🟪 Early voting for the Texas 2026 primaries begins Tuesday. Here’s what to know. (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Austin ISD projects $63 million budget shortfall as sale of Rosedale property stalls (Community Impact)

🟪 Facing growing demand, Georgetown wants to stop managing water for neighboring areas (KUT)

🟪 Black voters could decide Crockett-Talarico primary (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Inside the debacle that led to the closure of El Paso’s airspace (New York Times)

🟪 South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids (Politico)

🟪 In first public comments since Trump’s racist video, Obama laments lost decorum (New York Times)

READ ON!

🟪 [Events]: At last week’s Greater Austin Asian Chamber of Commerce State of the Chamber event, Austin Assistant City Manager Dr. Eric A. Johnson outlined the City’s forthcoming 36-month Economic Development Roadmap.

Designed to sharpen Austin’s competitive edge during a period of slower growth and fiscal constraint, the Roadmap will be formally introduced at the March Economic Opportunity Committee meeting. The framework emphasizes disciplined execution, increased speed in development processes, and clearly defined performance metrics to guide implementation.

Key priorities include:

Dr. Johnson emphasized that the Roadmap is not about short-term optics or singular recruitment wins. It is about connecting partnerships, moving with agility, and ensuring Austin competes intentionally, with small businesses and community participation at the center of its growth strategy.

🏛️ Memos:

✅ Austin ISD projects $63 million budget shortfall as sale of Rosedale property stalls (Community Impact)

Austin ISD is projecting a larger budget shortfall for this fiscal year after the sale of a former school property has been delayed.

Additionally, the district is looking to further cut costs next fiscal year by staffing campuses to more closely reflect enrollment, which has continued to decline each school year. AISD has adopted deficit budgets since fiscal year 2017-28, excluding FY 2022-23, Chief Financial Officer Katrina Montgomery said at a Feb. 12 board meeting.

"This is an opportunity for us to budget better," Montgomery said. "We want to ... make sure that we're not continuously passing deficit budgets."

AISD is aiming to reduce a projected $137.41 million budget shortfall to $63.26 million in FY 2025-26 through $26.41 million in cost-saving strategies, including a $16.9 million property sale, according to district documents… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ East Riverside braces for next development wave as light rail nears (Austin American-Statesman)

An old office space on the former Tokyo Electron campus in Southeast Austin was filled with presentation boards and leaflets on the final, chilly Saturday of January as residents funneled through to try to learn about the future of their neighborhood.

Children got their faces painted and made arts and crafts while their parents attended listening sessions with city staff and visited with municipal planners. Residents picked up Koozies touting a light-rail train that might one day run down the main thoroughfare of the corridor they call home.

The former tech facility was a fitting venue for the city-sponsored open house focused on changes coming to the East Riverside corridor. The 125-acre campus at 2400 Grove Blvd., which the city acquired in 2024 for $87 million, represents a blank canvas for redevelopment in Southeast Austin. 

Austin’s East Riverside neighborhood, a historically low-income, largely Hispanic residential area, is rapidly evolving. Its main corridor — East Riverside Drive between Interstate 35 and Texas 71 — has seen significant growth and development in recent years.

“I think the last five years, what we’ve done in this ZIP code has been transformational,” said Soud Twal, a real estate agent with Kuper Sotheby’s who represents listings in East Riverside. “It looks night and day from what it did five years ago.”

Now, about a year out from the planned start of construction on the Austin Light Rail project, the neighborhood sits on the cusp of another major wave of redevelopment — for better or worse. As the city of Austin prepares for that growth, leaders say they hope to limit displacement in one of the city’s most vulnerable ZIP codes… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin debate grows over converting one-way streets to two-way to improve safety (CBS Austin)

As Austin pushes forward with major infrastructure changes downtown, a growing debate over safety and mobility is putting the city’s one-way streets under renewed scrutiny — with road safety advocates and a nationally recognized urban planner urging Austin to convert them to two-way travel.

Road safety groups say one-way streets can encourage speeding, create confusion and make downtown less walkable. They argue that converting one-way streets to two-way would improve safety and mobility across the downtown core.

Safe Streets Austin said the debate over two-way conversions has been going on with the city for around one year.

“The current one-way, two-way hybrid mess that we have downtown is very confusing to visitors. It’s confusing to locals,” said Adam Greenfield, Interim Executive Director of Safe Streets Austin… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin looking to rezone UT-owned land near The Domain (Austin Business Journal)

The J.J. Pickle Research Campus in North Austin looks like it’s being set up for a wave of development. About 374 acres near Austin's second downtown is in line to be rezoned.

