#NEWS // BG Reads | June 8, 2023
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[MEETINGS/HEARINGS]
Today:
Items of Note:
[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
PAC seeks clarity, cost breakdowns for $1.6B convention center expansion (Austin Monitor)
The political action committee co-founded by a former member of the Downtown Commission wants the mayor and City Council to answer questions about the planned expansion of the Austin Convention Center, it announced in a news release last week.
Laura Cantu-Templeton, co-founder of the City Accountability Project PAC, has submitted 10 questions to all 11 members of Council. The PAC is asking for a third-party review of the expansion project, as well as a public vote to spend an estimated $1.6 billion in Hotel Occupancy Tax revenues on the four-year project…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Condo tower could replace Denny’s near downtown Austin (Austin Business Journal)
A company that got its start in single-family homes plans to raise an 18-story residential tower on the site of a Denny’s restaurant near the Swede Hill neighborhood of East Austin.
Ledgestone Development Group has filed plans with the city of Austin indicating it could build the 250 condos atop a 1.2-acre property at 1601 N. I-35 Service Road.
Additional details about the project were not available. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But the project is advancing through City Hall, and last week it gained an initial nod of approval to rezone the land.
Austin City Council voted June 1 to zone the site commercial highway vertical mixed-use neighborhood plan, from commercial highway services-conditional overlay neighborhood plan. Council Member?Ryan Alter ?recused himself from the vote, which was the first of three readings needed for the rezoning…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Even more Meta real estate hits sublease market (Austin Business Journal)
Houston-based NRG Energy Inc. will sell its stake in a Texas power plant — the only nuclear plant in the company's portfolio — to Baltimore-based Constellation Energy Corp. for $1.75 billion.
NRG also announced additional share buybacks and a new CFO on June 1. The announcements come on the heels of an activist investor urging NRG to make changes to its board of directors and refocus on its core integrated power business.
Under the Constellation deal, NRG (NYSE: NRG) will divest its entire 44% equity interest in what's known as the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station. San Antonio-based CPS Energy and Austin-based Austin Energy are the other two owners of the?nuclear plant, which is located just outside of Bay City in Matagorda County …?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS NEWS]
Texas Republicans ended a patchwork of local rules they say hurt business. They also eroded powers of city councils. (Texas Tribune)
A yearslong war waged by Republicans in the Texas Legislature to erode the power of the state’s bluer urban areas escalated this year with?House Bill 2127 , a sweeping bill that nixes all kinds of local ordinances.
Texas lawmakers pushed through a bill long sought by Gov.?Greg Abbott ?aimed at overturning cities’ progressive policies and preventing them from enacting them in the future. The bill was Republicans’ broadest attack yet on local governments — so broad that local officials aren’t quite sure just how many local laws on the books will soon be illegal.
HB 2127 bars cities and counties from creating local ordinances that go further than what’s allowed under broad swaths of state law — including labor, natural resources and finance. Abbott and business lobbying groups, particularly the National Federation of Independent Business, have long pursued such a law, arguing that it’s necessary to untangle a growing patchwork of local regulations that burden business owners and hamper the state’s economic growth — which is overwhelmingly concentrated in the state’s urban areas…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Texas offered $95M for Fairfield Lake land in move developer calls ‘sabotage’ (Dallas Morning News)
Letters between key players in the Fairfield Lake State Park saga obtained by The Dallas Morning News detail the power struggle over 5,000 acres in rural Freestone County, including a recent attempt by state park officials to purchase the land for $95 million. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department made the multimillion-dollar offer in a letter dated June 1 to landowner Vistra Energy. The letter — which included a promise to close on the deal by the end of July when funds were in order — was signed by TPWD Commission Chairman Arch Aplin III, who is also the CEO of Buc-ee’s. Privately owned Vistra Energy has leased the land to the state at no cost since 1971. It listed the land, which includes the 2,400-acre state park, for sale in 2021 with an asking price of $110 million. Dallas-based developer Todd Interests had the land under contract for close to a year, and the contract closed June 1.
