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🟪 Austin City Council takes up $295 million bond proposal today

🟪 Governor Abbott proposes ending Austin Energy’s ‘monopoly’ as power provider (KXAN)

🟪 City to expand homeless outreach in South Austin ahead of new resource hub launch (Community Impact)

🟪 San Marcos pulling out all the stops to shape downtown growth (Austin Business Journal)

READ ON!

🏛️ COUNCIL MEETINGS:

💰 Review the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget documents here

🏛️ MEMO: Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget Adoption Timeline

🏛️ MEMO: Austin Staff Recommends $5.35 Million Reduction to Social Service Grants for FY27

🎙️ The BG Podcast is taking a two-part look at the future of the Austin–San Antonio megaregion.

Episode 269 features my conversation with former San Antonio Mayor and HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros about the case for greater regional cooperation in the Austin San Antonio megaregion.

Episode 270 continues the discussion with A.J. Rodriguez, CEO of the Central Texas Alliance. We discuss how the new organization plans to build consensus across 13 counties, develop a shared regional agenda and strengthen Central Texas’ voice at the state and federal levels.

Listen on:

✅ Governor Abbott proposes ending Austin Energy’s ‘monopoly’ as power provider (KXAN)

Gov. Greg Abbott proposed legislation that would open Austin and San Antonio’s municipally owned electric utilities to retail competition, “ending utility monopolies that drive up costs for Texas families and small businesses.”

Abbott announced the proposal Tuesday, saying customers served by Austin Energy and CPS Energy should have the ability to choose among competing electricity providers, similar to customers in much of Texas’ deregulated electric market.

“By expanding competition, residents in Austin and San Antonio could save more than 10% on their electricity bills, with small businesses seeing even greater savings,” Abbott said.

In both cities, the local utility is owned by the municipality. For Austin, that’s Austin Energy. In San Antonio, that is CPS Energy… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City to expand homeless outreach in South Austin ahead of new resource hub launch (Community Impact)

Austin will fund targeted outreach around I-35 and Oltorf Street ahead of the planned opening of a new homeless resource center in the neighborhood.

The city is adding $250,000 to its contract with Sunrise Community Church to provide services to homeless individuals and families in the Oltorf area. Sunrise currently runs a homeless navigation center off Menchaca Road in South Austin, and is recommended to manage the new South Austin Housing Navigation Center.

City Council authorized the update July 23. The move came ahead of Sunrise's anticipated selection as operator of the planned resource hub at 2401 S. I-35, which officials agreed to purchase for more than $4 million last fall. The center will open next year with oversight from an advisory board including area residents, people with experience living homeless, and homelessness service providers… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ San Marcos pulling out all the stops to shape downtown growth (Austin Business Journal)

As San Marcos continues to grow, city leaders are investing in the revamping of the downtown area through a combination of public funding, business incentive programs and partnerships.

Located about 30 miles southwest of Austin, San Marcos has grown roughly 15% since 2020 and is home to more than 77,000 residents, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Rather than focusing solely on growth, city officials are taking a more intentional approach to redevelopment by investing in projects that improve the downtown experience for residents, visitors and business owners, said Helen Ramirez, director of economic and local business development for the city of San Marcos.

The city has expanded its Business Improvement and Growth (BIG) program beyond downtown to include commercial corridors like I-35, Guadalupe Street and Ranch Road 12. The program offers matching grants of up to $20,000 for facade improvements and up to $5,000 for new signage… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Tarrant County delays vote on polling sites for November election (Texas Tribune)

Tarrant County commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to delay approving polling sites for the November midterm election, after agreeing that the lists proposed by the county elections administrator included too few locations. 

Clint Ludwig, the administrator who oversees the county’s elections, proposed cutting the number of Election Day polling sites by 45% from the total used for the 2022 midterms, from 316 to 176. The proposal would have cut the number of early voting sites from the 50 used in 2022 down to 42 for this fall. 

“I’m not comfortable with 176 election sites,” Republican County Judge Tim O’Hare said. “I think that’s way too large a cut.” 

Rather than revise the list of proposed locations during the meeting, commissioners pushed the vote to their Sept. 1 meeting… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Comptroller leadership email orders list of employees for cuts (Dallas Morning News)

Leaders at the Texas Comptroller’s office received an email Tuesday directing them to create priority lists of employees they’d cut under potential staff reductions. The Dallas Morning News reviewed the email, which comes in Don Huffines’ first few days as acting comptroller after being appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott last month. Huffines has campaigned on shrinking state government with his own version of the federal government’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, making it a campaign priority in the comptroller’s race, where the Dallas businessman faces state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt in the November election.

Tuesday’s email came from Michael Apperley, the comptroller’s director of administration, and was sent to several directors within the agency. When asked for comment, agency spokesman Kevin Lyons referred The News to a Tuesday afternoon news release saying the agency would undergo a performance review to find areas to save taxpayer money. The review will look at the agency’s business processes, vendor contracts and administrative structure. The email mentioned that state leaders had asked state agencies last month to cut spending by 3% in preparation for their budget requests for the next two-year budget cycle.