One reason why the Pickle Research Campus — which is owned by the University of Texas — could see development in the years ahead is that university leaders have intimated it will be the home of the yet-to-be-built UT Medical Center that may bring Houston-level cancer care to Central Texas.

That revelation was made clear just this week. At the same time, Austin city officials have initiated a zoning change that would open up future uses at the Pickle campus. Right now, the campus is being used by academic researchers working in fields from paleontology to microelectronics... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Facing growing demand, Georgetown wants to stop managing water for neighboring areas (KUT)

Voters in Georgetown will decide in May if they want the city to sell a portion of its public water system to a new, private water provider.

City leaders like Georgetown Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Pitts want to sell the parts of the system that extend into neighboring towns. Pitts said doing that would allow the Georgetown system to better plan for future growth and manage rising costs.

"The proposed sale of water service territory outside of our city limits will reduce our long-term water needs by 60%," Pitts said at a press conference on Wednesday.

About 40% of Georgetown's water utility customers currently live outside the city — a result of the city's decision to acquire the Chisolm Trail Special Utility District in 2014. These areas are expected to rapidly develop in the coming years, and although Georgetown cannot manage that growth, it must legally provide water to residents and businesses that request service… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Embattled Austin real estate titan Alan Stalcup lashes out at fraud accusers, defends actions at GVA (Austin American-Statesman)

Sitting in the offices of the Austin American-Statesman in a tailored light blue shirt and similarly colored jacket, the 53-year-old Austin businessman is sounding off on the cabal of unhappy investors and their attorneys he says are engaged in a conspiracy against him. 

Stalcup, once a real estate titan with an empire that made him the 50th-largest landlord in the nation, has for the past three years seen that empire slipping away. He estimates he’s lost $400 million in personal wealth from the falling value of the portfolio. He figures investors in his companies that once held 30,000 apartment units have lost a similar amount.  

“Ninety percent of my net worth was tied up in these deals, so I was intently focused on preserving that, along with our investor equity,” he said. 

Stalcup founded GVA Property Management in 2016. It was designed to acquire middle- and low-income apartment complexes on floating rate loans for properties that were underperforming with the promise they could be fixed up, marketed and better managed to return more profit before being sold off at a premium. 

But when the Federal Reserve aggressively increased interest rates in 2022 and 2023, the cost of GVA’s loans ballooned, eating up cash flow at the properties. 

Foreclosures, lawsuits and fraud allegations followed. Those, paired with a possible federal investigation, have sapped Stalcup’s business and endangered his reputation. 

The Statesman was first to report early this year that he may be under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. In court documents, an attorney representing one of his former investors referred to an SEC subpoena suggesting Stalcup was being investigated “for securities fraud.”

The SEC doesn’t confirm or deny investigations. Stalcup vehemently denies being under investigation but said he’d welcome such a probe because he has nothing to hide. He derided the Statesman’s reporting on it as “reckless.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Early voting for the Texas 2026 primaries begins Tuesday. Here’s what to know. (Texas Tribune)

Voting for the 2026 primaries starts Tuesday. Texas Republican and Democrat voters will pick which candidate they want to represent their interests and their party on the ballot for the November general election.

Before you head to the polls, you should know you have rights as a voter and there are certain rules in place at voting locations about what you can bring and wear. You also need an approved photo ID to vote in person… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Inside the debacle that led to the closure of El Paso’s airspace (New York Times)

Last spring, in the early months of Steve Feinberg’s tenure as deputy defense secretary, Pentagon staff members briefed him on plans to employ new high-energy laser weapons to take out drones being used by Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs across the southern U.S. border. But their use was conditioned on getting a green light from aviation safety officials.

The law, the staff members at the Pentagon explained to him, required extensive coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Department, which could slow the testing of the system. Transportation officials could even block the system’s use if they determined that it posed risks to aviation safety. Two people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss sensitive matters, said they recalled that Mr. Feinberg felt the Pentagon had the authority to proceed anyway. Sean

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, denied their account, saying it was “a total fabrication.” The meeting took place at an especially sensitive time for those regulating air safety as well as for the Pentagon. Just months earlier, an Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet near Ronald Reagan National Airport above Washington, killing 67 people and putting the military’s safety protocols under intense scrutiny. Now the question of whether the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security followed proper procedures and the law in deploying the laser weapon has become a flashpoint within the Trump administration.

