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August 28, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin airport, airlines look to future growth as carriers jockey for gates (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 COTA Land now eyeing 2026 opening, first roller coaster nearly done (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 More than 2,000 Austin-area kids will get free or low-cost after-school care this year (KUT)

🟪 RFK Jr. praises Texas for implementing his health vision (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Starting Sept. 1, new Texas law will ban certain foreign nationals from buying land (KUT)

🟪 Trump vows to look into Seth Meyers’ late night contract (The Hill)

READ ON!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ Austin City Council Regular Meeting – Today @ 10AM // Livestream Link

🏛️ 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 airport, airlines look to future growth as carriers jockey for gates (Austin American-Statesman)

As Austin-Bergstrom International Airport gears up for its largest expansion yet, a new contract between the city and airlines could shape how Central Texans fly for the next decade.

The Austin City Council will vote Thursday on a 10-year airport use and lease agreement that lays out how airlines share gates, pay fees and operate inside and outside the airport. Airport officials say the contract is essential to funding and building a new concourse that will add at least 20 gates, making it easier for airlines to grow in one of the nation’s fastest-growing travel markets.

“This is the legal framework that defines all the shared operations, the relationships between the airport and their partners,” airport spokesperson Sam Haynes said. She compared it to a shopping mall lease, with the airport as the mall and the airlines as its tenants.

For passengers, the agreement itself won’t bring immediate changes. But the concourse and gate expansion it unlocks will directly affect flight options and ticket availability in the coming years as airlines plan their long-term strategies in Austin. 

“Airlines are looking out 10, 20 years into the future and trying to project out what their presence could be in Austin, and how does that meet their business goals,” Haynes said.

The new gates could mean more nonstop destinations as airlines bet on Austin’s growth, lower fares stemming from increased competition, or fewer bottlenecks with airlines spread across more gates.

But the exact impact on travel options is not yet known, as contract details are still under negotiation. The most tangible changes for travelers will be the airport facilities themselves, including the new concourse, a larger arrivals and departures hall, additional parking options and more.

If approved, the contract would run from 2026 to at least 2035. The Austin Airport Advisory Commission has already endorsed the deal, and final terms are expected to be made public by January.The City Council will convene Thursday at 10 a.m. at City Hall. Citizens can register to speak by 9:15 a.m. in the lobby… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ COTA Land now eyeing 2026 opening, first roller coaster nearly done (Austin Business Journal)

Austin’s first real roller coaster is closer to debuting. 

Circuit of The Americas officials gathered on Aug. 27 to commemorate the last bolt being installed for a roller coaster at its yet-to-open amusement park called COTA Land, which will have over 30 rides on 30 acres. The amusement park is expected to further COTA's reputation as a tourism draw and family entertainment center beyond the popular Formula 1 race.

The roller coaster is called Circuit Breaker and has a 90-degree drop to start and puts riders through many tight turns and tunnels. It will reach close to 60 miles per hour. This type of roller coaster is called a tilt-coaster, and it will be the first one to open in Texas, according to COTA officials.

The testing and certification for this ride will happen over the upcoming weeks, said Matt Hughey, COTA’s vice president of theme park operations.

Previously, COTA officials said they tentatively planned to open the first parts of COTA Land in time for the next Formula 1 United States Grand Prix, which starts on Oct. 17. But Hughey didn’t commit to that timeline at the event. 

“A lot depends on weather and construction, and there's still a lot going on,” he said. “For sure you're going to see COTA Land in 2026 and hopefully we'll see some opportunities to ride (Circuit Breaker) before then.”

Hughey said there will be close to 24/7 operations at COTA Land to keep building, and that drilling for taller rides is ongoing. More progress should be visible by the Christmas season, he said. While it could take until 2026 to open the first aspects of COTA Land, Hughey didn’t commit to a timeline on when it could be finished.  

COTA Land isn’t the only new thing coming to Southeast Austin. There is also a planned 1,000-room hotel and 460,000 square foot convention center that is being developed by the Houston-based RIDA Development Corp. that will be built adjacent to COTA. That project should take up to 18 months to get entitlements and up to 36 months to build out, managers have estimated… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ More than 2,000 Austin-area kids will get free or low-cost after-school care this year (KUT)

Twenty-seven schools in the Austin area are getting free or low-cost after-school care programs this year thanks to funding from a tax rate increase Travis County voters approved in 2024.

The programs will open at schools with the most economically disadvantaged students in the Austin, Manor and Del Valle school districts. More than 2,000 pre-K and elementary school students are expected to participate. The county is working on getting after school programs to Pflugerville ISD, too, according to county documents.

“This is really a huge deal for Del Valle ISD,” Del Valle Superintendent Matthew Gutierrez said. “90% of our students in our school district are considered coming from poverty.”

The after-school programs are the first investment the county has made since voters approved a tax hike in November to make child care more affordable.

