BG Note | News - What We're Reading (October 12, 2017)
[Austin Metro]
School, community leaders debate equity in $1.1B Austin district bond (Austin American-Statesman) LINK TO STORY
School and community leaders Wednesday night debated whether there is equity in the Austin school district’s $1.1 billion bond measure, and raised issues such as district segregation, the tax impact of the bond and school closures.
Trustee Ted Gordon said that while he has concerns with aspects of the bond, its failure would leave the school district in a dire financial situation.
Commission casts aside CodeNEXT timeline (Austin Monitor) LINK TO STORY
A code rewrite is by nature a precarious undertaking, where even an informal conversation can trigger a tectonic shift in the entire process. At its Oct. 10 meeting, the Planning Commission played around with the idea of shifting gears to a different timeline for CodeNEXT.
“I don’t think this commission should be worried at all about Oct. 31 deadlines,” said Chair Stephen Oliver. “When we get done with it, we will be done with it, but we are not going to take our foot off the gas, and we are not going to press on the gas so hard that we can’t see straight. We have got to figure this out.”
Will Amazon’s HQ2 home be the old Motorola campus? (Austin American-Statesman) LINK TO STORY
Austin is cited as one of the key cities for Amazon’s secondary headquarters, known as HQ2, that the company wants to build somewhere in North America. But even if the Austin City Council came up with the financial incentives to lure Amazon – and successfully hurdled the politics of awarding publicly-financed tax abatements and other sweeteners to a rich outsider – there would be the question of where Amazon could locate in Austin, given its gigantic footprint and many preferences.
After all, the e-commerce behemoth has not been shy about detailing the perks and features it expects from communities bidding on its $5 billion project that is projected to generate 50,000 jobs. And Austin leaders, while expressing their huge interest in luring Amazon, also have been clear about their preference that Amazon fits with Austin values and not the other way around.
MORE:
San Antonio, Bexar County bow out of bid for Amazon’s second headquarters (LINK)
One felony charge dropped in Dukes’ corruption case as deadline looms (Austin American-Statesman) LINK TO STORY
The erosion of the criminal corruption case against state Rep. Dawnna Dukes is continuing ahead of an Oct. 30 deadline, as prosecutors acknowledge they will abandon one of the 13 felony counts against the Austin Democrat over an investigator’s error.
The Austin Democrat was indicted in January on charges she falsified travel vouchers to collect a $61.50 per diem 13 different times on days when she did not work at the Capitol.