BG Reads // April 15, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
April 15, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ Austin City Council:

POLICY SPOTLIGHT: Austin Council to Vote on AI Ethics Framework
📅 Scheduled Austin Council Hearing: April 24, 2025 (Agenda Link)

🏛️ Austin City Council will consider a resolution (Item 55) to establish ethical guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in City operations.

🏛️ The proposed framework would guide how AI is deployed across departments—such as permitting, public safety, and translation services—while prioritizing transparency, workforce protection, and digital equity.

💡 Key directives include:

  • Annual audits of AI tools used by the City

  • Public awareness and engagement campaigns

  • Training resources on AI literacy and responsible use

  • Clear restrictions on AI use for surveillance, discrimination, or job displacement

📩 Have questions on how this might impact your operations or policy goals? Email me for a consult. Please include Item 55 AI Framework Question in the subject line.

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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Airlines bullish on Austin airport as it undergoes multibillion-dollar expansion (Austin Business Journal)

Airlines are planning to grow their Austin operations as the city's airport undergoes a multibillion-dollar expansion. 

Officials from Southwest Airlines Co. and Delta Air Lines spoke highly of Austin as a travel destination and partner during an April 9 panel discussion at the 2025 Infrastructure Summit hosted by the Great Austin Chamber of Commerce. 

“When talking about different markets growing, Austin is absolutely one of the best sellers,” said Amy Martin, Delta's vice president of network planning for North America. “You see it in economic growth, you see it in populations growing and businesses moving here.”

Martin said Delta (NYSE: DAL) has doubled its capacity at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport since 2019. 

Overall annual passenger traffic at ABIA has grown about 25% since the Covid-19 pandemic, from about 17.3 million passengers in 2019 to about 21.7 million in 2024, according to ABIA data... 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Austin council pushes for continued monitoring of Sixth Street safety, business trends downtown (Community Impact)

City officials are seeking further reporting on public safety trends along East Sixth Street downtown after its reopening to vehicles on weekends, and as private development aimed at reviving some of the corridor takes place.

n persistent safety concerns, city officials advanced a pilot program to reopen Sixth Street late last year. Several blocks that were traditionally opened to pedestrians on busy weekend nights are now blocked off with fencing, rubber curbs and other barricades to allow vehicle traffic in the roadway alongside widened sidewalk areas. City staff including police Chief Lisa Davis has promoted the update as a success, and early data suggests the changes have reduced arrests and police uses of force in the area.

“You can see that bringing a little bit of structure to it has changed the way that the fights and violence are breaking out," police Cmdr. Mike Chancellor told City Council in March… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ West Campus zoning program set for changes as city plans density-focused upgrade (Austin Monitor)

Austin’s West Campus neighborhood may be about to enter a new era of development, as city staff plan to update a special zoning overlay that has guided new building in the area since the early aughts, according to a presentation delivered by city staff to the Planning Commission during a meeting on April 8.

Under review is the University Neighborhood Overlay, or UNO, a special zoning district established in 2004 that covers much of the area immediately west of the University of Texas at Austin. It was designed to promote density, walkability and affordability in the neighborhood, which houses thousands of UT students.

Paul Books of the Planning Department, who gave the presentation on the proposed changes, cast them not as a fix to a failed program, but rather as an upgrade to one that’s already been successful. He cited the gain of 28,000 residents in the neighborhood since the original overlay was implemented.

That happened during a period in which the university’s enrollment-in-residence figure, which tracks the number of students taking classes at the university’s campus, remained roughly static at around 50,000.

The proposed changes to the overlay are broad, but the most dramatic focus on height limits for new developments and the redrawing of the overlay’s borders. The area covered by the overlay will expand to the west and north, and several subdistricts within the overlay that govern individual properties would see changes… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Music Commission, staff weigh final criteria for next Live Music Fund grants (Austin Monitor)

The Music Commission is weighing several potential changes to the city’s Live Music Fund grant program, including the removal of criteria tied to languages spoken and census tract residency, clearer definitions of what qualifies as a live music venue, and a greater emphasis on artist accomplishments rather than personal income or access to financial lending.

At last week’s meeting, commissioners also discussed recommendations to refine how applicants document their marketing efforts and local economic impact. They also urged city staff to simplify the scoring process and expand outreach to underserved communities.

Final guidelines for the 2025 grant cycle are expected to be completed in May, with the next round of funding set to launch this summer… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Texas House expected to vote on school choice bill Wednesday (Dallas Morning News)

In what could portend a sweeping change for education in Texas, the state House is set to vote on a school choice bill Wednesday that would create a $1 billion fund for parents who could then use taxpayer dollars to pay for private school education. The vote is one of the few remaining hurdles for the legislation, which has been a top priority for Gov. Greg Abbott and passed in the Senate on Feb. 5. The proposal, Senate Bill 2, has been at the center of one of the most intense political fights at the Legislature over the past two years.

The bill appears to have enough support to pass the House. More than half of the chamber signed on as sponsors of the bill. Still, school districts and advocates will be paying close attention Wednesday to see if that support holds. Passage in the House would give the bill a clear path to the governor’s desk. Changes could still be made to the bill in a conference committee of lawmakers from the Senate and House who would work out differences between the versions of the bill each chamber passed.

