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- BG Reads 3.26.2025
BG Reads 3.26.2025
🟪 BG Reads - March 26, 2025
Bingham Group Reads
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March 26, 2025
âś… Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Bond task force weighs early decisions on transportation needs for 2026 package (Austin Monitor)
🟪 Burying Austin's power lines would cost $50 billion (and is pretty much impossible) (KUT)
🟪 Will automatic license plate readers become a permanent fixture in Austin? (KVUE)
🟪 Billions more for tax relief and border security under budget approved by Texas Senate (Texas Tribune)
🟪 Trump was upset at Waltz for having a reporter’s cell — not just for potentially exposing national security secrets (Politico)
Read On!
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[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🏛️ City Hall:
🏛️ City Memos:
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
âś… Bond task force weighs early decisions on transportation needs for 2026 package (Austin Monitor)
The Bond Election Advisory Task Force got its first look Monday at how the Transportation and Public Works Department is approaching the selection and prioritization of projects for next year’s expected bond package.
Task force members had plenty of questions about how those choices will be made. Among the concerns, members asked staff how transportation projects would align with regional partners like Capital Metro and Travis County, how the city will measure the environmental impact of each project, and how the city is proceeding on a sidewalk plan that at one point was forecast to take 200 years to complete.
Transportation officer Michelle Marx emphasized that while funding needs for transportation improvements are vast, the upcoming bond will offer only a limited pool of money.
A scoring preference will be given to projects that are shovel-ready and can be completed by 2032, with the principles in 2019’s Strategic Mobility Plan weighing heavily in the decision-making… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
âś… Burying Austin's power lines would cost $50 billion (and is pretty much impossible) (KUT)
Two years ago, after Austin's lush urban tree canopy froze and downed power lines – leaving hundreds of thousands without power – the city resolved to look into a simple solution: burying the power lines.
Now, a new city-commissioned study shows that would be damn near impossible. The draft study from consulting firm 1898 & Co. found that burying Austin Energy's network of overhead power lines would cost $50 billion. Cost aside, burying the lines wouldn't be possible in the vast majority of Austin's neighborhoods because of the city's rocky, limestone-laden topsoil and environmental concerns.
The report, which was commissioned after blackouts in 2023 left nearly 400,000 Austinites without power, does "not recommend undertaking a system-wide effort to convert existing overhead lines to underground at this time," citing costs and environmental risk. The Kansas City-based firm didn't rule out the possibility entirely, though, suggesting the city bury some portions of the lines that aren't in environmentally sensitive areas… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
âś… Will automatic license plate readers become a permanent fixture in Austin? (KVUE)
Austin City Council will vote Thursday on whether to keep using automatic license plate readers. Their year-long trial of those cameras that police say help find violent criminals and missing people ends on Friday. Thursday’s vote would extend that pilot program for another three months through June 30.
City leaders say that allows enough time for the City Auditor to brief council members on how well the program, which began in March 2024, is working. In a memo to council on Tuesday, Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis called automatic license plate readers “integral to the plan for reducing violent crime citywide.”
According to the memo, 40 fixed license plate readers are running in Austin, with the highest concentration in the downtown entertainment district.
A spokesperson with the Austin Police Department said that as of Tuesday, those readers have led to 241 stolen vehicles being recovered and 222 arrests. Davis said those include suspects for murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery, auto theft, and assault with injury… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
âś… Mixed-use project in Bastrop underway with national tenants onboard (Austin Business Journal)
Construction is underway on a mixed-use development in Bastrop that already has secured leases from several national tenants.
Houston-based real estate investment and development firm Pearl River Cos. broke ground on the first phase of retail construction at Sendero, a 75-acre project at the intersection of State Highway 71 and Farm to Market Road 969, earlier this month, said Spencer Harkness, managing principal and co-founder of Pearl River.
Once complete, Sendero will feature 250,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space, 782 apartments, a hotel and over 100,000 square feet of medical and wellness office space, according to an announcement. Overall, development of the property is planned through 2030.
The first of two phases of the apartment component, Alta Trails, has already been completed.
