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BG Reads 2.1.2024

BG Reads 2.1.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - February 1, 2024

February 01, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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February 1, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

✅ Bingham Group’s City of Austin org chart red line (as of 1/31/2024)

✅ Read: Interim City Manager Garza’s 60-90 Day Goals & Transition

✅ Travis County, Austin split on $2M homeless services review

✅ First phase of Austin’s HOME initiative rolls out Monday

✅ The GOP’s Taylor Swift problem

Read on!

[AUSTIN CITY HALL]

➡️ Check out Bingham Group’s City of Austin org chart red line (as of 1/31/2024).

➡️ MEMO: Interim City Manager Garza, 60-90 Day Goals & Transition

➡️ VIEW: The Austin City Call meets today at 10AM for its Regular Meeting.

View the Council Agenda Here

Watch Live Here (ATXN Live)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Travis County, Austin split on $2M homeless services review (Community Impact)

Travis County officials voted against joining a third-party review of local government entities' work combating homelessness, citing concerns with the project's costs, the prospect of working with consultant McKinsey & Co., and Austin's outreach to the county while developing the proposal.

Earlier this month, Austin officials proposed launching an independent review of several Central Texas entities' "strategies, programs and services" tied to homelessness. Members included Austin, Travis County, the low-income hospital district Central Health and the county mental health authority Integral Care.Austin City Council members authorized city staff to negotiate agreements with each entity for the third-party assessment Jan. 16. The McKinsey-managed project was estimated to cost $2 million, with $1 million pulled from Austin's federal American Rescue Plan Act relief funds and $200,000 to $400,000 provided by the other three participants.Council voted to advance that plan with abstentions from Northeast Austin council member Natasha Harper-Madison and Central Austin council member Zo Qadri, who said several issues factored into his decision… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

How Austin’s mayoral race is shaping up so far (Austin Chronicle)

The Nov. 5 election has two more candidates for Austin voters to consider: Kathie Tovo and Carmen Llanes Pulido, both of whom have announced their intent to run for mayor.

The candidates will serve as an interesting contrast to the incumbent, Mayor Kirk Watson, who will run but is unlikely to officially launch his campaign for another month. Both are women, Llanes Pulido younger and a woman of color – a demographic that tends to perform well with Austin’s progressive electorate.

Between the two challengers, Tovo will be the more familiar name to voters, having concluded a 12-year run as a City Council member in 2023. First elected in 2011, Tovo served on the last at-large Council before winning a second election in 2014 as the first representative of Council District 9. As a CM, she was skeptical of market-based solutions to the city’s housing challenges that would loosen zoning restrictions throughout the city to allow for more rapid and widespread housing development.

Her preferred approach was slower and more deliberate: require private developers to subsidize rent or sale prices in residential developments in exchange for increased entitlements, work on neighborhood plans, and utilize publicly owned land for affordable housing as much as possible… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Paxton sues Austin, four other Texas cities, over marijuana possession policies (KUT)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Austin, San Marcos and three other cities that have adopted policies that he says violate state marijuana laws.

Paxton alleges the five cities — which also include Killeen, Denton and Elgin — have rules that instruct police not to enforce Texas' drug laws.

He argued Texas Local Government Code forbids cities from adopting policies in which a city is not fully enforcing drug laws. In addition, he said, the Texas Constitution notes it is unlawful for cities to adopt ordinances that conflict with state law.

First phase of Austin’s HOME initiative rolls out Monday (KXAN)

“I will not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities,” Paxton said in a statement. “This unconstitutional action by municipalities demonstrates why Texas must have a law to ‘follow the law.’ It’s quite simple: the legislature passes every law after a full debate on the issues, and we don’t allow cities the ability to create anarchy by picking and choosing the laws they enforce.”... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

First phase of Austin’s HOME initiative rolls out Monday (KXAN)

Development applications tied to the City of Austin’s recently approved HOME initiative will open up Monday, Feb. 5, according to city staff. The highly contentious Land Development Code (LDC) changes were passed by Austin City Council in December.

The first round of changes include the following:

Allow up to three housing units on a property zoned Single-Family
Allow those units to include tiny homes
Remove restrictions on the number of unrelated adults living in a home

The City’s Development Services Department recently updated its HOME Amendments webpage to explain development standards and the process that will kick off starting Monday. You can find it here.

HOME, an acronym for Home Options for Middle-income Empowerment, is a series of proposed changes to Austin’s LDC — and other incentives for creating or preserving housing. It has several elements to it, and there are expected to be additional phases moving forward.

The initiative was brought forward by Austin City Council Member Leslie Pool of District 7. She has also taken lead on education efforts and working with city staff to make the changes happen… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[BG Podcast Weekly Recap EP. 234]

On this episode Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham and Associate Hannah Garcia wrap up the week of January 22nd, 2024 in Austin politics.

Topics include:

✅ Austin Council reaction to Art Acevedo hire (continued)

✅ 2024 Mayoral election updates

✅ And more

LISTEN ON: SoundCloud, YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify

Click here for this week’s Austin public meeting meeting times and agendas.

