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January 2, 2026

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Book Review - The Austin–San Antonio Megaregion: Opportunity and Experience

🟪 Austin braces for AI-driven data center boom that could strain grid, raise rates (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 First toll lanes on 183 North open this morning, with pricing that changes in real time (KUT)

🟪 Abbott calls for ‘Chief State Prosecutor’; gets backing from Elon Musk (KXAN)

🟪 Statewide battles, Latino voters and down-ballot contests: the biggest Texas political stories to watch in 2026 (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Data center boom creates political conundrum for the GOP (Politico)

🟪 Mayor Zohran Mamdani vows to govern NYC ‘audaciously’ in inauguration speech (NPR)

🟪 After a year of blistering growth, AI chip makers get ready for bigger 2026 (Wall Street Journal)

READ ON!

[FIRM NEWS]

📕 I wrapped up my 2025 reading list this week with The Austin–San Antonio Megaregion: Opportunity and Experience.

Published in September 2025, the book makes a clear and persuasive case for thinking about Austin and San Antonio not as separate metros, but as parts of a single, growing megaregion.

The book traces the growth of the communities that increasingly link Austin and San Antonio, including Schertz, Cibolo, New Braunfels, Kyle, and San Marcos, and shows how development along the I-35 corridor is reshaping daily life, the economy, and long-term planning across Central Texas.

For Austinites, the book also offers valuable insight into San Antonio’s history and development, going well beyond the Alamo and helping readers understand how the two cities’ paths are converging.

Overall, this is an excellent primer for anyone (insiders and near-insiders included) who want to understand where Austin and San Antonio (and the cities surrounding them) have been, and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead as the region’s future becomes increasingly shared.

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🗓️ 2026 Council Meeting Schedule

• Work Session: Tuesday, January 20 @9AM

• Regular Meeting: Thursday, January 22nd @10AM

🏛️ [New Memos]

• Fiscal Year 2025-2026 Amended Budget (posted 12.30.2025)

• Staff Response to Artificial Intelligence Resolution (posted 12.26.2025)

• Update related to the Equity Overlay Study (posted 12.26.2025)

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin braces for AI-driven data center boom that could strain grid, raise rates (Austin American-Statesman)

As the surge in artificial intelligence and data centers continues across the state, Austin officials say the technology’s rapid expansion could drive up utility rates, overwhelm the power grid and strain resources — unless it is tightly regulated. 

In a Dec. 23 staff report, City Manager T.C. Broadnax and staff laid out a framework for the city to govern artificial intelligence, manage its environmental footprint, identify gaps in infrastructure and ensure transparency. 

“Utilities in Central Texas have been able to keep up with traditional high growth for decades, however AI is challenging the definition of high growth,” the report said. “There is currently an AI race ongoing where speed to deployment is everything with little regard to cost.” 

The report was prepared in response to a City Council resolution that directed Broadnax to provide current and projected environmental impact and resource usage of local data centers over the next 10 years and identify gaps in local infrastructure and resources.

Developed across multiple city departments, the report covers impacts to Austin Energy and Austin Water, digital literacy and equity initiatives and recommendations for minimizing environmental impacts… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin Energy planning for 'tremendous strain,' possible billing impacts from new data centers (Community Impact)

Austin Energy is planning for operational challenges and potential billing increases as new data centers with growing electric power needs are established in the region.

Data center development is taking place across Central Texas, and power availability for the high-impact facilities remains a key consideration for both industry leaders and local governments.

Given artificial intelligence's widespread adoption, City Council voted earlier this year to explore the technology's use in Austin and consider new policies, ethical guidelines and workforce protections as it's deployed. A study into the environmental and resource effects of data center expansion was also requested.

Those new facilities are now seeking to open with much higher electric service needs and on faster timelines than ever before, city staff said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ First toll lanes on 183 North open this morning, with pricing that changes in real time (KUT)

After nearly five years of construction, the first toll lanes on the 183 North project are set to open Friday morning, expanding Austin's use of highway tolls that get more expensive as traffic gets worse.

Under the system, which is already in place on the MoPac Express Lanes, toll prices change every five minutes, rising during busy times until enough drivers opt out to keep traffic moving at least 45 miles an hour. When traffic eases, prices fall.

