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August 1, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin's affordable housing efforts could be thrown off by new Texas law (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 City, parks boards weigh funding options to stem expected shortfalls (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Austin joins program to accelerate municipal AI usage (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 In an emotional hearing, Texas lawmakers hear from flood survivors, local officials (NPR)

🟪 Experts say Texas is ignoring root cause of deadly July floods: unregulated development (Houston Chronicle)

🟪 Why the proposed Texas congressional map may not be a lock to net five new GOP seats (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Canada will recognize a Palestinian state in September in latest push against Israel’s Gaza policies (Associated Press)

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ Memos:

• Office of Government Relations – Federal Legislative Update (July 29, 2025)

• City Council Rules of Procedure and Agenda Posting Changes (July 18, 2025)

🏛️ The City of Austin FY 2025 - 26 Proposed Budget

• Bingham Group will be following the budget process, including the City Manager and department presentations to City Council, through its approval in August.

• » Click Here for our high-level summary of the FY2025-26 Proposed Budget. «

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of July 2025)

💰 2026 City of Austin Bond - Public Input

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin's affordable housing efforts could be thrown off by new Texas law (Austin Business Journal)

A new state law set to take effect in the fall could throw a wrench in Austin’s plans to incentivize more affordable housing. 

That’s according to the director of Austin's planning department, Lauren Middleton-Pratt, who wrote in a July 28 memo to city leaders — as the city is updating its density bonus programs — that a new state law will require the city to re-evaluate how it incentivizes new income-restricted housing units. 

The new state law is Senate Bill 840, which was passed during the 89th Texas Legislature and allows for mixed-use residential housing on any land that’s zoned for office, commercial, retail, warehouse or existing mixed-uses without needing a zoning change approved by a city. The legislation, set to be effective in September, could make it easier for developers to place mixed-use residential projects throughout large cities in Texas… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ City, parks boards weigh funding options to stem expected shortfalls (Austin Monitor)

The city could consider new user fees, expanded partnerships, naming rights and even the creation of a regional park authority as part of a broad effort to close a growing funding gap in the parks system, according to a consultant report released last month. Commissioned by the Parks and Recreation Department, the report outlines short- and long-term strategies for addressing the financial pressures facing the department.

Consultants PFM Group Consulting and the Trust for Public Land found that the parks department relies more heavily on general fund support than many comparable cities and lacks the revenue diversity seen in peer systems. In 2024, the department received approximately $100.5 million from the city’s general fund and generated $15.9 million through internal revenues, leaving an estimated annual funding gap of $84.6 million.

Without additional funding sources, that gap is projected to grow to $168.7 million by 2030, driven by rising operational and maintenance costs… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin joins program to accelerate municipal AI usage (Austin Business Journal)

The city of Austin is getting a helping hand to speed up its adoption of artificial intelligence.

Bloomberg Philanthropies announced July 31 that Austin is among the cities that have joined its City Data Alliance, a program designed to help those with populations above 100,000 improve their data practices and use of AI.

“These municipalities will show the world how government can be faster, smarter and fair — using data and technology to meet real needs, deliver efficiently, and make measurable progress people feel," said James Anderson, head of the government innovation program at Bloomberg Philanthropies, in a statement.

The City Data Alliance provides operational and technical coaching on how cities can “leverage data and artificial intelligence to assess needs, strengthen services, and spread results-based practices across their city hall organization,” according to Bloomberg Philanthropies' website… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ In an emotional hearing, Texas lawmakers hear from flood survivors, local officials (NPR)

Texas lawmakers and flood survivors criticized local officials for disorganization and bureaucratic holdups during a public hearing in the area that saw the most fatalities in the July 4 floods in central Texas.

The flood was sudden, and officials have agreed it was unpredicted. Kerr County emergency coordinator William Thomas told a select committee of the Texas Legislature that he was ill and asleep as the flood waters were building in the pre-dawn hours. Kerr County Sheriff Larry Leitha said he was asleep until he was woken by deputies on duty before dawn. Judge Rob Kelly, the top county official with oversight of emergency management, said he was out of town.

