BG Reads 3.13.2025

🟪 BG Reads - March 13, 2025

March 13, 2025

Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

March 13, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin Wants You: City hiring campaign targets dismissed federal employees (KUT)

🟪 SpaceX to make $280M investment in Bastrop facility, awarded Texas grant (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas measles outbreak grows, while New York and California report new cases (Washington Post)

🟪 DOGE makes its latest errors harder to find (New York Times)

Read On!

✅ Discover how Bingham Group’s expertise drives results and

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Memo: Kerri Lang, Director Office of Budget and Organizational Excellence (BOE) // City of Austin Federal Grant Receipts for Fiscal Years 2020-21 through 2024-25 (3.12.2025)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ City Council approves phase two of ‘site plan lite’ (Austin Monitor)

City Council has passed phase two of “site plan lite” – an ordinance amending development regulations for residential re-subdivisions and multifamily residential site developments of five to 16 units. The final version of the ordinance was passed with five amendments and was approved by 10 members of the dais, with Council Member Marc Duchen voting no.

This process was initiated in late 2022 as an effort to accelerate city plans to create more “missing middle” housing, a term used to describe medium-density housing between larger, detached homes and higher-density apartment buildings.

Council Member Paige Ellis authored the original resolution directing city staff to create a procedure for developments of three to 16 units. The intent was to speed up the residential review processes for these midsize options, starting with triplexes and fourplexes. At the time, projects larger than duplexes were subject to the lengthier processes that applied to larger multifamily developments… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Austin Wants You: City hiring campaign targets dismissed federal employees (KUT)

The City of Austin could benefit from the thousands of federal employees losing their jobs as the Trump administration makes cuts to the federal workforce. The city launched a hiring campaign this week to help fill its 2,400 open jobs. The city employs more than 16,000 people in full-time to temporary positions across multiple departments.

The campaign comes just as tens of thousands of federal government employees find themselves without a job during the ongoing wave of layoffs. Mayor Kirk Watson said this is a chance for the city to attract well-qualified, public service employees. "The bad news is a lot of great public servants are losing their jobs,” Watson said.

“The good news is that they've already demonstrated a desire to provide quality public service, and they want to work on behalf of the people. So we are targeting them and saying there might be a place for you at the City of Austin.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Gov. Greg Abbott awards Round Rock semiconductor supplier $2M in Texas CHIPS Act funding (Austin American-Statesman)

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott awarded a $2 million Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund to Round Rock-based semiconductor supplier KoMiCo Technology. Abbott announced Thursday that KoMiCo would receive the fourth TSIF grant for its facility in Round Rock, located at 201 Michel Angelo Way, just past North Austin.

According to Abbott, the funding will support the creation of 70 new jobs and a $36 million capital investment.

“Texas is leading the American resurgence in semiconductor manufacturing and making strategic investments to secure critical domestic supply chains,” Abbott said in the statement Thursday. “KoMiCo’s $36 million investment to expand their clean room capacity and production lines in Round Rock supports increased chip production right here in Texas."

KoMiCo, a wholly owned subsidiary of South Korea-based KoMiCo Ltd., works with global chipmakers on semiconductor equipment parts cleaning, coating and repair… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ SpaceX to make $280M investment in Bastrop facility, awarded Texas grant (Austin Business Journal)

SpaceX is set to invest more than $280 million in its Bastrop manufacturing facility, and a grant from the new Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund will help fund the endeavor. Gov. Greg Abbott announced on March 12 that Elon Musk-led SpaceX will get $17.3 million to expand its semiconductor research and advanced packaging facility in Bastrop.

The expansion will include $280 million in capital investments by SpaceX and create more than 400 jobs, Abbott said.

He said SpaceX's new square footage "will be the largest of its kind in North America.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Griffin Swinerton to amp up downtown Pflugerville (Austin Business Journal)

Developers of Pflugerville’s Downtown East project are taking steps to build a new city hall and recreation center that will be at the center of a mixed-use project. The Pflugerville City Council voted to approve a pair of purchase agreements with Griffin Swinerton LLC, the master developer of the 29-acre Downtown East project.