Child care options in the Austin area have become harder to find and harder to afford since the pandemic, Travis County Judge Andy Brown said. Austin has the most expensive child care in the state, according to a 2024 report from Texas Workforce Commission… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ $850M data center planned on 151 acres far north of Austin (Austin Business Journal)

Developers are looking to build an $850 million data center campus on 151 acres in Jarrell, a small but growing city far north of Austin.

The development team — consisting of Austin-based Prominent Property Group, Dallas-based Savannah Developers and Spicewood-based Power Infrastructure Partners — was recommended for approval by the Jarrell Planning and Zoning Commission on Aug. 26 to change the land use designation for the tract at 3911 County Road 305. The project will now head to the Jarrell City Council in September.

Located adjacent to Jarrell High School, it's referred to in city documents as the Mesones Data Center state-of-the-art technology campus. Developers earlier this year brought a single-family housing project to the city for the site but pivoted to the data center project after requests for entitlements were denied.

"I think a lot of people know, and we've gotten to know, over the course of the last two to three years working in the city of Jarrell and understanding the needs and wants and listening, there's obviously a lack, at least on the city side, of industry and bringing money into the city," Dalton Little, principal at Prominent Property Group, said during the Aug. 26 meeting. "We believe that this has a very (good) economic benefit to the city with extremely low impact on infrastructure."

Little said the campus would have 200 megawatts of available power at full buildout, generated using a combination of natural gas and grid power.

He added the project would create 400 to 450 construction jobs and up to 50 operations jobs when completed.

As for water usage, he likened it to a swimming pool, saying it has some evaporation through cooling cycles and would need to be refilled, but the technology is now more efficient.

"Historically, they have (used a lot of water), but data centers are changing daily and rapidly," Little said. "It's tech, so just like your cellphone, everything is changing so quickly."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ San Marcos City Council denies data center-related zoning request (Community Impact)

A proposed data center project operated by CyrusOne on Francis Harris Lane will not move forward after San Marcos City Council denied a request related to the project at a meeting Aug. 19.

The applicant requested a change to the preferred scenario map, which guides the types of developments and where they should go; however council denied the request. Without a change to the map, the zoning could not be changed to allow a data center.

The meeting included hours of public comment related to the data center.

Those in favor cited increased jobs, a higher tax base and said that the data center would use less water than the 500 homes initially approved for that development.

Citizens opposed to the project cited what they considered a large amount of water use, and impacts of chemicals and noise on wildlife and humans… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ RFK Jr. praises Texas for implementing his health vision (Texas Tribune)

Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday praised Texas leadership for aligning the state with his Make America Healthy Again agenda by removing dangerous additives from food and other measures.

“I’ve been to many states, but there is no state, with maybe the possible exception of Louisiana, that has passed this far-reaching legislation,” he said during an event focused on Gov. Greg Abbott’s signing of three nutrition bills — Senate bills 25, 314 and 379.

Kennedy also commended Texas’ effort to make ivermectin an over-the-counter drug. Ivermectin, which has become a symbol for the medical choice movement, is typically used to address parasites in livestock but has been used off-label to treat COVID-19.

“I think it's a really good bill. I think Americans should have the choice,” Kennedy said. “After Trump left office, there was this movement to put everybody into this funnel without choice in doing that. The state got between this sacred relationship between doctors and their patients.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Starting Sept. 1, new Texas law will ban certain foreign nationals from buying land (KUT)

A new Texas law banning property purchases by people and entities tied to certain countries will take effect at the beginning of September, even as a legal fight over the measure heads to appeal.

Senate Bill 17 will prohibit people, companies and government-linked entities connected to China, Iran, North Korea and Russia from acquiring most types of real estate in Texas, including farmland, homes and commercial property.

Supporters say the measure is a safeguard against national security threats repeatedly highlighted in the federal government's annual threat assessment. Republican Sen. Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham, who authored the law, called it "the strongest protection national security bill of any state passed" during a press conference in May.

"There are people that are agents of those countries and they are buying up some of our strategic assets," Kolkhorst said. 'We're not going to have that anymore."… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Texas Legislature approves bill making ivermectin an over-the-counter drug (Texas Tribune)

The Texas Senate late Wednesday passed a bill that would make ivermectin — a drug used mostly in this country to treat livestock for parasites — available to Texans without a prescription.

The bill now goes before Gov. Greg Abbott who is likely to sign the bill into the law after listing it as a priority for this second special legislative session. Texas will become the fifth state to approve the over-the-counter sale of the drug after it became popular as an unproven treatment for COVID-19. The Senate approved the bill 20-6.

