The BG Reads
Posts
BG Reads 3.1.2024

BG Reads 3.1.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - March 1, 2024

March 01, 2024

View this email in your browser

Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

March 1, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Austin City Council votes to reinstate elements of zoning ordinance voided in lawsuit

🟣 Austin apartments boomed and rents went down. Now, some builders are dismantling the cranes.

🟣 Round Rock ISD, Austin Community College partner to offer free associate degrees

Read on!

Click on the BG Logo for this week’s Austin public meeting times and agendas.

[CITY HALL]

Actions by the City Council during the meeting of: Thursday, February 29, 2024

March 7, 2024 Austin City Council Regular Meeting Agenda

[BINGHAM GROUP]

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

✅ BG Podcast EP. 239 - On this episode we wrap up the week of February 19, 2024 in Austin politics, and discuss the week ahead.

Topics include:

🟣 The City of Austin cancels $2million review of Austin's homeless strategy

🟣 Austin Council Meeting (2.29.2024) items of note

LISTEN ON: SoundCloud, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin City Council votes to reinstate elements of zoning ordinance voided in lawsuit (Austin American-Statesman)

The city of Austin reinstated elements of a city ordinance aimed at creating more affordable housing options that was voided under a lawsuit.

Travis County state District Judge Jessica Mangrum ruled in December in favor of a group of homeowners claiming the city of Austin violated the rights of its property owners by failing to provide proper notice of land development code, making void three of Austin's zoning ordinances: the Vertical Mixed-Use II Ordinance, or VMU2, Residential in Commercial Development Program, and Compatibility on Corridors.

An ordinance approved Thursday, dubbed DB90, is largely the same as VMU2, according to a statement from Paul Books, senior planner with the city's planning department.

VMU2 allowed developers to build 30 to 90 feet higher in exchange for more affordable housing units in certain areas of the city.

The new ordinance allows developers to build the same height in exchange for affordable units but extends the opportunity for where it can be developed with one caveat: Under DB90, each individual case will need to go through the city's rezoning process, while the last ordinance, which was voided, created a blanket opportunity for developers to build higher in certain areas of the city if they met the affordability requirements without going through the rezoning process… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin apartments boomed and rents went down. Now, some builders are dismantling the cranes. (KUT)

Austin has something it hasn’t had for years: a glut of new apartments. Fueled by a surge in migration to the city and low interest rates at the start of the pandemic, builders began turning soil on a dizzying number of new rental homes.

But two years into the construction boom, building costs have ballooned. Interest rates have more than doubled. And while thousands of new apartments have brought rent prices down and provided some financial relief for people like Schwertner, developers can no longer make the same kind of cash. So, they're tapping the brakes on new buildings… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

As Council prepped public support, local Google workers learned of layoffs (Austin Monitor)

Some private-sector workplace drama took place in real time during Thursday’s City Council meeting, with a group of local Google workers learning they’d lost their jobs while commenting on a proposed city resolution intended to support their cause.

On the agenda Thursday was an item from Council Member Zo Qadri that called on Google LLC, parent company of YouTube Music, and the contracting company Cognizant to enter into negotiations with a group of contract workers who formed a union but have been unsuccessful in getting the company to cooperate in labor talks. The matter has received much national attention in recent weeks, with the National Labor Relations Board calling the unwillingness to engage with the union an illegal act…

In an email response to a media request on the matter, Google communications manager Bailey Tomson wrote, “As we’ve shared before, these are not Google employees. Cognizant is responsible for these workers’ employment terms, including staffing. As is the case here, contracts with our suppliers across the company routinely end on their natural expiry date, which was agreed to with Cognizant.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Round Rock ISD, Austin Community College partner to offer free associate degrees (Community Impact)

Starting this fall, Round Rock ISD students will be able to pursue associate degrees free of charge through a new partnership with Austin Community College.

Through a partnership announced Feb. 23, students at all RRISD high schools will be able to combine courses taken through the district with those offered at ACC to earn the 42 core credits comprising an associate degree. The program is similar to that offered through the district's Early College High School.

The initiative is similar to that which allowed the district to create its ECHS program in 2016, allowing students to begin working on their college degree while in high school… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas law allowing police to arrest migrants suspected of being in country illegally blocked by federal judge (Texas Tribune)

A federal judge in Austin on Thursday halted a new state law that would allow Texas police to arrest people suspected of crossing the Texas-Mexico border illegally.

