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BG Reads 4.24.2024

BG Reads 4.24.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - April 24, 2024

April 24, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

4.17.24 // Bingham Group celebrates 7 years in business!

April 24, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Federal Trade Commission announces rule banning noncompetes

🟣 Tesla to lay off 2,688 workers in Austin

🟣 TX Supreme Court temporarily blocks Harris County’s guaranteed income pilot program

🟣 Demand from large-scale users could strain Texas power grid, ERCOT chief says

🟣 US Senate passes bill forcing TikTok’s parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

✅ (NEW) BG Podcast Ep. 248: Austin Politics Weekly Recap and What's Ahead

✅ 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]

Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison tags Nashville as company's next world HQ (Austin Business Journal)

Oracle Corp. co-founder and Chairman Larry Ellison has indicated that Nashville, not Austin, will be the company's headquarters in the future.

Ellison made the declaration April 23 during an on-stage interview at a health care industry summit Oracle hosted in Nashville. It marked Ellison's first public appearance in Nashville in the nearly three years since Oracle (NYSE: ORCL) – one of the world's 30 largest public companies — cemented a deal to create 8,500 jobs by 2031 on a $1.35 billion, 70-acre campus on the East Bank. Construction has yet to begin, but plans indicate it will be a bigger deal than Oracle's Austin campus, where Oracle reports it has 2,500 workers.

"Ultimately, [Nashville] will be our world headquarters," Ellison told a packed ballroom inside Midtown's Conrad hotel. "It's the center of our future."… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Tesla to lay off 2,688 workers in Austin, more than 3,000 in California (Market Watch)

Tesla Inc. will be laying off 2,688 employees at its Gigafactory in Austin, Texas, and more than 3,000 in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere in California, the EV maker said in official notices.

At the Austin Gigafactory, the layoffs equal to about 12% of staff at the facility and will start June 14, according to to a worker adjustment and retraining notification, or WARN notice, which companies are required to file with a state labor department to give workers 60 days’ notice before layoffs.

WARN notices in California call for more than 2,500 layoffs in the Bay Area, mostly at the Tesla factory in Fremont and former headquarters in Palo Alto, and a few hundred more in Burbank, southern California, and the Central Valley's Lanthrop, where Tesla makes energy-storage products. The layoffs in California are starting on June 14, Tesla told the state… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

City could push ‘agrihood’ combos of farmland, housing developments in East Austin (Austin Monitor)

The city may soon take steps to promote the creation of “agrihood” developments in Northeast Austin, which would combine small community farms with housing. Proponents of the movement see the still-rare projects as an answer to Austin’s housing needs and development pressures as well as a way to bring more stability to the local food system.

Tuesday’s meeting of City Council’s Housing and Planning Committee included an extended discussion on the benefits and feasibility of agrihood planned communities. The discussion ended with passage of a recommendation that City Council direct staff to study what planning and financial considerations and community partnerships would be necessary to help hopeful farmers in the area cooperate with developers on creating more agrihoods in the recently established Northeast Planning District.

Currently, Green Gate Farms near the Travis County Expo Center is the sole agrihood in the area, and is seen as one of the more unique developments in the country. Co-owner Erin Flynn shared with the committee the path she and her husband took to establish the farm almost 20 years ago. They partnered with a developer who purchased the property to preserve some of the farmland to offer it as a community amenity to the new homes built nearby… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Cool convenience store chain Foxtrot closes all Austin locations (Eater Austin)

Chicago-based trendy convenience store chain Foxtrot has closed all of its locations, which includes four Austin stores, per Eater Chicago. Parent company Outfox Hospitality filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy and all shops have closed on Tuesday, April 23, as reported by snacks newsletter Snaxshot.

The bankruptcy filing was announced during a conference call on the morning of April 23, noting that all stores — Illinois, Texas, and Washington, D.C. — would close by noon that day. The company shared the shutter announcement on its website, noting that the decision was made “after much consideration and evaluation” and that they “explored many avenues to continue the business but found no viable option despite good faith and exhaustive efforts.”

Foxtrot started as a delivery service in 2014 by co-founders Mike LaVitola and Taylor Bloom, who then turned it into a trendy convenience store-slash-market in 2015 in Chicago. It expanded with locations in Dallas, Washington, D.C., and Virginia. Foxtrot merged with also Chicago-based Dom’s Kitchen & Market in November 2023, forming the new Outfox Hospitality group... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocks Harris County’s guaranteed income pilot program (Texas Tribune)

The Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked Harris County officials from sending financial assistance to needy families under a new program — the day before families were slated to begin receiving the money.

Justices granted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request Tuesday to halt the payments while a legal fight over the county’s guaranteed income pilot program plays out. About 1,900 households residing in the county’s poorest neighborhoods would receive monthly, no-strings-attached cash payments of $500 — drawn out of $20.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief funds — for 18 months.

“It’s unfortunate the court would take such an extraordinary step to block a program that would help people in Harris County — even temporarily,” Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said in a statement after the ruling.

