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BG Reads 3.7.2024

BG Reads 3.7.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - March 7, 2024

March 07, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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March 7, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Austin mayor, council members share thoughts on top city manager candidates

🟣 City of Austin, police union to resume contract negotiations

🟣 Texas places state’s largest charter school network under conservatorship

🟣 Fed Chair Powell’s testimony to be watched for any hint on rate-cut timing

🟣 San Francisco voters pivot right on drugs, policing

Read on!

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

[BINGHAM GROUP]

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

[AUSTIN CITY HALL]

The Austin City Council meets today at 10AM for its Regular Meeting.

✅ Click Here for the Regular Meeting Agenda

✅ Council Meeting Schedule 3/7/24 (per Council Message Board)

✅ View the Meeting Here (ATXN Live)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin mayor, council members share thoughts on top city manager candidates (KXAN)

Austin City Council members and the mayor will ultimately have the final say in who leads the City of Austin moving forward. First, though, those candidates will meet with city staff and with the community… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

City of Austin, police union to resume contract negotiations (KVUE)

The city of Austin and the Austin Police Association (APA) are set to resume formal negotiations on a new long-term contract on March 13.

In a press release, the city said, "Negotiations are never perfect, but we all agree there is a path forward to help us begin to turn around the public safety crisis we're in." The city said both it and the APA are committed to finding a resolution and the two parties are confident any agreement reached will "address community concerns, navigate current legal challenges, and be approved by council."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Council gets briefed on improved path to affordable housing (Austin Monitor)

Now that the state Legislature has added more guardrails to a financing mechanism for affordable housing developments, Austin officials are exploring how to proceed with plans to put more housing on the ground under the welcomed reforms.

At its work session Tuesday, City Council heard a presentation from Housing Department staff on the Austin Housing Public Facility Corporation – and public facility corporations in general – given recent interest in this financing tool since the enactment of House Bill 2071, which the Legislature approved last year.

Council created Austin’s public facility corporation in 2022 to expand access to bond dollars for critical workforce housing. The state first authorized private facility corporations in 2015 to facilitate more affordable housing projects across Texas. In exchange, property owners of these developments received tax exemptions at 100 percent. It wasn’t too long, however, before public watchdogs were crying foul, citing cases in which developers were taking advantage of lucrative tax breaks while jurisdictions and tenants were getting stiffed… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin beating San Antonio in the race for hotel market share (Austin Business Journal)

The rush to build out hospitality-driven development and capture a greater share of travel-related revenue in the Austin-San Antonio megaregion has created more intense competition between the two markets since the pandemic.

Since 2019, Austin has seen its share of the state’s hotel business increase from 14.6% to 16.3%, according to new data obtained from San Antonio-based Source Strategies. Over that same period, San Antonio’s market share has decreased from 10.9% to 10.4%.

While Austin’s hotel revenue has increased more than 39% since 2019 to $2.37 billion, San Antonio’s growth rate has been significantly smaller. The Alamo City generated $1.62 billion in hotel revenue in 2023, a roughly 14.9% increase over its 2019 haul.

“Lagging convention business,” according to Source Strategies Senior Vice President Paul Vaughn, is among the factors that cut into San Antonio’s 2023 lodging activity.

Austin’s impressive revenue gain is tied partly to brick-and-mortar expansion. The Capital City has grown its hotel inventory by nearly 20% to 57,900 rooms since the pandemic. And festivals and events like South by Southwest, the annual Formula 1 race at the Circuit of The Americas and the Austin City Limits Music Festival are major economic generators for the city, from hotel revenue to airport travel and restaurant sales.

San Antonio has added roughly half as many rooms over the last four years, taking its key count to 51,700… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas places state’s largest charter school network under conservatorship (Texas Tribune)

Texas’ largest charter school network has been placed under conservatorship by the Texas Education Agency after a years-long investigation into improper spending within the system of 143 schools.

The arrangement, announced Wednesday, is part of a settlement agreement between IDEA Public Schools and the TEA. IDEA had been under investigation since 2021 following numerous allegations of financial and operational misconduct.

