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MARCH 31, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

💧 “Water is the new oil” as Texas cities square off over aquifer pipeline plans (Texas Tribune)

🏛️ Liberty Hill ISD superintendent chosen to be next Williamson County judge (KUT)

🚓 APD gets temporary extension of license plate reader program (Austin Monitor)

🗳️Texas Democrats select Kendall Scudder as state party chair (Texas Tribune)

🔨 Top Florida lawmaker has ‘personal concerns’ about a push to loosen child-labor laws (Miami Herald)

📜 Trump is 'not joking' about third term, though Constitution says he can't serve (NPR)

🗓️ Check out the Week Ahead for City of Austin public meetings and hearings

🏛️ Austin City Hall Week in Review (Week of March 24, 2025)

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ “Water is the new oil” as Texas cities square off over aquifer pipeline plans (Texas Tribune)

In Central Texas, a bitter fight over a $1 billion water project offers a preview of the future for much of the state as decades of rapid growth pushes past the local limits of its most vital natural resource.

On one side: Georgetown, the fastest-growing city in America for three years straight, which in 2023 signed a contract with an investor-funded enterprise to quickly begin importing vast volumes of water from the Simsboro Formation of the Carrizo Wilcox Aquifer, 80 miles to the east.

On the other side: the cities atop the Simsboro that rely on its water. Bryan, College Station and the Texas A&M University System, a metro area with almost 300,000 people, have sued the developer to stop the project. A trial is set for the first week of May.

“We’re going to fight this thing until the end,” said Bobby Gutierrez, the mayor of Bryan. “It effectively drains the water source of the cities.”

The pump and pipeline project to Georgetown, developed by California-based Upwell Water, is the largest of at least a half dozen similar projects recently completed, under construction or proposed to bring rural Carrizo Wilcox aquifer water into the booming urban corridor that follows Interstate 35 through Central Texas.

It would eventually pump up to 89 million gallons per day, three times the usage of the city of Bryan.

“That basically stops all the economic development we have,” Gutierrez said. “We’re talking about our survival.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ APD gets temporary extension of license plate reader program (Austin Monitor)

The Austin Police Department’s use of automated license plate readers as an investigative tool will continue through June, City Council decided last week.

Later this year, Council will determine whether to make the pilot program a permanent feature, depending on the findings of the city auditor’s analysis to be presented to the Audit and Finance Committee in May.

The controversial data-collection program, a one-year trial that was implemented in March 2024, was set to end March 28, the day after Council agreed to the temporary extension.

The reader program allows police to quickly scan license plates as part of local crime investigations. Law enforcement leaders and segments of the community laud the use of the reader program because of its record of helping to solve serious crimes and potentially thwarting criminal activity before it occurs… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ East Austin's 'wishbone' bridge takes shape as concrete beams almost span Lady Bird Lake (KUT)

Massive concrete beams now extend over the water at the east end of Lady Bird Lake as a new three-pronged pedestrian bridge – the first of its kind in Austin – comes together next to the Longhorn Dam. Only one gap remains before the bridge's skeleton is assembled.

Once complete in mid-2026, this long-awaited "wishbone bridge" will finally connect the city's most popular trail at a long-overlooked corner of the lake in East Austin. This is the last point along the 10-mile Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail where people have to depart the pathway walk right next to traffic.

Even though the city began widening the bridge's notoriously slim 4-foot-wide sidewalks in 2021, many trail users don't want to stroll next to fast-moving vehicles on Pleasant Valley Road… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Liberty Hill ISD superintendent chosen to be next Williamson County judge (KUT)

The Williamson County Commissioners Court has chosen Liberty Hill ISD Superintendent Steven Snell to serve as county judge. His appointment was approved in a 3-1 vote during a special session of the court on Thursday.

The selection comes a little more than two weeks after former County Judge Bill Gravell resigned to take a job with the Trump administration.

Now that he's been selected, Snell will serve as Williamson County judge until the next general election in November 2026.

"The choice has gotta carry us into the future, and it's coming at us hard and fast," said Precinct 1 Commissioner Terry Cook during Thursday's meeting. "I think Steven Snell is ready to take us there."

According to local government code, if the office of county judge is vacant, the county's commissioners must select a person to serve as judge until the next general election.

"The entire court was dedicated to promptly selecting a highly qualified candidate who could hit the ground running as we are in a crucial time in our budget season," Precinct 3 Commissioner Valerie Covey said in a statement.

Snell is a resident of Leander, and holds both bachelor's and master’s degrees from Texas Tech University.

He has spent the past six years as superintendent for Liberty Hill ISD… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Texas Democrats select Kendall Scudder as state party chair (Texas Tribune)

The Texas Democratic Party’s governing board on Saturday elected Kendall Scudder to lead the party forward as its new chair after a devastating performance in November and years of electoral defeats.

“The challenge that we’re facing right now is terrifying for this country and for this state, and a lot of people are counting on us to come together and do the right thing and make sure that we are building a Texas Democratic Party that is worthy of the grassroots in this state,” Scudder said upon taking the gavel.

“Let’s build a party that the working men and women of this state can be proud of.” Scudder took 65 out of 121 votes, an outright majority in the seven-way race.

