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- BG Reads 11.29.2023
BG Reads 11.29.2023
🗞️ BG Reads | News - November 29, 2023
November 29, 2023
In today's BG Reads:
✅ Staff, City Council continue to work on HOME initiative
✅ Texas AG’s office argues women should sue doctors — not state — over lack of abortion access
✅ Greg Abbott begins offensive against school voucher opponents
More stories below. Read on!
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[2024 Austin City Council Race Watch]
Next fall will see elections for the following Council positions, District 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and Mayor. Candidates can’t file for a place on the ballot until July 22, 2024.
Declared candidates so far are:
District 2
District 6
Krista Laine
District 7 (Open seat)
District 10 (Open seat)
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
HOME Initiative praised by developers, opposed by neighborhood organizers (Austin Business Journal)
Austin developers are waiting with bated breath as City Council considers a resolution that would allow more homes on a single-family lot and, in turn, boost affordability — but other community leaders are concerned the change would expedite gentrification.
The HOME Initiative, arguably the most transformative change being considered in a wave of contested piecemeal revisions to the city’s long unaltered land development code, would allow developers and homebuilders to construct three homes on existing single-family lots. The topic will return to Council on Dec. 7 and council members may vote on the matter.
The proposed policy, introduced by Council Member Leslie Pool and formally titled the Home Options for Middle-income Empowerment initiative, represents another step in the city’s ongoing effort to establish more "missing middle" housing options for professionals such as educators, firefighters, police officers and nurses… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Staff, City Council continue to work on HOME initiative (Austin Monitor)
At Tuesday’s work session, City Council heard from the city’s planning staff as well as two architects from the local American Institute of Architects housing committee on various aspects of the HOME initiative, a proposal to make changes to the city’s Land Development Code. Council is scheduled to hold its last hearing on Dec. 7 and vote on the first part of the proposal, which advocates hope will result in more housing options for middle-income residents. However, many questions still remain – not only about staff’s recommendations, but also about Planning Commission proposals and amendments that Council members may offer… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Facing food insecurity, Del Valle residents continue calls for better food access, an H-E-B (Austin American-Statesman)
The growth of Del Valle and other eastern Travis County communities in the years since — in part from residents priced out of the city’s more central neighborhoods — has invigorated community members who said they have long been told they don’t have enough households to support a store.
“Tesla has now headquartered in the area; we have all these new housing developments being built left and right, you can drive down there and see all the new rooftops,” District 2 Austin City Council Member Vanessa Fuentes said. “We've been on the receiving end of changes for the last number of years. And yet we don't even get the basics.”
Fuentes tweeted a public letter to H-E-B CEO Howard Butt II on Oct. 30, urging the company to prioritize the construction of the Del Valle site. U.S. Rep. Greg Casar and state Sen. Judith Zaffirini have added their support… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Bathhouse working group suggests city start process to rename Barton Springs (Austin Monitor)
At its regular meeting on Nov. 27, the Parks and Recreation Board heard from the Barton Springs Bathhouse Working Group about its report, which includes a list of potential names for an updated bathhouse in addition to calling for the city to also reexamine the name of Barton Springs.
The working group was established to recommend a name for the Barton Springs Bathhouse, which is currently undergoing an extensive rehabilitation project. The group was also tasked with recommending how the city might incorporate educational installations that place the racial and cultural history of Barton Springs and its desegregation in an appropriate context.
The working group recommended the following names, in no particular order… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas AG’s office argues women should sue doctors — not state — over lack of abortion access (The Hill)
Lawyers in the Texas attorney general’s office said Tuesday that women should sue their doctors, not the state, over a lack of access to abortion in defending the state’s strict law.
Beth Klusmann of the Texas Attorney General’s Office made that point in oral arguments before the state Supreme Court in a case challenging Texas’s abortion ban, which bars doctors from providing abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected — typically around six weeks into pregnancy — with exceptions only for cases in which the life of the mother is at risk.
“If a woman is bleeding, if she has amniotic fluid running down her legs — then the problem is not with the law,” Klusmann said. “It is with the doctors.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Greg Abbott begins offensive against school voucher opponents, endorsing first House primary challenger (Texas Tribune)
Gov. Greg Abbott is starting to make good on his threat to politically target fellow Republicans who oppose school vouchers, issuing his first endorsement of a primary challenger to a House member who has helped thwart his top legislative priority of the year.
Abbott on Tuesday backed Hillary Hickland, an activist mother who is running against Rep. Hugh Shine, R-Temple. Shine was one of 21 Republicans who voted earlier this month to strip a voucher provision out of an education bill, delivering the most decisive blow yet to the governor’s agenda.
"Hillary Hickland is the kind of new conservative leader we need in Austin to deliver results in the Texas House," Abbott said in a statement. “This past year, she worked relentlessly to empower parents by traveling to Austin to advocate for Texas families and students.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Mark Cuban working on $3.5B sale of Dallas Mavericks to Sands casino family, AP source says (Associated Press)
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is working on a deal to sell a majority stake in the NBA franchise to the family that runs the Las Vegas Sands casino company, a person with knowledge of the talks said Tuesday night.
The agreement would be in the valuation range of $3.5 billion and take weeks for the league to process, according to the person, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because details weren’t being made public.
Cuban would retain control of basketball operations in the deal. NBA reporter Marc Stein was the first to report the potential sale… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US/WORLD NEWS]
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s Partner and ‘Abominable No-Man,’ Dies at 99 (Wall Street Journal)
No equal business partner has ever played second fiddle better than Charlie Munger.
Warren Buffett’s closest friend and consigliere for six decades, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway died Tuesday at age 99 in a California hospital. A news release from Berkshire confirmed his death.
In public, especially in front of the tens of thousands of attendees at Berkshire’s annual meetings, Munger deferred to Buffett, letting the company’s chairman hog the microphone and the limelight. Munger routinely cracked up the crowd by croaking, “I have nothing to add.”
In private, Buffett, who is 93, often deferred to Munger. In 1971, Munger talked him into buying See’s Candy Shops for a price equivalent to three times the chocolate stores’ net worth—a “fancy price,” Buffett later recalled, far higher than he was accustomed to paying for businesses.
See’s would go on to generate some $2 billion in cumulative earnings for Berkshire over the coming decades.
As Buffett wrote in 2015, “This purchase ended my pursuit of ‘cigar-butt’ investments—mediocre companies at ‘bargain’ prices—and set me in pursuit of splendid businesses selling at [reasonable] prices.” He added, “Charlie had been urging this course for some years, but I was a slow learner.”
Buffett nicknamed Munger the “abominable no-man” for his ferocity in rejecting potential investments, including some that Buffett might otherwise have made. But Munger, who was fascinated by engineering and technology, also pushed the tech-phobic Buffett into big bets on BYD, a Chinese battery and electric vehicle maker, and Iscar, an Israeli machine-tool manufacturer… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Sunday air travel set record: TSA (The Hill)
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced that Sunday set an agency-wide record for the busiest air travel day ever. More than 2.9 million people were screened at airports across the United States on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, the TSA said on X, formerly Twitter, marking “the busiest day ever for air travel.”
The TSA also reminded customers to arrive at airports early amid the high demand for air travel during the holiday season. Earlier this month, the TSA forecasted the holiday season could break records for air travel across the country. Sunday’s numbers were in line with TSA’s initial estimates from earlier this month, when the agency predicted 2.9 million people would pass through security checkpoints that day… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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