It was revealed that IDEA officials used public dollars to purchase luxury driver services as well as $15 million to lease a private jet, just two weeks after promising TEA it would be “strictly enforcing” new fiscal responsibility policies put in place in response to ongoing investigations, as reported by San Antonio Express-News…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

The race to succeed John Whitmire in the Texas Senate is likely heading to a May runoff (Houston Chronicle)

State Rep. Jarvis Johnson is poised for the second stage of the Democratic primary for the Texas state Senate seat previously held by Houston Mayor John Whitmire, while emergency room nurse Molly Cook and attorney-mediator Todd Litton are vying for the second spot in a likely runoff.

Johnson, Cook and Litton received 38%, 21% and 16% of all ballots counted so far in Senate District 15, respectively. The other three Democratic candidates – community advocate Michelle Bonton, attorney Alberto “Beto” Cardenas and former Houston ISD teacher Karthik Soora – are trailing in the single digits.

The runoff is set for May 28 and will pit the two top candidates against each other. The District 15 seat is open for the first time since 1983 after Houston voters selected Whitmire as the city’s new mayor in December, leading him to resign from his Senate seat. Six Democrats and one Republican – local businessman Joseph Trahan – entered the race for the seat... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

San Francisco voters pivot right on drugs, policing (Politico)

The liberal bastion of San Francisco pivoted rightward in Tuesday’s election as voters responded to ongoing drug, homelessness and crime crises by approving policies that bolster police and require drug-screening for welfare recipients.

The results represent a major victory for embattled Mayor London Breed, a moderate Democrat who faces a tough fight for a second full term in November. She hitched her political future to a slate of three ballot measures that aim to move a city struggling with its slow post-pandemic recovery in a strikingly more conservative direction.

Voters approved all three of her measures on Tuesday, including her proposal to screen and mandate addiction treatment for people receiving county welfare.

“We want San Francisco to be exactly what the people who live here want to see,” Breed told supporters at a jam-packed craft-cocktail bar in the Hayes Valley neighborhood. “And that is a safe, affordable place to call home.”

Just a handful of years ago, attaching such strings to cash assistance for low income people — a policy more common in red states — would have been political suicide for any official in San Francisco. The city’s progressive activists have historically led movements to rein in police and prosecutors and emphasize approaches to addiction that favor treatment over punishment.

But the political ground here has rapidly shifted, in a way that could presage similar moves by blue-city leaders grappling with voter anger over public-safety and quality-of-life issues.

In 2022, San Francisco voters backed the recall of District Attorney Chesa Boudin and school board members blamed for focusing on progressive causes amid extended pandemic-era closures. That same year, wealthy tech executives including billionaire venture capitalist Michael Moritz, helped build the political advocacy group Together SF into a political juggernaut. The group has poured millions into city elections, along with like-minded outfits that rely on a shared donor network… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Fed Chair Powell’s testimony to be watched for any hint on rate-cut timing (Associated Press)

When will the Federal Reserve start cutting interest rates this year, and by how much? With the economy and inflation running hotter than expected, those questions will seize attention Wednesday, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell begins two days of testimony to Congress.

The financial markets are consumed with divining the timing of the Fed’s first cut to its benchmark rate, which stands at a 23-year high of about 5.4%. A rate reduction would likely lead, over time, to lower rates for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and many business loans. Most analysts and investors expect a first rate cut in June, though May remains possible. Fed officials have projected that they will cut rates three times this year.

Powell’s semi-annual testimony — on Wednesday to the House Financial Services Committee and Thursday to the Senate Banking Committee — coincides with intensified efforts by the Biden administration to stem public frustration with inflation, which erupted three years ago and has left average prices well above where they were before. President Joe Biden’s bid for re-election will pivot in no small part on voter perceptions of his handling of inflation and the overall economy.

The administration is trying to crack down on what it calls unjustified price hikes by many large companies. Biden recently attacked “shrinkflation,” whereby a company shrinks the contents of a product rather than raise its price. The president has also sought to limit so-called “junk fees,” which in effect raise the prices that consumers pay.

Overall inflation has steadily cooled, having measured at just 2.4% in January compared with a year earlier, according to the Fed’s preferred gauge, down from a peak of 7.1% in 2022. Yet recent economic data have complicated the picture and clouded the outlook for rate cuts… (LINK TO FULL STORY)