🟪 Judge could rule soon in Austin fight over convention center petition (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 TEA approves 22 of 24 AISD turnaround plans (KXAN)

🟪 Austin’s power line upgrades on hold following ERCOT decision (KXAN)

🟪 Austin may not issue affordable housing bonds this year (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 6 major transportation project takeaways from key Austin officials (Community Impact)

🟪 Trump says he will announce his Federal Reserve chair nominee on Friday morning (NPR)

🟪 Noem says her response to Pretti shooting may have been wrong (Politico

READ ON!

🟪 [Events] Bingham Group was proud to participate in Building Beyond Austin – Central Texas Edition, organized by Glenn Hart (LinkedGlenn). The event brought together 14 economic development organizations from across Central Texas for a timely conversation on regional growth and collaboration.

As shared in my remarks, Bingham Group is Austin-based with a Central Texas focus, and we value opportunities to engage with partners working to strengthen the region’s economic future.

If you’re interested in engaging on issues shaping Central Texas, we’d welcome the opportunity to connect. Message me here.

🟪 [Podcast] Also, check out my recent feature on the Austin Eras Podcast. Host Adam Flagg and I discuss my path into community leadership and the lobbying profession, growing up in Austin, and what’s shaping the future of Central Texas.

🟪 Book Review - The Austin–San Antonio Megaregion: Opportunity and Experience

🏛️ Meetings

🏛️ City of Austin Memos:

✅ Judge could rule soon in Austin fight over convention center petition (Austin American-Statesman)

A trial over a proposed ballot measure to halt Austin’s convention center expansion entered its second day Wednesday as Austin United PAC challenged the city clerk’s rejection of its petition.

The political action committee sued the city in December after the clerk disqualified the petition for lack of valid signatures. The proposed charter amendment would temporarily block the city’s $1.6 billion convention center expansion, which is already underway. Demolition of the old center was completed last year, and construction of the new facility began recently, with completion expected in spring 2029.

The PAC has long opposed the project, arguing the city is misusing public resources that could instead support local music and arts initiatives. The group has also accused the city of lacking transparency and improperly rejecting its petition.

Both sides delivered opening arguments Wednesday, and the PAC presented witnesses. The city is expected to begin its case Thursday.

The PAC asked the court to rule that the city clerk unlawfully narrowed the pool of eligible signers and applied unreasonable verification standards. A ruling in the PAC’s favor would deem the petition successful and send the matter to the City Council for further action… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ TEA approves 22 of 24 AISD turnaround plans (KXAN)

The Austin Independent School District released new information about turnaround plans it submitted a few months ago. In November, the district had to submit turnaround plans to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) for schools that received multiple unacceptable accountability ratings. The plans are designed to prevent the state from taking over and managing the district.

On Thursday, AISD Superintendent Matias Segura addressed the plans in the board meeting, saying that TEA has approved 22 of 24 plans without requiring adjustments. The two schools that were not approved were Widén and Winn elementary schools; they were not rejected, but TEA requested additional details from the schools.

The TEA is looking for Austin ISD to provide more details around the plan to support reassigned students and how the district will fund extra supports. The district listed a number of ways it’s offering support, which include: Strengthening classroom instruction, teacher development, active leadership and expanded student support. For both Widén and Winn, AISD will resubmit the revised plans by March 24… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin’s power line upgrades on hold following ERCOT decision (KXAN)

Plans to upgrade or repair Austin’s transmission lines have been put on hold. The city’s utility provider, Austin Energy, announced last week at a city council work session that 29 projects since September were canceled or delayed.

The decision was made because the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said there wasn’t enough local power generation available to take those lines offline.

“(These projects were) canceled due to our inability to meet ERCOT reliability contingencies,” Austin Energy General Manager Stuart Riley said at that council work session.

The projects involve transmission lines, the high‑voltage paths that move power into Austin. Some of these projects were for expansion, while others were for maintenance. Austin Energy says these projects are meant to decrease local dependence on power.

Carrying out that work requires permission from ERCOT, which must confirm the grid can handle a temporary outage.

“It’s getting tighter and tighter, you know, with the amount of growth that’s happening across Texas,” Austin Energy COO Lisa Martin said.

Before Austin Energy can work on any of these lines, the utility must request an outage from ERCOT — the state authority that oversees the grid… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin may not issue affordable housing bonds this year (Austin Business Journal)

One vital way for affordable housing projects in Austin to pencil out could be going away as the city of Austin evaluates whether to call for a bond election later this year. 

A project review board of city staff from various departments recently evaluated $3.9 billion worth of projects that could be funded by bonds, and it recommended the city ask voters to approve $700 million worth of bonds to fund various infrastructure-related projects, according to a Jan. 21 city memo. But what wasn’t recommended was the inclusion of $350 million worth of bonds dedicated to affordable housing efforts.  

