BG Reads 9.28.2023

🗞️ BG Reads | News - September 28, 2023

September 28, 2023

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September 28, 2023

In today's BG Reads:

🌲  Austin Energy aims to ramp up tree trimming after years of 'playing catch-up'

📦 Tokyo Electron to sell US HQ property, find new space in Austin

🐘 Donald Trump skipped the GOP debate again.

Read on!

[BINGHAM GROUP]

➡️ Check out our red lined City of Austin org chart.  The changes reflect the many changes in city leadership since February 2023.

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

Austin Energy aims to ramp up tree trimming after years of 'playing catch-up' (Community Impact)

Austin Energy is working to step up its tree trimming program after past city policies led to gradual overgrowth across the utility's power system and have set back its vegetation management goals.Those findings were shared in a new city audit report released in September that was commissioned by City Council in the wake of Winter Storm Mara back in February. Looking ahead, auditors suggested creating a new long-term plan for tree maintenance and improving how the power utility tracks its trimming activities.

According to city auditors, Austin took a step back on vegetation management following 2006 City Council direction to cut back AE's tree trimming to levels well below industry standards. That move came in response to certain neighborhoods' concerns about the city's practices at the time.Officials asked to step that work back up in 2019 and have since boosted funded related to the management program, but setbacks were still reported… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Tokyo Electron to sell US HQ property, find new space in Austin (Austin Business Journal)

Tokyo Electron Ltd. plans to sell its 107-acre U.S. headquarters in Southeast Austin and is on the hunt for a new home.

The property at 2400 Grove Blvd. is being offered in two sections, according to marketing material. One section is 46.8 acres and houses Tokyo Electron’s two-building, 189,795-square-foot campus, while the other is 60.3 acres of undeveloped land with plenty of development opportunities. The site is about a couple of miles down East Riverside Drive from the Oracle Corp. headquarters and next to a former semiconductor factory owned by the University of Texas.

Executives at Tokyo Electron, which produces semiconductor manufacturing equipment, plan to keep its U.S. headquarters in Austin and are in the final stages of negotiations for a new office, although they declined to disclose where. The new headquarters will be smaller than Tokyo Electron’s current campus as the company is planning to downsize its real estate footprint, said Jason Jowers, Tokyo Electron vice president of support services… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

And in other Austin Metro News:

➡️ Commissioners pass health district tax increase but plan increased scrutiny (Austin Monitor) -> LINK TO FULL STORY

➡️ New state law limits Austin’s Parkland Dedication Ordinance (Austin Monitor) -> LINK TO FULL STORY

[TEXAS NEWS]

Dallas County Dems call for Mayor Eric Johnson's resignation (KERA)

The Dallas County Democratic Party is calling on Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson to resign, just days after Johnson announced he would be switching political parties and leaving office “as a Republican” in 2027. Johnson served for years in the Texas House of Representatives and was elected as a Democrat. Municipal government roles, including mayor, are officially nonpartisan — candidates for these local offices don't run as Democrats or Republicans and there's no party affiliation listed on the ballot. In a press release on Tuesday, Dallas County Democrats say Johnson should step down because he misled voters to get reelected in May. “He knowingly portrayed himself as a lifelong Democratic voter and representative throughout his re-election campaign for mayor. Now, less than four months after being re-elected to his final term in office, he has declared that he will govern the city as a Republican," the party’s statement said.

The statement went on to call Johnson's announcement a "selfish and cynical strategy" to advance his political career. KERA emailed Johnson for comment, but he did not respond immediately. Johnson announced his party switch in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published on Friday. In the article, titled “America’s Cities Need More Republicans, and I’m Becoming One,” Johnson says he believes the country’s mayors and elected officials have failed communities by not prioritizing public safety and not practicing “fiscal conservatism.” The Wall Street Journal opinion piece was published shortly after Johnson finished a one-on-one conversation at the Texas Tribune Fest, Friday morning. The session was billed as “the Dallas mayor on his second-term agenda and keeping partisanship at bay.” Dallas County Democratic Party Chair Kardal Coleman rebutted Johnson's foundational argument in the Wall Street Journal opinion piece, that there is a need for more Republicans in local government, saying the Texas GOP has worked to undermine local governments' authority. “[Johnson] is joining a party, specifically in our state legislature, that is working to strip local control away from municipalities,” Coleman told KERA. “He is weakening his position as mayor to join a political party that is antithetical to everything that the voters want, but also to his day-to-day job function.” Still, Coleman said he was "not surprised" about Johnson's party switch, even if he was disappointed… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Houston mayoral hopefuls spar over Whitmire's abortion stance. Here's what his record says. (Houston Chronicle)

