🟪 Travis County to discuss Tesla economic development agreement (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Austin City Council wants a say in the future of 10 Austin ISD schools closing this year (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Austin unveils retooled development program for taller buildings, affordable housing (Community Impact)

🟪 MetCenter developer eyes data center in Hutto; neighbors already voicing concern (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Artemis II astronauts swung by the moon, broke an Apollo record, and saw an eclipse (NPR)

🟪 Trump warns Iran he could strike ‘every power plant,’ in WSJ interview (Wall Street Journal)

READ ON!

✅ Travis County to discuss Tesla economic development agreement (Austin Business Journal)

A years-old incentives agreement between carmaker Tesla and Travis County will be discussed by county leaders on April 7. 

The Travis County Commissioners Court is set to get a legal briefing — and possibly take action — on the deal with Colorado River Project, LLC, a Tesla subsidiary that owns the land for the company's gigafactory site. 

Travis County has been evaluating the economic development agreement with Tesla for several months. In November, the Austin Business Journal reported the county hasn’t rebated any money to Tesla even though tens of millions of dollars were expected to be conveyed to the company by now in exchange for its massive investment to build the gigafactory. The county at that time had yet to determine to what degree the company had lived up to its side of the agreement, saying proper reporting hasn't been provided.

Travis County spokesperson Hector Nieto recently told the ABJ that the compliance review for the company is still ongoing. It's possible that review won’t finish before the April 7 meeting… 🟪 (READ MORE)

🚨 The Travis County Commissioners Court convenes at 9AM. Live stream link here.🚨

✅ Austin City Council wants a say in the future of 10 Austin ISD schools closing this year (Austin American-Statesman)

Austin city council leaders want more say in the future of parks and public spaces at the campuses Austin Independent School District plans to close this year. 

Two resolutions that Austin City Council approved in March seek to shore up a consistent parkland condemnation process and to start discussions on partnership or acquisition opportunities to find new use for closed school campuses. 

The city and Austin ISD have jointly owned several parcels of land on campuses for decades. The partnership formally allows the public to use the park space outside school hours and splits maintenance costs between the two entities. 

The imminent closure this summer of 10 Austin ISD campuses — and the district’s ongoing efforts to find new uses for the properties — prompted city council’s interest in creating more defined rules for city and school district joint property agreements. 

Superintendent Matias Segura said Friday he welcomed a more defined process for working with the city but AISD needs to take the lead in determining how closed district properties will be used in the future. 

One city council resolution directed the city manager to develop a standard process for when the city would give up its rights to property it jointly owns with other public entities, like AISD, and how the city would be compensated. In the past, council members haven’t always been made aware of when the city was being asked to give up its stake in a park that it jointly owned with Austin ISD, said Councilman Ryan Alter… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin unveils retooled development program for taller buildings, affordable housing (Community Impact)

Austin planners have detailed a new citywide strategy to allow taller buildings in various places, in exchange for affordable housing. The proposal responds to direction from City Council last year to revise a similar, controversial program, and the impacts of a new state law.

Austin has several incentives meant to encourage public benefits alongside new development. The city can trade fee waivers or regulatory rollbacks to allow for bigger buildings.

More than a dozen density bonus programs are in place today, which generally exchange affordable housing or funding for more overall space in a project. One of Austin's newest density programs, DB90—zoning that allows up to 90 feet in height, conditioned on affordable housing commitments—was created in 2024 and went on to be used dozens of times citywide.

Projects planned with those DB90 rezonings could add nearly 20,000 homes and apartments across Austin. Those would include around 2,000 new income-restricted units and some fee payments, based on original zoning outlines filed with the city… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ MetCenter developer eyes data center in Hutto; neighbors already voicing concern (Austin Business Journal)

The Austin-based developer behind the MetCenter business park in Southeast Austin is eyeing a mid-scale data center project in Hutto. It's part of a wave of data centers proliferating the Austin area.