By directly linking U.S. 183 North to the MoPac Express Lanes, transportation officials expect more drivers to flow into MoPac's toll lanes, which could push prices there even higher.

The 183 North Mobility Project adds two toll lanes in each direction along a nine-mile stretch of U.S. 183 between MoPac and State Highway 45 North. A fourth non-tolled lane opened in 2024. The project also includes sidewalks along both sides of the highway and some improved crossings for cyclists.

The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority says drivers will gain access to the two northbound lanes Friday morning. A few weeks later, a flyover ramp is set to open connecting the MoPac toll lanes to the northbound 183 toll lanes… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Abbott calls for ‘Chief State Prosecutor’; gets backing from Elon Musk (KXAN)

After spending most of 2025 pushing to make it easier for judges to hold people accused of violent crimes in jail ahead of trial, Gov. Greg Abbott is continuing his tough-on-crime agenda entering the new year.

His most recent proposal: create a new “Chief State Prosecutor” to override certain decisions made by local prosecuting attorneys. In recent days, Abbott cited two alleged cases from the X account “@AustinJustice” as proof the state needs the role.

He first floated the idea on Dec. 22 by quoting an Austin Justice post about “Austin Man” Michael Nnaji. According to court records, Nnaji was arrested on suspicion of a terroristic threat on Oct. 3. Witnesses told police Nnaji, a homeless man, was banging on the doors of Padrón Elementary School and shouting “I’m going to go inside and kill” and “I’m gonna find a way to get in.”

According to the social media post, Nnaji “racked up 34 cases since 2019” and skipped court in his terrorist threat case. A search for his name on the Travis County Court Viewer shows 37 cases… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Statewide battles, Latino voters and down-ballot contests: the biggest Texas political stories to watch in 2026 (Texas Tribune)

2025 was a jam-packed year in Texas politics. It began with the election of a new House speaker for a regular legislative session that saw Gov. Greg Abbott secure his landmark private school voucher program and Republicans check off priorities ranging from tighter bail laws to a ban on land sales to people from certain foreign countries.

The year also brought the devastating July 4 Hill Country floods, which killed over 130 people, including dozens of children and counselors at Camp Mystic along the Guadalupe River. Lawmakers responded by passing a series of bipartisan bills meant to bolster the state’s flood infrastructure and disaster response and improve the safety of camps located in or near floodplains.

During the same overtime legislative session, the GOP-controlled Legislature approved a new congressional map demanded by President Donald Trump and designed to hand the GOP up to five additional seats in the U.S. House during this year’s midterms. Republicans pushed the new lines through over intense opposition from House Democrats, who fled the state to temporarily deny the headcount necessary to pass legislation. A panel of federal judges initially blocked the map before it was restored by the U.S. Supreme Court… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Data center boom creates political conundrum for the GOP (Politico)

Republicans on Capitol Hill who have championed the tech industry’s race to dominate artificial intelligence are confronting a growing political obstacle: voters angry over the soaring energy demands and utility costs tied to the data centers.

The politics of data centers are still very much in flux, but GOP politicians may be particularly vulnerable to a voter backlash because of their pro-development views and President Donald Trump’s all-in support for AI — including blocking states from setting their own rules.

Some are starting to seek distance from the White House. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis floated new limits on data centers as part of an “AI bill of rights.” Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley have also questioned Trump’s state preemption drive.

Increasingly, congressional lawmakers from states at the center of the data center boom — such as Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia — are feeling the heat and looking to adjust… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Mayor Zohran Mamdani vows to govern NYC ‘audaciously’ in inauguration speech (NPR)

Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the 112th mayor of New York City on Thursday, marking the culmination of the democratic socialist’s rise from a two-term back-bench state legislator to the chief executive of the nation’s largest city.

Mamdani’s inauguration outside City Hall presented him as a transformative figure who would lead New York City into a new, more affordable era. Mamdani was joined on the stage by the country’s most prominent democratic socialists – Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Both made clear that Mamdani was now at the vanguard of their movement.

In his own remarks, Mamdani pledged that he would deliver on his extraordinarily ambitious affordability agenda.

“The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations. Beginning today we will govern expansively and audaciously,” Mamdani said in his speech.

“No longer will City Hall hesitate to use its powers to improve New Yorkers’ lives.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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