Affordable housing bonds are often considered vital in making affordable projects financially viable. That's because they fill financing gaps affordable housing projects face because there are limits on how much these projects can charge in rent, said Megan Lasch, owner of O-SDA Industries, which builds affordable housing in Austin and across Texas… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ 6 major transportation project takeaways from key Austin officials (Community Impact)

The Austin Board of Realtors hosted its Central Texas growth forum Jan. 28, bringing in a panel of officials from key Austin transportation entities to discuss how major ongoing projects such as Austin Transit Partnership's light rail system, expansions and improvements at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and Texas Department of Transportation's work along I-35 could impact local Realtors.

The panel featured Lindsay Wood, executive vice president of engineering and construction at ATP; Sam Haynes, deputy chief in strategy and stakeholder relations at ABIA; and Tucker Ferguson, district engineer at TxDOT's Austin District. The panel was moderated by Taylor Smith, ABoR deputy director of government affairs… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ 2 Texas district attorneys join national coalition of prosecutors against federal overreach (Spectrum News)

Two Texas district attorneys have joined a newly-created national group of prosecutors that say they’re fighting against federal overreach through accountability and education.

In a Wednesday press release, Travis County DA José Garza and Dallas County DA John Creuzot were named some of the founding participants of the Project for the Fight Against Federal Overreach, or Project FAFO.

The group said it aims to hold federal officials accountable “when they exceed their lawful authority, especially in states around the country where federal agents are being surged,” adding that it’s launching amid “growing concerns about warrantless entries, unlawful detentions, and coercive enforcement tactics by federal agents.”

Members plan to communicate best practices among prosecutors, educate the public on legal pathways and coordinate across jurisdictions. Founding members include district attorneys from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Texas and Arizona… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Nonstop flight between Austin, Grand Cayman to take off this summer (Austin Business Journal)

Austinites will soon have direct access to a new tropical destination.

A seasonal route between Austin and Grand Cayman from Cayman Airways will run from May 24 to Aug. 9, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport announced Jan. 29. The route will operate once a week on Sundays.

“By launching nonstop service to the Grand Cayman Islands, we are answering the call from our passengers for more diverse international travel options and easier access to top leisure destinations," said Ghizlane Badawi, the CEO of ABIA, in a statement. "This partnership not only strengthens our airport’s portfolio but offers Austin and Central Texas a direct, convenient gateway to one of the Caribbean’s most spectacular and beautiful destinations."

The new route comes as ABIA grows in size. Its current phase of expansion will add 32 new gates and cost $5 billion, officials announced earlier this month. At the time, Badawi said ABIA would continue to keep space available for new airlines to serve Austin. Work on the current phase of ABIA expansion is expected to last until the early 2030s, though officials anticipate more work will be needed after that… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ AG Ken Paxton cannot shut down Texas Latino voting group, judge rules (Texas Tribune)

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton failed to offer “any plausible proof” that Jolt Initiative, a nonprofit that aims to increase civic participation among Latinos, is violating the law, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Paxton had filed a lawsuit in state court accusing Jolt of submitting “unlawful voter registration applications,” specifying in a press release that the group was “attempting to register illegals, who are all criminals.” The suit, which seeks to revoke Jolt’s nonprofit charter through a legal mechanism known as a quo warranto petition, was put on ice by U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman, who said in his ruling that Paxton appears to be operating in bad faith.

The attorney general’s case against Jolt “supposes absolutely no wrongdoing,” and indicates that the attorney general may be “harassing [Jolt] and fishing for reasons to investigate its organization.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ ICE raids are sparking labor shortages in South Texas, business leaders say (Houston Chronicle)

Last month, a concrete company on the Texas-Mexico border filed for bankruptcy, claiming its business had been disrupted by federal immigration raids on South Texas construction sites that were “resulting in acute labor shortages.” The filing by 57 Concrete, which is based in Mission and reports a fleet of more than 220 vehicles and almost 100 employees, comes amid a nationwide crackdown by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that has drawn warnings of economic repercussions for Texas and other border states.

The fear among Texas business leader is the raids will leave the state, which has the second highest percentage of migrant workers in the country, without enough labor to build houses, serve meals and pick crops at harvest time.

In the Rio Grande Valley, where undocumented workers have gone back and forth across the border for generations, construction projects began grinding to a halt last summer as ICE raids ramped up, said Paul Rodriguez, the owner of a large real estate firm there and a former top executive at Lone Star National Bank. “I’m talking to individual bankers and they were saying, ‘We have builders having to extend their loans because they can’t complete their projects,’” he said. “I had one individual say ICE showed up at one of their construction sites and took 18 of his guys.”

