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BG Reads 8.21.2024

BG Reads 8.21.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - August 21, 2024

August 21, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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www.binghamgp.com

August 21, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 23 candidates vying for Austin mayor, City Council seats this year (Community Impact)

🟣 Case study offers early praise for the structure and organization of Project Connect (Austin Monitor)

🟣 US judge strikes down Biden administration ban on worker 'noncompete' agreements (Reuters)

Read On!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

🟣 BG Podcast Ep. 265: Austin Politics Weekly Recap And What's Ahead

🟣 Updated City of Austin Org Chart (as of 7.2.2024)

LINK TO THIS WEEK’s CITY OF AUSTIN HEARINGS + AGENDA

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🟣 [NEW] Council Message Board - Council Work Session 8/27/24

🟣 Review the Ballot Applications for the November 2024 Election

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

23 candidates vying for Austin mayor, City Council seats this year (Community Impact)

Candidates now have just over two months left in their campaigns before Election Day on Nov. 5. Following the Aug. 19 filing deadline, the ballot order for council races was randomly set Aug. 20… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Case study offers early praise for the structure and organization of Project Connect (Austin Monitor)

A new report from an advocacy group in support of mass transit projects across the country has praised Austin’s Project Connect initiative, which is still roughly a decade away from realizing its goal of providing light-rail service through the city.

On Tuesday, the Los Angeles-based group Accelerator for America Action released a “living case study” that examines several components of how Project Connect was organized. The document, which will be updated every six to 12 months, focuses in particular on the creation of the Austin Transit Partnership entity to handle the planning and construction of the light-rail line, expansions of bus service, and a variety of land use and development goals.

The creation of ATP after voters approved the transit plan in 2020 to handle governance, staffing, financing and other pieces of the project was highlighted as a new best practice that other cities around the country could emulate.

Mary Ellen Wiederwohl, president and CEO of Accelerator for America Action, said using a new centralized project delivery entity can prevent existing transit authorities or municipal transportation departments from becoming stretched too thin trying to handle the design, procurement and construction phases of large-scale projects… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

With deannexation complete, Bastrop film studio targets 2025 opening (Austin Business Journal)

The future site of a 546-acre film studio east of Austin has cleared its deannexation from the city of Bastrop. Its owner, Alton Butler, said that's set the stage for his team to break ground by the end of this year, with the first studios coming online next year.

The owner of Southern California-based Line 204 studios said on Aug. 19 that the project — which is now known as 204 Texas — took a "monumental step" this month once the project completed a 45-day requirement needed for the land to be released from the city of Bastrop.

City officials earlier this year approved the deannexation under the umbrella of Senate Bill 2038, which allows landowners to petition out of extraterritorial jurisdictions of cities and limit regulatory control… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

Dallas looks at end of 2024 as target for hiring new city manager (Dallas Morning News)

Dallas is still aiming to hire its next city manager by the end of the year, though the path to getting there is still up in the air. Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Tennell Atkins told The Dallas Morning News on Monday he hopes recruitment for candidates for the city’s top government executive job will begin in the fall. But, he added, the City Council is still finalizing the timeline to find the successor to former city manager T.C. Broadnax, who left in May and is now Austin’s city manager.

“By end of December — that’s the goal we’ve had since the beginning,” Atkins said. “That’s still the goal right now.” Among the contenders could be interim city manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert, a former deputy city manager and Broadnax’s former chief of staff. The City Council appointed Tolbert to the interim role in February after Broadnax announced he was resigning… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Mayor Nirenberg takes shots at Republicans in DNC speech: ‘Keep your clown out of our White House’ (San Antonio Express-News)

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg’s tenure as the city’s leader may be coming to a close, but his political star nationally may be taking off thanks to growing ties with Vice President Kamala Harris and the White House. On the first day of the Democratic National Convention, Nirenberg used a speech before Texas Democrats to tout Harris’ credentials for the presidency, jab at U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and blast former President Donald Trump as a “clown” that America can’t allow a second term in office.

“Our message to Republicans is clear,” Nirenberg, 47, said in a hotel ballroom where the state’s delegation is staying. “Stay out of our bedrooms. Keep your politics out of our exam rooms. Keep your weirdness out of classrooms. And importantly, keep your clown out of our White House.”

Even before Harris became the Democrats' presidential candidate, Nirenberg was developing a relationship with the former California U.S. senator. In early July, Nirenberg flew to Las Vegas to kick off a rally for Harris focused on Asian American and Pacific Islander communities.

Nirenberg, who was first elected mayor in San Antonio in 2017, has roots in the Filipino, Malaysian and Indian communities. He’s also been a guest of the White House at official state dinners with world leaders and is an official delegate for Harris at the convention this week when she will become the party’s official nominee.

In Chicago on Monday, Nirenberg used his speech to praise President Joe Biden for getting the American Recovery Act passed during the COVID-19 pandemic. That included rental and utility payment assistance that Nirenberg said helped keep 65,000 families in his city from becoming homeless. He also told the crowd that he formally endorsed Democrat Colin Allred for the U.S. Senate over the weekend. Allred is running against Cruz in the Nov. 5 election… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

US judge strikes down Biden administration ban on worker 'noncompete' agreements (Reuters)

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday barred a U.S. Federal Trade Commission rule from taking effect that would ban agreements commonly signed by workers not to join their employers' rivals or launch competing businesses.

U.S. District Judge Ada Brown in Dallas said the FTC, which enforces federal antitrust laws, does not have the authority to ban practices it deems unfair methods of competition by adopting broad rules.

Brown had temporarily blocked the rule in July while she considered a bid by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobby, and tax service firm Ryan to strike it down entirely. The rule was set to take effect Sept. 4.

Brown in her ruling said that even if the FTC had the power to adopt the rule, the agency had not justified banning virtually all noncompete agreements.

"The Commission’s lack of evidence as to why they chose to impose such a sweeping prohibition ... instead of targeting specific, harmful non-competes, renders the Rule arbitrary and capricious," wrote Brown, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Obamas close DNC’s second night with rousing Harris endorsement and pointed warnings about Trump (Associated Press)

Warning of a difficult fight ahead, former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama on Tuesday called on the nation to embrace Kamala Harris in urgent messages to the Democratic National Convention that were at times both hopeful and ominous.

“America, hope is making a comeback,” the former first lady declared. She then tore into Republican Donald Trump, a sharp shift from the 2016 convention speech in which she told her party, “When they go low, we go high.”

“His limited and narrow view of the world made him feel threatened by the existence of two hardworking, highly educated, successful people who also happened to be Black,” Michelle Obama said of Trump… (LINK TO FULL STORY)