Entities tied to Zydeco Development Corp. on April 7 will be considered by the Hutto Planning and Zoning Commission for recommendations on zoning items that would help clear the way for a roughly 225,000-square-foot data center and adjacent mechanical yard, according to meeting documents. The project, if approved, would be built on 41 acres at 450 Ed Schmidt Blvd.

More specifically, Zydeco is seeking zoning and future land use amendments to change the site from a multifamily use to light industrial. The property was previously planned to be a housing project with 173 units across four housing types on 18 acres, documents show. That project would also have included 21 acres for commercial space.

The amendments would need to be considered for formal approval by the Hutto City Council, which is anticipated to happen in May. Officials wrote in the documents that they expect to start infrastructure work on the project in 2027 should they obtain the necessary approvals… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Why was Williamson County's March 3 primary so chaotic? (KUT)

Williamson County is trying to avoid a repeat of its tumultuous March primary, when voters experienced long wait times and confusion about polling locations. Election officials have agreed to offer countywide voting for the May runoffs.

Bridgette Escobedo, the county's elections administrator, called last month's primary "less secure" than any other election she'd seen in her career and emphasized that it "cannot be repeated," during a recent special County Commissioners Court meeting.

The March primary saw countywide polling places replaced by assigned, precinct-based locations in Williamson County for the first time in more than a decade.

More than a dozen people testified at the meeting that the change led to widespread confusion.

"I had a site in Liberty Hill ... with not a lot of waiting, but the horror stories started coming in from the voters that they had already waited in another line before coming to see us,” said Clark Meyer, who served as an election judge on primary Election Day. "About 50% of the folks that came in mentioned that they had already been to another place. Some of them had been to two other places, and — bless their heart — one person had been to four places."

The switch to precinct-based voting came at the request of the county's Republican Party. Under state law, the county's Democratic Party had no choice but to follow the GOP lead, despite its opposition to the change… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Artemis II astronauts swung by the moon, broke an Apollo record, and saw an eclipse (NPR)

The four-astronaut crew of NASA's Artemis II mission is now on its way back to Earth after a record-breaking trip around the moon, traveling farther than any other humans have before.

As the Orion capsule whipped around the back side of the moon Monday, Earth was out of sight — and the crew was unable to communicate to Mission Control for about 40 minutes due to the moon blocking a connection to the Deep Space Network.

"And to all of you down there on Earth and around Earth, we love you, from the Moon," radioed mission specialist Christina Koch ahead of the radio blackout. "We will see you on the other side."

During the blackout, according to NASA, the capsule reached its closest approach to the moon at about 4,067 miles above the lunar surface. Just minutes later, the crew reached the mission's maximum distance from Earth at 252,756 miles, beating the previous record set by the Apollo 13 mission in 1970 by 4,111 more miles… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump warns Iran he could strike ‘every power plant,’ in WSJ interview (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump threatened to destroy all of Iran’s power plants if the country’s leaders don’t agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday evening, ratcheting up pressure on Tehran. “If they don’t come through, if they want to keep it closed, they’re going to lose every power plant and every other plant they have in the whole country,” Trump said in an eight-minute interview with The Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

The comments came hours after U.S. forces rescued an American aviator trapped in Iran. Trump in recent days has repeatedly escalated his threats against the country, which has resisted his demands and appears determined to carry out a war of attrition. An administration official said the events of the weekend have animated the president and made him eager to apply even more pressure on the Iranians as he seeks a deal.

Trump warned during his address last week that he planned to hit Iran hard over the next two to three weeks. Now entering its sixth week, the conflict was initially forecast to last four to six weeks by the Trump administration. In response to Trump’s threats, Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on social media that the only viable path was to step back from further escalation.

“Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living hell for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn,” he said.

Behind the scenes negotiations to reach a cease-fire hit a dead end on Friday, mediators said, but back channel efforts continued over the weekend between mediators from regional countries and special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Monday marks the end of a 10-day deadline Trump gave Iran last month to make a deal and open the Strait of Hormuz. The deadlines themselves have been a moving target. In the interview, Trump moved it to Tuesday, and on Sunday afternoon, without elaboration, Trump posted “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”… 🟪 (READ MORE)