Working alongside military personnel, agents from Customs and Border Protection, which is part of the Homeland Security Department, used the weapon this week not far from El Paso International Airport, prompting fury inside the F.A.A. and a brief shutdown of the airport and airspace in that region. Late Tuesday night, the F.A.A. administrator, Bryan Bedford, caught off guard that the system was being used without authorization and concerned for public safety, believed he had little choice but to close the airspace for 10 days, according to more than a half-dozen people. It was an extraordinary decision that surprised the flying public and local officials… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ ‘South Texas will never be red again’: Home builders warn GOP over Trump’s immigration raids (Politico)

Home builders are warning President Donald Trump that his aggressive immigration enforcement efforts are hurting their industry. They’re cautioning that Republican candidates could soon be hurt, too. Construction executives have held multiple meetings over the last month with the White House and Congress to discuss how immigration busts on job sites and in communities are scaring away employees, making it more expensive to build homes in a market desperate for new supply. Beyond the affordability issue, the executives made an electability argument, raising concerns to GOP leaders that support among Hispanic voters is eroding, particularly in regions that swung to Trump in 2024. Hill Republicans have held separate meetings with White House officials to share their own electoral concerns.

This story is based on eight interviews with home builders, lawmakers and others familiar with the meetings. “I told [lawmakers] straight up: South Texas will never be red again,” said Mario Guerrero, the CEO of the South Texas Builders Association, a Trump voter who traveled to Washington last week. He urged the administration and lawmakers to ease up on enforcement at construction sites, warning that employees are afraid to go to work.

The construction industry is one of the latest and clearest examples of how the president’s mass deportation agenda continues to clash with his economic goals of bringing down prices and political aims of keeping control of Congress. Even the president’s allies fear disruptions to labor-heavy industries will undermine the gains with Latino voters Republicans have made in recent years, in large part because of Trump’s economic agenda.

These concerns were the central focus of a White House meeting this week between chief of staff Susie Wiles, Speaker Mike Johnson, and a group of Republican lawmakers, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss it. The group talked about growing concerns that Hispanic voters are abandoning the Republican Party in droves, as well as the policies driving these losses — immigration and affordability concerns… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump vs Bad Bunny: A Super Bowl feud with possible midterm consequences (Reuters)

President Donald Trump's attack on Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show - including a gripe that it was mostly in Spanish - has alarmed some Republican Hispanic strategists, politicians and business leaders who warn it risks further eroding his support among Latino voters ahead of November's congressional elections.Hispanics were central to the coalition that powered Trump's re-election in 2024, even after inflammatory rhetoric on the campaign trail, including a comedian calling the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” at one of Trump's rallies. But their support has softened amid continued high prices, discontent over tariffs and his administration's aggressive immigration enforcement tactics.

Some of Trump’s staunchest Latino allies called Republican attacks on the global music star — and on a performance widely seen as a rare prime-time celebration of Latino culture — a political misstep as the party fights to hold its razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.Several key House races are unfolding in Hispanic-heavy districts, including in California, Arizona and Colorado."It's going to do us more damage than good," said Vianca Rodriguez, a former Trump administration official who served as deputy Hispanic communications director for the Republican National Committee during the 2024 campaign. "That shouldn't have been a battle to have been picked culturally."

Rodriguez, who is Puerto Rican, said she remains an avid Trump supporter. Trump slammed Bad Bunny’s February 8 halftime show as “an affront to the Greatness of America” and a "slap in the face” to the country. “Nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” Trump wrote on his social media account, calling the dancing “disgusting” and unsuitable for children.Even long-time Trump critics like Mike Madrid were baffled by the president's outburst."To see them doubling down on alienating the single most critical constituency they need for survival is beyond belief," said Madrid, a Republican strategist who is an expert on Latino voting trends.

Hispanics are the largest ethnic minority in the U.S., accounting for about a fifth of the population. Trump received 48% of the Hispanic vote in 2024 - more than any Republican presidential candidate in history - up from the 36% share he garnered in 2020, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.But a November survey of more than 5,000 Latino voters by Pew showed Trump is down 12 percentage points among those who backed him in 2024. At the beginning of his second term in January 2025, 93% of Latinos who voted for him approved of the job he was doing. Ten months later, that had fallen to 81%. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, did not respond to questions about Trump's weakening Latino support… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Black voters could decide Crockett-Talarico primary (Texas Tribune)

Just a month into his Democratic campaign for U.S. Senate, a public poll put state Rep. James Talarico ahead among white and Latino voters in a head-to-head matchup against his then-rival, former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. A campaign consultant posted a screenshot of the news on Oct. 9 — but cropped out the results among Black voters, who favored Allred by a more than 2-to-1 margin. State Rep. Venton Jones, D-Dallas, was searing. “It’s disappointing to see a campaign share selective polling that leaves out Black voters entirely. Black voters CANNOT be an afterthought — they’re the foundation of our party,” Jones, who is Black, said on social media. “Leaving them out of your polling story isn’t just misleading — it’s disrespectful.”

