The May 16 City Council meeting promised to be a long one, with four controversial changes to the city’s development rules and one much less controversial but important proposal creating rules for placement of electric vehicle charging stations.

Many of those who signed up in support or opposition of the various aspects of HOME 2 did not actually wish to speak. But as of Wednesday night, nearly 900 citizens had indicated they wished to register their opinions on Council’s attempt to make housing more affordable for a greater number of people via shrinking minimum lot sizes. And more than 100 more signed up on Thursday morning.

The Austin Monitor asked Felicity Maxwell of the urbanist advocacy group AURA, which supports HOME 2, and Monica Guzmán of Go Austin/Vamos Austin, which opposes HOME 2, what they had done to encourage so many citizens to sign up for what seems a complicated argument about land use policy... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Development height limit set for future deck plazas under I-35 'cap and stitch' plan (Austin Business Journal)

As the city of Austin pursues its I-35 "cap and stitch" program to lower the highway and put coverings on top, transportation officials confirmed May 16 that there will be a limit on how tall buildings can be built on the future decks.

The city’s plan to "cap and stitch" the highway, often called the Our Future 35 program, could include amenities like greenspace and parkland, art installations and small buildings. However, any buildings on top of the deck plazas will be limited to two stories, as confirmed by a spokesperson for the Austin Transportation and Public Works Department.

Those deck plazas are being designed in tandem with the Texas Department of Transportation’s I-35 Capital Express Central Project. That state-led expansion is a $4.5 billion, eight-mile investment that will widen and revamp the interstate corridor, including lowering the highway and removing the upper decks… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Austin's growth cemented it as one of the top 10 most populous cities. Then came Jacksonville. (KUT)

Austin's been called a lot of things. Dynamic. Spirited. Dog-friendly. Overrated.

For years, the city was, almost comedically, featured on dozens of top 10 lists as a tourist destination or a (relatively) affordable place to live. People, as they oft do, drank the Flavor-Aid.

What followed was a meteoric rise in population, development and growth that put this once-sleepy college town on another list: the top 10 most populous cities.

Austin ranked tenth last year for the first time, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

The U.S. Census Bureau announced Thursday that Jacksonville — a city still reeling from the loss of all three of its Red Lobster locations – has usurped Austin's 10th-place fiefdom on the list. With an estimated 979,882 residents, Austin is now relegated back to the 11 spot on the bureau's list... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Dallas mayor says Austin manager Broadnax's exit was 'questionable,' opposes severance pay (Austin American-Statesman)

Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson is disputing whether T.C. Broadnax, who recently departed as the Dallas city manager and took the same role in Austin, should receive severance pay under his employment contract, claiming that his exit from Dallas might not have been an "involuntary separation."

Broadnax, who started as Austin's city manager on May 6, served as the city manager of Dallas for seven years. After Broadnax's resignation in February, several news outlets in Dallas reported that some Dallas City Council members issued a joint statement saying they had asked him to leave due to ongoing issues with the working relationship between him and Johnson.

His employment contract with Dallas, which was obtained by the American-Statesman through the Texas Public Information Act, stated that in the event of an involuntary separation, Broadnax would receive a lump-sum payout of a year's worth of his base salary, which was around $423,000 at the time of his exit.

His leaving at the suggestion of the majority of the Dallas City Council is listed as one example of an involuntary separation that would trigger the payment clause in the contract.

In a memo sent Tuesday to Dallas City Attorney Tammy Palomino, Johnson asked Palomino to clarify whether Broadnax should get that payment… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

State rep who authored Texas book rating law wants it defended in US Supreme Court (Houston Public Media)

The North Texas lawmaker who authored the state's controversial book rating law wants the state attorney general to defend it in front of the U.S. Supreme Court after a federal appeals court blocked its enforcement earlier this year.

In a letter addressed to Attorney General Ken Paxton Friday, Texas Rep. Jared Patterson, R-Frisco, defended HB 900 — which would require booksellers to rate the explicitness and relevance of sexual references in materials they sell to schools — and called the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision to block the law "ridiculous."