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas Republicans who defied Gov. Greg Abbott on school vouchers face mounting primary attacks (Texas Tribune)

Texas House Republicans who tanked Gov. Greg Abbott’s school voucher agenda last year are facing a growing onslaught in their primaries as his long-promised revenge tour reaches its final month.

A national pro-voucher group, the School Freedom Fund, is launching a $1.15 million TV ad blitz across eight primaries Wednesday, part of a major ramp-up by Abbott’s allies on the issue. Another pro-voucher outfit, AFC Victory Fund, endorsed 13 primary challengers Tuesday and has already sent out multiple mail pieces attacking incumbents. And Abbott himself is set to return to the campaign trial this week to stump for both pro-voucher incumbents — and challengers.

It all marks the long-telegraphed fallout from last year’s legislative sessions, when a group of House Republicans held firm against Abbott’s crusade for letting parents use taxpayers dollars to take their kids out of public schools. His effort came crashing down in November, when 21 House Republicans voted to strip a voucher program out of a wide-ranging education bill, House Bill 1… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas Supreme Court grapples with limits of ‘parents’ rights’ in challenge to trans care ban (Houston Chronicle)

A lawsuit challenging the state’s new ban on transition care for transgender minors is forcing the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court to weight the limits of parental rights. Senate Bill 14, which went into effect Sept. 1, prohibits doctors from prescribing medications like puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors, and from performing transition-related surgeries on them. The medications are common treatments for transgender minors, while surgery is rare. Proponents say the law is necessary to protect children from potentially irreversible medical interventions, while critics say it amounts to discrimination and will harm Texas transgender children and their families.

The court’s decision on whether to block the measure will have sweeping consequences for those families, many of whom say their children are at risk without medical help. But it could have broader consequences yet for parental rights, a rallying cry embraced by Republicans on everything from schools to library books to vaccinations. The state’s lawyer Natalie D. Thompson argued Tuesday that the justices don’t have to decide between Texas parents’ rights and government regulation: The transgender care ban doesn’t dictate what parents should and shouldn’t do, it simply limits their available options.

“Parents are still the ones who approve available medical intervention or decline available medical intervention,” Thompson said. “What Senate Bill 14 does is take certain medical treatments off the table entirely. That’s not an interference with a parent’s right.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Where are interest rates headed? What to expect from the Fed meeting (Wall Street Journal)

Federal Reserve officials are set to hold interest rates steady this week at a 23-year high, putting the focus on what, if anything, they say about when they might lower rates. At their last three meetings, central-bank officials made no changes to their policy rate but debated whether they had to raise rates more. Now, officials are turning their attention to when they might lower rates, though several have signaled they are in no hurry. Officials will release a new policy statement at the conclusion of their two-day meeting, Wednesday at 2 p.m. Eastern time. Because there will be no economic or rate projections, Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s news conference at 2:30 p.m. will be heavily analyzed for signs about when and how the central bank might shift its policy stance this year.

To combat the highest inflation in four decades, the Fed raised its benchmark federal-funds rate at the fastest pace in 40 years between March 2022 and July 2023, to a range between 5.25% and 5.5%. Since then, officials have held rates steady while inflation has fallen faster than many anticipated. That has teed up a debate over when to lower nominal interest rates to prevent inflation-adjusted, or “real,” rates from rising further. In December, most officials penciled in three rate cuts for 2024. With no policy change expected this week, the key question is whether Powell and the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee will provide any steer about their plans for coming months.

At a minimum, the central bank’s policy statement is expected to lose its so-called “tightening bias” that has signaled an increase is more likely than a cut. That is in part because nearly all Fed officials have indicated they don’t think they will need to raise rates again, so maintaining the tightening bias could be confusing. In recent days, investors in interest-rate markets have put the odds of a rate cut at the Fed’s subsequent meeting on March 19-20 at around 50%. With guidance in the policy statement watered down, the focus will shift to how strongly Powell pushes back against those expectations. The Fed has plenty of time before March 20 to learn more about the state of the economy and labor markets. As a result, it has little reason to either firm up expectations of a rate cut even at that meeting or to rule it out, analysts said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

The GOP’s Taylor Swift problem (Politico)

Taylor Swift is a George Soros plant. A Biden operative who’s poised to endorse the Democratic president at the 50-yard-line at halftime of the Super Bowl. The pop superstar and her vaccine-loving, football-star boyfriend Travis Kelce — if they are, in fact, even an authentic couple — are a psy-op designed to dupe Americans into supporting the left. In fact, all sports are psy-ops that stop Americans from paying sufficient attention to Jesus.

These are among the astonishing array of shadowy conspiracy theories and wild claims currently coursing through the conservative media ecosystem. And they might be a glimpse into the future of the Republican Party.

The paranoid style in American politics isn’t a new phenomenon. But the Swift saga suggests a traditional mode of political expression has metastasized into a serious problem for the GOP. As the party has taken on an increasingly populist bent, the feedback loop that powers its politics is showing signs of going off the rails — and the GOP is so fractured that it’s incapable of stopping it… (LINK TO FULL STORY)