BG Reads | News You Need to Know (July 27, 2023)
[BG PODCAST]
EPISODE 208 // On this episode we welcome guest Dave Porter, Executive Director, Williamson County Economic Development Partnership.
The Williamson County EDP was founded in 2014 to create a partnership between Williamson County and city economic development leaders to market and promote economic development in Williamson County.
Members from each of the contributing government entities make up Williamson County EDP's board of directors.
Dave was hired in October 2022 as the Partnership's first Executive Director.
He and Bingham Group CEO A.J. discuss the past several months and what's ahead for the Partnership and Williamson County.
EPISODE 208
LINKS:
• Williamson County Economic Development Partnership → williamsoncountytxedp.com/
• Williamson County Economic Development Partnership announces new office in South Korea (Community Impact, July 26, 2023) → rb.gy/yrmz0
• Connect with Dave on LinkedIn -> rb.gy/c1ump
ABOUT THE BINGHAM GROUP, LLC
Bingham Group works to advance the interests of businesses, nonprofits, and associations at the municipal and state level.
Follow Bingham Group on LinkedIn at: bit.ly/3WIN4yT
Connect with A.J. on LinkedIn at: bit.ly/3DlFiUK
Contact us at: info@binghamgp.com
We are a HUB/MBE-certified Austin lobbying firm.
>>> SHOW LINK <<<
Also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
[AUSTIN METRO]
Travis County still slated to spend millions in 2021 ARPA fundinG (Austin MOnitor)
Travis County has until the end of 2026 to spend $146 million of federal funding it received two years ago, according to the Planning and Budget Office.
On Tuesday, Dashiell Daniels with the county’s Planning and Budget Office told the Commissioners Court about the state of expenditures of the Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund – an almost $250 million allotment Travis County received in 2021 as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.
While the county has planned all of the allotted funds for county projects, it must obligate them by the end of next year and expense them by the end of 2026… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin’s Exclusionary Housing Policies Are Getting Revolutionary Rewrites (Austin Chronicle)
Austin's land use rules may have more influence over who gets to live here than any other local laws. For decades, those rules have kept less-wealthy Austinites out of many of the city's central neighborhoods, and others out of Austin altogether.
But increasingly, middle- and low-income Austinites who have been excluded by those very policies are demanding new code that would make living here sustainable. And in the past three months, we've seen unprecedented progress toward that goal. The most reform-friendly Austin City Council yet has initiated major changes to Austin's Land Development Code that, just three years ago, were thought to be unachievable.
One year from now, it is plausible that Austin will have much less restrictive compatibility standards, allow up to three housing units on much smaller lot sizes in most single-family zones, and have no rules requiring at least 1½ parking spaces for every single housing unit… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Despite pandemic challenges, Austin's downtown allure intensifies, new report says (CBS Austin)
Austin is changing -- but it is not slowing down. That is the takeaway from a new report released Wednesday by the Downtown Austin Alliance.
Joshua Mittler and his dog Mabel live downtown. “it’s just purely for convenience and Austin being so pet friendly I literally moved down here just for her,” he said. “I do not need a car. Everything is pretty walkable.”
Mittler and Mabel have lots of company. “There’s a lot of things that are attractive to people, people want to live, work and play in close proximity to each other and so we have access to nature, transportation, businesses,” said Jennell Moffatt. the chief impact officer for the Downtown Austin Alliance. The group released its second quarterly report that says while there is more empty office space compared to before the pandemic, More people are looking to call downtown home, spurred on by working from home… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
‘Don’t have enough inventory’: Austin realtors said the market needs more affordable homes (KXAN)
Austin needs more homes that most people can afford. Experts with the Austin Board of Realtors said the market needs more inventory.
Wednesday, the Austin Board of Realtors hosted its 2023 Central Texas Housing Summit.
Housing Economist Dr. Clare Losey said it’s not just that the city needs more homes, but that it needs more affordable homes.
“There’s that gap between home prices and income,” Losey said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin resigns to run for Texas House (Texas Tribune)
Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin has announced he will step down and run for a Texas House seat.
