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- BG Reads 9.17.2024
BG Reads 9.17.2024
🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - September 17, 2024
Bingham Group Reads
Presented by:
www.binghamgp.com
September 17, 2024
Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Watson collects the most endorsements among mayoral candidates (Austin Monitor)
🟪 AG Ken Paxton pulls legal opinion backing nonprofits banning firearms from city-owned land (Dallas Morning News)
🟪 UT-Austin tightens automatic admission threshold to 5% of Texas’ top high schoolers (Texas Tribune)
🟪 Austin could approve $1.9B for airport expansion work next week (KXAN)
🟪 Fed prepares to lower rates, with size of first cut in doubt (Wall Street Journal)
Read On!
[BINGHAM GROUP]
🟪 We are proud to represent and have represented a wide range of clients in the Austin Metro and Texas Capitol at the intersection of government and business.
🟪 Learn more about Bingham Group’s experience here, and review client testimonials here.
[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🟪 The Austin Council has seven (6) regular meetings left in 2024.
THIS WEEK -> District 4 - September 19th
City of Austin Permitting and Development Center, Room 1405, 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Drive, Austin 78752
District 2 - September 25th
Dove Springs Recreation Center, 5801 Ainez Drive, Austin 78744
District 10 - September 30th
Dell Jewish Community Campus, Epstein Family Community Hall, 7300 Hart Lane, Austin 78731
Mayor - October 3rd
Austin City Hall Council Chambers, 301 W. 2nd St. Austin 78701
District 6 - October 7th
Hope Presbyterian Church, 11512 Olson Drive, Austin 78750
📺 City Council Candidate Forum: District 7 - Video (9.5.2024)
✅ All candidate forums will are scheduled from 6:30pm to 8pm.
✅ All forums will be streamed live and archived on ATXN.
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Watson collects the most endorsements among mayoral candidates (Austin Monitor)
Campaigns for City Council and mayor are heating up just as the weather is cooling a bit, by Austin standards at least. Mayor Kirk Watson is touting his many endorsements, with a full page devoted to the 14 unions that have indicated their support, starting with the Austin Firefighters Association and the Austin-Travis County EMS Association.
The other unions, such as the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Ironworkers Local 482, are not particularly affiliated with the city, but their members do vote. Watson campaign manager Joe Cascino told the Austin Monitor the mayor had just gotten word that he was endorsed by the Circle C Democrats along with a long list of public figures that appear on his campaign website’s homepage… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
UT-Austin tightens automatic admission threshold to 5% of Texas’ top high schoolers (Texas Tribune)
High school students in Texas will need to be in the top 5% of their graduating class to gain automatic admission to the University of Texas at Austin to enroll in the fall of 2026, a harder threshold to meet than the current 6%.
State law requires Texas public universities to provide automatic admission to Texas high schoolers who were in the top 10% of their graduating class. The Texas Legislature adjusted the rules for UT-Austin in 2009 to leave space for the university to accept other students, such as out-of-state students and student athletes.
The top-ranked university has since been allowed to cap its automatic admittees to 75% of each freshman class. The remaining 25% is admitted through a holistic process that considers factors such as grade point average, extracurriculars and personal essays.
The university can adjust the threshold for automatic admission every year to hit that balance. UT-Austin last lowered its automatic admission threshold from 7% to 6% in 2017, when a then-record of 51,000 applicants sought to join the university... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Development plans for Austin's 'crucial' South Central Waterfront remain on hold (Community Impact)
The rollout of long-anticipated development regulations for the South Central Waterfront that could help extend the downtown Austin skyline south of Lady Bird Lake remains on hold, potentially until next year.
The South Central Waterfront covers more than 100 acres along Lady Bird Lake and Riverside Drive in the Bouldin Creek and South River City neighborhoods.
Community members, city leaders and developers have eyed the district's potential for years given its proximity to downtown and the lakefront, and the presence of many lots viewed as primed for redevelopment.Planning for the district's future growth alongside desired public upgrades that could be realized alongside any new projects led to the creation of a civic blueprint for the area in 2016… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin could approve $1.9B for airport expansion work next week (KXAN)
Next week, Austin City Council could approve nearly $1.9 billion in design and construction-related contracts for expansion work at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
The Journey With AUS program is the airport’s expansion and development initiative that details a complete overhaul of the airport to expand capacity and upgrade operations. Components within the program include the development of Concourse B and a connector tunnel, the construction of an Arrivals and Departures Hall, expansions to the West Gate Terminal and TSA Checkpoint 3 areas along with the creation of a new central utility plant and midfield taxiways.
