BG Reads 7.11.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - July 11, 2024

July 11, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

Presented by:

www.binghamgp.com

July 11, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Mayor reports big campaign fundraising numbers, but his challengers push on (Austin Monitor)

🟣 President Joe Biden to sit down for NBC News interview with Lester Holt in Austin (NBC News)

🟣 Millions of Texans face third day without power (Texas Tribune)

🟣 Plus a new entrant, Gary Bledsoe, in the District 7 race

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Mayor reports big campaign fundraising numbers, but his challengers push on (Austin Monitor)

Monday is the deadline for all City Council candidates to turn in their campaign finance reports for the period that ended on June 30. Politics watchers expect Mayor Kirk Watson to raise far more than his opponents as he has in the past. So it was not surprising when he announced Tuesday that his reelection campaign had raised more than $710,000 between mid-April and June 30.

Watson also issued a press release noting that he had added 1,068 new public supporters in addition to the 60 current and former local elected officials backing his reelection.

“With three challengers and four months to go until Election Day, we’re kicking our campaign into high gear to earn a victory in November,” he said.

Watson has three opponents so far: Kathie Tovo, Doug Greco and Carmen Llanes Pulido... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

President Joe Biden to sit down for NBC News interview with Lester Holt in Austin (NBC News)

President Joe Biden will sit down with NBC News host Lester Holt for an interview in Austin on Monday for a prime-time special set to air at 8 p.m. that night.

The interview, one of historically few media appearances for a sitting president, comes as Biden faces a rising tide of concerns about his mental fitness after a disastrous presidential debate performance on June 27 against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Biden will be in Austin on Monday for an official White House trip to the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, where he will deliver a speech on civil rights and democracy to commemorate former President Lyndon B. Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act 60 years ago. Public event tickets are not available, but the speech will be livestreamed via YouTube beginning at 12:30 p.m… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Revitalization of Austin's Sixth Street advances with plans for 232-unit mixed-use project (Community Impact)

A push to revitalize East Sixth Street downtown is progressing, most recently with the initial approval of plans for the first major residential addition coming to the bar-heavy block.

In recent years, Stream Realty Partners took control of dozens of parcels along East Sixth as part of a strategy to improve and redevelop portions of the historic strip.The firm is eyeing a transition from today's more rowdy nightlife scene to an all-day environment for visitors, with new options such as eateries; shops; and more pedestrian-friendly features, such as farmers markets and concerts. Leasing activity began earlier this year… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

City Council prepares to send charter amendments to voters (Austin Chronicle)

Austin voters can expect to encounter a lengthy ballot for the upcoming November election, the bottom of which will contain a number of important amendments to the City Charter that should not be overlooked.

The most prominent amendments deal with the city’s petition initiative process – that’s when groups or individuals collect enough signatures from Austin voters to put proposed ordinance changes on the ballot of a citywide election.

The petition initiative is a vital piece of Austin’s political history; in 1992, the Save Our Springs Coalition campaigned in support of an eponymous ordinance that defined Austin politics for a generation – both because of the environmental protections the ordinance made law and because of the community leaders and political coalitions the movement spawned.

But in more recent years, the initiative process has been much more controversial because, critics argue, petitions are deployed in ways that result in less democratic policymaking. (Namely, because it takes few signatures to present a ballot proposition, and off-season elections see incredibly low turnout.) Several of the charter amendments Austin voters are likely to encounter on their Nov. 5 ballot are intended to change that by making the petition process more transparent and the elections they trigger subject to approval from a broader, more diverse Austin electorate… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Millions of Texans face third day without power (Texas Tribune)

Millions of Texans were without power for a third summer day after Hurricane Beryl wreaked havoc through several counties — including the state’s most populous one — and temperatures again rose dangerously into the 90s.

Power companies have deployed thousands of workers to restore power but progress is slow and questions linger about whether the state and its primary power utilities were adequately prepared for the storm. Residents still without electricity were frustrated at what’s becoming routine in Texas: massive power outages after winter storms, thunderstorms, tornadoes or hurricanes.

As of Wednesday afternoon, more than 1.5 million electricity customers concentrated in the southeastern corner of the state that bore the brunt of Beryl’s fierce winds still didn’t have power. Most of those customers receive electricity through CenterPoint Energy, the utility that delivers electricity in Houston and its surrounding communities.

Power companies and elected officials said it could be days before everyone has electricity again. Matagorda County Judge Bobby Seiferman said Wednesday some 2,500 households in the coastal community of Sargent may be without power for another two weeks. CenterPoint has yet to provide an estimate on when thousands of their customers will have power back… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas leaders were slower to request federal Beryl aid than in past hurricanes (Houston Chronicle)

Texas was quick to ask for federal aid when Hurricane Ike hit in 2008, when Hurricane Harvey struck in 2017, and again when Hurricane Hanna touched down in 2020. But that did not happen this year as Hurricane Beryl approached Houston, triggering a round of finger-pointing between the White House and Texas officials over how quickly federal supplies including food, water and generators should have been distributed.

