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BG Reads 2.12.2024

BG Reads 2.12.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - February 12, 2024

February 12, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

February 12, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Austin's interim police chief talks priorities, goals for 2024

🟣 City of Austin seeks community input on the next City Manager

🟣 Austin rents lose steam, with second-steepest decline in December

Read on!

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

[BG BLOG]

✅ NEW - City of Austin org chart red line (as of 2/9/2024)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

City of Austin seeks community input on the next City Manager (City of Austin)

The City of Austin is recruiting for its next City Manager. This position is appointed by, and reports to, the Austin City Council, and members are seeking valuable input from the community to help guide their selection. Austinites are asked to help shape the future of their city by participating in this short, three-question, anonymous survey in English or Spanish which closes on Friday, Feb. 16th. The survey allows the public to share their preferences regarding Austin’s next City Manager’s priorities and characteristics. It also includes a space to provide additional open-ended recommendations… (Survey Page Link)

Austin's interim police chief talks priorities, goals for 2024 (CBS Austin)

Austin's interim police chief sat down with CBS Austin to talk about her priorities for the police department in 2024. Interim Chief Robin Henderson started leading the department at the end of August with APD facing several challenges, including staffing shortages.

Approaching 27 years with Austin Police, Henderson is embarking on a first-- leading the department into a new year as Chief of Police.

"I want to be hyper-focused on having transparency with our department and our operations," she said.

A new, public-facing dashboard details crime data and will soon include more information about cadets in training, retirement and resignations, calls for service, response times and more. Another priority is employee wellness… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin rents lose steam, with second-steepest decline in December among major U.S. metros (Austin American-Statesman)

Just as it is a buyer's market in Central Texas' single-family housing market, so too is it a renter's market in the Austin-area apartment market.

Likely to the dismay of landlords and delight of tenants, Austin saw the second-steepest yearly decline among metros in the latest study by Rent.com.

Rents in Austin dropped 12.5% in December compared with December 2023, according to the study, which tracked rates in the nation's 50 largest metros.

Asking rents in Austin were $1,985 a month in December, versus $2,270 a month the prior December, the study said.

Austin's decline was followed by Raleigh, North Carolina, where rents dropped almost 12.2% to $1,873, and the Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise metro, where rents fell by about 9.3% to $1,638 a month.

Leading December's declines was Salt Lake City, where rents dropped sharply, by almost 21%… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[BG Podcast]

On this episode (237) the Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham and Associate Hannah Garcia wrap up the week of February 5th, 2024 in Austin politics.

Topics include:

✅ Austin Interim City Manager search and current events with the office.

✅ Items on next week's Council meeting (2.15.2024)Austin's interim police chief talks priorities, goals for 2024 (CBS Austin) including potential Artificial Intelligence guidelines and a Climate Bond (Items 24 and 25).

LISTEN ON: SoundCloud, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas GOP leaders reverse course, ban antisemites from party (Texas Tribune)

The Republican Party of Texas’ executive committee voted Saturday to censure House Speaker Dade Phelan and passed a resolution stating that the party will not associate with antisemites — a reversal from December, when a similar measure was narrowly and controversially defeated following outcry over a major donor group’s ties to white supremacists.

The antisemitism resolution, which passed unanimously with two abstentions, came four months after The Texas Tribune reported that Jonathan Stickland, then the leader of Defend Texas Liberty, had hosted infamous white supremacist and Adolf Hitler admirer Nick Fuentes for nearly seven hours in early October.

Subsequent reporting by the Tribune uncovered other, close ties between avowed antisemites and Defend Texas Liberty, a major political action committee that two West Texas oil tycoons have used to fund far-right groups and lawmakers in the state. Defend Texas Liberty is also one of the Texas GOP’s biggest donors… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Small Texas town of Eagle Pass plays an outsized role in national debate on border issues (Dallas Morning News)

The park, fenced off from the center of town and patrolled by troops, is inaccessible. The Rio Grande is, too. “We can’t even see it,” said Eagle Pass resident Jessie Fuentes. “We can’t even touch it.”

Fuentes has owned a kayak business since 2015, hosting races every summer and river tours throughout the year. Lately, the only people getting on his kayaks are journalists who want to see buoys in the water or razor wire on the banks leading to Shelby Park, which has been under state control for a month. The 1,000-foot string of buoys and the takeover of the city park were ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott to deter unauthorized border crossings. Although the actions have pleased the governor’s supporters, Fuentes is not a fan. “He’s abusive, he’s cruel and he doesn’t care,” Fuentes, 63, said of the three-term governor. “He does not care about what’s happening in our community.”

Abbott has turned Eagle Pass into a bold experiment to determine how big a role states can play in immigration enforcement, and this city of 28,500 has mixed feelings about its position as ground zero in a national political fight. There’s the mayor who wanted help dealing with illegal crossings but didn’t expect to see a popular park guarded by Texas National Guard soldiers and Humvees. There are the owners of a pecan farm who invited state troops and troopers onto their land along the Rio Grande, but came to regret that decision and can’t get them to leave.

