BG Reads // April 25, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
April 25, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🟪 Yesterday Austin City Council Regular Meeting (117 Items)

POLICY SPOTLIGHT: Austin Council to Vote on AI Ethics Framework

🏛️ 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.

We’re growing BG Reads and want to better understand who’s reading. Your quick answers help us shape content and build a stronger community.

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin's airport expected to keep growing, even after current expansion (Austin Business Journal)

Don’t expect construction at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport to slow down anytime soon. 

Although ABIA is undergoing a $4 billion effort to add a new terminal and update other major features of the airport's layout, officials anticipate more work will be required not long after the current expansion project wraps up in 2030.

The current project is aimed at accommodating more than 30 million passengers annually and should allow ABIA to meet travel demand up to the year 2040, said Shane Harbinson, chief development officer for ABIA, during an Urban Land Institute Austin panel discussion April 23 at the Austin Central Library.

The current phase of expansion will add a new terminal with at least 20 new gates — possibly 30 depending on airline demand.

But Harbinson said ABIA has a master plan to add even more gates and terminals down the line. He said the additional capacity could be added because the current ABIA expansion is being built according to a “hub friendly” design, in which the new terminal will be parallel to the existing one and connected by a tunnel to make it easier for more airplanes to fly in and out… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Austin ISD gets a C under Texas' updated school rating system (KUT)

Austin ISD earned a C for the 2022-23 school year under the state's academic accountability system. The C marks a slide from the previous year when the district earned a B before the Texas Education Agency started using more rigorous criteria to calculate school ratings.

Superintendent Matias Segura said Austin ISD and other school districts in Texas saw some "drastic swings" in the grades under the updated system.

"We have 30 schools identified as failing, 16 of which went from a B in 2022 to an F in 2023," he said. "The one thing to keep in mind is that these are the same students and the same teachers from one year to the next."

Austin ISD School Board President Lynn Boswell said there was a 233% increase in schools statewide that got an F under the updated rating system… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)


✅ Appeals court sides with Texas in challenge to Austin marijuana decriminalization ordinance (Community Impact)

Austin's voter-approved ordinance limiting local enforcement of marijuana-related misdemeanors could soon be overturned, after a Texas appeals court sided with a state challenge to the policy.

Austinites voted overwhelmingly in favor of 2022's Proposition A to stop police from issuing citations or making arrests for most low-level marijuana offenses. That election came after the police department ended its enforcement of misdemeanor possession charges in 2020, a change city officials previously pressed for.

Austin is one of several cities statewide where ballot measures to halt marijuana enforcement were approved by residents while the drug remains illegal in Texas. Attorney General Ken Paxton then sued several including Austin over the adoption of such ordinances by city officials he labeled "pro-crime extremists."

"This unconstitutional action by municipalities demonstrates why Texas must have a law to ‘follow the law.’ It’s quite simple: the legislature passes every law after a full debate on the issues, and we don’t allow cities the ability to create anarchy by picking and choosing the laws they enforce," Paxton had said in a statement… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ City releases ‘State of the Environment’ report (Austin Monitor)

The City of Austin released its annual State of the Environment Report on Earth Day, providing an update on Austin’s air and water quality, urban forest, parkland, and climate resilience in 2024. The city’s environmental officer is tasked with compiling this report every year, and it is published through the Watershed Protection Department.

“For the 2024 Report, we are highlighting the successes achieved through the acquisition of open space, particularly the Water Quality Protection Lands program,” it reads. “This program exemplifies the significant impact community commitment has had on land conservation in Austin.” The Water Quality Protection Lands (WQPL) program was created in 1998, when Austinites first voted to purchase conservation easements to protect water quality in the Barton Springs segment of the Edwards Aquifer.

Austin is one of a few U.S. cities that has a Watershed Protection Department that operates separately from its water utility. The department exists in part because of Austin’s overlap with the ecologically fragile Edwards Aquifer. This year’s report has a special focus on the city’s Water Quality Protection Lands program… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ John Cornyn: I’ve worked hand-in-glove with President Trump to accomplish his agenda during his first 100 days (Houston Chronicle)

On Nov. 5, Americans went to the polls to elect President Donald Trump for a second term by a decisive margin. The message was clear: Americans were ready to turn the page on the last four years of failed policies under Democratic leadership. The question then became: could the new Republican majority hit the ground running, deliver on his ambitious agenda, and put the Senate back to work? As we near the end of President Trump’s first 100 days, the answer is a resounding yes.

The first step in delivering on this mandate was giving President Trump his team by confirming his Cabinet. The Senate provides an important role in giving advice and consent to the President’s nominees for important positions across the executive branch. So this was the first major hurdle to clear, and an opportunity to deliver the president an early win.

President Trump selected many eminently qualified nominees for his Cabinet, including several Texans: John Ratcliffe, Scott Turner, and Brooke Rollins. I was proud to help shepherd all three of these impressive Texans through their respective committee hearings. While Republicans had secured a clear majority of 53 seats in the Senate, getting 50 members on the same page is never an easy task. Maneuvering in united government is sometimes even harder than in divided government. But on top of this inherent difficulty, Democrats insisted on pulling out all of the stops.