The situation has begun to draw the attention of politicians of both parties in Washington, with U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, and Monica De La Cruz, R-McAllen, both holding meetings with the construction sector in recent weeks… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump says he will announce his Federal Reserve chair nominee on Friday morning (NPR)

President Donald Trump said he plans to announce his choice for chairman of the Federal Reserve on Friday morning, a long-awaited decision that could set up a showdown on whether the U.S. central bank preserves its independence from the White House and electoral politics.

For the past year, the president has aggressively attacked Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term as the head of the U.S. central bank ends in May. Trump maintains that Powell should cut the Fed's benchmark interest rates more drastically to fuel faster economic growth, while the Fed chair has taken a far more judicious approach in the wake of Trump's tariffs because inflation is already elevated.

"I'll be announcing the Fed chair tomorrow morning," Trump told reporters Thursday night as he went into a screening of the documentary "Melania" about his wife. "It's going to be, somebody that is very respected, somebody that's known to everybody in the financial world. And I think it's going to be a very good choice. I hope so."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Noem says her response to Pretti shooting may have been wrong (Politico)

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has conceded she may have gotten some information wrong in her initial response to Border Patrol’s killing of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis ICU nurse she labeled a domestic terrorist.

Noem also dodged questions about her leadership of DHS amid widespread outrage, even among some Republicans, about the deaths of Pretti and Renee Good during an aggressive immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.

Noem, who said Pretti committed an “act of domestic terrorism” against immigration agents despite videos showing otherwise, told Fox News on Thursday that the situation immediately following the killing was “very chaotic,” and the details she presented to reporters came from initial reports from Customs and Border Protection agents in Minneapolis… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Caregivers for the elderly could lose wage protections under Trump proposal (NPR)

Caring for the elderly in America is costly – too costly for many people to afford.

Now, the Trump administration is attempting to tackle that problem by rolling back wage protections for more than 3 million workers who care for seniors and the disabled in their homes.

The Labor Department has proposed rescinding an Obama-era rule that extended coverage of the Fair Labor Standards Act to home care workers. The 2013 rule granted them labor protections most other workers have had since 1938.

Those include the right to earn at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour and overtime, paid at one-and-a-half times their regular rate when they work more than 40 hours a week. At the time, the Labor Department said the change would fulfill President Obama's promise to "ensure that direct care workers receive a fair day's pay for a fair day's work."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady as a defiant Jerome Powell resists White House pressure (KXAN)

The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady Wednesday, taking a measured, wait-and-see approach to the economy. Sometimes doing nothing is an act of defiance.

President Donald Trump has put the Fed and its chairman, Jerome Powell, under intense pressure to lower borrowing costs, despite concerns about inflation. By refusing to cut rates, the central bank’s leaders asserted their independence from the White House.

Wednesday’s move comes as Powell and the Fed face a criminal investigation launched by Trump’s close ally Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.

Powell has accused the White House of using the probe as a pretext to push the central bank to back Trump’s long-sought-after interest rate cuts.

At the same time, the future of the Fed’s independence hangs in the balance at the Supreme Court. Justices are weighing whether Trump exceeded his authority when he moved to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook last summer… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ D.H.S. review does not say Pretti brandished gun, as Noem claimed (New York Times)

A preliminary review by U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s internal watchdog office found that Alex Pretti was shot by two federal officers after resisting arrest, but did not indicate that he brandished a weapon during the encounter, according to an email sent to Congress and reviewed by The New York Times. The review makes no mention of the Department of Homeland Security’s earlier claims that Mr. Pretti, a U.S. citizen, “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” Shortly after the shooting, Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, claimed that Mr. Pretti had been “brandishing” a gun. Officials had provided no evidence to back up the claim, which was contradicted by witness videos.

The initial review by C.B.P., which deployed more than 1,000 officers and agents to support the enforcement operation in Minnesota, represents the first official written assessment of Saturday’s shooting since administration officials rushed to blame Mr. Pretti. “These notifications reflect standard Customs and Border Protection protocol and are issued in accordance with existing procedures,” Hilton Beckham, a C.B.P. spokeswoman, said in a statement. “They provide an initial outline of an event that took place and do not convey any definitive conclusion or investigative findings. They are factual reports — not analytical judgments — and are provided to inform Congress and to promote transparency.”

The review was done by C.B.P.’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which normally conducts internal misconduct investigations following shootings, and was distributed to members of Congress on Tuesday, as required by law. It presents a detailed timeline of the events based on body camera footage and agency documentation. At approximately 9 a.m. on Saturday, a federal officer was confronted by two female civilians blowing whistles, according to the review. Although the officer ordered them to move out of the road, they did not move… 🟪 (READ MORE)