McLaughlin has served as mayor of the small South Texas city since 2014 and was reelected three times. He led the community through the May 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, where a local teenager killed 19 students and two teachers.
McLaughlin, a Republican, said he is running in District 80. In a statement July 14, McLaughlin said entering the race “was a no brainer for me,” saying that “out of touch members of the establishment class have been ignoring the concerns of everyday Texans.”… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texts show lawmakers were ‘pissed off’ at Ken Paxton before impeachmenT (Dallas Morning News)
Rep. Jeff Leach was “pissed off.” He had just found out that Ken Paxton wanted $3.3 million to settle a lawsuit with a group of whistleblowers who’d accused him of corruption and retaliation. Leach, a Collin County Republican like Paxton, considered the Texas attorney general a friend — one he fiercely defended in the past. But asking the Legislature to pony up the money was too much. On Feb. 10, he texted Michelle Smith, Paxton’s senior advisor, and urged the state’s top lawyer to come to the Capitol and publicly explain himself. “Legislators have questions and we want answers. If we get the satisfactory answers, then all will be fine,” Leach wrote to Smith, according to copies of the messages The Dallas Morning News obtained through public records requests. “I don’t think y’all understand how pissed members are, including many of your conservative friends in the house and senate. I don’t know a single legislator who believes taxpayers should be expected to be on the hook for this,” he added.
Smith balked. “What happened to, ‘I will work with him until the day I die?” she responded in the text thread, urging Leach to speak directly with Paxton. “If he’s a friend get the full story.” “The Christian thing to do is to ask what’s going on in Private. If you don’t like the answer then do whatever public,” she added later in that conversation. “You’re really gonna go there with me?!” Leach fired back. “This is on Ken. Not on me. I’m doing my job. I will be calling a public hearing and he and I can have the conversation on the record.” “You do you,” Smith replied. After Paxton’s impeachment, The News requested all communications exchanged this year between Leach, a key North Texas lawmaker, and Smith, who has long been one of the attorney general’s most dedicated allies. Paxton’s agency produced 26 pages of text messages sent between Jan. 10 and June 11.
The records provide insight into discussions between Paxton’s inside circle and lawmakers leading up to the impeachment vote, and show that the attorney general was urged to personally and openly defend the settlement funding. Smith did not return requests for comment for this story sent to her campaign email address. Representatives from the Office of the Attorney General and Paxton’s impeachment lawyers also did not respond to questions. Leach and Dick DeGuerin, a lawyer hired to present the case against Paxton, both declined to comment citing a gag order placed on all parties to the impeachment trial. Paxton first publicly broached the settlement at the Capitol on Feb. 21, when the House appropriations committee held a meeting to discuss his agency’s budget. That day, Paxton talked about his agency’s wins. Lawmakers brought up the settlement… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas AG Ken Paxton demands details of impeachment charges against him (Dallas Morning News)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s legal team wants more details on the allegations that led to his impeachment, telling Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in a legal filing that without the information, it will be impossible to prepare a legal defense. Paxton is demanding that House managers provide an itemized list on what Texas laws he is accused of violating and how they rise to impeachable offenses. The filing is the latest in what appears to be a growing conflict over the amount of evidence House prosecutors provided as Paxton’s Sept. 5 impeachment trial looms. The House voted overwhelmingly on May 27 to impeach Paxton on wide ranging allegations, including an accusation that he abused his office to help a campaign donor in exchange for remodeling work for his home and a job for a woman with whom the attorney general is accused of having an affair.
