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BG Reads 3.13.2024

BG Reads 3.13.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - March 13, 2024

March 13, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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March 13, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Austin City Manager candidate background profiles

🟣 Austin residents need to make over $150K to afford home, Zillow reports

🟣 U.S. Supreme Court continues blocking Texas immigration law

🟣 Round 2: Just when Americans thought they were out, Joe Biden and Donald Trump pulled them back in.

Read on!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

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

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Who is T.C. Broadnax? Here's what we know about the Austin city manager finalist. (Austin American-Statesman)

Weeks after it was made public that Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax planned to leave his executive-level city job in June, he was named a finalist for the same position in Austin.

Broadnax, who served as Dallas’ city manager for seven years, has made a career in city management, working previously as the city manager of Tacoma, Wash., and the assistant city manager of San Antonio and Pompano Beach, Fl.

His resignation came via a recommendation from a majority of the Dallas City Council. A joint new release from several City Council members cited on-going issues between Broadnax and Mayor Eric Johnson, stating, “it has become apparent that the relationship between the mayor and the city manager has not been conducive to effective governance and the advancement of Dallas’ interests," the Dallas Morning News reported.

Broadnax formally applied for the position in Austin days after announcing his resignation.

"As a convener and connector, I understand the level of leadership that the City Manager’s Office must exhibit and embrace all the challenges and responsibilities that it entails," Broadnax wrote in his application letter that was obtained by the American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act.

"I am committed to local government and eager to work in partnership with the Mayor and City Council to advance the City of Austin and take the city to the next level."

Broadnax formally applied for the position in Austin days after announcing his resignation.

"I am committed to local government and eager to work in partnership with the Mayor and City Council to advance the City of Austin and take the city to the next level."

The city has more than 16,000 employees and this past year the Austin City Council approved a record high budget of $5.5 billion, according to the city manager's website.

Broadnax’s exit comes after years of conflict with the city’s mayor, who was first elected in 2019 and led an unsuccessful attempt to oust Broadnax two years ago… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Who is Sara Hensley? Here's why Denton's city manager is a finalist for the role in Austin (Austin American-Statesman)

Denton City Manager Sara Hensley says the prospect of returning to Austin as the city's chief executive would be a "calling."

Having worked for the city of Austin for more than 10 years before leaving for Denton, a Dallas-area suburb of about 148,000, in 2019, the country-spanning municipal executive says she is uniquely positioned to guide Austin's local government as its next city manager.

"My family was a part of the community," Hensley said in an interview, explaining how her twin sons enjoyed Austin's renowned parks and libraries.

"Having that opportunity and then seeing Austin now and wanting to be a part of the next phase and the next chapter of Austin is what is drawing me there.

Austin's city manager runs the day-to-day operations of the tenth-largest city in the country. Hensley, 67, is one of two remaining finalists under consideration for the position hired by the Austin City Council. The other finalist is the departing Dallas city manager, T.C. Broadnax.

According to her resume, which the American-Statesman obtained through a public records request, Hensley's career in municipal government spans 26 years, a period including stints working at cities on the East and West Coasts, Phoenix and Austin before landing her current role in Denton.

Since March 2022, Hensley has served as Denton's city manager, overseeing a $1.95 billion budget, 25 departments and nearly 2,000 employees. Her base annual salary is $305,000, said Dustin Sternbeck, a city of Denton spokesperson.

For comparison, Austin has a budget of $5.5 billion and more than 16,000 employees, according to the city's website. The city of Dallas, where Broadnax has worked as a city manager for seven years, has a budget of more than $4 billion and about 15,300 employees.

Prior to Denton, Hensley worked for more than a decade at the city of Austin, overseeing the parks and recreation department from 2008 to 2017. In an interview with the Austin Chronicle during her first year on the job, Hensley said she had been surprised with how "far behind we are as a city."

Hensley transitioned to interim assistant city manager from 2017 to 2019, during which time she oversaw five city departments: public health, public library, parks and recreation, animal services, and real estate… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin residents need to make over $150K to afford home, Zillow reports (MYSA)

Buying a home in Central Texas is more expensive now than it was just four years ago. Central Texans need to be making close to or at least a six figure salary in order to afford a home in Austin or San Antonio, according to a new release from Zillow.

Although the cost of living has increased over the years in both cities, Austinites need to make $53,500 more than San Antonians in order to afford a mortgage for a new home. The Zillow data reveals that homebuyers must earn an annual salary of $149,267 to comfortably afford a mortgage in Austin, which is about $65,000 more than they needed in 2020.