They tried everything from exaggerated smear campaigns to all-night grandstanding. Some even demanded that their colleagues, “blow [the Senate] up.” Despite the doubts of our critics, Senate Republicans set a new standard for speed. I was proud to vote for every single one of the President’s Cabinet picks, and in just 10 weeks, the Republican-led Senate completed our first task at the fastest pace in a generation. By the end of February, the Senate had confirmed 13 of the President’s nominees, whereas only six were confirmed at that point during Biden’s presidency… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Dallas-Fort Worth International taps operations exec Chris McLaughlin to serve as new CEO (Dallas Morning News)

Chris McLaughlin will be the new chief executive officer of Dallas Fort Worth International Airport, it announced Thursday. McLaughlin succeeds Sean Donohue, who in October announced plans to retire from the world’s third busiest airport in terms of traffic. Donohue has been with DFW Airport since 2013, the final stop of his four decades-long career in aviation. Currently serving as DFW’s executive vice president of operations, McLaughlin has held that role since 2021. He was appointed CEO following a unanimous vote by the airport’s board of directors, and will step into his new role May 19.

“I am inheriting one of the best teams in the business, surrounded by true industry partners with a shared vision, supporting a community and a region that my family proudly calls home,” he said in a release. “Working together with our board, our employees, the community and our stakeholders, we’ll continue to transform travel for our region and the world,” he added. After Donohue’s announcement, the airport’s board of directors initiated a global search for his successor, but they didn’t have to go far to find him. “Chris McLaughlin is the right person to lead the airport into its next exciting chapter of growth,” Donohue said in a statement, saying the executive “possesses the experience, leadership and expertise needed to guide an enterprise the magnitude of DFW.” According to DeMetris Sampson, Chair of the DFW Airport Board of Directors, McLaughlin “stood out in a global pool of exceptional candidates as a forward-thinking, inclusive leader who understands both the scale and the impact of our mission.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ Starbase, the SpaceX site, is likely Texas’ next city. What happens next? (Texas Tribune)

Nearly 10 years after SpaceX, Elon Musk’s effort to colonize Mars, began operating in a small community in Cameron County just a few miles inland of the Gulf Coast, employees who live there and other residents will vote next month to incorporate their Starbase community as Texas’ newest city.

If the majority of them vote yes on May 3, the leaders they elect at the same time will have the responsibility of creating a city from the ground up. What does it take to have a fully functioning city?

A few of Starbase's first steps as a newborn city can be anticipated because state law sets certain requirements for raising and spending public money and how governing bodies can operate.

Texas generally gives municipalities a lot of discretion on how to manage and govern themselves, according to Alan Bojorquez, an attorney who specializes in city governance.

“The reality is, Texas cities under the law are not required to do much," Bojorquez said. He emphasized that much of what the new city of Starbase will do will ultimately depend on what services and programs city officials and residents want the city to provide… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

[US and World News]

✅ Trump meets his match: the markets (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump has met his biggest opponent—and it’s the stock market. Since returning to Washington three months ago, Trump has toppled federal agencies, consolidated executive power, challenged global alliances and reconfigured America’s economic relationships around the globe. His moves have been met with protests, court challenges, dipping poll numbers and political opposition. Yet so far, the only force that has reliably prompted him to back down is Wall Street. In recent weeks, Trump has softened his economic and trade stances following periods of market turmoil.

Early this month, he imposed a 90-day pause on many of the tariffs he had put in place just days earlier, as the stock market cratered and a selloff of U.S. bonds rattled investors. This week, he softened his tone on China after ratcheting up tariffs on imports from the country to 145%. And he ruled out—for now—attempting to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell after his public musings about terminating him triggered another market plunge.

Both the president and White House officials argue that the sharp U-turns are all part of a long-term plan to force allies and adversaries alike to strike trade deals with the U.S. And they stress that Trump remains determined to follow through on his pledge to reset global trade. But in each scenario, Trump was presented with evidence by his aides and cabinet secretaries, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, that holding firm on his decisions would spur further disarray in the markets, according to people familiar with the matter. Earlier this month, Trump acknowledged that he paused the tariffs in part because he watched the bond markets and people were getting a “little queasy.” “

The only interest guiding President Trump’s decision-making is the best interest of the American people,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. The president is also hearing regularly from executives concerned about how his trade policies are affecting their bottom lines. On Monday, Trump met with top executives at the country’s biggest retailers, including Target, Walmart and Home Depot.

They delivered a stark warning to the president that tariffs could scramble supply chains and raise prices, according to people familiar with the discussion. Trump’s current and former advisers said he watches the markets closely, and as an avid media consumer can’t avoid the dramatic ups and downs that have been displayed across television screens and on front pages for weeks. “He looks at the markets as a barometer of how things are going,” said David Urban, a former Trump political adviser. “In his view, it’s an important barometer of people’s opinion of life and the financial world.”… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

✅ They say they want Americans to have more babies. What's beneath the surface? (NPR)

"Humanity is dying," billionaire Elon Musk told Fox News anchor Bret Baier recently when asked what keeps him up at night. "The birth rate is very low in almost every country. And so unless that changes, civilization will disappear." Through interviews, social media posts, funding for population research and his own example as the parent of at least 14 children, Musk has become one of the most visible beacons of anxiety about falling birth rates.

While discussions about the economic challenges of falling birth rates exist across the political spectrum, the right has increasingly taken up the cause under the banner of "pronatalism" to promote higher birth rates. The Trump White House is reportedly soliciting suggestions to boost births from married couples, even as it continues drastic reductions to social services and public health funding.

In recent years, a revitalized pronatalist movement has brought together parts of the religious right, tech types and dedicated "new right" anti-feminists. These camps have some disagreements over government policy, technologies like in vitro fertilization, genetic engineering and the rehabilitation of eugenics. But most are united in the belief that modern culture has failed to adequately prioritize the value of nuclear families and making lots of babies… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)

Have questions ?

📩 Contact me at: [email protected].

Learn more at: ⬇️