Paxton also is accused of obstruction of justice related to a long pending securities fraud case and general unfitness for office. Paxton has denied any wrongdoing. He is the first statewide elected official to face removal from office in more than a century and has been suspended from duty without pay since his impeachment. Tuesday’s filing called on Patrick to order the House legal team produce a “bill of particulars” for the articles of impeachment. They asked for the House to provide 92 pieces of information, including dates of alleged offenses, the exact statutes Paxton violated and how each allegation rises to the level of an impeachable offense. Patrick, who as president of the Senate is presiding over the impeachment tribunal, issued a gag order last week prohibiting from commenting on the case. “Unless Lt. Gov. Patrick requests an earlier response to the bill of particulars motions, we will respond in due time as required by the rules,” House managers attorney Dick DeGuerin told The Dallas Morning News. DeGuerin would not comment further, citing the gag order. Defense attorneys file bills of particulars when the criminal charges against defendants are vague to minimize surprises during trial. The practice and procedure happens more often in federal court, as opposed to state district courts… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Gov. Abbott’s policing of Texas border pushes limits of state power (NEw york times)
Along Texas’ 1,200-mile-long border with Mexico, state troopers routinely arrest migrants for trespassing. Texas National Guard troops unspool razor wire along the banks of the Rio Grande. State game wardens patrol the river in fast-moving boats. For more than two years, Gov. Greg Abbott has been testing the legal limits of what a state can do to enforce immigration law. The effort, known as Operation Lone Star, has been broadly popular in Texas, including among many Democrats, while its cost, already more than $4 billion, was expected to top $9 billion by the end of next year. Even as the number of migrants has gone down in recent months, Mr. Abbott, a Republican, has pushed the boundaries further. He has overseen aggressive deterrence by state police officers at the border and mounted a brazen challenge to federal authority by placing a floating barrier in the middle of the Rio Grande. In the small border city of Eagle Pass, the state police bulldozed vegetation from a sandbar in the middle of the river last month to create a new security outpost.
The moves met their first significant challenge from the federal government, which sued the state of Texas on Monday, saying that the floating barrier in the river has “flouted federal law” and “risks damaging U.S. foreign policy.” The newly aggressive tactics have tested the support that the governor’s immigration policies have often enjoyed in recent years in Texas. As recently as last month, 59 percent of Texans polled backed the law enforcement deployments and border spending, including 30 percent of Democrats. But the stepped-up tactics employed in recent weeks, including reports of harsh treatment of migrants by Texas officers and injuries to people encountering the razor wire, have soured some of that support. “It worked for the first year, year and a half,” said State Representative Eddie Morales, a conservative Democratic member of the Texas House who represents Eagle Pass and voted to authorize spending on Operation Lone Star back in 2021. “But I think he’s gone overboard,” he said of Mr. Abbott. “It’s time that somebody put a check on our state government.” In recent years, residents of border communities and their elected leaders, mostly Hispanic and mostly Democrats, have complained about the strain put on local services by so many arriving migrants, whose numbers increased sharply during the Biden administration. They welcomed the influx of state money and law enforcement support. But over its first two years, Operation Lone Star appeared to have had little impact on the program’s primary goal of deterring migrants from crossing illegally… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATION]
UFO whistleblower makes explosive claims, but wary of divulging details (The hill)
Former intelligence official David Grusch made far-reaching claims about possible U.S. government cover-ups of contact with UFOs and non-human pilots in a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.
But Grusch could not offer any hard evidence to substantiate his claims — largely due to his fears of prosecution for sharing classified data in a public setting, he told Congress.
“As a former intelligence officer, I go to jail for revealing classified information,” he told the members.
Lawmakers on the national security subcommittee noted that evasion is not the same thing as Grusch admitting he doesn’t have proof.
“We should remind viewers and witnesses — and I think is really important — that we also cannot share classified information in public settings,” Ranking Member Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) said… (LINK TO FULL STORY)
Americans in Their Prime Are Flooding Into the Job Market (WalL StreeT Journal)
The core of the American labor force is back.
Americans between 25 and 54 years of age are either employed or looking for jobs at rates not seen in two decades, a trend helping to counter the exodus of older baby boomers from the workforce. Economists define that age range as in their prime working years—when most Americans are done with their formal education, aren’t ready to retire and tend to be most attached to the labor force.
In the first months of the pandemic, nearly four million prime-age workers left the labor market, pushing participation in early 2020 to the lowest level since 1983—before women had become as much of a force in the workplace. Prime-age workers now exceed prepandemic levels by almost 2.2 million.
That growth is taking a little heat out of the job market and could help the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tamp down inflation by keeping wage growth in check… (LINK TO FULL STORY)