The program was set to begin Wednesday, though there was some confusion about whether the county had begun distributing the funds ahead of schedule. Minutes before the Supreme Court’s order, Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis said on the social media website X that the county had already sent the first round of checks. But Ellis later said that wasn't the case… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Demand from large-scale users could strain Texas power grid, ERCOT chief says (Dallas Morning News)

A growing number of industrial-scale users could strain the Texas power grid, setting the stage for a massive buildup of transmission lines across the state, ERCOT’s chief announced Tuesday. Large-scale power users in the Permian Basin and an influx of artificial intelligence data centers and bitcoin miners have led ERCOT to forecast a 37% jump in electricity demand from industrial-sized users. That’s on top of a 2023 forecast that already anticipated a vast amount of new demand by the end of the decade.

The increase is ushering in what ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas called “a new era of planning,” particularly in the Permian Basin, where oil and gas entrepreneurs already anticipate unmet electricity needs. ERCOT, which operates the power grid serving most of Texas, upped its forecast for electricity needed for new large-scale users from 111 gigawatts to 152 gigawatts. The actual amount of new demand from those prospective projects likely will be below those projections, but the vast number of gigawatts is still eye-popping for a power grid that has routinely seen demand records shattered.

The Texas power grid’s all-time record for peak demand, set in August 2023, was 85.5 gigawatts. Texas’ continued economic growth, increases in new data centers and oil and gas production connecting to the grid in the Permian Basin were driving demand increases, Vegas said. “The combined effect of all of this is beginning to illuminate a picture that looks very different than what we’ve seen in prior forecasts,” he said. Vegas presented the updated projections during an ERCOT board meeting in Austin on Tuesday.

The new numbers appear to lay the groundwork for a push to build more electrical transmission lines across the state. Lack of access to electricity could be the bottleneck for new investment in Texas, Vegas said. Producing the power for these projects appears possible. ERCOT shows a vast amount of solar power and battery storage is planned for the grid. Natural gas, while a much smaller segment of planned power production, is also on the rise. But the power lines that get electricity from power plants and solar arrays are not in place and could still be years away… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Council members clash over Prop A rules, saying they put Houston at risk of 'dictatorial' mayors (Houston Chronicle)

Following a 90-minute debate, Houston City Council delayed new rules around a historic voter-approved measure aimed at empowering council members to move forward with policy proposals the mayor might not support. In November, Houstonians overwhelmingly passed Proposition A, which allows any three council members to add an item to their weekly meeting agenda, as long as it is lawful.

The change is designed to serve as a set of checks and balances within Houston’s “strong mayor” form of government, where the mayor used to have near total control over the legislative agenda. In recent weeks, Mayor John Whitmire and council members have repeatedly clashed over how the process should play out in practice.

The mayor has created a Proposition A Committee, asking for an initial review of all council member-generated proposals before the items head to the full council for a vote. But some members said the additional step would violate the spirit of the ballot measure and create unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. During the first-ever Proposition A Committee meeting on Tuesday, council members considered a series of rules designed by the mayor’s office to set parameters around the process. They include a lawfulness review by the legal department, the involvement of relevant department heads and a requirement for all such proposals to go through the Proposition A Committee. If enough council members attend the committee meeting to reach a quorum, they will also vote on the item to signal their support for or opposition to sending it to the next stage, although those behind the proposal will still have the option to pursue it, per Proposition A, even in the case of a “no” vote, officials said.

“We are not here to be a gatekeeper. We certainly don’t even want to vet items so to speak in this committee. Nor do we want to block items,” said Council Member Carolyn Evans-Shabazz, vice chair of the Proposition A Committee. “We certainly know that sometimes they need to be tweaked, and so this committee process will help in that manner.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[NATION/WORLD NEWS]

FTC Announces rule banning noncompetes (Federal Trade Commission)

The Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule to promote competition by banning noncompetes nationwide, protecting the fundamental freedom of workers to change jobs, increasing innovation, and fostering new business formation.

“Noncompete clauses keep wages low, suppress new ideas, and rob the American economy of dynamism, including from the more than 8,500 new startups that would be created a year once noncompetes are banned,” said FTC Chair Lina M. Khan.

“The FTC’s final rule to ban noncompetes will ensure Americans have the freedom to pursue a new job, start a new business, or bring a new idea to market.”

The FTC estimates that the final rule banning noncompetes will lead to new business formation growing by 2.7% per year, resulting in more than 8,500 additional new businesses created each year.

The final rule is expected to result in higher earnings for workers, with estimated earnings increasing for the average worker by an additional $524 per year, and it is expected to lower health care costs by up to $194 billion over the next decade. In addition, the final rule is expected to help drive innovation, leading to an estimated average increase of 17,000 to 29,000 more patents each year for the next 10 years under the final rule… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Senate passes bill forcing TikTok’s parent company to sell or face ban, sends to Biden for signature (Associated Press)

The Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would force TikTok’s China-based parent company to sell the social media platform under the threat of a ban, a contentious move by U.S. lawmakers that’s expected to face legal challenges and disrupt the lives of content creators who rely on the short-form video app for income.

The TikTok legislation was included as part of a larger $95 billion package that provides foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel and was passed 79-18. It now goes to President Joe Biden, who said in a statement immediately after passage that he will sign it Wednesday.

A decision made by House Republicans last week to attach the TikTok bill to the high-priority package helped expedite its passage in Congress and came after negotiations with the Senate, where an earlier version of the bill had stalled. That version had given TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, six months to divest its stakes in the platform. But it drew skepticism from some key lawmakers concerned it was too short of a window for a complex deal that could be worth tens of billions of dollars… (LINK TO FULL STORY)