BG Reads 7.19.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - July 19, 2024

July 19, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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www.binghamgp.com

July 19, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 DARPA taps UT for $1.4B next generation semiconductor research and fabrication facility (Austin Business Journal)

🟣 Council votes to follow traditional process before calling a climate bond election (Austin Monitor)

🟣 Here are some charter changes Austin City Council wants residents to vote on in November (Austin American-Statesman)

🟣 Top Democrats prepare for campaign without Biden (Wall Street Journal)

🟣 Trump urges unity after assassination attempt while proposing sweeping populist agenda in RNC finale (Associated Press)

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

🟣 Bingham Group has renewed its MBE and DBE certifications with the city of Austin. We are currently seeking sub-consultant services to support projects in the Austin Metro. Learn more here.

🟣 BG Podcast Episode 260 // Our wrap up the week of July 8, 2024 in Austin politics, and discussion of the week ahead.

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

DARPA taps UT for $1.4B next generation semiconductor research and fabrication facility (Austin Business Journal)

Austin's reputation as a hub for defense-related technology is about to get another badge of honor.

The Department of Defense's often secretive innovation wing, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, or DARPA, has picked the University of Texas-led Texas Institute for Electronics for a major investment that will help establish a new semiconductor research and fabrication facility at two campuses in Austin.

The $840 million DARPA investment will help pay for a research and prototyping facility where industry, academia and government agencies will work on next generation chips used for satellite imaging, autonomous vehicles and other high tech tools and weapons. Those new innovations will also be used to improve the U.S. semiconductor industry.

Overall, it's a $1.4 billion project, and it represents one of the largest federal awards UT has ever received.

The first of the innovation labs will be at UT's Montopolis campus at 2706 Montopolis Dr. in Southeast Austin in a facility that used to house chip manufacturing for Skorpios Technologies Inc. and an R&D facility for Sematech. The other lab will be at the J. J. Pickle Research Campus in North Austin. Together, the spaces will have roughly 84,000 square feet of state of the art clean rooms, TIE's chief technology officer, S.V. Sreenivasan, said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Council votes to follow traditional process before calling a climate bond election (Austin Monitor)

After one of the most robust deliberations City Council has had in recent history, a resolution on a comprehensive climate bond election moved forward Thursday, but without the immediacy that some Council members would have preferred.

Nevertheless, those who favored holding a bond election this year – namely Council members Ryan Alter, Vanessa Fuentes and Alison Alter – voted for the resolution, which calls for a longer process of creating an advisory task force to recommend specific proposals to send to voters “no later than 2026.”

The vote was 9-1, with Council Member Mackenzie Kelly voting no. Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison was off the dais for the initial vote, but later indicated her support for the resolution… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Council seeks information on creating a public bank (Austin Monitor)

City Council on Thursday approved a resolution by Council Member Zo Qadri directing the city manager to research the question of the city of Austin starting a “public bank.”

Unlike commercial banks, public banks are required to operate in the public interest. The cities of Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles have filed legislation requesting that they be allowed to create public banks.

American Samoa, a U.S. territory, also has such a bank. But the only governmental entity operating such a bank within the continental United States is the state of North Dakota, according to the Public Banking Institute.

Qadri’s resolution says “a public bank can help support the investment of City revenues for local benefit in ways that are consistent with the City’s values and policy goals” and “a public bank supports the local economy and provides fair and equitable financial services to the City, businesses, and residents.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

🟣 Links to the feasibility studies and reports for public banks in several U.S. cities:

Here are some charter changes Austin City Council wants residents to vote on in November (Austin American-Statesman)

Austin residents are likely to decide the fate of several proposed changes to the city's charter this November. The charter is a comprehensive legal document of the city of Austin's rules and regulations.

On Thursday, the Austin City Council authorized the ballot language for several proposed charter changes. The City Council will later vote on an ordinance to authorize the election.

Here are a few of the proposed charter changes residents will be asked to vote on.

  1. Raising the threshold of signatures needed for a recall election of a City Council member from 10% of registered voters in the council member's district to 15%.

  2. Currently, under the council-manager form of government Austin has, the city manager appoints most of the department leaders including the city attorney. One proposed change to the city's charter seeks to give the City Council the authority to appoint and remove the city attorney.

