.

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and state Sen. John Whitmire, both Democrats, lead a crowded field of 16 other contenders in the Nov. 7 race to succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is term-limited.

With 2.3 million people, Houston is Texas’ most populous city and the most diverse city in the country. It is solidly Democratic, but the mayor’s office is nonpartisan.

Armed with endorsements from big-name Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Jackson Lee has sought to rally her party’s base, vowing to stand up to “MAGA Republicans.” Whitmire has relied on a bipartisan coalition while also defending his Democratic credentials… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

The Texas GOP is at war with itself. The outcome could signal the national party’s future. (NBC News)

After more than two decades of dominating Democrats and ruling over all three branches of state government, the Republican Party of Texas has gone to war with itself. Stark battle lines have been drawn between mainline Texas conservatives and a more far-right faction that has gained influence within the party in recent years — mirroring the ideological fractures that left Republicans in Washington unable for weeks to elect a new U.S. House speaker after they ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy.

The Texas GOP’s civil war has been building for years, inflamed in part by an expansive network of ultra-conservative activist groups bankrolled by a trio of West Texas billionaires on a mission to push the deep-red state even further to the right. After The Texas Tribune reported this month that some of the leaders of that influential far-right network met for hours with the white supremacist provocateur Nick Fuentes — who has praised Adolf Hitler and called for a “holy war” against Jews?? — the intraparty tension reached a breaking point.

In an interview, Phelan said Republicans must remove “the rot” that he says has been festering for years within his own party or risk ceding control to extremists — a fight that he believes should serve as a warning for the GOP nationally. “This is an inflection point here in the state of Texas,” Phelan said. “And as Texas goes, a better part of the country goes.” Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University, near Dallas, said the open warfare in the Texas GOP is, in part, a microcosm of Republican politics more broadly in the years since former President Donald Trump’s rise to power helped elevate more extreme elements of the party. “The Republicans in Texas have an opportunity,” Jillson said, “to look at the dysfunction in the U.S. House and say, ‘Oh, sh--, that is the direction in which we’re headed,’ and to blink hard twice and ask themselves whether that’s actually where they want to go.” The national Republican Party has tacked harder right in recent decades, but in Texas, the shift has been supercharged by spending from three West Texas billionaires, Tim Dunn and the brothers Farris and Dan Wilks, who have expressed the view that Texas state government should be guided by biblical values. Over the past two decades, they’ve poured more than $100 million into a network of dark money groups and activist organizations — including the political action committees Empower Texans and Defend Texas Liberty — as part of a relentless campaign to push mainstream Texas Republicans to adopt more hard-line positions.

The megadonors, none of whom responded to messages requesting comment, seem to have gotten results. Under Phelan’s leadership, Texas Republicans have passed some of the most conservative state laws in the country in recent years, effectively banning most abortions a year before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and clearing the way for residents to carry guns without permits, among other policies... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Food insecurity shot up last year with inflation and the end of pandemic-era aid, a new report says (Associated Press)

An estimated 17 million households reported problems finding enough food in 2022 — a sharp jump from 2021 when boosted government aid helped ease the pandemic-induced economic shutdown. 

A new Department of Agriculture report, released Wednesday, paints a sobering picture of post-pandemic hardship with “statistically significant” increases in food insecurity across multiple categories. Using a representative survey sample of roughly 32,000 American households the report said 12.8% (17 million households) reported occasional problems affording enough food in 2022 — up from 10.2% (13.5 million households) in 2021 and 10.5% (13.8 million households) in 2020. 

Analysts and food security professionals point to the dual impact last year of high inflation and the gradual expiration of multiple pandemic-era government assistance measures… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Inflation trends likely to keep fed rate-hike pause on track (Wall Street Journal)

The Federal Reserve’s favorite inflation measure is estimated to show that price pressures picked up modestly last month amid a surge in economic growth, a strong labor market and a consumer spending splurge. 

• Moderately higher inflation in September would keep Fed officials on track to hold interest rates steady at its Oct. 31-Nov. 1 policy meeting. They are closely watching underlying price trends to gauge whether they have raised short-term interest rates enough to slow the economy and tame inflation.

• Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal estimate the Commerce Department’s core personal-consumption expenditures price index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, increased a modest 0.3% in September from the prior month, after a 0.1% rise in August. From a year earlier, they estimate prices rose 3.7% last month, compared with 3.9% in August and 5.6% in February 2022, which was a recent peak… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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