President Joe Biden told the Houston Chronicle on Tuesday that he had to personally reach out the state's acting governor, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, for a formal request a day after the storm hit, knocking out power to more than 2 million CenterPoint Energy customers. “I’ve been trying to track down the governor to see — I don’t have any authority to do that without a specific request from the governor,” Biden said in a call. That’s not how Texas leaders have handled past hurricanes.

The night before Harvey first made landfall in Texas in 2017, Abbott already had a request signed and submitted to then-President Donald Trump in anticipation of the storm making landfall near Rockport. Days later, the storm hit Houston, dropping more than 50 inches of rain on the city. In 2020, Abbott requested a major disaster declaration from Trump before Hanna made landfall in South Texas as a Category 1 hurricane.

“I submit this request in anticipation of the impacts of Hurricane Hanna, currently forecast to make landfall as a hurricane along the southern coast of Texas with continuing impacts to counties along the entire Texas coast and further inland,” Abbott said in his letter to Trump. Abbott's predecessor, Rick Perry, filed a major disaster declaration with then-President George W. Bush on Sept. 12, 2008, the day before Hurricane Ike made landfall in Galveston as a Category 2 storm with 110-mph winds… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

President Biden, Texas officials spar over Hurricane Beryl response (Texas Standard)

President Joe Biden and Texas leaders are feuding over the response to Hurricane Beryl.

On Tuesday, the Houston Chronicle reported that Biden said he had to delay distributing federal emergency services to Texas because he was trying to “track down” the governor to secure the major disaster declaration request needed to release the aid.

A White House spokesman told the newspaper federal officials attempted to reach Abbott and Patrick multiple times. The president did not provide more details about his attempts to reach them.

Biden told the Chronicle he did not connect until Tuesday afternoon with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who is acting governor. Gov. Greg Abbott is on an official trip to Asia.

“I’ve been trying to track down the governor to see — I don’t have any authority to do that without a specific request from the governor,” Biden said.

But Abbott’s spokesman accused the president of lying. He said federal agencies had been working with state officials ahead of the storm and that all necessary disaster declarations were in place well in advance… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

How a Texas man turned Whataburger into the state’s power outage tracker (Washington Post)

Hurricane Beryl had pummeled Southeast Texas on Monday, leaving millions in the Houston area without power. But with technical issues plaguing the tracker for the city’s main energy provider, there was no way to check the status of power outages — or find the still-lit pockets where residents could buy food, gas and other necessities. Then Bryan Norton, a 55-year-old tech worker and podcast host, found help from an unlikely source: the Whataburger app. The app’s map showed where its restaurants — which have a massive presence across Houston — were still open. Instead of providing Texans with info about where they could snag burgers, biscuits and taquitos, Norton soon noticed the map could be used to gauge where power in the city was still on or had been restored.

His discovery went viral after he posted about it on social media, where thousands credited him with helping them find out if their loved ones had power or how they could escape the sweltering heat as temperatures and humidity levels soared. “The fact that Whataburger’s app is giving us that bit of hope — well, it doesn’t get more Texas than that,” Norton told The Washington Post. Norton’s eureka moment happened during a late-night hunt for food. His home in Tomball, Tex. — a town some 35 miles north of Houston’s center — lost power around 7 a.m. on Monday as Beryl made landfall as a Category 1 storm, toppling transmission lines and knocking down trees. His backup generator soon whirred to life, illuminating the house and kick-starting a fridge holding the barbecue enthusiast’s many pounds of meat. The internet, however, went down that afternoon.

Though he and his wife had planned to hunker down for a few days, Norton said they didn’t want to go “completely stir crazy.” That night, they decided to check for open restaurants — a search that led Norton to a restaurant chain that “tastes like my childhood memories,” he said. He downloaded the Whataburger app, where the one restaurant in Tomball appeared open, making Norton a little skeptical. That’s why he widened his search to the whole Houston area — and soon saw a patchwork of gray and orange Ws, where the latter logos marked the open Whataburgers… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

Biden’s press conference will be a key test for him. But he’s no master of the big rhetorical moment (Associated Press)

President Joe Biden has a fresh opportunity Thursday to try to prove to the American public that he’s capable of serving another four years after his shocking debate flop threw the future of his presidency into doubt. But Biden is not known as a master of the big rhetorical moment and his recent cleanup efforts have proved inadequate.

Biden, 81, will close out the NATO summit in Washington â€” an event meant to showcase his leadership on the world stage — with a rare solo press conference. His stamina and effectiveness are under the microscope like never before and he’s struggling to quell the Democratic Party’s panic about his chances this November… (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)

_________________________

🔎 Have questions or in need of lobbying services? Fill out Bingham Group’s Service Interest Questionnaire and let us see how we can help.

SHARE BG READS FEEDBACK HERE

⬇️

Copyright (C) " target="_blank">unsubscribe