  3. Changing the city charter to require that initiative elections and citizen-initiated charter elections occur on the even-yeared November general elections.

  4. Removing language from the city charter that states the City Council should meet weekly. Currently, the City Council usually meets biweekly, with occasional breaks… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

With fate of Blocks 16 and 18 decided, focus could turn to 11th and 12th Street corridors (Austin Monitor)

City Council has given the OK for the Urban Renewal Agency to move forward in negotiations with the developer selected last month to lead the redevelopment of the 900 and 1100 blocks of East 11th Street.

Known in city planning circles as Blocks 16 and 18, the roughly 2 acres of mostly vacant land will be reimagined by the Pleasant Hill Collaborative team as a pair of mixed-use projects with substantial affordable housing.

The Pleasant Hill proposed development plan includes 130 units of housing, with the majority priced affordably for households earning less than 50 percent of the area’s median family income. Other planned features include 13,000 square feet of commercial space with small food-based retail; 27,000 square feet of cultural space for a music venue, working spaces and exterior and rooftop attractions; and 184 parking spaces. (Note: Bingham Group is part of the development team for community engagement)

Last month, the Urban Renewal Board, which has for years worked toward deciding how to redevelop the two blocks, said the PHC group has the proper experience with similarly scaled projects, as well as a commitment to public involvement and oversight in the redevelopment process.

The community involvement considerations were seen as especially important because the properties sit in the heart of the city’s African American Cultural Heritage District… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

American Airlines cuts another nonstop route from Austin airport (KXAN)

 American Airlines is canceling another nonstop route from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Flights to Indianapolis will end effective Aug. 6. An airline spokesperson said the cancellation is “part of our evaluation of our capacity growth plans for 2024.”

American currently offers daily service between the two cities. Impacted customers have been contacted and offered alternate travel arrangements, the spokesperson told KXAN.

The Austin-Indianapolis route is also served by Allegiant Air and Southwest Airlines.

The route cut comes after American canceled 21 nonstop routes from AUS between November 2023 and April 2024. Meanwhile, Allegiant is discontinuing seven routes as part of a base closure at the airport in January 2025… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Texas Republicans barely in RNC spotlight, but could shine under a Trump presidency (Dallas Morning News)

Camped in hotels nearly a 90-minute drive away from Milwaukee, delegates from Texas are farther from the action at the Republican National Convention than usual. They typically are given choice lodging assignments and seats toward the front of the arena, where cameras often capture their cowboy hats and western attire. Though they got bad hotel assignments, the delegates do have prime seats.

This is the rare presidential election season when no major Texan sought the nomination. And no Texans were finalists in former President Donald Trump’s vice presidential sweepstakes, which went to Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance. Still, Lone Star State Republicans could play significant roles in the party’s future and in a possible second administration of Trump. That potential is on display this week, as Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Greg Abbott and Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson had prime speaking roles. Even more Texans could emerge as major players later, particularly if the GOP is victorious in November.

Texas is the largest Republican-controlled state in the country and helps set the tone with conservative legislation related to immigration, abortion, crime and taxation. In 2016 and 2020, leaders of Trump’s campaign finance team were from Texas, including Dallas investor Roy Bailey, who served as co-chairman of his joint fundraising operation with the Republican National Committee.

Over the years, Trump has inserted himself into Texas politics by endorsing candidates in statewide and local races. “This is a Trump convention so, with that, it’s more about personality and the direction of the party rather than state-centric,” said Republican political consultant Matthew Langston, who is attending the convention.

“The reality is that Texas still has an incredibly strong influence in the building and on President Trump.” Other political analysts agree. Some of Trump’s top allies are Texans, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller, who is sitting in for Patrick on Texas delegation business while the lieutenant governor remains in Texas in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl. “So goes Texas, so goes the rest of the party,” said Miller, an early supporter of Trump, who last Saturday was 30 feet away from Trump during an assassination attempt on the former president… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Why Councilman Marc Whyte outraised everyone else on council — including his colleagues running for mayor (San Antonio Express-News)

City Council Member Marc Whyte raised more campaign money in recent months than anyone else on City Council, including his colleagues who are eyeing a 2025 mayoral run. The first-term councilman took in close to $88,000 during the first half of the year, according to a campaign finance report filed this week. That’s almost double what council’s second-highest fundraiser — District 8 Council Member Manny Peláez — reported.

