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BG Reads 4.22.2024

BG Reads 4.22.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - April 22, 2024

April 22, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

4.17.24 // Bingham Group celebrates 7 years in business!

April 22, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Austin crime drops through first quarter of the year to lowest numbers since 2020

🟣 Travis County DA faces removal attempt under Texas law targeting 'rogue' prosecutors

🟣 Dallas urges appeals court to block state law limiting local regulations

🟣 Supreme Court weighs whether cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping outside

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

✅ BG Podcast Ep. 246: 2024 Elections - Austin Mayoral Round Up

On this episode we welcome back Jack Craver, independent reporter and founder of The Austin Politics Newsletter. Jack and Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham discuss the candidate field for the 2024 Austin Mayoral elections, including incumbent Mayor Kirk Watson.

✅ BG Blog: Land Development Code Amendments (4) Overview

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

[AUSTIN CITY HALL]

✅ FY 24/25 Budget Talk

Worth a review -> Briefing on Austin’s five-year financial forecast and economic outlook (Council Work Session, April 16, 2024)
- FY25-FY29 Forecast Presentation
- 2024 Economic & Sales Tax Forecast for the City of Austin
See also -> Mayor Watson’s Watson Wire Newsletter (4.18.2024)
Key Date -> Friday, July 12: City Manager T.C. Broadnax and his team will present the budget to Mayor and Council.

CLICK HERE TO REVIEW CITY OF AUSTIN PUBLIC MEETINGS / AGENDAS FOR THE WEEK OF APRIL 22, 2024

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin crime drops through first quarter of the year to lowest numbers since 2020 (Austin American-Statesman)

Crime in Austin is down through the first part of 2024 to levels lower than the same period of any year since 2020, data shows.

The drop comes after Austin saw a rise in crime during the pandemic, mirroring that of most other large cities throughout the country — with 2021 having the largest number of homicides in the city's history. Even with the decrease in total crime, Austin continues to see an increased number of auto thefts, which follows a nationwide trend spurred by social media.

The data comes from the Austin Police Department's new Open Policing Data Release website, which was launched last month and features a slew of datasets previously unreleased.

The city's crime data for years has been available through the police chief's monthly reports published online, but the new portal allows users to easily access crime data and compare it with previous months or years. However, the data goes back to only 2020, which is when the department switched from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting system to the bureau's National Incident-Based Reporting System... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

City to tally public assets in 78702 with goal of preservation and activation (Austin Monitor)

The city will inventory all of the culturally and economically significant publicly owned real estate just east of downtown in a move intended to preserve and enhance locations central to the area’s longtime Black and Latino communities.

A resolution passed at Thursday’s City Council meeting calls for the city manager to oversee cataloging of all public land in the 78702 ZIP code, which is mostly bounded by Interstate 35, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, Airport Boulevard and the northern banks of the Colorado River. The resolution, which was led by Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison, also directs staff to create recommendations for the planning, preservation and activation of those assets in coordination with nearby private entities.

Located just east of downtown, the area contains a high concentration of community fixtures that need to remain in place and figure into the population growth taking place in East Austin, Harper-Madison said. The resolution identifies roughly four dozen parks, schools, community centers and other public assets that should be figured into the inventory and initial recommendations, which are due in February…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

Travis County DA faces removal attempt under Texas law targeting 'rogue' prosecutors (KUT)

A Travis County resident is seeking to remove progressive District Attorney José Garza from office using a 2023 Texas law aimed at limiting the discretion of locally elected prosecutors. A state district judge in Comal County on Friday appointed an attorney to represent Texas and pursue the case.

House Bill 17 took effect last September and allows courts to remove district attorneys for "official misconduct." That could include refusing to prosecute certain criminal offenses under state law, such as low-level marijuana possession.

When Gov. Greg Abbott signed the bill, the Republican leader said the goal of the law was to "hold rogue district attorneys accountable." The GOP priority legislation gained steam after progressive DAs, including Garza, said they would not prosecute people seeking abortions banned under Texas law.

