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August 19, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin traffic will get worse Tuesday as AISD resumes classes (KUT)

🟪 Former candidate sues City Council over tax election ballot language (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Huge industrial projects imminent at Hutto Megasite after milestone (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas House, Senate panels again advance redrawn congressional map (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Police escort Texas Democrats to prevent new redistricting walkout as California moves to retaliate (Associated Press)

🟪 Trump says he wants to get rid of mail-in voting (Wall Street Journal)

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ 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 traffic will get worse Tuesday as AISD resumes classes (KUT)

Starting Tuesday, Austin's streets will get busier and more unpredictable as the largest school district in Central Texas welcomes tens of thousands of students back to class.

The Austin Independent School District serves more than 70,000 students and employs 5,000 teachers along with almost 4,000 support staff like custodians, bus drivers, cooks and teacher assistants.

During last year's back-to-school week, travel times along major roads increased by as much as 10% in the morning compared to the week immediately prior, according to the transportation data company INRIX. But that's just an average.

"Obviously, roads that are much closer to schools are going to have more congestion than arterial roads that aren't really anywhere near a school pickup or drop off point," explained INRIX chief product officer Ahmed Darrat.

AISD staggers start times across its 116 campuses — from 7:30 a.m. to 9:05 a.m. Elementary schools typically start first, followed by middle and high schools. That helps spread out traffic somewhat, though the biggest increase in travel times hits around 8:30 a.m., INRIX data shows… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Former candidate sues City Council over tax election ballot language (Austin Monitor)

An former 2024 candidate for Austin mayor has filed suit against City Council over the November ballot language proposed to increase the city’s property tax rate.  Last week, Council approved a $6.3 million budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts on October 1. That budget includes a tax rate five cents higher than the current tax rate, triggering the requirement for a tax rate election in November. Under state law, any increase higher than 3.5 percent above the current tax rate triggers an election.

Jeffery Bowen, who made a last-minute decision to run for mayor after Council approved the city’s $5.9 billion budget for the current year, filed an emergency petition for a writ of mandamus on Monday at Texas Third Court of Appeals.  

Attorney Bill Aleshire, who represents Bowen, wrote in the lawsuit that the ballot language approved by Council, violates state law because it misleads voters. If voters approve the tax increase, the change will be permanent, a fact that Bowen says the ballot language does not reveal.

Mayor Kirk Watson told the Austin Monitor he is confident the ballot language “is appropriate and meets all legal requirements.”

“We also have confidence in the court system and will respond in that venue,” he said in a statement… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Huge industrial projects imminent at Hutto Megasite after milestone (Austin Business Journal)

Hutto Economic Development Director Cheney Gamboa quips she can't make the Texas weather cooperate when it comes to celebrating the start and finish of construction on a key spine road in the city's industrial megasite. A groundbreaking took place when it was cold and windy, and now a grand opening is planned for early September in what's likely to be 90-plus-degree heat.

Nonetheless, the fast growing city northeast of Austin, with the help of El Paso-based Jordan Foster Construction LLC, has completed the $18 million road, a major milestone toward bringing a slew of industrial development to the site — an assemblage of 1,400 city and privately owned acres — that's along a highway long viewed by experts as among the most desirable stretches in the country.

Four land closings and another big industrial project are contingent on the road, along with a fire access road. That means Hutto is now on track to receive tens of billions of dollars of investment and thousands of jobs spread across data centers, industrial buildings, flex office buildings, retail and commercial developments and much more. In addition, hundreds of acres are left to sell… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ ACC awarded $3.6M Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund Grant (Community Impact)

Austin Community College received a $3.6 million grant from the state of Texas in August.

In a nutshell

Per an Aug. 14 news release from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's office, the grant is part of the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Fund, an incentive program to encourage semiconductor research, design and manufacturing in Texas.

The fund awards grants to state entities and higher educational institutions for manufacturing and design projects, as well as businesses with established presences in the state.