Wood Partners began construction on that portion of the project, then-known as Alta Blakey, in 2023 after purchasing the multifamily portion of Sendero from Pearl River, Harkness said. The second multifamily phase is in the planning stages… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
âś… Tesla sales fall by 49% in Europe even as the electric vehicle market grows (The Hill)
European sales of Tesla electric vehicles tumbled 49% in the first two months of the year compared with a year earlier even as overall sales of EVs grew, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
There have been complaints about an aging lineup of vehicles from Tesla and also a significant backlash against CEO Elon Musk and his affiliation with the Trump administration in the U.S. In Europe, Musk’s endorsement of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party in last month’s national election drew broad condemnation.
Tesla faces increasing competition from major automakers as they ramp up EV production, including China’s BYD. On Tuesday, BYD reported a record 777.1 billion yuan ($107 billion) in revenue for 2024 as sales of its electric and hybrid vehicles jumped 40%.
Earlier this month, BYD announced an ultra fast EV charging system that it says is nearly as quick as a fill up at the gas pump. Tesla sales for January and February slumped to 19,046 from 37,311 in the same period in 2024. That comes against the background of a 28.4% increase in sales of all battery-electric cars in Europe… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
âś… Billions more for tax relief and border security under budget approved by Texas Senate (Texas Tribune)
The Texas Senate signed off Tuesday on a $336 billion spending plan for the next two years that would use the state’s overflowing coffers to boost teacher pay, establish a school voucher program and cut property taxes, while staying under state spending caps that will leave billions of dollars unspent.
The upper chamber’s two-year budget draft, approved on a 31-0 vote, would spend more than $153 billion in general revenue, Texas’ main source of taxpayer funds used to pay for core services.
That is well under the estimated $195 billion available, according to Comptroller Glenn Hegar, though a constitutional spending limit prevents lawmakers from coming anywhere near that number, unless they take a politically perilous vote to bust the cap. The budget will now be sent to lawmakers in the House, which is expected to debate and approve its own version early next month.
From there, budget writers from the two chambers will settle their differences behind closed doors before voting on a final balanced budget plan — their only constitutional obligation before the legislative session ends in early June… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US and World News]
âś… Speaker Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts as GOP ramps up attacks on judges (NBC News)
Facing pressure from his right flank to take on judges who have ruled against President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Tuesday floated the possibility of Congress eliminating some federal courts. It’s the latest attack from Republicans on the federal judiciary, as courts have blocked a series of actions taken by the Trump administration.
In addition to funding threats, Trump and his conservative allies have called for the impeachment of certain federal judges who have ruled against him, most notably U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who attempted to halt Trump from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelan migrants.
“We do have the authority over the federal courts, as you know. We can eliminate an entire district court. We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday.
“But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.” Johnson, a former constitutional attorney, later clarified that he was making a point about Congress’ “broad authority” over the “creation, maintenance and the governance” of the courts.
Article III of the Constitution established the Supreme Court but gave Congress the power to “ordain and establish” lower federal courts. Congress has eliminated courts in the past. In 1913, for example, Congress abolished the Commerce Court and its judges were redistributed to the federal appeals court, according to Congress.gov. And in 1982, Congress passed legislation abolishing the Article III Court of Claims and U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals, and established the Article I Court of Federal Claims and the Article III U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who plans to hold a hearing focused on Boasberg and district judges next week, said he’s speaking with GOP appropriators about what he called “legislative remedies.”
“We got money, spending, the appropriations process to help try to address some of this,” Jordan said, without adding further details. Attempts to defund courts will be a major flashpoint in bipartisan funding negotiations for the next fiscal year. But Republicans are a long way from making good on these threats… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
✅ Trump was upset at Waltz for having a reporter’s cell — not just for potentially exposing national security secrets (Politico)
President Donald Trump was upset when he found out that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz accidentally included a journalist in a group chat discussing plans for a military strike. But it wasn’t just because Waltz had potentially exposed national security secrets.
Trump was mad — and suspicious — that Waltz had Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg’s number saved in his phone in the first place, according to three people familiar with the situation, who were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. A fourth person said the president was also particularly perturbed by the embarrassing nature of the episode.
“The president was pissed that Waltz could be so stupid,” the person said. (A “Mike Waltz” invited Goldberg to the chat, according to The Atlantic). But by Tuesday afternoon, the two men had made a show of smoothing things over and the White House was closing ranks around Waltz.
Trump conducted brief interviews with both NBC News and Fox News pledging to stand behind his national security adviser. Two top Trump spokespeople suggested in posts on X that national security hawks were colluding with the media to make the issue bigger than it actually was. And Waltz attended a meeting of Trump’s ambassadors Tuesday afternoon… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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