On Sept. 26, Austin City Council will consider three items related to larger-scale project elements: A contract for pre-construction and construction services on the Concourse B and tunnel project, another contract for design and construction phase services for the Arrivals and Departures Hall project and a third centered around pre-construction and construction services on the Arrivals and Departures Hall project… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Concordia University Texas picks new president, first woman as chief (Austin American-Statesman)
Kristi Kirk moved out of her family home to attend Concordia University Texas in Austin as a student in 1992. As a young single mother, she didn’t know what to expect. She came to find that the Lutheran, individualized education would transform her life and that she would spend her career building the same welcoming experience for other students.
“I was a shy, introverted 18-year-old, and if you told me most of my career would involve speaking in public, I wouldn’t have believed you at that stage,” Kirk told the American-Statesman in an interview. “But like for so many students, what Concordia did for me was give me confidence, help me understand that my perspective and voice mattered. And that’s still what we do.”
Now, after more than 25 years working at the private institution, serving as an admissions office manager in 1993 and most recently as provost and executive vice president, Kirk will become her alma mater's first female president.
Kirk will take office as chief of the small private Lutheran institution with more than 400 acres in Northwest Austin on Nov. 1… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
AG Ken Paxton pulls legal opinion backing nonprofits banning firearms from city-owned land (Dallas Morning News)
Attorney General Ken Paxton this week withdrew a legal opinion issued by his office in 2016 saying nonprofits have the right to ban firearms from property leased from the government. The move comes after he sued Dallas, its interim city manager and the State Fair of Texas on Aug. 29 to block the nonprofit’s new ban on firearms at the city-owned fairgrounds.
The fair starts in two weeks. After a gunman wounded three people in a shooting at the State Fair last year, organizers announced on Aug. 8 that it would increase security and only allow elected, appointed or employed peace officers to carry firearms into Fair Park. Paxton and other Republican state lawmakers called the new restriction illegal and an infringement on the rights of gun owners.
Paxton’s 2016 opinion withdrawal comes amid an Aug. 14 letter from state Sen. Mayes Middleton (R-Galveston) and Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) to the attorney general seeking an opinion on the State Fair of Texas’ new policy.
They cited Paxton weighing in eight years earlier on a question from Erath County Attorney Lisa Pence on whether a nonprofit can restrict people with firearms from coming onto property owned by a city. The attorney general at the time noted that while state law bans a governmental entity from banning a license holder from carrying a handgun on city-owned property, it didn’t address whether the same rule applied to private entities on leased government property.
“The private, nonprofit entity appears to have an arms-length agreement to lease city property and is not otherwise affiliated with the city,” Paxton’s 2016 opinion read. “In such circumstances, (the law) does not apply to a city that leases property to a nonprofit entity that provides notice that a license holder carrying a handgun is prohibited from entry. “As long as the state agency or political subdivision leasing the property to the nonprofit entity has no control over the decision to post such notice, the state agency or political subdivision lessor would not be the entity responsible for the posting and would therefore not be subject to a civil penalty,” the opinion continued. Legal opinions from the attorney general’s office are non-binding… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US and World News]
Fed prepares to lower rates, with size of first cut in doubt (Wall Street Journal)
The Federal Reserve is set to cut borrowing costs at its two-day meeting that ends Wednesday. The goal: preserve a solid job market now that price pressures have cooled.
The decision over whether to cut the Fed’s benchmark interest rate, currently at a two-decade high between 5.25% and 5.5%, by either a larger half percentage point or by a traditional quarter point will come down to how Chair Jerome Powell leads his colleagues through a finely balanced set of considerations.
Economic data over the past several months show inflation has resumed a steady decline to the Fed’s 2% goal. But the labor market has cooled, with the unemployment rate edging up to 4.2% in August from 3.7% at the end of last year.
Monthly payroll growth has slowed to 116,000, on average, for the three months through August, down from 212,000 in December 2023… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
The next generation of Buffetts is poised to become one of the biggest forces in philanthropy (Associated Press)
The next generation of Buffetts — Howard, Susie and Peter — is poised to become one of the most powerful forces in philanthropy when their 94-year-old father, the legendary businessman and leader of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett, eventually passes away.
But it wasn’t always going to be that way.
Buffett announced in June that he would donate his fortune, now valued at nearly $144 billion, to a charitable trust managed by his three children when he dies, instead of giving it to the Gates Foundation, as he indicated 18 years ago.
The next generation of Buffetts will then have 10 years to give the money away, Warren Buffett said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
_________________________
We are proud to represent and have represented a wide range of clients in the Austin Metro and Texas Capitol at the intersection of government and business.
Learn more about Bingham Group’s experience here, and review client testimonials here.
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