“Texas continues to lead America’s resurgence in semiconductor manufacturing thanks to our highly skilled and growing workforce,” Gov. Abbott said in the release. “Already recognized as a national model for semiconductor workforce training, ACC will establish a new semiconductor advanced manufacturing lab and a precision welding skills lab on their campus in Round Rock. Working together with our higher education partners and industry leaders, we will ensure the chips that drive the innovative technologies of tomorrow are made in Texas.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texas House, Senate panels again advance redrawn congressional map(Texas Tribune)

A Texas House committee again approved a new congressional map Monday, aiming to create five new Republican districts ahead of the 2026 election.

The proposed map is substantively similar to the version advanced by the same panel earlier this month, before dozens of House Democrats left the state to stop the bill from being passed by the full chamber.

Most of those lawmakers returned Monday, re-establishing the headcount necessary to advance legislation. After the 12-8 party-line committee vote, the proposed map is expected to be brought to the House floor for a vote this week.

At Monday’s hearing, Rep. Todd Hunter, a Corpus Christi Republican who is carrying the legislation, said the goal was to improve Republican performance, and the minor changes made since the map passed the first time were to “increase Republican political performance in existing Republican districts.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Texas House Democrats return to Capitol, ending walkout over redistricting plan (Texas Tribune)

The Texas House on Monday gaveled in with a quorum for the first time in two weeks as Democratic lawmakers returned to Austin, ending a walkout over a GOP mid-decade redistricting plan and paving the way for the map’s passage.

“We killed the corrupt special session, withstood unprecedented surveillance and intimidation and rallied Democrats nationwide to join this existential fight for fair representation — reshaping the entire 2026 landscape,” Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, chair of the House Democratic Caucus, said in a statement.

Over 50 Democratic lawmakers left Texas earlier this month for Illinois and elsewhere in a bid to stall passage of a congressional map that was demanded by President Donald Trump just four years after Republicans last redrew the state’s lines, and that is designed to give the GOP five additional U.S. House seats in next year’s midterm election.

In an unprecedented response, Republican state leaders issued civil arrest warrants, moved to extradite absent members from Illinois, launched investigations and sought to declare at least one Democrat’s seat vacant. The Legislature ended the first special session early on Friday because of the walkout, with Gov. Greg Abbott promptly calling a second overtime session with virtually the same agenda as the first one… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Police escort Texas Democrats to prevent new redistricting walkout as California moves to retaliate (Associated Press)

Texas Democrats who ended a walkout found themselves shadowed by law enforcement officers to keep them from repeating the protest that stalled Republican efforts to redraw congressional districts and fulfill President Donald Trump’s desire to reshape U.S. House maps.

Republicans in the Texas House forced returning Democrats to sign what the Democrats called “permission slips,” agreeing to around-the-clock surveillance by state Department of Public Safety officers to leave the floor. However, Democratic Rep. Nicole Collier, of Fort Worth, refused and remained on the House floor Monday night.

The Democrats’ return to Texas puts the Republican-run Legislature in position to satisfy Trump’s demands, possibly later this week, as California Democrats advance new congressional boundaries in retaliation.

Lawmakers had officers posted outside their Capitol offices, and suburban Dallas Rep. Mihaela Plesa said one tailed her on her Monday evening drive back to her apartment in Austin after spending much of the day on a couch in her office. She said he went with her for a staff lunch and even down the hallway with her for restroom breaks… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Dallas to hold community meetings to get feedback on stopping DEI city policies, programs (Dallas Morning News)

Dallas officials plan to hold five community meetings starting next week, including one at City Hall, to allow residents to weigh in on the city’s plans to end programs and policies that explicitly promote diversity, equity and inclusion. The series of events will begin at the Latino Cultural Center near Deep Ellum on Aug. 26 and conclude on Sept. 9 at the West Dallas Multipurpose Center. Additional events are scheduled for late August and early September in downtown and South Dallas. Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert announced earlier this month that she ordered all city departments in June to stop using policies and programs that consider race, gender, ethnicity, religion or national origin when deciding how to allocate money or benefits.

