BG Reads 11.1.2024

Bingham Group Reads - November 1, 2024

November 01, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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November 1, 2024

➡️ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Dallas official responsible for city’s legislative plan to leave for Austin City Hall (Dallas Morning News)

🟪 Austin Council Incumbents have fundraising edge in districts 2 and 4 (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Economic impact of SXSW declined slightly this year (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 These Texans could join or influence a second Trump administration (Texas Tribune)

🟪 OpenAI is rolling out a web search feature for ChatGPT (NPR)

Read On!

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

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🟪 The Austin Council has three (3) 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]

Dallas official responsible for city’s legislative plan to leave for Austin City Hall (Dallas Morning News)

Carrie Rogers (LinkedIn), whose office oversaw the city’s legislative agenda and the charter amendment process, will leave Dallas and join her former boss T.C. Broadnax in Austin, according to a memo obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

Rogers led the city’s office of government affairs and was responsible for lobbying in the Texas Legislature on the city’s behalf. In her role, Rogers’ team also acted as a liaison between council members and staff and supported discussions on federal and international levels.

She is expected to join Austin in December, just in time for the new legislative session.

“I love Dallas and always will. Looking ahead, I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve the residents of Austin and am excited to get to work,” Rogers said in a statement.

Rogers’ departure comes a month after Dallas Police Chief Eddie García announced he, too, would join Broadnax as an assistant city manager. She follows a long line of former executives, including former deputy city manager Jon Fortune, who have recently left the city.

She joined the city in 2017. Since then, Rogers helped the city secure $20 million in legislative funds for the new regional police academy, and in the last two years, her office secured more than $300 million in grants and earmarks for the city… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Incumbents have fundraising edge in districts 2 and 4 (Austin Monitor)

Looking at fundraising in the final two City Council races not considered in previous reporting in the Austin Monitor, we see two reasonably popular incumbents with every reason to be optimistic about Tuesday’s election.

Regardless of policies, an incumbent almost always has a fundraising advantage. And in races for districts 2 and 4, that continues to be true. In this case, both the Austin American-Statesman and The Austin Chronicle have endorsed the incumbents – Vanessa Fuentes in District 2 and Chito Vela in District 4.

Neither campaign has raised the kind of money we have seen in the mayor’s race. But then, they don’t need it because their opponents have raised even less money, and neither Council member appears to have drawn the wrath of the majority of voters.

Fuentes reported raising $8,200 in the past month and spending less than $3,500. She still has more than $99,000 in the bank. Her campaign owes her $4,430, from which she can easily repay herself.

In the District 4 race, Vela raised another $10,846 in the month covered by the must recent report, bringing his total to $119,000. He has about $30,000 in the bank. His better-known opponent, Monica Guzmán, raised about $6,700 and spent about $7,300. She reported having about $1,940 left in the bank. Equity Action, which opposed the police contract, endorsed Guzmán and did not endorse in District 2… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Economic impact of SXSW declined slightly this year (Austin Business Journal)

The 2024 South by Southwest festival once again generated hundreds of millions of dollars for Austin’s economy, although the figure came in a step below the 2023 numbers.

The event this year had an estimated $377.3 million impact locally, according to a report commissioned by SXSW and executed by New York-based consultancy Greyhill Advisors. The sum includes spending by attendees as well as by SXSW and its partners.

For perspective, Super Bowls are generally considered to have at least a $500 million impact on host cities, according to various reports, although estimates for such totals can vary widely and are often taken with a grain of salt.

In total, SXSW's latest report estimates that attendees spent about $217.8 million, while the operations side of the festival spent about $98.5 million and SXSW’s partners spent about $61 million. The 2024 event also helped book 44,931 individual hotel room nights, according to the report.

The numbers are below those logged by SXSW in 2023, which had an estimated economic impact of almost $381 million and helped book 52,638 individual hotel room nights, a similar report found that year… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Yelp dishes out Top 50 Austin-area restaurants for 2024 (KXAN)

Who’s hungry? Yelp rolled out last week its rankings of the Top 50 places to eat in the Austin area, a collection featuring barbecue joints, Tex-Mex spots, pizza parlors and Chinese cuisines.