The law, Senate Bill 4, was scheduled to take effect Tuesday. U.S. District Judge David Ezra issued a preliminary injunction that will keep it from being enforced while a court battle continues playing out. Texas is being sued by the federal government and several immigration advocacy organizations. Texas appealed the ruling to the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Ezra said in his order Thursday that the federal government “will suffer grave irreparable harm” if the law took effect because it could inspire other states to pass their own immigration laws, creating an inconsistent patchwork of rules about immigration, which has historically been upheld as being solely within the jurisdiction of the federal government.

“SB 4 threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice,” Ezra wrote… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Abbott vowed to campaign against anti-voucher GOP House members. Why did these six candidates get spared? (Texas Tribune)

Joshua Feuerstein, a Forney Republican, met with Gov. Greg Abbott’s campaign team on a Zoom call, seeking an endorsement in his primary challenge to Rep. Keith Bell.

Feuerstein said he’d support the governor’s voucher legislation. Bell, R-Forney, was among the 21 House Republicans who blocked Abbott’s priority voucher bill from passing into law last year.

“They told me I was the perfect candidate,” Feuerstein told The Texas Tribune. But no endorsement ever came.

After Abbott lost his hard-fought battle to pass vouchers last year, he vowed to rain fire on the primary campaigns of nearly two dozen fellow Republicans in the Texas House who defied his demands and joined with Democrats to block passage of his biggest priority.

And Abbott largely made good on his promise, making an unprecedented effort to unseat the disloyal, spending $4.4 million in the past month against incumbent House members and appearing repeatedly in their districts to endorse their opponents.

But, with the March 5 election just a few days away, six anti-voucher House GOP incumbents have managed to sidestep Abbott’s wrath.

Reps. Bell, Justin Holland, Charlie Geren, Reggie Smith, Jay Dean and Ken King face a colorful slate of opponents who are solidly on Abbott’s side of the voucher fight.

But none of those challengers have gotten the coveted Abbott nod, leaving many of them wondering, “Why not me?” as they watch other pro-voucher primary candidates enjoy the spoils of Abbott’s lavish financial backing and star power… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Biden to sell first term accomplishments at State of the Union (The Hill)

In previewing the upcoming speech, a White House official said Biden got more done in his first three years in office than many presidents were able to accomplish in two terms.

Biden is expected to highlight the bipartisan infrastructure law, which has helped upgrade roads, bridges and railways across the country, as well as the bipartisan CHIPS law that invested millions of dollars in manufacturing semiconductors domestically.

Biden will also hit on his efforts to get rid of junk fees and the Inflation Reduction Act, which contained provisions to lower prescription drug costs, the White House official said.

The president will make the case that he is on the side of the public, the official added, citing efforts to lower costs, proposals to increase taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations, measures to protect reproductive health care and democracy, and the focus on his unity agenda, which includes ending cancer, protecting minors from big tech, aiding veterans and curbing fentanyl… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

AI Startup making humanoid robots raises $675 Million with Bezos, Nvidia in funding round (Wall Street Journal)

Jeff Bezos, Nvidia and Microsoft are betting a humanlike robot could be one of the hot new developments in artificial intelligence.

They are among a group of investors, including OpenAI, that invested $675 million in an AI robotics company called Figure, the startup said Thursday, valuing it at $2.6 billion.

Tech companies are pouring cash into AI at a breakneck pace, with investors and analysts increasingly believing the AI boom is sustainable. More than $29 billion was invested in generative AI companies last year, according to research firm PitchBook.

Nvidia, the chip maker at the heart of the AI craze, has a market cap around $2 trillion, making it one of the biggest companies in the U.S… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Elon Musk says long-delayed Tesla Roadster coming next year (Wall Street Journal)

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said the company intends to start shipping its long-delayed Roadster sports car next year, the latest sign it is trying to inject new buzz into the brand as competition intensifies in the electric-vehicle space.

In a series of posts on his social-media platform X, Musk said Wednesday that Tesla has finished its design for the vehicle as part of a collaboration between Tesla and his rocket company SpaceX, and the vehicle would be unveiled at the end of the year.

The car will be capable of accelerating to 60 miles an hour in less than a second, which “is the least interesting part,” he said.

“Tonight, we radically increased the design goals for the new Tesla Roadster,” Musk wrote. “There will never be another car like this, if you could even call it a car.”

The original Roadster was Tesla’s first production car, released in 2008… (LINK TO FULL STORY)