“We’re looking at barriers, and we’re continuing to find ways to create pathways for people to thrive across our city, no matter where they live, no matter what ZIP code they’re in,” Tolbert said. “We know that that work and that body of work has to continue.” The city is pausing these programs to comply with new anti-DEI directives from President Donald Trump’s administration. Dallas officials say they hope this decision will help the city keep millions in federal grant money. The move prompted a group of community leaders last Monday to urge city officials to reaffirm their commitment to improving racial equity for residents despite the president’s directives. “We value the voices of community members whose partnership has shaped the city’s equity and inclusion work over the years,” reads a city flyer promoting the events.

“Our realigned efforts will continue to invest in neighborhoods and expand opportunities so all Dallas residents can thrive.” Over the past three years, Dallas has received an average of $305 million annually. These funds support various programs, including housing and economic development projects, transportation, justice assistance and nutrition programs for women, infants and children. All city DEI programs and policies are under legal review. Some could be revamped. For example, a program could focus on aid to small, Dallas-based businesses rather than enterprises owned by women and people of color… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Oklahoma will test teachers from New York and California to guard against ‘radical leftist ideology’ (Associated Press)

Oklahoma will require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an exam that the Republican-dominated state’s top education official says is designed to safeguard against “radical leftist ideology,” but which opponents decry as a “MAGA loyalty test.” Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s public schools superintendent, said Monday that any teacher coming from the two blue states will be required to pass an assessment exam administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, before getting a state certification. “As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York,” Walters said in a statement.

PragerU, short for Prager University, puts out short videos with a conservative perspective on politics and economics. It promotes itself as “focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media.” Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for the state’s education department, said the Prager test for teacher applicants has been finalized and will be rolling out “very soon.” The state did not release the entire 50-question test to The Associated Press but did provide the first five questions, which include asking what the first three words of the U.S. Constitution are and why freedom of religion is “important to America’s identity.”

Prager didn’t immediately respond to a phone message or email seeking comment. But Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, told CNN that several questions on the assessment relate to “undoing the damage of gender ideology.” Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said Oklahoma’s contract with PragerU to test out-of-state would-be teachers “is a watershed moment.” “Instead of Prager simply being a resource that you can draw in an optional way, Prager has become institutionalized as part of the state system,” he said. “There’s no other way to describe it.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump says he wants to get rid of mail-in voting (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump’s back-and-forth relationship with mail-in voting has taken its latest turn, with the Republican again lambasting the practice and suggesting he will push to alter balloting decisions traditionally left up to states ahead of next year’s midterm elections. “I am going to lead a movement to get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS,” Trump posted on his social-media platform Monday. “The States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them.” Trump pledged to sign an executive order to “help bring HONESTY to the 2026 Midterm Elections.”

It is his latest move to try to place his imprint on next year’s balloting, elections that traditionally favor the party that doesn’t hold the White House. In March, Trump signed an executive order that aims to reshape how elections are carried out in the U.S. by setting new identification requirements for voter registration and prohibiting the counting of absentee or mail-in ballots received after Election Day.

Trump is also pushing Texas and other Republican-led states to change their congressional district lines to help gain GOP seats and protect against Democrats taking control of the U.S. House. Republicans hold a slim 219 to 212 majority and a GOP loss of complete control of Washington would severely curtail his administration’s ability to move legislation. California and other Democratic-led states have pledged to respond with similar actions.

Trump reiterated his desire to end mail-in voting during a news conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, saying lawyers were drafting the executive order. He also wrote in his social-media post that he wants the nation to get rid of voting machines, which he described as inaccurate and expensive. Voting machine companies sued conservative news programs for false claims that their technology helped rig the election for Joe Biden in 2020—and so far the programs have either settled or lost in court. Fox News paid Dominion Voting Systems $787.5 million to settle the case. Fox Corp. shares common ownership with News Corp, parent of Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co. Democrats, who have more widely backed voting by mail, immediately pushed back Monday, challenging Trump’s authority to make such a change… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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