Yelp Elites compiled the list, ranking spots based on factors like the volume of reviews and ratings given to restaurants in the Austin area between August 2023 and August 2024. All businesses included had to be open as of Oct. 1 of this year and have a passing health score, per the methodology... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

➡️ These Texans could join or influence a second Trump administration (Texas Tribune)

When a Republican is elected president, he often brings loads of Texans to Washington with him. That’s because of the state’s size, influence and political leanings.

It’ll likely be no different if Donald Trump wins a second term next week. He has close ties with many Texans. Some of his most prominent donors come from here. Our politicians proudly support him. And judges from the state could be on his list for any openings on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here’s a look at some of the Texans who might see their influence rise on a national stage with Trump back in the White House… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ ‘David versus Goliath’: Two PACs are raising money to fight Dallas Hero. Here’s how much (Dallas Morning News)

Two political action committees reported raising more than $1 million combined to get Dallas voters to reject three proposed charter updates that supporters say would boost public safety and local government accountability.

Together for Dallas had a kick-off event in downtown Dallas at the beginning of October with more than 40 current and former city leaders urging people to vote no on Propositions S, T and U.

It raised about $524,000 through Oct. 26, according to its campaign finance report. Dallas United for Progress, which touts the backing of more than a dozen local elected officials on its website, raised $533,000 from Sep. 27 to Oct. 26 in its campaign finance reports. The two groups reported spending more than $738,000 combined through Oct. 26, largely on advertising and campaign consultants. “I think it speaks to the breadth and depth of support and how the community truly feels about these propositions,” said Lorraine Birabil, executive director for Dallas United for Progress and a former Texas state representative.

The two PACs are focused on defeating Propositions S, T and U, a trio of proposals that qualified for the Nov. 5 ballot through a voter signature campaign led by the nonprofit group Dallas Hero.

Of the 18 propositions on the ballot, the three are the only ones with both organized support and opposition. Dallas Hero is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, which means it isn’t legally required to disclose its donors. A donation page on Dallas Hero’s website lists its fundraising goal as $750,000. As of Wednesday, the group reported having raised $104,000 and says it is from 38 donors but doesn’t name any of them.

Proposition S would make it easier for Dallas residents to sue the city in some instances, Proposition T would give the community power to influence whether the city manager is fired or receives pay bonuses, and Proposition U would mandate Dallas spend half of its new revenue annually on police hiring, pay, pension and other benefits… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

➡️ OpenAI is rolling out a web search feature for ChatGPT (NPR)

ChapGPT now has a search engine function.

Users will be able to type something into the text box, and click a little blue search button below it, or the artificial intelligence will automatically search the web if your question calls for it. The service will also provide links to sources for answers it gives, the company behind the service, OpenAI, said Thursday.

“By integrating search with a chat interface, users can engage with information in a new way, while content owners gain new opportunities to reach a broader audience,” the company said. “We hope to help users discover publishers and websites, while bringing more choice to search.”

Currently, ChatGPT does not provide citations for its answers, and users are unable to make a web search directly from the platform.

OpenAI said it worked with news publications and publishers, such as the Associated Press, Condé Nast and The Atlantic, to get feedback on the feature… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

➡️ Final jobs report before election will likely offer a blurred view of labor market (Associated Press)

Americans on Friday will get their last major look at the state of the U.S. economy — the October jobs report — just four days before Election Day. The view, though, is likely to be obscured by the effects of strikes and hurricanes that left many workers temporarily off payrolls.

The Labor Department is expected to report that employers added just under 118,000 jobs last month, according to forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet. That would be a decent if hardly spectacular gain. But it would mark a sharp drop from the unexpectedly strong 254,000 jobs that the economy added in September.

Economists have cautioned, though, that Hurricanes Helene and Milton, combined with ongoing strikes, including one by machinists at Boeing, had the effect of pushing down net job growth in October. Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at the tax and consulting firm EY, said she expects the government to report that just 70,000 jobs were gained in October. By her calculations, the hurricanes and the strikes combined to subtract as many as 111,000 jobs from payrolls last month… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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