Similar proposals in previous years have failed in the House after rural Republicans sided with Democrats to block school voucher-like proposals. This year could be different after Abbott successfully campaigned to unseat several Republican members of the House who voted against a similar bill in 2023. House Speaker Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said that the bill will pass during a March 25 news conference alongside the governor and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“We can fully fund public education and do school choice at the same time,” Burrows said, adding that he was “excited” to send the bill to the governor’s desk. The House will also take up a bill Wednesday that will provide teacher pay raises and increase the per-student funding for public schools. It is expected to pass with bipartisan support.

The voucherlike proposal the House will consider Wednesday would create a program to provide education savings accounts of roughly $10,000 for participants. Public education advocates generally oppose any legislation that would send public dollars to private education for fear that it will siphon money from the public education system that educates the vast majority of Texas children… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Texas, built around free trade, shudders under Trump's tariff limbo (Houston Chronicle)

Along the Gulf Coast petrochemical plants load plastic pellets on ships destined for factories in China and India. Around Lubbock, cotton farmers sell their crops to brokers working with clothes manufacturers in Bangladesh and Vietnam. And in San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth, vehicles roll off assembly lines with parts made in Mexico and Canada. Texas has thrived under the proliferation of free trade agreements signed in recent decades, drawing companies and investors from around the globe seeking to take advantage of the steady flow of goods and services across borders and oceans. But it also means the state's economy is particularly susceptible to trade wars.

That has become increasingly clear as President Donald Trump this month rolled out near-universal tariffs on goods made abroad and provoked countries to hike their own levies on U.S.-made products. While the president has since pulled back many of the steepest tariff hikes, goods imported from China now face a whopping 145% levy and the roller coaster has set off a panic among Texas companies large and small. Earlier this month, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas projected a $47 billion hit to the Texas economy from just the tariffs on Mexico, Canada and an earlier, smaller tariff on China, writing Texas is, "the No. 1 trading state in the nation, with more than $850 billion in total U.S. trade."… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Trump officials cut planning grant for Texas high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston (Texas Tribune)

President Donald Trump’s administration on Monday terminated a federal grant to help fund a long-sought high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston — saying that if the embattled project moves forward, it will have to do so without federal help at this stage.

The U.S. Department of Transportation nixed a $63.9 million planning grant for the proposed Texas Central route under an agreement between the Federal Railroad Administration and Amtrak. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the two agencies “are in agreement that underwriting this project is a waste of taxpayer funds and a distraction from Amtrak’s core mission of improving its existing subpar services.”

“The Texas Central Railway project was proposed as a private venture,” Duffy said. “If the private sector believes this project is feasible, they should carry the pre-construction work forward, rather than relying on Amtrak and the American taxpayer to bail them out.”…  🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Texas House gives first approval to bill that would allow universities to pay student athletes (Texas Tribune)

The Texas House preliminarily approved a bill Monday that would allow universities to directly pay student athletes for their “name, likeness and image,” despite concerns from some lawmakers that the proposal would disadvantage smaller schools and fail to sufficiently protect the students at the center of these deals.

The House is expected to formally pass the bill in the coming days. It will then go to the Senate, where it may face a tougher road.

Texas’ current laws allow outside entities, like national advertisers or athletic boosters, to pay student athletes, but prohibit universities from paying them directly. House Bill 126, filed by Rep. Carl Tepper, a Lubbock Republican, would lift that restriction.

The proposal comes a year after the NCAA settled a class-action lawsuit that opened the door for universities to pay student athletes, creating a revenue-sharing model in which universities in certain conferences could distribute up to $20 million to athletes annually… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

✅ Trump says he wants to imprison US citizens in El Salvador. That’s likely illegal (Associated Press)

President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated that he’d like to send U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to prison in El Salvador, telling that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, that he’d “have to build five more places” to hold the potential new arrivals.

Trump’s administration has already deported immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison CECOT, known for its harsh conditions. The president has also said his administration is trying to find “legal” ways to ship U.S. citizens there, too.

Trump on Monday insisted these would just be “violent people,” implying they would be those already convicted of crimes in the United States, though he’s also floated it as a punishment for those who attack Tesla dealerships to protest his administration and its patron, billionaire Elon Musk. But it would likely be a violation of the U.S. Constitution for his administration to send any native-born citizen forcibly into an overseas prison. Indeed, it would likely even violate a provision of a law Trump himself signed during his first term.

Here’s a look at the notion of sending U.S. citizens to prison in a foreign country, why it’s likely not legal and some possible legal loopholes… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Trump administration freezes more than $2.2 billion after Harvard rejects its demands (NPR)

The Trump administration responded quickly to Harvard University's defiance on Monday, freezing more than $2.2 billion in multi-year grants and contracts after the university rejected demands that it change hiring, admissions and other policies.

Earlier in the day, Alan Garber, Harvard's president, said in a letter to faculty and students that the university would not submit to a list of demands made last Friday. Among them are that it eliminate DEI programs, screen international students who are "supportive of terrorism or anti-Semitism" and ensure "viewpoint diversity" in its hiring. At stake, the government said, was some $9 billion in federal funding.

"No government," Garber wrote, "regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue."

Hours after Harvard's lawyers sent a formal rejection of the administration's demands, the government's Joint Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism responded:

"Harvard's statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation's most prestigious universities and colleges – that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws."… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

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