BG Reads 7.30.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - July 30, 2024

July 30, 2024

Bingham Group Reads

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www.binghamgp.com

July 30, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Chris Riley, former Austin City Council member and urbanist, dies at 60 (KUT)

🟣 Cost of permitting set to more than double in Travis County (Community Impact)

🟣 Crime in Austin continues downward trend, though homicides still above pre-pandemic levels (Austin American-Statesman)

🟣 CenterPoint CEO rejects calls for his resignation at Senate hearing (Houston Public Radio)

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

🟣 [NEW] BG Podcast Episode 262 - On this episode Bingham Group CEO A.J. Bingham and Associate Hannah Garcia wrap up the week of July 22, 2024 in Austin politics, and discuss the week ahead.

🟣 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.

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Chris Riley, former Austin City Council member and urbanist, dies at 60 (KUT)

Chris Riley, who served as an Austin City Council member from 2009 to 2015, died Sunday after a battle with cancer.

A native Austinite, Riley was known as a fierce advocate for bike infrastructure and denser housing at a time when the political balance at City Hall tilted away from such priorities.

“Chris loved Austin so much. He wanted to dedicate his whole life to making it the kind of city he felt like it could be,” Riley’s wife, Denise Brady, said.

Riley fought head and neck cancer in 2021. He underwent chemo and radiation and believed the cancer was gone. But scans following a bike crash in June 2023 that broke his ribs and punctured his lungs revealed lesions on his liver. He had been in treatment since August 2023. Six weeks ago, he stopped treatments… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Cost of permitting set to more than double in Travis County (Community Impact)

Starting Sept. 1, the cost of development review fees—paid throughout the development permitting process—will increase 141%, after county staff received approval from Travis County Commissioners on July 23, affecting homeowners, business owners and developers alike.In an effort to streamline the permit review process and increase transparency, staff members from the Travis County Department of Development Services have revamped the county’s website and examined the department's existing systems and performance.The last time fees were increased was nearly a decade ago, in 2016, according to staff. Both small- and large-scale projects are subject to these fees, ranging from home renovations to subdivisions... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Crime in Austin continues downward trend, though homicides still above pre-pandemic levels (Austin American-Statesman)

Crimes reported in Austin halfway through the year are down to the lowest levels in five years for the same reporting period, data show, though homicide numbers are higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic and auto thefts remain inflated. The drop in crime follows a trend that the Austin Police Department had said in April made it "cautiously optimistic" that it would continue decreasing throughout the year. "I am more optimistic than before," said Auzzie Krobatsch, the Police Department's acting data initiatives and analytics strategy officer.

"I want to again highlight that (I'm) cautiously optimistic, but it does, in fact, look like we are seeing that downturn ... and we're continuing to see that trend, which is definitely reason to be optimistic."

To record crime data, the Police Department uses use the FBI's National Incident-Based Reporting System, which it switched to in 2019. The system splits reported crimes into three categories: crimes against persons, property and society. Crime reporting data for January through June for each of the years Austin has available show the first half of 2024 as having recorded the lowest number of total crimes. The only category that's increased this year is crimes against society, which is generally made up of drug arrests. Crimes against persons and property are both down by nearly 10% and 13% respectively compared with 2020.

Krobatsch said arrests are also increasing this year, and that while crime does appear to be going down, she said police are still responding to a large number of high-priority incidents. She believes this could be due to a growing number of suicides in Austin this year. Earlier this year, Austin police released a new crime data portal, which includes a crime dashboard going back to 2020… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

After dismissed lawsuit, weed is still decriminalized in San Marcos — for now (Texas Public Radio)

A Hays County judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against the City of San Marcos in response to a proposition decriminalizing low-level marijuana possession.

Judge Sherri Tibbe dropped Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s suit against San Marcos on Monday. Paxton has already filed a motion to appeal the dismissal, according to the city.

Paxton filed the lawsuit against five Texas cities — Killeen, Denton, Elgin, Austin and San Marcos — back in January. In a press release, Paxton said he will "not stand idly by as cities run by pro-crime extremists deliberately violate Texas law and promote the use of illicit drugs that harm our communities."

A Travis County judge dismissed the suit against the City of Austin in June… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

American Airlines cutting 5 nonstop flights from Austin after cutting 21 flights in 2023 (Austin American-Statesman)

Texas-based American Airlines has identified five flights that it will no longer service from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. The cuts continue a reduction of service from the state capital that began last year and led to the elimination of 21 routes.

The new flight cuts will start as early as October and will target year-round nonstop routes to Las Vegas, New Orleans and Orlando, Fla. The airline will also end seasonal service to Palm Springs, Calif., and Reno, Nev. 

“American will continue to offer customers access to our comprehensive global network of more than 350 destinations with one-stop connections. We’re proactively reaching out to impacted customers and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” the company said in a statement… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

CenterPoint CEO rejects calls for his resignation at Senate hearing (Houston Public Radio)

A Senate select committee questioned Jason Wells, the CEO and chief operating officer of CenterPoint Energy, for hours on Monday regarding the utility's response to Hurricane Beryl. Wells resisted suggestions that he should resign.

Houston Senator Paul Bettencourt, among others, grilled Wells on issues ranging from CenterPoint's failure to restore its outage tracker before Beryl; to the five-year timeframe for CenterPoint to trim back vegetation, which is roughly 4 ½ years from completion; to the usefulness of its $800-million purchase of mobile generators, which to date have gone unused.

