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- BG Reads 9.5.024
BG Reads 9.5.024
🗞️ Bingham Group Reads - September 5, 2024
Bingham Group Reads
Presented by:
www.binghamgp.com
September 5, 2024
Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Starting today - League of Women Voters Austin Council Candidate Forums
🟪 Austin Homeless Strategy Office announces $2.1M to help families exit homelessness (KVUE)
🟪 License plate reader cameras operating in Austin under new, updated policy (KXAN)
🟪 Texas would need about $81.5 billion a year to end property taxes, officials say (Texas Tribune)
🟪 How America’s baby bust became an election issue (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 (7) regular meetings left in 2024.
District 7 - September 5th
Northwest Recreation Center, 2913 Northland Drive, Austin 78757
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
✅ All candidate forums will are scheduled from 6:30pm to 8pm.
✅ All forums will be streamed live and archived on ATXN.
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
Austin Homeless Strategy Office announces $2.1M to help families exit homelessness (KVUE)
The city of Austin is putting more money toward helping families exit homelessness or help them avoid homelessness in the first place.
On Wednesday, the city's Homeless Strategy Office announced more than $2 million for two programs.
The first one devotes $600,000 to helping property owners increase housing availability for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness. The second program sets aside $1.5 million to help people who are struggling to secure housing... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
License plate reader cameras operating in Austin under new, updated policy (KXAN)
It’s been a few years in the making, but the city of Austin now has license plate readers up and running. The Austin Police Department reinstated its Flock camera program with updates to its policy.
Just last week, Interim Police Chief Robin Henderson addressed in a city memo that cameras are operating.
The memo said there are 40 license plate readers across Austin. The pilot program went live back in March. The updated policy includes changes requested by city council… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Barton Springs closed for weeks due to major leaks (Austin Monitor)
Austinites looking forward to an end-of-summer celebratory Barton Springs dip this Labor Day weekend were disappointed, thanks to a safety hazard caused by two major leaks that has led to a weekslong indefinite closure of the pool.
The pool has been out of commission since Aug. 29, when the city’s Parks and Recreation Department announced a temporary closure for maintenance. Over the weekend, according to a city press release, multiple city departments assessed that repairs will now take several weeks, with no firm timeline for reopening… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas would need about $81.5 billion a year to end property taxes, officials say (Texas Tribune)
Texas would have to spend tens of billions of dollars to get rid of the state’s property taxes, state budget officials said Wednesday — a reality check on some conservatives who want to end them once and for all.
Republican lawmakers have been on a yearslong push to bring down the state’s property taxes, among the highest in the nation. Some Texas conservatives have long dreamt of getting rid of at least some property taxes altogether — an idea others have criticized as unrealistic given the gargantuan cost of doing so. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a skeptic of doing away with property taxes, tasked lawmakers earlier this year with tallying the cost.
Now, lawmakers have those figures in hand. Getting rid of all property taxes collected by school districts would have cost the state $39.5 billion in tax year 2023, figures presented to the Texas Senate Finance Committee by the Legislative Budget Board show. School property taxes, which pay for costs like teacher salaries and new facilities, represent the largest chunk of a property owner’s tax bill… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas grid boss call EPA rules 'handcuffs' as utilities try to plan for booming demand (San Antonio Express-News)
The state grid operator says that increasingly strict pollution controls are operational “handcuffs” putting the stability of the Texas grid at risk. Federal emissions standards also are sending CPS Energy outside Bexar County to find a home for its next gas-powered plants because of concerns the rules could hinder their operation in the city-owned utility’s home county.
“It’s going to constrain the potential out there to meet this demand we’re talking about,” grid boss Pablo Vegas said during a panel discussion last week in San Antonio, referring to the state’s increasing need for electricity supply. “We can’t just solve this problem by lodging two hands behind our backs.”
It wasn’t the first time the head of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has taken shots at regulations coming from the Environmental Protection Agency limiting emissions that can be harmful to human health and cause climate change. But this time he did it while seated alongside CPS President and CEO Rudy Garza, whose utility has made it a priority to reach net neutral carbon emissions by 2050. By the end of this decade, it plans to cut back harmful emissions by 41% from where they stood in 2016. Despite CPS’ stance on pollution, Garza told the crowd gathered Thursday for a panel discussion on energy that planning new generation capacity the state needs to maintain reliability around regulations is an increasing challenge.
Those challenges are top of mind as San Antonio stares down the possibility of having its status with the EPA of ozone pollution upped to “serious” if emissions don’t drop by Sept. 24. The change could affect how often CPS is allowed to run its natural gas-powered plants as federal regulations are likely to put in stricter emission controls. That’s why Garza says CPS is looking outside Bexar County to build up to 444 megawatts of new natural gas generation… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Disrupting crime: Violence drops in Dallas in 2024 as police target ‘high-risk’ locations (Dallas Morning News)
In the cramped room of a police substation, dozens of officers peered at a television as surveillance footage of an apartment complex in Dallas’ Love Field neighborhood played out. “This is a known dope area,” an officer barked out to cops from tactical units, including SWAT. “They have fentanyl, cocaine and meth.”
