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BG Reads 2.22.2024

BG Reads 2.22.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - February 22, 2024

February 22, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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February 22, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 What's on the primary election ballot in the Austin area

🟣 Del Valle ISD school board president abruptly resigns and leaves meeting

🟣 Tesla appears to be using Austin suburbs of Kyle, Hutto to expand battery efforts

🟣 Dallas’ city manager resigns, leaving one more major Texas city without a chief executive

Read on!

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

[BG BLOG]

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

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

What's on the primary election ballot in the Austin area (AXIOS Austin)

With early voting kicking off, now's your chance to help shape policy, from the Travis County district attorney's office to the Texas Capitol.

Why it matters: Most districts are drawn to favor one party and many counties tip heavily Democratic or Republican, making the primaries the de facto definitive election.

What we expect: Very low turnout.

Yes, it's a presidential election year, but there's little doubt about who will be the nominees at the very top of the ballot.

Races we're watching: The Travis County district attorney Democratic primary, pitting incumbent José Garza against attorney Jeremy Sylestine.

Read our interviews with both candidates in a race about public safety and the direction of criminal justice in the community… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin-area school board president abruptly resigns and leaves meeting (KUT)

Del Valle ISD’s school board meeting kicked off with a major announcement on Tuesday: Board President Rebecca Birch said she was resigning, effective immediately. She had served on the board for nearly 12 years and spent more than half of that tenure as president.

Birch’s decision came the same night the Del Valle ISD board swore in former Trustee Damián Pantoja. The board voted 5 to 3 last week to reappoint Pantoja to represent Single Member District 2, which includes part of the Montopolis neighborhood. Pantoja had to vacate the seat last summer after he claimed a homestead exemption within Austin ISD’s boundaries that violated residency requirements to serve on the DVISD board.

Birch said the reappointment of Pantoja was a tipping point for her… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

‘State of Black Austin’: Has the city implemented near-decade changes to improve quality of life? (KXAN)

It’s been nearly a decade since the City of Austin committed to improving quality of life for Black Austinites.

This was a result of data collected that showed greater disparities compared to other groups.

Now, some Black community activists and leaders feel promises have gone unfulfilled.

“You [City of Austin] want us to believe that you actually care about us,” Chas Moore with the Austin Justice Coalition (AJC) said. “At what point do we get serious.”He said he’s outraged and tired, saying Austin’s Black population—has been disregarded. He hosted a State of Black Austin Address on Wednesday. He revealed AJC turned to the nonprofit Measure for help tracking the city’s progress in improving conditions for Black people in Austin.

Measure said it analyzed a City Commission’s 56 recommendations for nine categories from the 2008 African American Quality of Life report.

The city has nt done enough to improve the quality of life for Black people in Austin, the leader of the Austin Justice Coalition said Wednesday.

A 2008 report outlined how the city could make improvements. The report offered more than 50 recommendations in six areas, including education, health care, housing and economic opportunities.

Chas Moore said the city has made little progress on those recommendations more than a decade later.

"It is disheartening to witness the persistent neglect of the African American community in Austin," he said. "The recommendations made in 2008 remain unfulfilled, and it is time for the city to confront its failure to address the deeply rooted issues that continue to plague our community."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Is the San Antonio-Austin infrastructure ready for the expected population explosion? (NBC WOAI)

By 2050, eight million people are expected to be living in Austin and San Antonio combined. That means building the proper infrastructure to meet the demands of that growth is a top priority.

That growth is causing major growing pains on most of our roadways in the greater San Antonio region. It was the focus of this year’s Transportation Summit in San Marcos. President and CEO of Greater San Marcos Partnership, Mike Kamerlander, says with over five million people living between Austin and San Antonio and millions more headed our way by 2050, building highways and roads to support traffic is a must.

Texas Department of Transportation officials say some of the main reasons why current road construction projects aren’t finished right away: supply chain issues and higher inflation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Tesla appears to be using Austin suburbs of Kyle, Hutto to expand battery efforts (Austin American-Statesman)

Tesla is putting down roots in the Austin suburbs of Kyle and Hutto, where it is likely expanding its battery efforts.

The Austin-based electric vehicle company has been growing its presence in Central Texas since it first announced it would build Giga Texas, its massive manufacturing facility in southeastern Travis County in July 2020. The company has been manufacturing Model Y SUVs, Cybertrucks and batteries at the facility, which also became Tesla's headquarters in fall 2021.

But it has been less clear what the company's operations will look like as it has quietly expanded into Austin's suburbs. While both Kyle and Hutto have announced that Tesla has signed leases there, details about the electric vehicle makers' activities in the spaces have remained sparse outside of state and city filings and job postings… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

A Texas school has punished a Black student over his hairstyle for months. Neither side is backing down. (Texas Tribune)

At 18, Darryl George has spent most of his junior year at Barbers Hill High School separated from his classmates, sentenced to a mix of in-school suspension or class at an alternative education campus. He’s allegedly denied hot food and isn’t able to access teaching materials.