"Now, what would you say to the average person," Bettencourt asked, "that you should resign?"

Wells, who said repeatedly that he accepted full responsibility for CenterPoint's failures before, during, and after Beryl, pushed back, arguing such a move would hamstring CenterPoint's efforts to fix the problems that most hurt customers.

"What we have outlined here is an ambitious set of 40 actions to immediately improve resiliency, our communications, and our partnerships this hurricane season," Wells said. "I think if I resign today, we lose momentum on the things that are going to have the best possible impact for the Greater Houston region."

Wells' answers did not appear to satisfy the senators, particularly those from the Houston area, which included Senators Carol Alvarado, Joan Huffman, Lois Kolkhorst, Borris Miles, Mayes Middleton, and Brandon Creighton… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas utility regulators ax ERCOT's changes to Uri-inspired reserve program, endorse some updates (San Antonio Express-News)

Utility regulators endorsed a change that will cut the cost of a program the state grid operator put in place to avoid a replay of deadly blackouts in February 2021 — but it will still cost Texas billions of dollars.

While saying that tweaks suggested by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas would have reduced the program’s costs last year from an estimated $12.5 billion to about a quarter of that, the grid’s independent watchdog told the Public Utility Commission it’s still not good enough. Not when the cost could be zero. “It’s like your house is on fire,” said David Patton, the outside monitor who oversees the Texas electric market for the commission.

“So you put some water on it. Now, just your kitchen is on fire and you say, ‘Well, this is a big improvement so we’ll stop at that. We’ll be happy with that.’ Well, no. You should put the fire out in your kitchen, too.”

The only reason the $3 billion figure looks like an improvement, he said Thursday, is because last year was “so much worse.” Ultimately, the five-member commission voted against adopting ERCOT’s proposed changes to the Contingency Reserve Service program it put in place a year ago to increase or decrease the supply of electricity as demand rises and falls. Instead, it gave a verbal endorsement of ERCOT’s decision to add a new trigger that will let it more quickly move power from reserves to its real-time market, thus reducing the amount of what Patton calls “artificial scarcity.”

The false shortages created by the program are to blame for prices skyrocketing to the maximum of $5,000 per megawatt-hour at times the grid wasn’t particularly strained last summer, according to analysis by Patton’s Potomac Economics. That pushed up the cost to utilities and others doing business on the state’s energy market.

ERCOT has disagreed with that analysis and credits the reserve service with preventing outages last summer as extreme heat and record-shattering demand pushed the grid to its limit. The grid did reach emergency conditions, however, bringing the possibility of rolling blackouts… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Why doesn’t Dallas want a strong-mayor system? City’s charter review rekindles debate (Dallas Morning News)

Dallas has never voted for a strong mayor. It didn’t want one nearly 20 years ago when Black voters shot down a ballot measure, fearing a consolidation in mayoral power. It doesn’t seem to want one now after council member Cara Mendelsohn shelved a proposal to increase the power of the mayor that got no support during the city’s charter review process. Unlike most other major U.S. cities, Dallas has a strong-city manager form of government. The city manager is the top administrative official in Dallas and oversees the budget and day-to-day operations of various departments. The manager is not directly accountable to the voters because that role is hired by the City Council.

The city’s charter positions the mayor as the face of city government. The mayor serves as an at-large member of the City Council with the ability to appoint committees and preside over meetings. They represent Dallas’ interests in regional groups such as the DFW International Airport’s board of directors, and even appoint chairs of influential boards like the Park Board and the City Plan Commission.

Yet, the mayor lacks broad executive authority and cannot veto any policy or legislation put forth by council members.

They also cannot enforce or execute ordinances passed by City Council. That role rests with the city manager. As council members continue discussing changes to the city’s charter, officials are treading challenging waters amid a pension shortfall, a search for a new city manager, and significant budgetary concerns. The question Mendelsohn raised was whether, with such high stakes, an empowered mayor should have a greater role in addressing important citywide issues. Voters consider changes to the city’s charter every 10 years.

Mendelsohn withdrew the strong-mayor idea to waive off any associations with Mayor Eric Johnson, whose frayed relationship with some council members has bubbled into the public sphere. It’s unclear what Johnson thinks about the dynamic. His office did not respond to requests for comment sent through four emails and three telephone calls between June 18 and July 18.

“There’s a lack of accountability when the most powerful person for the city is not actually elected by the people — not accountable to the people. They’re not accountable to the voters. The voters should be choosing their leader,” Mendelsohn said during a June council briefing. She encouraged a study to gauge the pros and cons of shifting the levers of power to the only citywide elected official in the municipal government… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

Biden proposed enforceable ethics code and term limits for Supreme Court. How might they work? (Associated Press)

 President Joe Biden on Monday proposed major changes for the U.S. Supreme Court: an enforceable code of ethics, term limits for justices and a constitutional amendment that would limit the justices’ recent decision on presidential immunity.

There’s almost no chance of the proposal passing a closely divided Congress with Election Day looming, but the ideas could still spark conversation with public confidence in the court hitting an all-time low amid ethical revelations about some justices. It also comes against the backdrop of a contentious presidential election and growing Democratic outrage about recent decisions from the conservative-majority court.

Here’s a look at how the ideas, how they might work, and the possible stumbling blocks… (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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