Scudder will take over as chair of the state party at a moment when Democrats are grasping for a way forward after blowout losses up and down the ballot last year, including President Donald Trump’s victory and a surge to the right by traditionally Democratic groups, such as Hispanic voters in South Texas… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ New ICE warrant policy could slow Houston police response times, experts say (Houston Chronicle)

Harris County deputies and Houston police officers now have the same marching orders: When they encounter any of 700,000 people recently added by ICE to a national warrant database, they’re supposed to call the immigration enforcement agency and wait.

The policy — implemented in recent weeks after more than 700,000 ICE administrative warrants were added to a database accessible by patrol officers — raises questions for both local and national agencies and outside observers of how long must an officer wait for ICE to show up, how will it affect a patrol officer’s ability to respond to other crimes and how is it constitutional for police to detain someone with no criminal charges.

The new task, which in Houston includes filing an internal report after calling ICE and waiting, comes amid years of worsening response times for the Houston Police Department, which are now at their slowest since the 1990s. And some patrol districts have seen a regular barrage of calls for service. "The addition of 700,000 ICE administrative warrants to the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) could potentially slow police response times," said Howard Henderson, a professor at Texas Southern University who studies public safety and law enforcement.

"Since these warrants are for civil immigration violations, local officers must call ICE and wait for agents to handle them, which could delay their ability to respond to other incidents." While officials at the agencies say they're treating the warrants the same way they do hold requests from other departments, public safety and legal experts say the policy broaches new ground and puts local police on the front line of immigration enforcement — a place where local leaders have long said they were reticent to go.

“I think a lot of the local sheriffs and police chiefs share the same concern,” said Jay Coons, an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University who retired as a captain at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office in 2018. “The issue of enforcing immigration law by a local officer is a concern because if local law enforcement is given powers and authority of an immigration officer, we have long been worried we’d instantly create a victim class.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Here's what the Aurora safety report says about testing fully driverless trucks coming to Texas highways (Houston Chronicle)

Aurora, a developer of self-driving vehicles, has released its report during its final preparations to launch self-driving trucks without a safety driver on Texas highways.

The Driverless Safety Report includes information on safety engineering, cybersecurity and risk management, according to Aurora in the news release. The report is an expanded version of the Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment — documents encouraged by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for companies who develop and launch automated driving systems.

“Our safety approach spans both product and organization, and in this report, we’ve shared a behind-the-scenes look into our safety systems,” said Nat Beuse, chief safety officer at Aurora, in a statement. The NHTSA has a voluntary safety guidance document that notes 12 elements, including system safety, object and event detection and response, human-machine interface, crashworthiness, and compliance with federal, state and local laws. When the NHTSA becomes aware of a new assessment publication, it’s added to the Voluntary Safety Self-Assessment index online and made available to the public.

Aurora has been partnering with FedEx, Uber Freight, Hirshbach and Schneider for its self-driving system, the Aurora Driver, on the Dallas to Houston route. The company has not yet announced who will be a part of the fleet for the driverless operations, according to Jake Martin, spokesperson for Aurora. Aurora officials will also have to close its safety case framework before the launch… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

✅ Trump is 'not joking' about third term, though Constitution says he can't serve (NPR)

President Trump declined to explicitly say he won't stay in office past Jan. 20, 2029, telling reporters: "We have a long way to go before we can even think about that."

Trump's remarks to reporters came on Air Force One, as he returned to Washington from Florida, where he spent the weekend.

Trump was repeatedly asked about his remarks earlier in the day to NBC News in which he was quoted as saying he "was not joking" about a third term in office. He told reporters Sunday night: "I'm not looking at that, but I'll tell you I've had more people ask me to have a third term."

The Constitution mandates a two-term limit for president.

When pressed on it later, Trump said: "I don't want to talk about a third term now because no matter how you look at it, we have a long time to go. We have almost four years to go. And that's a long time."

Trump told NBC News that "there are methods" that would allow him to serve a third term in office.

NBC News also reported that Trump said he is "pissed off" at Vladimir Putin for the Russian president's recent comments on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's leadership. Trump said he is planning "secondary sanctions on Russia" if they don't cooperate with the his U.S.-brokered ceasefire proposal the two countries agreed to this last week… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Top Florida lawmaker has ‘personal concerns’ about a push to loosen child-labor laws (Miami Herald)

Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez says he has “personal concerns” about a proposal that would loosen the state’s child labor laws and allow many teenagers to work overnight jobs on school days without a meal break.

The proposal — which is moving in the Florida Senate but has stalled in the Florida House — would remove the state’s labor protections that keep children as young as 14 and 15 from working late nights and early mornings, if they are home-schooled or attend virtual school. It would remove all limitations on how late and how much 16- and 17-year-olds can work and end those teenage workers’ guarantee to a meal break.

“Personally… my greatest concern with that is having children work late hours or early hours on a school day,” said Perez, a Miami Republican. “I don’t ever want to take that away from our young children, or really any children for that matter.” Florida law currently says that teenagers ages 16 and 17 can’t work before 6:30 a.m. or after 11 p.m. on a school day and can’t work during school hours unless they are in a career education program.

They are also limited to up to 30 hours a week of work when school is in session, unless their parent or a school superintendent waives that restriction. Home-schooled or virtually schooled teenagers as young as 16 are currently exempt from those time regulations, under a change approved by the Legislature last year. The proposal would expand those exemptions to teens as young as 14.

The debate over the proposal gained national attention after the Herald/Times reported that Gov. Ron DeSantis talked about how a younger workforce could help industries that lose workers as a result of a crackdown on migrant labor… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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