“One of our largest objects of expense is salaries, so we must consider the potential need to reduce salary expenditures,” Apperley’s email said. The email asked the directors to provide a list of potential “staff to reduce” and broke them down into three categories: low performers with documented discipline issues; people who may be leaving the agency soon due to retirements, resignations or transfers to other agencies; and involuntary terminations… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Spurs CEO defends arena deal after mayor says voters should decide (San Antonio Express-News)

Days after Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones called for a public vote on the city’s contribution to a $1.3 billion NBA arena, the Spurs put out a letter saying that’s not necessary. The open letter from Spurs Sports & Entertainment CEO R.C. Buford doesn’t mention Jones by name, but it is clearly directed at her — and any City Council member who’s on board with her proposal.

“The vote has taken place. The commitments have been made. The work is underway,” the letter states. Bexar County voters “made their voices heard” when 52% approved the county’s $311 million contribution to the project last November, Buford said in the letter, which SS&E released Tuesday. The county payment required a public vote because the county will raise its taxes on hotel rooms and rental cars to generate the revenue.

The city’s $489 million contribution, however, needed only a majority of council members to say yes — and seven members did that last August when they approved the draft financing plan for the arena. SS&E agreed to put $500 million toward the arena and pay for any cost overruns. In addition, SS&E will give the city $2.5 million each year under its 30-year arena lease, which amounts to $75 million. That money can be used on projects and programs chosen by City Council. Jones has scoffed at the payment, which she routinely notes would pay for 156 speed bumps a year — 15 for each of the 10 council districts.

The city contribution would come from bonds repaid by rising property tax revenue and rent from developers leasing city-owned property to build restaurants, bars and housing around the arena at Hemisfair. Rent from the arena lease and the state’s share of hotel taxes would also help repay the bonds. Buford’s letter says the contribution “comes from visitor-based revenue” and “is legally restricted to venues and tourism-related projects.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Council Member Marc Whyte: San Antonio has an opportunity to get data center growth right (San Antonio Express-News)

San Antonio faces two realities. We need new sources of revenue to support a growing city that deserves more public safety, jobs and infrastructure solutions, and we need to protect our neighborhoods, natural resources and quality of life. The debate over data centers sits squarely at the intersection of those two priorities. The issue isn’t whether we want data centers in San Antonio.

They are coming. What we should focus on is establishing the standards necessary to ensure they are good neighbors and responsible consumers of our natural resources. Data centers bring significant private investment, expand our tax base, increase city revenue and create temporary construction jobs along with long-term technical and operational jobs once they are up and running.

As San Antonio faces projected budget shortfalls that could reach hundreds of millions of dollars during the next several years, growing our commercial tax base is no longer simply an economic development goal — it is a fiscal necessity. Every time San Antonio expands its commercial and industrial tax base, more of the cost of running city government is shared by businesses rather than homeowners. That helps reduce pressure on residential property taxpayers while providing additional resources for police, firefighters, streets, parks and libraries. With the positives, however, also come challenges.

Gov. Greg Abbott recently directed state regulators to ensure that future data center development includes adequate power generation and water conservation measures. He also supported limiting local tax incentives for these projects, and he was right do so. Those policies reflect an important principle: Large-scale developments should contribute to the infrastructure they rely upon rather than shifting those costs onto existing residents… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump White House readies AI framework to review security risks (New York Times)

In a meeting on Tuesday with top artificial intelligence companies, White House officials said the federal government planned to review only certain types of artificial intelligence models for potential security risks and not others, according to four people familiar with the discussions.

The A.I. models the government plans to review are known as “closed” models, which do not publish their underlying code and are made by companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, according to three of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details of the meeting were private. The administration does not plan to review “open source” A.I. models, which have computer code available to the public to download and modify, although that could change as the technology advances, the people said.

The moves are an effort by the Trump administration to take a more hands-on approach to regulating A.I., and they formalize oversight of leading A.I. labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. But they delay addressing some of the most pressing regulatory issues with the technology, including potential threats posed by increasingly powerful open-source models made by Chinese companies. The decision to exclude open-source models could also be a boon for companies that are trying to catch up to Anthropic and OpenAI, which are widely considered leaders in developing next-generation A.I. Some companies, like Meta, have used open-source software to create products to directly compete with the two leading start-ups.

The framework, which comes after months of private discussions between administration officials and a handful of the world’s most consequential tech companies, is likely to shape the global A.I. race. Companies have long decided largely on their own whether to give the public access to the latest advances or to withhold them over concerns about safety and security. Now, the United States will have a greater opportunity to weigh in, potentially giving the government the ability to slow down the rollout of the technology… 🟪 (READ MORE)