BG Reads 6.5.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - June 5, 2024

June 05, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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June 5, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Commissioners urge Council to increase public safety budgets (Austin Monitor)

🟣 Travis County DA José Garza files suit to undo governor's pardon of Daniel Perry (KUT)

🟣 Texas Republicans, Democrats and immigrant advocacy groups blast Biden’s asylum executive order (KERA)

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Commissioners urge Council to increase public safety budgets (Austin Monitor)

Members of the city’s Public Safety Commission voted unanimously on Monday to recommend that City Council adopt a budget this summer that will support needs outlined by representatives of the Austin Fire Department, Austin-Travis County EMS and the Austin Police Department.

Representatives of each of the departments talked about their unfunded needs, stressing the importance of new funds to care for residents of a growing city. In addition, representatives of the unions for each of the public safety agencies added their voices to the call for more funding.

Assistant Police Chief James Mason told commissioners the department has forecast a budget of just over $490 million, a 2.7 percent increase over the current budget. He said the main increase will be for personnel. As for City Council initiatives and unfunded priorities, Mason listed $4.8 million for department needs. That number includes 16 new 911 call takers and 10 new dispatchers, for a total of about $2.3 million. Police are also requesting six more employees to handle public information requests, four police digital audio/video specialists and another six such specialists to comply with Senate Bill 111, the law requiring disclosure of certain information to criminal defendants... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Is Austin's housing market overvalued? At least by one measure, the answer is yes (Austin Business Journal)

Home prices in Austin are eclipsing the median buying power of local residents.

That's according to data from First American Financial Corp., which found the housing markets in at least half of the nation's major metro areas are overvalued compared to local buying power.

Home prices have soared nationally over the past decade — especially during the pandemic — and that's driving a significant affordability crisis in many regions. High interest rates and a sustained lack of inventory aren't helping matters.

Local buying power in Austin is $434,663, according to the data. Unfortunately for those in the market for a new home, the median sale price of a house in Austin was clocked at $466,867. That's about a $32,000, or 7%, difference.

Compare that to the relative ease Houstonians have when seeking mortgage approval. In Houston, there's a 19% difference between the median existing home price of $330,996 and Houstonians' median home buying power of $408,398. 

Still, as the median sale price of an Austin home has creeped up throughout the year, so too has local inventory — Austin reached 4.3 months of inventory in April — which has increased the number of homes at many price points, according to the April report from Unlock MLS.

“Despite the higher rate environment, the uptick in affordable inventory in the $300,000 range is allowing more first-time buyers to achieve homeownership," stated Clare Losey, Unlock MLS and ABOR housing economist. "As we progress through the year, mortgage rates are expected to remain elevated with a slight possibility of a gradual decrease, which would result in an increase in buyers’ purchasing power.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Travis County DA José Garza files suit to undo governor's pardon of Daniel Perry (KUT)

The Travis County District Attorney is challenging the governor's pardon of Daniel Perry, who was convicted of murdering a Black Lives Matter protester in Austin in 2020.

José Garza said his office filed the challenge, known as a writ of mandamus, with the state’s highest criminal court on Tuesday. It argues the pardon violated the Texas Constitution.

Perry got into an altercation with Garrett Foster after driving into a crowd of protesters in July 2020. He shot Foster, who was also armed, multiple times. A Travis County jury convicted Perry of murder, and he received a 25-year prison sentence.

Gov. Greg Abbott had pledged to pardon him after pressure from conservative media outlets. He argued Perry was within his rights to shoot Foster under Texas’ stand your ground law and that the case shouldn’t have gone to trial.

Abbott followed through with that pledge last month... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas Republicans, Democrats and immigrant advocacy groups blast Biden’s asylum executive order (KERA)

The Texas Civil Rights Project and others are condemning President Biden’s Tuesday executive action to limit asylum requests at the border.

Criticism and condemnation came quickly from Texas lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, an El Paso Democrat, wrote on X that she was disappointed the Biden administration’s new policy focused solely on enforcement.

“It is my sincere hope that administrative actions on immigration relief, like parole in place for spouses of US citizens and designations of Temporary Protected Status for vulnerable populations will also happen,” she posted.

Escobar called on her colleagues in Congress to work across party lines and be willing to compromise on solutions for immigration reform.

Fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio said â€śThe 'daily threshold' in this executive order would amount to a functional ban on asylum for many families escaping persecution and violence.”

Meanwhile, Texas Republicans blasted Biden.

U.S. Senator John Cornyn and Senator Ted Cruz held a joint press conference after the president’s announcement. Cornyn said, “This is political cover, and the American people will not be fooled,” and Cruz called it a “political play before the election.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Some Texas school officials are skeptical that a K-12 curriculum with Christian influences is the lifeline state leaders promise (Texas Tribune)

Texas education officials and Republican lawmakers say proposed elementary school lessons that incorporate extensive biblical references will boost student achievement and save teachers time from developing their own curriculum.

But some Texas school district leaders, parents and education advocates aren’t convinced things are so clear cut.

The Texas Education Agency last week released thousands of pages of instructional materials that make up a proposed elementary school curriculum that drew immediate criticism for infusing religion — particularly Christianity — into public schools. If the State Board of Education adopts the curriculum, school districts that use it could get an additional $60 per student in state funding.

While that financial incentive would entice some district leaders to consider the state’s lesson plans, some say they are already satisfied with their current curriculum.

And, superintendents said, district employees will need time to weigh whether the content adds value for their students, especially if they include biblical references that raise questions about church-state separation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Airbnb’s secret weapon to fight state laws: its hosts (Wall Street Journal)

Julie Marks rents out her Jericho, Vt., basement and a guest unit on Airbnb. When state officials proposed a bill in 2021 to restrict short-term rentals, she wrote an opinion piece against it in a local paper. Soon, she got a message from Rent Responsibly, the national network for short-term rental host groups that is partly funded by Expedia Group, which owns the vacation rental-listing site Vrbo. Rent Responsibly encouraged her to form her own state group to oppose the bill.

“One night after a couple of glasses of wine at 1 a.m. I made a website and then boom—there it was,” Marks said. Within three weeks, 600 supporters had signed on. At the suggestion of another state’s host group, she hired a lobbyist. Marks and other group leaders met lawmakers for coffee. They testified at hearings and hosted happy hours at local breweries. Within a few months, the Vermont bill was dead.

Airbnb hosts are emerging as a potent political force, often with the financial backing and organizational support of the industry that prefers to let the individual hosts be the face of the movement while the companies help behind the scenes. Hosts have formed countless advocacy groups across the U.S. under Rent Responsibly. They are swarming statehouses, flooding towns with letters and showing up at community meetings by the hundreds. And, in states such as Vermont, they are starting to tip the political balance of power. “The professionalization of host advocacy efforts is really leading to a turning of the tides in a lot of communities,” said Noah Stewart, head of U.S. advocacy at Expedia Group. Airbnb also helps leaders craft messages and keeps hosts in the loop about coming legislative hearings through its platform.

“That’s huge, because otherwise we have no way to reach all those folks,” Marks said. Hosts’ rising political clout comes at a crucial time for the U.S. short-term rental industry, which is facing a wave of bills and rules designed to make it harder to turn homes into Airbnbs. New York City last year took the most aggressive step yet, eliminating nearly all short-term rentals when it began strictly enforcing registration rules. Other states and cities may follow suit. “The snowball effect is the risk,” said Robert Mollins, a stock analyst at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors who tracks Airbnb and Expedia… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

The bar for prosecutors in the Menendez corruption trial is higher thanks to this 2016 Supreme Court ruling (PBS)

Experts say it’s harder today than it was a decade ago for prosecutors to build a political corruption case against lawmakers like Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who is on trial for allegedly accepting bribes in exchange for political favors.

That’s because of a landmark 2016 Supreme Court decision that narrowed the definition of political corruption, including what is considered official acts.

Menendez and his wife, Nadine, were indicted last September on corruption charges and pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors added a charge of obstruction of justice and another charge accusing the pair of conspiring to act on behalf of Egypt while Menendez was serving as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

An FBI raid at Menendez’s home in 2022 turned up 13 gold bars and almost $500,000 in cash, stuffed into jackets hanging in the closet, inside bags and a safe. His defense team has argued that the senator, who is of Cuban heritage, was motivated to keep cash in his home because of trauma from having family property confiscated after the Cuban revolution… (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

District 4

District 6

District 7 (Open seat)

District 10 (Open seat)

_________________________

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