U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee did not hold back in her first attack ad of the mayoral election season. In a 30-second spot, she accused state Sen. John Whitmire, her chief rival, of buttressing his campaign with “Trump Republicans who want to make abortion a crime.” Whitmire was quick to fire back, enlisting key allies to vouch for his liberal bona fides. In an ad of his own, state Sen. Carol Alvarado and U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, both Democrats, called Jackson Lee’s claim “dead wrong” and vowed Whitmire has “always supported a woman’s right to choose.”

The truth, however, is far more complex than either candidate suggested. For decades in the state Senate, Whitmire has fought Republican efforts to restrict abortion or require parental notification for the procedure. But early in his tenure in the Texas House, he opposed access to reproductive care, according to a Chronicle review of newspaper archives and legislative records.

Houston’s next mayor will have no real power to regulate abortion, but Whitmire’s earlier position – and his prior stances on other social issues, such as mandatory school busing – will likely lend more ammunition to mayoral opponents and progressive critics who have dismissed the longtime Democrat’s campaign for mayor as a conservative enterprise. Whitmire, who styled himself as a conservative Democrat when he made his first foray into politics in 1972, has courted GOP donors and sought to build a winning coalition that combines his Democratic base with more conservative city voters. His historical positions – long since abandoned – are testament to the fine line Whitmire has walked for over 50 years as the “epitome of a moderate,” as he called himself in 1982, and the evolving stances he has taken in his long tenure in public office.

Whitmire, now 74, said these examples amount to a cherry-picked group that are not indicative of his broader, and much longer, record. And he emphasized that these issues will not be decided at City Hall. Whitmire was first elected to the Texas House in 1972, months before the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade, which provided federal protection for abortion rights. During his campaign, then-22-year-old Whitmire told the Houston Post that he opposed legal abortion “because I believe I am representing the position of the citizens of District 82.” The procedure was illegal in Texas at the time… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US/WORLD NEWS]

Donald Trump skipped the GOP debate again. This time, his rivals took him on directly (Associated Press)

Several of Donald Trump’s rivals stepped up their attacks against him in the second Republican presidential debate, urgently trying to dent the former president’s commanding primary lead during an event that often seemed like an undercard without him.

Trump went to Michigan, aiming to capitalize on the autoworkers’ strike in a key state that could help decide the general election. His competitors, meanwhile, were asked by Fox Business moderators at the Ronald Reagan library in California on Wednesday to participate in a reality show-style game in which they would write who else onstage they would vote “off the island.” They refused.

The debate’s tone was far removed from a campaign that’s been driven by Trump’s attacks on his rivals and democratic institutions as well as his grievances about a litany of criminal indictments and civil cases targeting him and his businesses. The moderators did not ask about the indictments or why the people onstage were better qualified than Trump, instead posing questions about issues including education, economic policy and the U.S.-Mexico border… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Travis King, U.S. soldier who ran to North Korea, is headed to Texas (NPR)

Travis King, a 23-year-old American soldier who ran across the border into North Korea in July, was transferred to U.S. custody and on his way back to the United States on Wednesday, U.S. officials say.

North Korea's state news agency had said earlier Wednesday the country would expel King, claiming he had "confessed that he illegally intruded" into the country, but didn't say when or where he would be sent.

U.S. officials said King was transferred to China where he was handed over to the United States. A Defense Department official told NPR Wednesday afternoon King was on his way to a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas… (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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