The state’s lease ends June 13, and the park closed to the public on Sunday. Todd Interests has already planned a $1 billion project to create an exclusive luxury community on the land with multimillion-dollar homes and a golf course. Prior to this letter, TPWD had offered Todd Interests $25 million to give up its contract. State officials said they “took persistent and extraordinary steps to negotiate” while the developer has told The News it responded in good faith to the offer but never heard back. A week before the state’s offer to Vistra, the attorney general’s office sent a letter to Todd Interests saying it represented TPWD and hoped the state and developer could reach a deal. “However, should that not be achievable, please take notice that TPWD intends to acquire the property, including but not limited to Fairfield Lake State Park, by any and all legally available means,” the letter says, adding that Todd Interests should preserve all documents it has related to the land deal. A special-called meeting between parks commissioners, including Aplin, is slated for Saturday morning with the intent to discuss options for “saving” the park, including condemnation, TPWD has said. State lawmakers have previously discussed using eminent domain to obtain the land…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Harris County will launch guaranteed income pilot program with $500 monthly payments (Houston Chronicle)
About 1,500 low-income families in Harris County will get $500 a month for 18 months as part of a new pilot project that puts the county squarely in the middle of a roiling national debate about how best to address stubborn poverty. The Harris County Commissioners Court authorized the plan Tuesday in a 4-1 vote along party lines, with Democrats voting in favor. The county will pay for the program using $20.5 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. The Uplift Harris program will specifically target households in neighborhoods experiencing persistent poverty, including Sunnyside, Gulfton and Galena Park.
“COVID did not create disparities and inequities in our communities, but it magnified them,” said Barbie Robinson, executive director of Harris County Public Health. “And we know that individuals that are at the poverty level or below the poverty level are just one paycheck away from falling into homelessness.” Coming out of the pandemic, these guaranteed income programs have become increasingly popular in cities and communities run by elected leaders with a strong Democratic lean. More than 45 cities and counties have implemented similar programs providing families with direct cash payments — including Los Angeles, Chicago and Minneapolis — and many of them launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, fueled by ARPA funding. To be eligible for Uplift Harris, families must live below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which means around $60,000 for a family of four or $29,000 for an individual. The program could launch as early as this fall…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[NATIONAL NEWS]
Smoky haze blanketing US, Canada could last for days as wildfires rage, winds won’t budge (Associated Press)
On air quality maps, purple signifies the worst of it. In reality, it’s a thick, hazardous haze that’s disrupting daily life for millions of people across the U.S. and Canada, blotting out skylines and turning skies orange.
And with weather systems expected to hardly budge, the smoky blanket billowing from wildfires in Quebec and Nova Scotia and sending plumes of fine particulate matter as far away as North Carolina should persist into Thursday and possibly the weekend.
That means at least another day, or more, of a dystopian-style detour that’s chased players from ballfields, actors from Broadway stages, delayed thousands of flights and sparked a resurgence in mask wearing and remote work — all while raising concerns about the health effects of prolonged exposure to such bad air…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Political world braces for possible federal indictment of Trump (The Hill)
The political world is bracing for the possibility of a federal indictment of former President Trump, the leading candidate for the Republican presidential election next year. A flurry of recent activity and posturing related to a special counsel probe into his handling of classified documents is fueling talk that an indictment could be imminent. Trump’s attorneys met Monday with Justice Department officials, including special counsel Jack Smith, who is probing whether Trump improperly handled classified documents after leaving office. A Florida grand jury is reportedly convening this week in the case after a lengthy hiatus.
Democrats and Republicans went back and forth on Tuesday over a letter Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), a vocal Trump ally and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland to obtain more information about special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump. And a barrage of angry social media posts from Trump on Tuesday morning further fed into talk that the former president may be concerned about an impending announcement in the case. “I suspect it’s near,” former Attorney General Bill Barr said Tuesday on “CBS Mornings.” “I’ve said for a while that I think this is the most dangerous legal risk facing the former president. And if I had to bet, I would bet that it’s near.” The extraordinary activity is preceding what would be an extraordinary event — the federal indictment of a former president who is the front-runner for his party’s nomination in 2024. Trump in April was indicted at the state level over an alleged hush money scheme during the 2016 election. The Justice Department and a Trump spokesperson declined to comment on whether any announcement about the case is imminent…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[BG PODCAST]
Welcome to Episode 200! Bingham Group Associate Hannah Garcia and CEO A.J. review the week in Austin politics and more.
The discussion covers:
Bingham Group works to advance the interests of businesses, nonprofits, and associations at the municipal and state level.
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