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BG Reads 8.23.2024

BG Reads 8.23.2024

🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - August 23, 2024

August 23, 2024

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Bingham Group Reads

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August 23, 2024

Today's BG Reads include:

🟣 Council could OK task force to design bond package focused on climate change (Austin Monitor)

🟣 Austin faces lawsuit for providing financial support to people seeking out-of-state abortions (KUT)

🟣 Hyatt to pick up some popular Austin spots (Austin Business Journal)

🟣 ERCOT just managed a power demand record without conservation calls. What changed from last year? (Houston Chronicle)

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]

🟣 Council Message Board - Council Work Session 8/27/24

🟣 Review the Ballot Applications for the November 2024 Election

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Council could OK task force to design bond package focused on climate change (Austin Monitor)

Next week, City Council will consider forming a task force to design the city’s next bond package expected to go before voters by fall 2026.

Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool has led on the resolution that calls for the creation of a 22-member body that would begin meeting in October, with Mayor Kirk Watson and the rest of Council each appointing two members.

The new group will take public comment on a variety of pressing city needs for the next bond vote, though Council members have signaled that infrastructure related to climate change is their preferred focus.

The city’s last comprehensive bond proposal was approved in 2018 and provided the authorization to sell $925 million of bonds to address transportation, affordable housing, libraries and museums and flood mitigation… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Item 138 - Approve a resolution establishing a Bond Election Advisory Task Force to make recommendations related to infrastructure needs and climate investment opportunities

Austin faces lawsuit for providing financial support to people seeking out-of-state abortions (KUT)

The City of Austin is being sued for a provision in the budget providing money to people seeking out-of-state abortions.

City Council last week approved $400,000 to fund travel — including airfare, gas, hotel stays and food — for people seeking the procedure, which is banned in Texas.

Former City Council Member Don Zimmerman, who filed the lawsuit Tuesday, argued it is against state law to “spend taxpayer dollars on abortion-assistance activities."

“Any use of taxpayer money inside Texas to procure a drug-induced abortion violates [state law], even if the abortion is being procured outside the state,” the lawsuit states... (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Hyatt to pick up some popular Austin spots (Austin Business Journal)

Hyatt Hotels Corp. will likely take the reins soon of some of Austin's trendiest boutique hotels, including the often star-studded Hotel Saint Cecilia, the posh Hotel San José and the Old Austin icon known only as Austin Motel.

The Chicago-based hospitality giant plans to acquire Standard International, the parent company of Austin-based hospitality firm Bunkhouse Group. The deal is expected to close later this year.

A Bunkhouse representative confirmed in an email that the acquisition includes Bunkhouse's entire portfolio, including the iconic Austin coffeeshop Jo's Coffee. Jo's and much of the Bunkhouse empire were born from the mind of Liz Lambert, often credited with turning South Congress Avenue from a seedy strip to a place to be when she renovated what's now Hotel San José.

Bunkhouse’s holdings span across Texas, California, Kentucky and Mexico. In Austin, it's responsible for local gems such as the Austin Motel, Carpenter Hotel, Hotel Saint Cecilia, Hotel San José and Hotel Magdalena. Its Austin hotels are among the most profitable in the state, according to data in ABJ's list of boutique hotels below this article.

The acquired portfolio will be 100% asset-light and includes management, franchise and license contracts, according to an announcement. An asset-light portfolio is a business model strategy that involves transferring people, technology and processes to other owners — real estate and other physical assets may not be exchanged. Bunkhouse execs couldn't be reached for additional comment but forwarded the following statement from a Hyatt spokesperson… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

ERCOT just managed a power demand record without conservation calls. What changed from last year? (Houston Chronicle)

Texans required a record amount of electricity Tuesday night to stay cool as triple-degree temperatures baked much of the state, according to unofficial figures from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the state’s power grid operator. Power demand reached 85,559 megawatts in the 5 p.m. hour, according to ERCOT spokesperson Trudi Webster, exceeding the previous record of 85,508 megawatts set in August 2023.

One megawatt can power 250 Texas homes during the hottest summer days. ERCOT is responsible for coordinating the flow of electricity across the state and ensuring power supply matches demand at all times. The new record is unofficial until final settlements occur on the wholesale electricity market, which is also managed by ERCOT.

Power demand on Wednesday was expected to remain below 84,000 megawatts, according to the ERCOT dashboard, though the gap between supply and demand does narrow around 8 p.m., when solar power generation declines with sunset. That gap was even narrower Tuesday, and ERCOT still had enough supply to meet demand without having to ask Texans to conserve electricity. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said Tuesday that the grid operator has “had a very different experience” operating the grid this summer compared with last summer, when its system came the closest to outages since the infamous 2021 freeze.