In San Antonio, homebuyers should earn an income of $95,767 in order to afford a mortgage in 2024, which is about $38,000 more than 2020. The income needed to comfortably afford a home in the state's capital city was well above the national average of around $106,000, according to Zillow. Officials say the best solution to level the playing field would be to increase the supply to fit the demand… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

City, Austin Police Association agree to resume contract talks (Austin Chronicle)

How much officers will be paid and how much the city is able to independently investigate those accused of misconduct are among the top issues city staff and the Austin Police Association will finally hash out. The two agreed to resume negotiations over a long-term labor contract for police nearly one year after the last contract expired.

The last time City Council approved a police contract was in 2018, after a contentious period in which Council members made the historic decision to reject the terms agreed to by city staff and the APA. The agreement that ultimately crossed the finish line established a robust system of civilian oversight that provided unprecedented levels of transparency into how the Austin Police Department holds officers accountable when they’re accused of misconduct. Over the next three years, the APA worked to dismantle that system, finally landing a fatal blow to the Office of Police Oversight in 2021, when an arbitrator agreed with an APA grievance alleging the OPO had illegally investigated complaints against police officers.

Negotiations over the new contract stalled out in 2022, and APD has been operating without a contract since. Those negotiations hinged on pay and oversight – and that’s been the case in every negotiation since the city and APA reached the first meet and confer agreement (i.e., police contract) more than 20 years ago. Before 2022 contract talks finally collapsed, city and APA negotiators had more or less come to an agreement on what kind of wage increases and benefits officers should enjoy over the life of the four-year contract, but APA wasn’t willing to bend on oversight. The association views the kind of oversight approved in the 2018 contract as an abridgement of officer rights… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

U.S. Supreme Court continues blocking Texas immigration law (Texas Tribune)

The U.S. Supreme Court on March 12 said it will continue to temporarily block a new state law that allows Texas police to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the Texas-Mexico border.

Justice Samuel Alito extended his stay until March 18.

The nation's highest court is overruling a decision from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that would have allowed police to start enforcing Senate Bill 4 on March 9.

That 5th Circuit ruling came just a day after U.S. District Judge David Ezra in Austin blocked SB 4 from going into effect, saying the law “threatens the fundamental notion that the United States must regulate immigration with one voice.”... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Report: Though outgunned and underequipped, Uvalde police didn’t run from school shooter (San Antonio Express-News)

Uvalde police officers who responded to Robb Elementary School on May 24, 2022, were outgunned, hamstrung by poor radio communications and missing critical pieces of equipment, notably vests and shields strong enough to provide protection from the shooter’s high-powered rifle. Those are some of the main findings of a review of the Uvalde Police Department’s performance that day.

The review was conducted for the city by Jesse Prado, a retired Austin police detective who is now a private investigator and consultant. Nineteen fourth graders and two teachers were killed at Robb in the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. Perhaps Prado’s most controversial conclusion was that Uvalde officers, including those closest to the shooter, did nothing wrong, acted in “good faith” and complied with department policies.

Nearly 400 officers from two dozen local, state and federal agencies responded that day. Prado’s 182-page report focuses on Uvalde police officers. Uvalde police and officers from other law enforcement agencies have been condemned, even called cowards, for failing to storm the classroom where the gunman was holed up. When faced with an active shooter threatening innocent lives, police are trained to confront and neutralize the person immediately, even at risk to their own lives.

At Robb, 77 minutes passed before a Border Patrol-led team breached the classroom and killed the gunman. But Prado said the first Uvalde officers on the scene were anything but faint-hearted. They took their active-shooter training seriously and tried to follow it, he wrote. Sgt. Daniel Page and several other officers moved toward the sound of gunfire after entering the school, Prado wrote. They encountered a hallway filled with smoke… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

The US has its first presidential rematch since 1956, and other facts about the Biden-Trump sequel (Associated Press)

Just when Americans thought they were out, Joe Biden and Donald Trump pulled them back in.

The sequel to the 2020 election is officially set as the president and his immediate predecessor secured their parties’ nominations. Biden and Trump have set up a political movie the country has seen before — even if the last version was in black and white.

The last presidential rematch came in 1956, when Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower again defeated Adlai Stevenson, the Democratic opponent he had four years prior.

Grover Cleveland, meanwhile, was the nation’s 22nd and 24th president, winning elections in 1884 and 1892... (LINK TO FULL STORY)