His offense: wearing his hair in long locs.

Since the start of the school year, George and Barbers Hill school officials have been locked in a standoff over his hairstyle — and whether the district’s dress code violates a new state law that prohibits discrimination based on hairstyles.

George, who is Black, says in legal filings that the district’s monthslong punishment has demeaned him and impeded his education.

“Our military academies in West Point, Annapolis and Colorado Springs maintain a rigorous expectation of dress,” Superintendent Greg Poole wrote in a full-page ad in The Houston Chronicle.

“They realize being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity, and being a part of something bigger than yourself.”

Now, a Texas judge could decide who’s on the right side of state law… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Dallas’ city manager resigns, leaving one more major Texas city without a chief executive (Texas Tribune)

Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax said Wednesday he will step down from his post, making Dallas the latest major Texas city with a vacancy at the top of city government.

Dallas City Council members pushed Broadnax to resign, they said Wednesday, citing unresolved tension between the city’s top executive and its chief political leader, Mayor Eric Johnson.

“I am proud of what I have accomplished and am grateful for the support I received during my tenure,” Broadnax, who took the job in 2017, said in a statement. “My sincere gratitude to the people of this great city for allowing me to serve and to make significant contributions to this community.”

Dallas now is the largest Texas city without a chief executive.

Austin and El Paso have each gone without a permanent city manager since their city councils voted last year to fire them, though they have named acting city managers to serve in the interim. In a memo to Johnson and City Council members, Broadnax said he “will be collaborating with my team to plan for a smooth transition of projects, initiatives and responsibilities in advance of my departure” on June 3.

All three cities operate under a council-manager system in which the mayor and city council appoint a city manager to oversee the city’s day-to-day operations. In Dallas, Broadnax manages a $4.6 billion budget and more than 13,000 employees… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson paid campaign money to firm tied to his new Republican group (Dallas Morning News)

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson won reelection by a landslide in May then started paying a consulting firm run by his former chief of staff thousands of dollars a month in campaign funds, records show. Adept Strategies, which was registered with the state on the same day the mayor reported making his first payment to it, is also tied to a group created by Johnson to promote Republican mayors. Johnson said in campaign finance reports he paid the firm more than $110,000 for “strategic consulting services” from May 15 to Dec. 20.

The series of seven payments, which ranged from $4,000 to more than $21,000, started soon after Johnson was reelected May 6. State records show Adept Strategies was founded by Mary Elbanna. She left Johnson’s office as chief of staff in February 2022, according to city payroll records.

Johnson’s campaign finance reports list Adept Strategies’ mailing address as a Dallas post office box. The Republican Mayors Association uses the same box as its mailing address, and Elbanna is one of five national board members listed for the organization. Johnson launched the mayors’ group last fall after he announced he was switching party affiliations from Democrat to Republican.

The connections raise questions about where contributions to Johnsons’ nonpartisan campaign for mayor are ultimately ending up. Texas politicians have flexibility in how they spend their campaign funds as long as they support their political activities, but when that money appears to move to closely related groups, it demands an explanation, said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “When you get these kind of connections — shared mailboxes, a member of the board receiving large payments — that has to be explained,” Jillson said. “It’s in the mayor’s interest to explain that in a way that readers of the main newspaper in town can understand.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Trump says long VP shortlist includes Tim Scott, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy (Politico)

Former President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday that at least half a dozen names are on his vice presidential shortlist — a list ranging from South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to former Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

During a Fox News town hall event, host Laura Ingraham asked Trump about six possible choices for his running mate: DeSantis, Scott, biotech entrepreneur and former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and Gabbard... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

As Gaza Death toll mounts, Israel’s isolation grows (New York Times)

When David Ben-Gurion, one of Israel’s founding fathers, was warned in 1955 that his plan to seize the Gaza Strip from Egypt would provoke a backlash in the United Nations, he famously derided the U.N., playing off its Hebrew acronym, as “Um-Shmum.”

The phrase came to symbolize Israel’s willingness to defy international organizations when it believes its core interests are at stake.

Nearly 70 years later, Israel faces another wave of condemnation in the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, and from dozens of countries over its military operation in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 29,000 Palestinians, many of them women and children, and left much of the territory in ruins.

The huge swell in global pressure has left the Israeli government and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, deeply isolated, if not yet bowed, largely because it still has the support of its staunchest ally, the United States.

This time, though, Israel faces a rare break with Washington. The Biden administration is circulating a draft resolution in the United Nations Security Council that would warn the Israeli military not to carry out a ground offensive in Rafah, near Egypt, where more than a million Palestinian refugees are sheltering. It would also call for a temporary cease-fire as soon as practical.

“It’s a big problem for the Israeli government because it has previously been able to hide behind the protection of the United States,” said Martin S. Indyk, a former American ambassador to Israel. “But now Biden is signaling that Netanyahu can no longer take that protection for granted… (LINK TO FULL STORY)