That’s partly because the weather has been more mild. Last year, ERCOT issued 11 requests for Texans to conserve electricity as record-breaking heat swept through the state for weeks. More than 15 gigawatts of power supply have also been added to the grid since last year, including 1.7 gigawatts of wind, 8.8 gigawatts of solar, 4.8 gigawatts of battery storage and 164 megawatts of gas. During Tuesday’s record-setting hour, natural gas power plants supplied more than 50% of power demand, while solar supplied more than 20%… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Texas’ busing of migrants hits a speed bump as fewer enter country (Texas Tribune)

For more than two years, Gov. Greg Abbott has sent thousands of migrants who’ve recently arrived at the southern border to cities run by Democrats.

But in border towns, the buses have largely stopped rolling in recent weeks.

Texas sent no buses north in July, according to one report published this week. Another report said that Texas has not sent any buses since late June for a lack of passengers.

The New York Times reported that the last bus dispatched by Texas left the border near El Paso on June 27 with 50 migrants headed to New York. Texas officials attributed the decrease in buses to a decrease in migrants, according to the Times… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Houston Community College leaders are considering a name change. Not everyone is on board. (Houston Chronicle)

Houston Community College may consider changing its name as the institution expands its offerings to include bachelor's degree programs, administrators said at a Wednesday board meeting. The possibility is already a hotly debated topic among the board's trustees, with early discussions yielding split opinions on the necessity and prudence of such an undertaking. Several members agreed that the words "community college" on a baccalaureate diploma might be a tough sell for employers with a plethora of college graduate candidates.

Other trustees called a change a distraction, especially with the institution in the hot seat to improve its graduation and retention numbers for better funding from the state Legislature. “I’m taken aback about why we are even talking about this when we have a whole lot of work to do,” District III Trustee Adriana Tamez said.

“Before you came on board, with all due respect, chancellor, according to my colleagues, the sky was falling here at HCC," she said later, referencing Chancellor Margaret Ford Fisher's hiring this year. A name change would most likely drop "community" from the institution's brand, mirroring the same action taken at Dallas College in 2020 and other community colleges before that. Lone Star College, for example, evolved from North Harris Montgomery Community College District, and South Texas College was known as South Texas Community College McAllen. Ford Fisher argued that the board couldn't undo what it did with the approval of its two new bachelor's degree programs, which begin classes this fall.

Community colleges are increasingly widening their offerings amid changing workforce needs, and four-year universities are exploring the same with certificate programs, she said. In June, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges approved the college’s request to offer baccalaureate degrees in artificial intelligence and robotics as well as healthcare management. The name change would help differentiate the school and represent its offerings in both associate’s and bachelors degrees, the president said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

5 takeaways from Kamala Harris’ historic acceptance speech (NPR)

History was made Thursday night when Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination, the first Black woman and person of South Asian descent to do so.

Those historic firsts can be opportunities, and they can be challenges. Harris is not someone known for delivering big speeches, and the public’s views of her are still forming. She got the nomination, after all, without running in a primary, the first to do so in many decades.

“We must be worthy of this moment,” Harris said.

Was she? Here are five takeaways from her acceptance speech and Democrats’ convention… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Powell faces economic crossroads as he prepares to speak at Jackson Hole (New York Times)

Two years ago, Jerome H. Powell took the podium at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual conference at Jackson Hole in Wyoming and warned America that lowering inflation would require some pain. On Friday, Mr. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, will again deliver his most important policy speech of the year from that closely watched stage. But this time, he is much more likely to focus on how the Fed is trying to pull off what many onlookers once thought was unlikely, and maybe even impossible: a relatively painless soft landing.

Both the Fed and the American economy are approaching a crossroads. Inflation has come down sharply since its 2022 peak of 9.1 percent, with the year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index falling to 2.9 percent in July. Given the progress, the critical question facing Fed officials is no longer how much economic damage it will take to wrestle price increases back under control. It is whether they can finish the job without inflicting much damage at all.

That remains a big if. Consumer spending and overall economic growth have held up in the face of high interest rates, which are meant to cool demand and eventually weigh down inflation. But the job market is beginning to weaken. Revisions released this week showed that employers hired fewer workers in 2023 and early 2024 than was previously reported.

The unemployment rate rose to 4.3 percent in July, up from 4.1 percent in June and 3.5 percent a year earlier. The latest jump could be a fluke — a hurricane messed with the data — but it could also be an early warning that the economy is hurtling toward the brink of a recession. That makes this a critical moment for the Fed. Officials have held interest rates at a two-decade high of 5.3 percent for a full year. Now, as they try to secure a soft and gentle economic landing, they are preparing to take their foot off the brake. Policymakers are widely expected to begin lowering rates at their meeting in September. Mr. Powell could use his speech to confirm that a rate cut is imminent… (LINK TO FULL STORY)