The move allows for construction to start on both buildings. Griffin Swinerton is a joint venture between Griffin Structures and Swinerton, both of which are based in California and specialize in public-private partnerships.

The Downtown East project, located at the northwest corner of Farm to Market Road 685 and Pecan Street, is a planned mixed-use development that will extend Pflugerville’s Main Street and provide a focal point to help meet the needs of the growing suburb just northeast of Austin… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Dallas mayor tells Congress the private sector, not government, is key to affordable homes (Dallas Morning News)

Government can best address high housing costs by getting out of the private sector’s way, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson testified Wednesday before a U.S. Senate committee.

“The most effective way to bring down housing prices is to encourage the private sector to increase homebuilding throughout the United States, but particularly in cities like Dallas, where we see unprecedented demand for our existing housing stock because of our economic growth and success,” Johnson said.

Johnson appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs alongside a Harvard University economist who has studied housing markets, an official with a major mortgage lender and the head of a group that advocates for affordable housing for low-income people.

Johnson left the Democratic party for the GOP in 2023, and his testimony fit with Republican efforts to shift the conversation about how to promote affordable housing. Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the committee chairman, emphasized the need to cut government regulations to make homebuilding easier. Get the latest politics news from North Texas and beyond.

U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the committee, said a nationwide shortage of housing is driving up rents and pushing home ownership out of reach for average Americans. Warren criticized Housing Secretary Scott Turner and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they have frozen affordable housing development projects across the country and proposed deep cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s workforce.

“These actions will make it harder, not easier, for families to access housing, and they will raise housing costs,” she said. “If the federal government is going to be a good partner to local communities to address the housing crisis, we need a well resourced and well staffed HUD.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Judge rules in Fort Worth lawsuit over Airbnb-type rentals (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

The city of Fort Worth prevailed in a lawsuit challenging its rules on short-term rentals like those listed on Airbnb and VRBO. Short-term rental operators sued the city in June 2023 alleging the rules violated their property rights. But a Tarrant County District Court judge on Thursday ruled that Fort Worth had the authority to make that regulation.

The ruling comes just over two years after the City Council passed new zoning rules prohibiting short-term rentals in single family neighborhoods. The city’s rules also require operators to register and pay all applicable taxes. Members of the Texas Neighborhood Coalition, a group opposing the proliferation of short-term rentals, celebrated the decision.

“These unstaffed mini-hotels are completely incompatible with the nature and character of residential neighborhoods. They supplant long-term residents with a revolving door of strangers,” said the group’s co-founder, David Schwarte, in a statement. He also said short-term rentals threaten neighborhood security and the sense of community that leads people to buy homes in residential neighborhoods.

Lauren Brady, president of the Fort Worth Short-Term Rental Alliance, declined to comment Tuesday on the court’s decision, saying she needed to brief the other plaintiffs before speaking publicly.

“The City of Fort Worth appreciates the Court’s ruling in the short-term rental litigation, which reinforces the City’s authority to regulate STRs,” said city spokesperson Reyne Telles, adding the decision is significant not only for Fort Worth, but other cities around Texas facing similar challenges to their regulations. “The ruling underscores the City’s commitment to maintaining the character of its neighborhoods and ensuring a balanced approach to land use,” Telles said.

“Fort Worth will continue to defend its position in any appeal and remains dedicated to policies that protect residents and support responsible short-term rental practices.”…  🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Texas measles outbreak grows, while New York and California report new cases (Washington Post)

Los Angeles County in California, Suffolk County in New York and Howard County in Maryland detected their first confirmed cases of measles this year, while Oklahoma reported two possible cases, local health authorities said this week.

The spread of the highly infectious disease comes as an outbreak of more than 200 cases has continued to grow in Texas, and as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned health-care workers and potential travelers to “be vigilant” ahead of spring and summer travel. Health officials in Los Angeles County — the most populous county in the United States — reported a case Tuesday in a resident who may have been exposed onboard a China Airlines flight that landed at Los Angeles International Airport on March 5. The New York state health department announced on Tuesday its first known case of measles outside New York City this year.