“The community didn’t sign up for this,” Fuentes said, whose business is suffering while others, particularly hotels and restaurants, are thriving. Self-described patriots have been drawn to Eagle Pass as well, adding their voices of support for Abbott and his get-tough immigration policies. “It’s what I stand for and I felt called by the Good Lord above us,” said Dennis Yarbery, who drove from the Baltimore area to attend a recent “Take Our Border Back” rally… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Mayor John Whitmire announces latest City Hall administrative hires (Houston Chronicle)

Mayor John Whitmire’s administration is beginning to take shape, and on Friday, he announced several new top hires at City Hall. Whitmire has begun replacing department heads and is filling his administrative ranks with almost entirely new staff to help him carry out his vision for the city. Here are some of the faces working in Whitmire’s administration. Chris Newport is Whitmire’s new chief of staff. His primary job is to serve as the eyes and ears of the administration and work closely with city departments to ensure the mayor’s goals are accomplished. Newport previously worked as a chief of staff for former Mayor Annise Parker. After leaving Parker’s office, he held several consulting jobs and served on the Houston Super Bowl Host Committee as the executive vice president’s chief of staff. Before joining Parker, he served as chief of staff for the city’s Administration & Regulatory Affairs Department.

Steven David, who worked at Accenture, a business management company, will serve as deputy chief of staff. David will assist Newport and the mayor in managing staff, overseeing the day-to-day operations of Whitmire’s office, developing policy and communicating with department heads. David worked with Parker as a special assistant, then as a special assistant to the chief development officer in the Mayor’s Office of Economic Development. Brown, Houston’s former city controller, is the new senior adviser for financial integrity.

As controller, Brown played a role in helping the city address its pension crisis. Marta Crinejo will rejoin the mayor’s office as the senior adviser for council agenda. She held the same role under Turner. Jose Soto joins Whitmire’s office as the senior adviser for labor relations. Soto previously worked as an assistant public information officer, legislative liaison, and council liaison for Houston’s municipal courts.

Veronica Weatherspoon will become a senior adviser for constituent engagement. She was previously the director of the city’s Correspondence & Constituent Services Division. Rebekah Williams will serve as the senior adviser for community relations. She previously served as a communications specialist supervisor for the city. Cynthia Wilson, a former Houston ISD and Dallas ISD administrator, is a senior adviser for organizational culture and education. Joshua Sanders takes over as the chief of intergovernmental relations. Prior to that, he lobbied the state and lobbied for the Houston Professional Firefighters Association and Uptown Houston... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Dems plead with Biden to do more, not less, media as doubts grow about his capacity for the job (Politico)

Democrats had a forceful message for the Biden campaign amid the special counsel report fallout: It’s time to flood the zone. Top party operatives are warning Biden aides that the president cannot retreat in response to the special counsel report that fueled concerns over his age and mental faculties. They say President Joe Biden, having largely shied away from interviews and press conferences, needs to be out in public far more. They want to see him engage with the press and voters in the off-script and punchy exchanges he’s been known for in the past, which they believe will help chip away at concerns about the president’s mental acuity. They say that it’s worth the risk of potential slip-ups that could reinforce the image that he’s declining.

There have been several of those stumbles this week, with the 81-year-old Biden appearing to refer to two deceased European leaders as living statesmen. In his fiery Thursday night remarks, Biden also grew remarkably combative at times. More superficially, at one point he accidentally referred to Mexico in a comment plainly describing Egypt.

But Democrats say that resolving fears about Biden’s age requires getting him out in front of the country much more, even if there is risk involved. There’s hope, in certain circles, that the report prompts a strategic change at the White House and leads to a more visible, livelier version of Biden. “What we saw [Thursday] night was so rare, because we don’t get too many of these moments and opportunities where he’s off script, and he’s engaged in the back and forth, particularly in a prime-time setting,” said Faiz Shakir, Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign manager. Alan Patricof, a venture capitalist and Democratic donor, encouraged Biden to engage the country more — though Patricof, at 89, also defended the president’s age. “He’s going to have to come a little bit out of his shell and be more available, whether it’s press conferences or traveling around and meeting with people,” Patricof said. A major Biden donor, South Carolina attorney Dick Harpootlian, said he would encourage the president to gear up for a likely Donald Trump rematch on the debate stage: “We oughta engage in it as much as we can.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

AI Is starting to threaten white-collar jobs. Few industries are immune. (Wall Street Journal)

Decades after automation began taking and transforming manufacturing jobs, artificial intelligence is coming for the higher-ups in the corporate office.

The list of white-collar layoffs is growing almost daily and include jobs cuts at Google, Duolingo and UPS in recent weeks. While the total number of jobs directly lost to generative AI remains low, some of these companies and others have linked cuts to new productivity-boosting technologies like machine learning and other AI applications.

Company executives and management consultants are also signaling that generative AI could soon upend a much bigger share of white-collar jobs. Unlike previous waves of automation technology, generative AI doesn’t just speed up routine tasks or make predictions by recognizing data patterns. It has the power to create content and synthesize ideas—in essence, the kind of knowledge work millions of people now do behind computers.

That includes managerial roles, many of which may never come back, the corporate executives and consultants say. They predict the fast-evolving technology will revamp or replace work now done up and down the corporate ladder in industries ranging from technology to chemicals.

“This wave [of technology] is a potential replacement or an enhancement for lots of critical-thinking, white-collar jobs,” said Andy Challenger, senior vice president of outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Some of the job cuts taking place already are a direct result of the changes coming from AI. Other companies are cutting jobs to spend more money on the promise of AI and under pressure to operate more efficiently… (LINK TO FULL STORY)