It was an early indication of the tense racial politics that would eventually grip the race, growing only more fraught after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Dallas, launched her bid in December. Her campaign, which is headlined by her political brand as a partisan crusader, set off a firestorm of online commentary from around the country declaring her candidacy a liability for Democrats in a state that elected President Donald Trump by 14 percentage points. For many of her supporters, the scrutiny of Crockett seemed rooted in racism and misogyny, and conspicuously absent in relation to Talarico and other firebrand candidates, like Democrat Graham Platner in Maine, who are white.

That tension has continued to frame the contest in the weeks leading up to early voting, with Talarico struggling to break 13% support among Black voters, according to recent polling. Then, a social media influencer alleged last week that the Austin Democrat referred to Allred as a “mediocre Black man,” prompting Allred to issue a scathing response and to endorse Crockett. Talarico called the allegation a “mischaracterization” and said he criticized Allred’s campaigning but would “never attack him on the basis of race.” He has repeatedly affirmed that he is running a positive campaign and urged his supporters to remain respectful of Crockett… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ In first public comments since Trump’s racist video, Obama laments lost decorum (New York Times)

Former President Barack Obama this weekend indirectly addressed a racist video posted earlier this month by President Trump, which depicted Mr. Obama and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, as apes. In a podcast interview published on Saturday, Mr. Obama was asked about the “devolution of the discourse” in American politics, with the host mentioning the video shared by Mr. Trump as one of several examples of inflammatory comments or statements by officials from the current administration. “There’s this sort of clown show that’s happening in social media and on television, and what is true is that there doesn’t seem to be any shame about this among people who used to feel like you had to have some sort of decorum and a sense of propriety and respect for the office,” Mr. Obama told Brian Tyler Cohen, a YouTuber and podcast host. “That’s been lost,” he added.

Appearing on Mr. Cohen’s “No Lie” podcast, Mr. Obama did not directly address the video, which was deleted from Mr. Trump’s Truth Social account after it prompted rare, bipartisan outrage. But Mr. Obama stressed that he believed that most Americans found such content abhorrent. “I think it’s important to recognize that the majority of the American people find this behavior deeply troubling,” Mr. Obama said. “It is true that it gets attention. It’s true that it’s a distraction. But as I’m traveling around the country, as you’re traveling around the country, you meet people, they still believe in decency, courtesy, kindness.” Mr. Trump has refused to apologize for posting the video, saying he “didn’t make a mistake.” He said that he had not seen the entire clip and that someone else had posted it on his account. In the nearly hourlong appearance with Mr. Cohen, Mr. Obama spoke at length about the Democratic Party, public protest and Mr. Trump’s blunt immigration enforcement, including the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Minneapolis.

“The rogue behavior of agents of the federal government is deeply concerning and dangerous,” Mr. Obama said. He added: “It is important for us to recognize the unprecedented nature of what ICE was doing in Minneapolis.” The Trump administration said on Thursday that it was ending its deployment of federal agents to Minnesota after it led to tense protests, thousands of arrests and at least three shootings in the Democratic-led state. Mr. Obama applauded the grass roots organizing that was occurring in places like Minneapolis and community efforts to protect immigrants there. “That kind of heroic, sustained behavior in subzero weather by ordinary people is what should give us hope,” he said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Soaring coffee prices rewrite some Americans' daily routines (Associated Press)

For years, it was a daily McDonald’s trip for a cup of coffee with 10 sugars and five creams. Later, it was Starbucks caramel macchiatos with almond milk and two pumps of syrup. Coffee has been a morning ritual for Chandra Donelson since she was old enough to drink it. But, dismayed by rising prices, the 35-year-old from Washington, D.C., did the unthinkable: She gave it up.

“I did that daily for years. I loved it. That was just my routine,” she says. “And now it’s not.” Years of steadily climbing coffee prices have some in this country of coffee lovers upending their habits by nixing café visits, switching to cheaper brews or foregoing it altogether. Coffee prices in the U.S. were up 18.3% in January from a year ago, according to the latest Consumer Price Index released on Friday. Over five years, the government reported, coffee prices rose 47%.

That extraordinary rise has brought some to take extraordinary measures. “Before, I thought, ‘There’s no way I could make it through my day without coffee,’” says Liz Sweeney, 50, of Boise, Idaho, a former “coffee addict” who has cut her consumption. “Now my car’s not on automatic pilot.” Sweeney used to have three cups of coffee at home each day and stop at a café whenever she left the house. As prices climbed last year, though, she nixed coffee shop visits and cut her intake to a cup a day at home. To make up for the caffeine, she pops open a can of Diet Coke at home or rolls through McDonald’s for one. Dan DeBaun, 34, of Minnetonka, Minnesota, has likewise trimmed back on coffee shop visits, conscious of the increasing expense as he and his wife save up for a house… 🟪 (READ MORE)