The patient, who is under 5 years old, lives in Suffolk County on Long Island. In Howard County, just west of Baltimore, health authorities on Sunday reported a confirmed case in a resident who recently traveled abroad and was at Washington Dulles International Airport on March 5. Two individuals in Oklahoma reported symptoms consistent with measles and had potential exposure to outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, the Oklahoma Health Department said Tuesday. It praised the individuals for “immediately excluding themselves from public settings.”

“With measles outbreaks happening both in the United States and internationally, this recent case in our county highlights how important it is for anyone who has not been immunized to get the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine,” Muntu Davis, the Los Angeles County health officer, said in a news release.

“Measles spreads easily through the air and on surfaces, and a person infected with measles can pass it on to others before they feel sick or have symptoms.” In Canada, at least 146 confirmed cases have been detected this year up to March 6, along with 22 probable cases… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

✅ DOGE makes its latest errors harder to find (New York Times)

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has repeatedly posted error-filled data that inflated its success at saving taxpayer money. But after a series of news reports called out those mistakes, the group changed its tactics. It began making its new mistakes harder to find, leaving its already secretive activities even less transparent than before. Mr. Musk’s group posted a new set of claims to its website on March 2, saying it had saved taxpayers $10 billion by terminating 3,489 federal grants.

Previously when it posted new claims, DOGE, Mr. Musk’s government-restructuring effort, had included identifying details about the cuts it took credit for. That allowed the public to fact-check its work by comparing its figures with federal spending databases and talking to the groups whose funding had been cut. This time, it did not include those details.

A White House official said that was done for security purposes. The result was that the group’s new claims appeared impossible to check. The New York Times, at first, found a way around the group’s obfuscation. That is because Mr. Musk’s group had briefly embedded the federal identification numbers of these grants in the publicly available source code.

The Times used those numbers to match DOGE’s claims with reality, and to discover that they contained the same kind of errors that it had made in the past. Mr. Musk’s group later removed those identifiers from the code, and posted more batches of claims that could not be verified at all. That shift was a major step back from one of Mr. Musk’s core promises about his group: that it would be “maximally transparent.”

The website is the only place where this very powerful group has given a public accounting of its work. That accounting is still incomplete: It itemizes only a fraction of the money that the group claims to have saved, $115 billion as of Wednesday. But it is extremely valuable, providing a window into the group’s priorities, and revealing its struggles with the machinery and terminology of government... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Signs of weakness are showing up in spending on everything from basics to luxuries (Wall Street Journal)

American consumers have had a lot to fret about so far this year, between never-ending tariff headlines, stubborn inflation and most recently, fresh fears about a recession. These concerns seem to be hitting spending by both rich and poor, across necessities and luxuries, all at once.

Take low-income consumers: At an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago in late February, Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon said “budget-pressured” customers are showing stressed behaviors: They are buying smaller pack sizes at the end of the month because their “money runs out before the month is gone.” McDonald’s said in its most recent earnings call that the fast-food industry has had a “sluggish start” to the year, in part because of weak demand from low-income consumers.

Across the U.S. fast-food industry, sales to low-income guests were down by a double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, according to McDonald’s. Things don’t look much better on the higher end.

American consumers’ spending on the luxury market, which includes high-end department stores and online platforms, fell 9.3% in February from a year earlier, worse than the 5.9% decline in January, according to Citi’s analysis of its credit-card transactions data. Costco, whose membership-fee-paying customer base skews higher-income, said last week that demand has shifted toward lower-cost proteins such as ground beef and poultry.

Its members are still spending but are being “very choiceful” about where they spend, Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip said. He said consumers could become even pickier if they see more inflation from tariffs. Department stores are seeing signs of penny-pinching all around, too.

On Tuesday, Kohl’s CEO Ashley Buchanan said consumers making less than $50,000 a year are “pretty constrained” on discretionary spending, but added that “it’s also pretty challenging” for those making less than $100,000. The company gave a much weaker sales forecast for the full year than Wall Street expected, causing its share price to plunge 24% on Tuesday. Last week, Macy’s CEO Tony Spring said the “affluent customer that’s shopping [at] Macy’s is just as uncertain and as confused and concerned by what’s transpiring.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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