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- BG Reads 12.23.2024
BG Reads 12.23.2024
🟪 BG Reads - December 23, 2024 🎄
Bingham Group Reads
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December 23, 2024
➡️ Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 After a busy 2024, Fuentes looks to take on more leadership roles (Austin Monitor)
🟪 Natasha Harper-Madison looks forward to planning progress for her district (Austin Monitor)
🟪 Austin primes convention center for 4-year closure, redevelopment (Community Impact)
🟪 This Texas city has replaced Austin as the 4th-largest in the state. See the new list (KXAN)
🟪 Trump says it could be worth keeping TikTok in US for a little while (Reuters)
Read On!
[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🟪 Review: The 2025 Austin Council Meeting Calendar
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
➡️ After a busy 2024, Fuentes looks to take on more leadership roles (Austin Monitor)
With her first term and a smooth reelection behind her, Vanessa Fuentes returns to the dais in January with a fresh to-do list and aspirations of becoming the next mayor pro tem – a symbolic yet highly sought-after position.
Taking stock of her work in 2024, the District 2 City Council member reflected on a wide range of more than 30 policy items she and her team crafted.
“It really was all about delivering progress with a purpose,” she said of the assortment of resolutions and budget amendments ranging from recreational health to reproductive health care. “I think that speaks to the diversity of the community that I represent, and also speaks to the diversity of needs that we have over all of our city.”
Working families have been a centerpiece of Fuentes’ work, no matter what policy area she is pursuing. That focus will continue in her second term, she said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Natasha Harper-Madison looks forward to planning progress for her district (Austin Monitor)
With two years left on her term of office, Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison is looking forward to helping move the Northeast Planning District toward the bright future she envisions for it. That’s “really at the top of my list” of what she wants to work on in 2025, she told the Austin Monitor.
Work on the district follows approval of an interlocal agreement between the city and Travis County to find “funding mechanisms to support communities in East Travis County that have faced displacement and systemic racism that has left people of color falling further behind economically,” according to the resolution approved by commissioners in March.
“I think the community at large doesn’t realize how important it is we have this historic agreement,” she said. However, the area has been an afterthought for years, with many people not recognizing where city regulations govern development and where the county – with many fewer regulations – is in charge… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Austin primes convention center for 4-year closure, redevelopment (Community Impact)
Ahead of the Austin Convention Center's multiyear closure, city leaders approved several measures related to the $1.3 billion redevelopment project and its impacts on downtown and local tourism.
Austin's convention center expansion has been under consideration through the past decade and is now moving closer to breaking ground.The city plans to shutter the more than 30-year-old facility in April following the South by Southwest Conference & Festivals in March. Austin will then be without a downtown exhibition hall for nearly four years during construction ahead of the new, expanded facility's opening in late 2028 or early 2029.The new center is expected to roughly double the available event space, while lowering most of the building area below ground and reopening Second and Third streets through the property. One previously-proposed portion of the project, a city public-private partnership for a possible high-rise tower on the site, was scrapped this fall due to cost, timing and downtown real estate market considerations… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ South Austin property owners rejoin city ETJ after removal election (Community Impact)
Several South Austin property owners have rejoined the city's unincorporated jurisdiction, after they were removed through a local proposition in the November election.
Austin's extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ, includes unincorporated land within 5 miles of city limits that isn't part of another municipality. The ETJ is set aside as land that a city could potentially annex, and residents in the area aren't taxed by the city and don't receive most city services.In 2023, state lawmakers approved Senate Bill 2038 allowing property owners in civic ETJs to remove themselves from that authority and shift their land to unincorporated area. The process has been widely used around Austin, and other Central Texas cities and counties, including by landowners and developers seeking to avoid municipalities' more stringent environmental and land-use regulations.Under SB 2038, cities must accept property owners' ETJ removal petitions if the request covers their land only. Petitions can also be filed to cover multiple parcels, in which case those property owners must approve the removal in an election… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Austin Planning Commission OKs 64K-square-foot music venue for Riverside development (Community Impact)
Plans to feature a music venue in the extensive River Park mixed-use development just east of Oracle's headquarters in Riverside received initial approval from Austin's Planning Commission in December.
The 109-acre River Park first proposed in the late 2010s will transform several blocks off East Riverside Drive and South Pleasant Valley Road over the next decade-plus.More than 10 million square feet of multistory housing, hotels, offices, and restaurant and retail space are included in the planned development from Partners Group and Texas-based Presidium. River Park will also feature about 30 acres of parks, trails and open space along Country Club Creek and Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metro Park.The development team has yet to announce a formal timeline for construction, but the entire project is expected to take 10 to 20 years to build out… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
➡️ This Texas city has replaced Austin as the 4th-largest in the state. See the new list (KXAN)
Austin is no longer the fourth largest city in Texas, according to finalized population estimates released last month.
The Texas Demographic Center shared its final 2023 Population Estimates report in November, which included population figures for Texas counties and communities for July 1, 2023, and Jan. 1, 2024. When reviewing data compiled for Jan. 1, 2024, TDC reported Fort Worth had edged ahead of Austin and claimed the title of the fourth most populous city in the Lone Star State.
Those estimates determined Fort Worth had a population count of 989,878 people for Jan. 1, 2024, marking a 7.7% increase over the city’s 2020 Census count of 978,863 residents... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Dallas city manager search narrowed as two semifinalists out of running (WFAA)
Two of the four semifinalists to be Dallas’ next city manager announced last month won’t make interviews set for Monday, sources tell WFAA.
The Dallas City Council will interview interim city manager Kim Tolbert, William Johnson, an assistant city manager in Fort Worth, and Mario Lara, an assistant city manager in Sacramento, California on Monday, sources confirm.
The four semifinalists named in a memo and report in November included Tolbert and Johnson, as well as Mark Washington, an assistant city manager in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Zachary Williams, a county manager in Georgia.
Washington confirmed to our sister station WZZM that he was withdrawing from consideration for the Dallas city manager job and Williams is not among the candidates set for interviews Monday.
The news comes after infighting among city council members earlier this week about the number and quality of candidates for the job, and how long it’s taking to name a lone finalist. Some city council members last week said they were disappointed to see only four semifinalists named last month… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US and World News]
➡️ Nissan and Honda announce merger talks amid a rapidly changing global market (NPR)
Japanese automakers Honda and Nissan have announced plans to work toward a merger, forming the world's third-largest automaker by sales as the industry undergoes dramatic changes in its transition away from fossil fuels.
The two companies said they had signed a memorandum of understanding on Monday and that smaller Nissan alliance member Mitsubishi Motors also had agreed to join the talks on integrating their businesses.
Honda's president, Toshihiro Mibe, said Honda and Nissan will pursue unifying their operations under a joint holding company. Honda will initially lead the new management, retaining the principles and brands of each company. The aim is to have a formal merger agreement by June and to complete the deal by August 2026, he said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Trump says it could be worth keeping TikTok in US for a little while (Reuters)
President-elect Donald Trump indicated on Sunday that he favored allowing TikTok to keep operating in the United States for at least a little while, saying he had received billions of views on the social media platform during his presidential campaign.
Trump's comments before a crowd of conservative supporters in Phoenix, Arizona, were one of the strongest signals yet that he opposes a potential exit of TikTok from the U.S. market.
The U.S. Senate passed a law in April requiring TikTok's Chinese parent company, ByteDance, to divest the app, citing national security concerns.
TikTok's owners have sought to have the law struck down, and the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case. But if the court does not rule in ByteDance's favor and no divestment occurs, the app could be effectively banned in the United States on Jan. 19, one day before Trump takes office… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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