However, elected district attorneys have significant prosecutorial discretion, meaning they get to decide which cases to pursue. As KUT previously reported, the law undermines this longtime convention... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Dallas urges appeals court to block state law limiting local regulations (Dallas Morning News)

Dallas is urging a state appeals court to toss out as unconstitutional a recent Texas law that voided certain city and county regulations covering businesses, labor, property and other areas. A state district judge in Travis County blocked the law in August, siding with Houston, San Antonio and El Paso, which had challenged House Bill 2127 as unconstitutionally vague. Texas promptly appealed. Dallas joined the fray Wednesday with a legal brief to the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals arguing the law turns a city or county’s ability to govern itself “on its head.”

“Home-rule cities need only look to state law for restrictions on their authority, not for permission to act,” Dallas City Attorney Tammy Palomino wrote in the 23-page filing.

The Republican-backed law banned local governments from adopting or enforcing ordinances that exceed what is allowed under state laws regulating agriculture, business and commerce, finance, insurance, labor, local government, natural resources, occupations and property. Republican lawmakers and Gov. Greg Abbott said the law would foster economic growth by streamlining ordinances and protecting businesses from a patchwork of regulations that could change at city and county borders.

State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who sponsored the bill in the Senate, previously said the law “keeps liberal blue cities from continuing their absurd, anti-business, job-killing ordinances.” Critics dubbed HB 2127 the Death Star law, calling it a power grab by the Legislature aimed at overturning progressive local policies. The law’s broad language also made it difficult to know which ordinances were illegal, critics said. The attorney general’s office, which is representing the state, asked the 3rd Court to throw out the cities’ lawsuit, arguing that HB 2127 is a valid exercise of state authority over local governments… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Republican infighting, battle over Texas speakership results of national political trend (Austin American-Statesman)

Republicans vying for a seat in the Texas House are looking to settle a political score during next month's primary runoff, but in the lead-up to the partisan showdown a game plan for revamping the chamber's procedures in favor of the GOP is already underway. Looking to advance their push to exclude Democrats from policy decisions and leadership positions, consolidate control of selecting the House's leader and topple the tenure of House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, two dozen conservative candidates, including a handful of incumbents, have signed a "Contract with Texas" to do just that.

The fervor of far-right candidates in this election cycle — spurred by the House's vote last year to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton and its opposition to Gov. Greg Abbott's effort to establish a school voucher program — collided with a preexisting and broader effort by a select number of House Republicans seeking to discredit Phelan's conservative bona fides in hopes of pushing the chamber farther to the right.

While the Capitol is no stranger to playing host to hyperpartisan politics, the effort to unseat Phelan and alter a long-standing practice of affording the minority party several committee chairmanships could have an expanded impact on the chamber's ability to legislate. Dr. A´lvaro Corral, assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said Phelan is walking a hard line in trying to keep a flame of bipartisan in the chamber alive while facing the political battle of his life amid a runoff election and a challenge to his speakership.

"He's sort of trying to do some gymnastics here to sort of maintain this, this tradition," Corral said of the House's practice of having committees chaired by members of both parties.

"For years Texas House Speakers have betrayed Republican voters by putting radical Democrats in charge and colluding with them to destroy liberty," Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, a mainstay of the House GOP's far-right wing, said in releasing the contract. "That insanity must end." In the past, Republicans have worked with Democrats in the House to pass legislation to alter the state's constitution, which requires a higher vote threshold, and to build coalitions when far-right members of the chamber disagreed with the politics of more moderate Republicans… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[NATION/WORLD NEWS]

Supreme Court weighs whether cities can punish unhoused people for sleeping outside (NPR)

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing a major homelessness case for the first time in decades, with arguments over whether people can be punished for sleeping outside if there's no shelter available. The decision could have sweeping implications for the record number of people living in tents and cars, and the cities and states struggling to manage them.

The Supreme Court declined to hear a similar case out of Boise, Idaho, in 2019. But since then rates of homelessness have spiked. An annual federal count found more than 250,000 people living in parks, on streets, and in their vehicles. Sprawling street encampments have grown larger and expanded to new places, igniting intense backlash from residents and businesses... (LINK TO FULL STORY)