House Bill 25 filed by state Rep. Joanne Shofner, R-Nacogdoches, first passed the House, 87-47, after an energetic, three-hour debate along party lines. Shofner, surrounded by more than 20 Republicans at one point, argued her bill was championing medical freedom, giving Texans better access to a drug particularly outside cities where pharmacies outnumber physicians. Her bill does not put ivermectin on pharmacy shelves, but if it passes the Senate and becomes law, the drug would be available upon request from behind the pharmacist’s counter as Texans already do for other drugs, like Sudafed... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ After Trump's DOGE action, 300 million people's Social Security data is at risk, whistleblower says (Associated Press)

More than 300 million Americans’ Social Security data was put at risk after Department of Government Efficiency officials uploaded sensitive information to a cloud account not subject to oversight, according to a whistleblower disclosure submitted to the special counsel’s office Tuesday.

Whistleblower Charles Borges, who worked as the chief data officer at the Social Security Administration since January, said the potential sensitive information that risks being released includes health diagnoses, income, banking information, familial relationships and personal biographic data. “Should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for re-issuing every American a new Social Security Number at great cost,” said the complaint.

The complaint was submitted by the Government Accountability Project and addressed to House and Senate oversight lawmakers. It requests that authorities “take appropriate oversight action.” The whistleblower report is just the latest complaint against President Donald Trump’s DOGE and the unprecedented access it was given by the Republican administration to the vast troves of personal data across the government under the mandate of eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. Labor and retiree groups sued SSA earlier this year for allowing DOGE to access Americans’ sensitive agency data, though a divided appeals panel decided this month that DOGE could access the information. SSA said in a statement that it takes whistleblower complaints seriously but seemed to downplay Borges’ accusations.

“SSA stores all personal data in secure environments that have robust safeguards in place to protect vital information. The data referenced in the complaint is stored in a long-standing environment used by SSA and walled off from the internet. High-level career SSA officials have administrative access to this system with oversight by SSA’s Information Security team. We are not aware of any compromise to this environment and remain dedicated to protecting sensitive personal data,” the agency wrote… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump vows to look into Seth Meyers’ late night contract (The Hill)

President Trump said that he plans to look into NBC’s decision to extend “Late Night” host Seth Meyers’ contract, slamming the comedian as a “dope.” “There is a sick rumor going around that Fake News NBC extended the contract of one of the least talented Late Night television hosts out there, Seth Meyers,” Trump wrote early Wednesday morning on Truth Social. He added, “He has no Ratings, Talent, or Intelligence, and the Personality of an insecure child. So, why would Fake News NBC extend this dope’s contract. I don’t know, but I’ll definitely be finding out!!!” It’s unclear what “sick rumor” the president was referring to; Meyers renewed his deal to host “Late Night” through 2028 in May, Deadline reported at the time.

Trump has criticized mainstream news outlets for years but has escalated his fight against them during his second term, turning to social media to attack reporters and networks over coverage. He celebrated the news last month that CBS was nixing “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” next year and he quipped that ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel should be “next” on the chopping block. The president late Sunday threatened major broadcast networks in a string of online posts, suggesting they be fined or taken off the air because of negative coverage of his administration. “Why is it that ABC and NBC FAKE NEWS, two of the absolute worst and most biased networks anywhere in the World, aren’t paying Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES,” Trump wrote. “They should lose their Licenses for their unfair coverage of Republicans and/or Conservatives, but at a minimum, they should pay up BIG for having the privilege of using the most valuable airwaves anywhere at anytime!!!”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump’s Fed aggression poses new legal test of presidential power (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump is pushing his drive for unilateral control of the U.S. government to new levels as he seeks to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, potentially crossing a red line the Supreme Court has suggested protects the central bank from direct political manipulation. Since taking office, Trump repeatedly has taken aim at federal laws protecting a range of government officials from arbitrary dismissal, firing without cause Democratic appointees serving fixed terms to supervise agencies that oversee consumer safety, labor organizing, fair-trade practices and the integrity of the civil service, among others.

In a Monday letter published on social media, Trump told Cook that unproven allegations of mortgage fraud were sufficient cause for dismissal. Cook, a Biden administration appointee, has vowed to fight Trump’s action. “President Trump purported to fire me ‘for cause’ when no cause exists under the law, and he has no authority to do so,” she said in a Tuesday statement.

“I will not resign. I will continue to carry out my duties to help the American economy as I have been doing since 2022,” she said. Her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said he would file suit, setting up a case likely to reach the Supreme Court. In a statement Tuesday, the Federal Reserve said the governors’ lengthy terms and tenure protection “serve as a vital safeguard, ensuring that monetary policy decisions are based on data, economic analysis, and the long-term interests of the American people.”

The statement said the Fed would obey any court decision concerning Cook’s “ability to continue to fulfill her responsibilities as a Senate-confirmed member.” Robert Post, a Yale law professor, said the stakes could hardly be higher. “Everyone agrees that if a Fed governor is taking a bribe, they should be removed. It’s not controversial. So the question is, What is cause?” he said. If courts permit Trump to remove Cook based only on his say-so, rather than requiring proof of wrongdoing, then the for-cause protection is meaningless, Post said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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