The mission outlined to them Aug. 19 was simple: Search the home of 28-year-old Christopher Sykes, described by the officer leading the investigation as a known drug dealer. DPD’s crime plan team suspected that drug sales in the 4600 block of Lake Avenue had a ripple effect across several blocks. Disrupting that criminal network, police officials said, could also help disrupt violence — the type that weeks before had claimed a 24-year-old’s life.
Those sources of trouble are a target of the Dallas Police Department’s violence reduction plan, which city officials and top police brass credit for steady drops in violent crime the last three years. So far in 2024, that positive trend continued. Violent crime is down more than 11% in Dallas, with steep declines in murders and aggravated assaults compared with the same period in 2023. Over the summer months, when crime usually increases nationwide, it has continued to fall. That said, Dallas residents share mixed perceptions about whether they feel safer. A survey published by the city this year found around 52% of residents thought of crime as a major problem in Dallas. Only about 28% felt very or somewhat safe from violence — an improvement from 21% of residents in last year’s survey. Police officials contend those perspectives are exacerbated by the sporadic acts of violence that make headlines and jolt neighborhoods.
One such headline happened just across the street from Sykes’ home, where on July 16, Ashton Barnes was fatally shot. Police have not made an arrest in that case. Crime data had already led police to that neighborhood, but the killing validated “something’s going on here,” said Deputy Chief Stephen Williams. They needed to dig deeper… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Houston to Dallas High-Speed Rail Corridor receives $63.9 million federal grant (Houston Public Media)
Amtrak has received a nearly $64 million grant to continue planning the Texas High-Speed Rail project after several years of stagnation due to the COVID pandemic. The project — which proposes a less than 90-minute high-speed rail route between Houston and Dallas, with one stop in the Brazos Valley — has been progressing through the early planning and development stages for the past several years as it continues to lobby for support among Texans and representatives alike.
According to early concepts of the route, the Houston station would be located at the Northwest Mall site near the interchange of US 290 and Interstate 610. The $63.9 million grant was awarded last month as part of $153 million in funding made available by the U.S. Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in early July.
According to FRA, the funds were created as part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which was passed under the Biden Administration in Nov. 2021. The main goal of the grant money is to "initiate, restore and enhance intercity passenger rail services." This most recent influx of federal money follows on the heels of a $500,000 grant to Amtrak in December 2023.
In August 2023, Amtrak said that it was exploring the possibility of a partnership with Texas Central, the company originally behind the Houston-Dallas corridor concept. Less than a year later, Amtrak's senior vice president and head of high-speed rail development, Andy Byford, announced Amtrak was officially in charge of the project.
"One of the first things Amtrak did in taking over the project was to undertake research to see [if] the demand is still there post-COVID that the same research indicated there was pre-COVID," he said in April during the 2024 Southwestern Rail Conference. "The actual forecast, in terms of the projected ridership, is very strong and that's important because that means you can then make a business case for the capital investment."… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[US and World News]
Former aide to 2 New York governors is charged with being an agent of the Chinese government (Associated Press)
A former aide to two New York governors was charged Tuesday with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government who used her state positions to subtly advance Beijing’s agenda in exchange for financial benefits worth millions of dollars.
Linda Sun, who held numerous posts in New York state government, including deputy chief of staff for Gov. Kathy Hochul and deputy diversity officer for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was arrested Tuesday morning along with her husband, Chris Hu, at their $4 million home on Long Island.
Federal prosecutors said Sun, at the request of Chinese officials, blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from having access to the governor’s office and shaped New York governmental messaging to align with the priorities of the Chinese government, among other things.
In return, her husband got help for his business activities in China — a financial boost that prosecutors said allowed the couple to buy their multimillion-dollar property in Manhasset, New York, a condominium in Hawaii for $1.9 million, and luxury cars including a 2024 Ferrari, the indictment said… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
How America’s baby bust became an election issue (Wall Street Journal)
America’s falling birthrate is becoming a bigger issue in this year’s election.
A small but dedicated cadre of advocates has pushed the topic to the forefront of conservative policy agendas in Washington and Silicon Valley, warning that U.S. economic growth and the solvency of Social Security depend on lifting fertility from its record-low levels. Democrats, meanwhile, are offering more support for new parents through Vice President Kamala Harris’s Opportunity Economy plan without explicitly tying it to incentivizing childbearing.
The latest campaign offering came this past week, when former President Donald Trump proposed federal funding for in vitro fertilization or forcing insurers to pay for the costly procedure. The Republican presidential nominee also said he would let parents deduct major newborn expenses from their taxes.
The U.S. birthrate—a snapshot of how many babies a woman is expected to have over her lifetime—has dwindled to a record low of 1.62 births per woman in 2023, prompting alarm from demographers and economists. Republicans in Congress have proposed legislation meant to help reverse the trend. Right-leaning think tanks have pumped out policy papers attempting to trace the origins of the issue and examine foreign nations’ attempts to fix their birth declines…🟪 (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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