While acknowledging the surprising volume of rain, some lawmakers questioned what appeared to be confusion at the local level. "The three guys in Kerr County who were responsible for sounding the alarm were effectively unavailable," said Democratic State Rep. Ann Johnson, who said she was told about "little girls with water around their feet" at 2 a.m. that night.

"We have a lot of folks who have titles but when the time came to act they did not take action," Republican State Rep. Drew Darby said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Some rural Texans see THC as a lifeline for their health and economy (Texas Tribune)

Some who live in Texas’ small towns say that if someone looks close enough, they will see why hemp-derived THC has taken root in rural regions.

Faded crosses on the side of the road and faces of once-promising teens on “Don’t drink and drive” and fentanyl overdose billboards reveal the scars left behind in the isolated parts of Texas, where tight-knit communities have been permanently changed.

Anti-drug hardliners can argue rural Texas’ struggle with substance abuse is why THC has proliferated there and why it needs to be banned, but many cannabis users in the state’s small communities say it has spared them from spiraling further into the destruction of alcoholism and drug addiction… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Why the proposed Texas congressional map may not be a lock to net five new GOP seats (Texas Tribune)

The proposed overhaul of Texas’ congressional map is, as demanded by President Donald Trump, designed to give the GOP five new seats in next year’s midterm election.

But while the newly drafted lines would all but assure Republicans at least some pickups, an analysis of the tentative redistricting plan suggests the GOP is far from guaranteed to net all five seats.

The map, for one, relies on census data from 2020 in a state with a rapidly growing population and demographics that are poised to continue changing in the years to come. And while the five reconfigured districts would have been firmly for Trump if they’d been in place last year, other recent statewide races would have been far more competitive — especially in the midterm years of 2018 and 2022, when Democrat Beto O’Rourke would have carried or narrowly lost some of the new districts in his runs against Sen. Ted Cruz and Gov. Greg Abbott.

Still, the proposal presented few, if any, opportunities for Democrats to flip the script by targeting Republican districts — a possibility even some GOP incumbents were girding for ahead of the draft map’s release… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Experts say Texas is ignoring root cause of deadly July floods: unregulated development (Houston Chronicle)

As the Texas Legislature considers policy responses to the deadly Fourth of July weekend floods during the ongoing special legislative session, experts say state lawmakers are overlooking a key factor that made the disaster so devastating: unregulated development in flood-prone areas. More than 130 people died in deluges across the state—many of them staying or living in non-permanent structures like RVs and mobile homes that were swept away by floodwaters. An analysis of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s flood maps by Hearst Newspapers show that many of the affected structures in Travis, Williamson and Burnet counties were located in government-designated floodways or floodplains.

At a nearly 12-hour hearing on July 23, Texas lawmakers on newly-formed House and Senate flood committees pepperedofficials with questions about weather alerts, flood gauges and emergency warning systems. But such tools address symptoms rather than root causes, said Andrew Rumbach, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute who studies disaster risk and resilience.

He and other experts say the state must grapple with why so many Texans — especially in rural and unincorporated areas — live in vulnerable structures in high-risk areas. The 2024 State Flood Plan found that 17% of Texans, or about 5.2 million people, live or work in known flood hazard areas. Many fall outside city limits, where county governments lack zoning authority and have limited ability to enforce building standards. Rumbach said.

“Having appropriate land use regulations that not only balance the need for all the great things that we can do with land, but also the risks there, is essential.” While warning systems and rescue efforts are important, “land use has to be a major part of the solution here,” Rumbach said. “Governments have not only the authority, but also the obligation to take people’s safety into account."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Aurora self-driving trucks expand Texas freight operations (Government Technology)

Autonomous vehicle technology company Aurora has expanded its driverless freight operations to include nighttime travel on Texas highways, according to the company's announcement Wednesday.

In late April, the self-driving 18-wheeler service was launched without a safety driver in partnership with Uber Freight and Hirschbach Motor Lines. The company's vehicles have driven more than 20,000 driverless miles, and its fleet of driverless vehicles has expanded to three trucks. The trucks travel between Dallas and Houston at night.

"The progress propels Aurora and the freight industry into a new era," said Chris Urmson, co-founder and CEO of Aurora, in the Wednesday business review call…🟪(READ MORE)

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