Peláez is one of four council members who have either announced their candidacies for mayor or are mulling a run for the seat in next May’s municipal election. Tech entrepreneur Beto Altamirano is also campaigning for the city’s highest elected office.

The very early start to the 2025 contest may have hurt some mayoral candidates’ fundraising efforts — but helped Whyte’s, said San Antonio political strategist Kelton Morgan. Real estate developers, lawyers, lobbyists and business owners who regularly contribute to city candidates may be reluctant to pick their favorites for mayor at this point because a contender more to their liking could emerge later. And few of these donors want to risk backing a losing candidate and potentially putting themselves on the bad side of San Antonio’s next mayor.

But they “don’t have to worry about anybody getting upset that they gave money to Marc,” Morgan said. More than that, however, Whyte is a politician who isn’t afraid to work the phones and set up coffee meetings to solicit campaign contributions. He raised more than $164,000 (including $25,000 of his own money) for his unsuccessful 2018 bid for Texas House District 121, despite being one of six Republican primary candidates vying to replace Joe Straus… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

Top Democrats prepare for campaign without Biden (Wall Street Journal)

President Biden’s re-election bid moved into a perilous stretch as allies and donors began looking to a future where a new candidate sits atop the ticket and data showed him losing in a landslide. People close to top Democrats said Thursday that it now appeared it was a matter of when—not if—Biden bows out of the presidential race. In the past day or so, former President Barack Obama has told friends who have called him that Biden’s path to victory is narrow, according to people familiar with the calls.

Senior Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), have indicated to some major donors that they are actively planning next steps should Biden decide to leave the ticket, people familiar with the discussions said. A Schumer spokesperson said many people have come to the leader with their ideas but that he hasn’t taken action on them.

Sen. Jon Tester became the second Democratic senator to call for President Biden to drop out of the race. Tester is considered the most vulnerable Democratic senator up for re-election this cycle, given that former President Donald Trump won Montana by double digits in 2020. A detailed report compiled by Democrats showing the president forecast to lose in an Electoral College landslide has sent alarm bells through the party’s leadership and led to renewed calls publicly and privately for the president to drop out. The data, which is based on thousands of voter surveys compiled by Democratic firm Blue Rose Research and viewed by The Wall Street Journal, shows Biden losing not only all the swing states, but also behind or even in New Hampshire, Minnesota, New Mexico, Virginia and Maine. It shows the president leading by only 2.9 percentage points in New Jersey.

A major concern for Democrats up and down the ballot is the fact that half of voters, including 28% of those who backed Biden in 2020 and 52% of swing voters, think Democrats in office have been lying about the president’s mental fitness. The report says voters are likely to view Democrats’ defense of Biden as dishonest by a two-to-one margin… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Trump urges unity after assassination attempt while proposing sweeping populist agenda in RNC finale (Associated Press)

Donald Trump, somber and bandaged, accepted the GOP presidential nomination on Thursday at the Republican National Convention in a speech that described in detail the assassination attempt that could have ended his life just five days earlier before laying out a sweeping populist agenda, particularly on immigration.

The 78-year-old former president, known best for his bombast and aggressive rhetoric, began his acceptance speech with a softer and deeply personal message that drew directly from his brush with death. Moment by moment, the crowd listening in silence, Trump described standing onstage in Butler, Pennsylvania, with his head turned to look at a chart on display when he felt something hit his ear. He raised his hand to his head and saw immediately that it was covered in blood.

“The discord and division in our society must be healed. We must heal it quickly. As Americans, we are bound together by a single fate and a shared destiny. We rise together. Or we fall apart,” Trump said, wearing a large white bandage on his right ear, as he has all week, to cover a wound he sustained in the Saturday shooting.

“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.” While he spoke in a gentler tone than at his usual rallies, Trump also outlined an agenda led by what he promises would be the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. He repeatedly accused people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally of staging an “invasion.”

Additionally, he teased new tariffs on trade and an “America first” foreign policy. Trump also falsely suggested Democrats had cheated during the 2020 election he lost — despite a raft of federal and state investigations proving there was no systemic fraud — and suggested “we must not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement,” even as he has long called for prosecutions of his opponents. He did not mention abortion rights, an issue that has bedeviled Republicans ever since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a federally guaranteed right to abortion two years ago... (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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