“We have an opportunity to stand against vendors peddling pornography to children and to reaffirm our commitment to the well-being of all Texas students by appealing this decision to the Supreme Court,” Patterson wrote in his letter.

Booksellers including BookPeople in Austin and Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston sued the state last year after H.B. 900 was signed into law, saying it violated the First Amendment while also being too expensive and unworkable. In July, BookPeople CEO Charley Rejsek said in a statement that booksellers did not have the training or funding to rate the content of thousands of titles sold in the past and potentially sold in the future. “Booksellers should not be put in the position of broadly determining what best serves all Texan communities.

Each community is individual and has different needs,” Rejsek said in the statement. “Setting local guidelines is not the government's job either. It is the local librarian's and teacher's job, in conjunction with the community they serve.” The Fifth Circuit, one of the most conservative appellate courts in the nation, last month declined to rehear its decision to block the Texas Education Agency from enforcing the law,also known as the Restricting Explicit and Adult-Designated Educational Resources, or READER Act… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Fed Chair Powell says inflation has been higher than thought, expects rates to hold steady (CNBC)

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated Tuesday that inflation is falling more slowly than expected and will keep the central bank on hold for an extended period.

Speaking to the annual general meeting of the Foreign Bankers’ Association in Amsterdam, the central bank leader noted that the rapid disinflation that happened in 2023 has slowed considerably this year and caused a rethink of where policy is headed.

“We did not expect this to be a smooth road. But these [inflation readings] were higher than I think anybody expected,” Powell said. “What that has told us is that we’ll need to be patient and let restrictive policy do its work.”

While he expects inflation to come down through the year, he noted that hasn’t happened so far.

“I do think it’s really a question of keeping policy at the current rate for longer than had been thought,” he said.

However, Powell also repeated that he does not expect the Fed to be raising rates…(LINK TO FULL STORY)

Republican chair investigating Chamber of Commerce in seismic K Street shift (The Hill)

A decade ago, a Republican committee chair investigating Washington’s biggest business advocacy organization would have been unthinkable. But times have changed. House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has demanded the U.S. Chamber of Commerce answer questions about the more than $12 million its Chamber of Commerce Foundation received from the Tides Foundation, a left-leaning nonprofit, between 2018 and 2022.

In a letter last Monday to Chamber president and CEO Suzanne Clark and foundation President Carolyn Cawley, Smith said that the Tides grants appear to conflict with the Chamber’s mission to support American businesses and raise questions about the groups’ tax-exempt status.

A GOP chair investigating the Chamber and its foundation is a major shift from the historically close alignment between the group and Republicans. The probe also comes as the Chamber gears up for a massive lobbying blitz around the expiration of former President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a fight in which Smith and Ways and Means Republicans will have heavy influence. If Republicans hold the House, Smith is expected to retain the Ways and Means gavel and run the House committee charged with tax policy. A sour relationship with Smith could compromise the Chamber’s ability to sway the 2025 tax fight and other priorities that fall before the panel.

The inquiry also represents a new phase in well-reported tensions that erupted after the 2020 election between the Chamber and an increasingly Populist Republican Party, some members of which were unhappy with the Chamber’s efforts to improve its relationships with Democrats. The Chamber and the foundation say the probe is based on a misunderstanding. Eric Eversole, president of the foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes program, told The Hill the funds the foundation received “were charitable contributions from corporations made to the donor advised fund,” a charitable giving vehicle that makes it virtually impossible to trace the ultimate source of the funds.

A Tides spokesperson told The Hill that Smith’s inquiry “is a politically-motivated PR tactic during an election year, driven by actors who disagree with the social justice work of Tides and our partner organizations.” But Smith made clear he was not satisfied with the initial response… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[2024 Austin City Council Race Watch]

This fall will see elections for the following Council Districts 2, 4, 6, 7, 10, and Mayor.

Declared candidates so far are:

Mayor

District 2

Council Member Vanessa Fuentes

District 4

District 6

District 7 (Open seat)

District 10 (Open seat)

_________________________

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