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BG Reads 4.2.2024

BG Reads 4.2.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - April 2, 2024

April 02, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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April 2, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 ACC approves pilot program offering free tuition to more students

🟣 Companies with ties to Samsung snag big pieces of 'unicorn' industrial site in Taylor

🟣 Austin appoints airport CEO, ending yearlong period of temporary leadership

Read On!

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW CITY OF AUSTIN PUBLIC MEETINGS / AGENDAS FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 1, 2024

[BINGHAM GROUP]

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

[AUSTIN CITY HALL]

✅ Austin City Council Regular Meeting Agenda - April 4, 2024

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin Community College approves pilot program offering free tuition to more students (KVUE)

The Board of Trustees at Austin Community College has approved its free tuition pilot program, also known as the College Affordability Plan.

The program aims to take a massive burden off students and families in Central Texas. ACC planned to expand its pilot program to offer free tuition to more local students.

ACC leaders added and approved two amendments to the proposal. One amendment changes the length of the pilot program from 10 to five years, meaning the board will review the program again in 2029. The second amendment asks students to sign an agreement letter acknowledging the responsibility of understanding the resources available.

ACC also approved tuition and free rates for the following year, making it the 11th straight year those have remained unchanged for students.

The board approved the item with one trustee abstaining from the vote to provide more support to current students. The board also wants to reconsider how it will help current students with a similar pilot program… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Companies with ties to Samsung snag big pieces of 'unicorn' industrial site in Taylor (Austin Business Journal)

For more than a half-decade, what's been called a "unicorn" in the Central Texas industrial ecosystem has been poised to boom. Now, the 750-acre RCR Taylor Logistics Park is living up to that potential.

Over the last several months, three companies tied to Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. — headlined by one of its biggest suppliers — have completed the purchase of more than 100 acres in the park, which is located along a highly desirable stretch of highway in Williamson County. They appear primed to join existing companies in the park that could generate billions of dollars in capital investment and hundreds of jobs to Taylor, where Samsung's next-generation chipmaking facility is expected to start coming online this year.

While the exact size and scope of the new projects remains to be seen, the companies will join Texas Materials Inc., which is building materials plants, and Houston-based Partners Real Estate, which has purchased multiple lots and is putting the finishing touches on its first 366,000-square-foot speculative industrial building in the park. Tesla Inc. is also using the site's auto ramp to ship cars after they're completed at the automaker's eastern Travis County factory… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin appoints airport CEO, ending yearlong period of temporary leadership (Austin American-Statesman)

Austin's city-owned airport has a permanent chief executive, city officials announced last week, ending a yearlong period of temporary leadership after the sudden resignation of the previous CEO last spring.

In a memo to City Council members Friday, interim City Manager Jesús Garza said he had promoted interim airport CEO Ghizlane Badawi to the position "effective immediately." He said the move is meant to "bring stability" to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport ahead of a host of expansion-related decisions before the City Council later this year.

"Ghizlane has been serving in an interim capacity officially over the past few months but was already instrumental in leading Austin-Bergstrom International Airport since the pandemic. She has further been leading the charge as we embark on the expansion of AUS," Garza said in the two-page memo published online Monday morning… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

As testing continues, Austin remains a catalyst for driverless car technology advancement (Austin American-Statesman)

Slow and steady will win the (driverless vehicle) race, or at least that's what autonomous industry leaders, including those from the companies currently operating autonomous vehicles in Austin, believe.

“It’s not a sprint; it’s a marathon,” Katrin Lohmann, president of Volkswagen’s Autonomous Driving Mobility and Transport group, said during a South by Southwest discussion in March, when she explained that it takes a long time to introduce new advancement such as autonomous vehicle technology.

Autonomous vehicle industry leaders were part of a number of discussions during South by Southwest looking at driverless vehicles, safety, road maps and education, including activity in Austin. The conference came as autonomous vehicle activity from various companies in a number of cities nationwide has recently sparked pushback and skepticism from consumers… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS]

As Texas students clash over Israel-Hamas war, Gov. Greg Abbott orders colleges to revise free speech policies (Texas Tribune)

As the Israel-Hamas war continues to ignite tensions among Texas college students, Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order requiring schools to discipline what he described as “the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses.”

Higher education institutions are expected to update their free speech policies to include the definition of antisemitism, as well as establish and enforce punishments for violating those policies. Expulsion from the college could be considered an appropriate punishment, Abbott said.

“Texas supports free speech, especially on university campuses, but that freedom comes with responsibilities for both students and the institutions themselves,” Abbott wrote in the Wednesday executive order.

The Israel-Hamas war has tested free speech policies at universities in Texas and across the country. As pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students engage in protests and heated discussions, school leaders have struggled to strike a balance between their roles as moderators and facilitators of intellectual debate on campus… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[NATION/WORLD NEWS]

Trump stock takes Washington by storm (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street has always played a big role in politics, but never like this. Former President Donald Trump is tantalizingly close to tapping a multibillion-dollar windfall that could help pay his legal bills and give a much-needed cash injection to his presidential campaign. Almost no one saw it coming. Nearly everything went wrong with the get-rich-quick plan for Trump’s social-media platform to go public by riding one of the biggest speculative waves in market history.

As has often been the case with Trump, missteps and obstacles didn’t matter. The combination of luck and his most passionate followers has added a great unknown to the presidential race. And it has suddenly brought everything about social media’s growing influence over financial markets into politics.

“He’s the ultimate winner, at least on paper,” said Matt Simpson, managing partner at Wealthspring Capital and an investor in shell companies like the one that took Trump’s firm public. The result is a never-before-seen mashup of stock-market frenzy and political financing. Suddenly, Trump’s supporters can back his campaign by driving up shares of his company, a form of political expression that goes beyond buying hats or Bibles.

The parent company of Trump’s Truth Social, Trump Media & Technology Group, is now worth about $8.5 billion, more than toy maker Hasbro and almost as much as Caesars Entertainment, one of his old casino rivals. This for a company with about $5 million in sales in its existence. Trump owns roughly 60% of the parent company of Truth Social, a stake valued at nearly $5 billion that would nearly triple his net worth. The stock might not remain in the stratosphere, but if the company’s Trump-friendly board allows it, the former president could cash in at least hundreds of millions of dollars in the next few months. That could help ease his financial squeeze and boost his presidential campaign, which is trailing President Biden’s in fundraising… (LINK TO FULL STORY)