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✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 After years of dysfunction, Austin Police and the Travis County DA say they're trying to mend fences (KUT)

🟪 City staff identify $101M in funding needs to address homelessness in Austin (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Texans will face higher bar to oppose housing development under new law (Community Impact)

🟪 Texas Democrat Colin Allred launches 2026 U.S. Senate campaign (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg gearing up to run for office (Texas Public Radio)

 🟪 Wealthy families are buying homes to get in-state tuition at Texas universities (KUT)

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of June 2025)

💰 2026 City of Austin Bond - Public Input

🏛️ City of Austin Seeks Proposals for Colony Park Displacement Mitigation Strategy RFP

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ After years of dysfunction, Austin Police and the Travis County DA say they're trying to mend fences (KUT)

The relationship between the Travis County District Attorney’s office and the Austin Police Department is fraught. It has been since José Garza was elected DA in 2020.

Indictments, bungled prosecutions and miscommunication have all played a hand in the less-than-functional relationship between the two parties.

But since Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis took over last year, the two sides have shown a desire to mend fences.

Garza won the 2020 Democratic primary, running on a progressive platform and crushing his opponent with nearly 70% of the vote.

The campaign was uniquely timed. Garza pledged to prosecute police misconduct if elected, specifically calling out the lack of movement on one case: the April 2020 police killing of Mike Ramos.

Ramos was fatally shot by APD officers while trying to flee arrest. The case drew the attention of Austinites who saw parallels between Ramos, an unarmed Black and Latino man, and George Floyd in Minneapolis. Protesters invoked his name at demonstrations over the summer of 2020. During those protests, dozens of people were severely injured by officers, prompting a reckoning of police use of force and a retooling of how APD was funded… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas State University to join Pac-12 Conference in 2026-27 season (Community Impact)

Texas State University will gain increased visibility on the national stage after joining a new athletic conference, starting in the 2026-27 season. 

After 12 years, the board of regents at Texas State University System approved plans June 30 to withdraw Texas State University from the Sun Belt Conference and move the team to a different athletic conference. While the board did not specify, a news release confirmed the move was to the Pac-12 Conference.

Removal from the Sun Belt came with a $5 million withdrawal fee, according to meeting documents. TXST officials did not respond as of press time on the cost to join the Pac-12 Conference.

With the addition of TXST, Pac-12 will have eight football-playing schools, meeting the minimum requirements to join the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, the release states… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City staff identify $101M in funding needs to address homelessness in Austin (Austin Monitor)

Ahead of this month’s budget workshops, city staff have released estimates that it will take more than $100 million in additional funding to sustain and expand the local homelessness response system as the expiration of federal pandemic relief aid approaches and long-term capital and service demands continue to grow.

The memo from Homeless Strategy Officer David Gray, offers a detailed response to a City Council resolution approved in January that directed city staff to identify priorities, costs, and potential administrative changes required to ensure continuity in critical homelessness programs.

The analysis assumed a system-wide framework, focusing on prevention and diversion, rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing. According to the report, Austin’s current homelessness-response infrastructure is at risk of losing several key components as one-time federal American Rescue Plan Act funds sunset… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Z'Tejas shutters all locations (Austin Business Journal)

After Randy Cohen resurrected Z’Tejas from bankruptcy in 2018, Cohen has thrown in the towel and closed all locations after a long struggle to keep the business going.

Z’Tejas' Kyle location opened for its last dinner on June 29. This closing was preceded by Z'Tejas closing its Avery Ranch location north of Austin that opened three years ago. And its two locations in Scottsdale and Chandler, Arizona, recently closed. Cohen, who owned the restaurant chain but did not operate it, said he could never find the right team for the brand and he was constantly working against the flow to keep it going.

"I just don't think we executed with consistency and with everything that you need to do to have a winning restaurant," Cohen said. "And restaurants are in a pickle right now."

Cohen, who is also the founder of TicketCity, said too many iconic restaurants in Austin are running their course. Another notable Austin chain that has yet to find a new home, Trudy's, has also gone the way of Z'Tejas, closing all of its locations but not without a fight… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texans will face higher bar to oppose housing development under new law (Community Impact)

Texas residents will have less influence over the rezoning of neighboring properties for new housing under a new state law going into effect later this year.

On June 20, Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation intended to weaken what many critics have dubbed the "tyrant's veto" in local land-use reviews.

Under state law, landowners near a site that's being rezoned must be notified of the proposed change and have the chance to challenge it. For decades, those rules have allowed formal zoning protests to be launched by a small share of affected property owners—20% or more of those whose land is:

• Included in the rezoning,

• Adjacent to the subject site, or

• Within a 200-foot radius of the property in question

Successful protests force a higher threshold for rezoning approval by government bodies like a city council. While most such decisions require a simple majority vote, today a protested zoning case must receive a three-fourths supermajority to pass.

The process applies to individual properties as well as more comprehensive zoning changes, like a citywide land development code rewrite in Austin that stalled out after residents sued over a lack of notice…  🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Democrat Colin Allred launches 2026 U.S. Senate campaign (Texas Tribune)

Democrat Colin Allred launched his campaign for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, making a second run at the upper chamber after failing to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz last year.

“Texans are working harder than ever, not getting as much time with their kids, missing those special moments, all to be able to afford less,” Allred, a former Dallas congressman who gave up his seat to run against Cruz, said in his announcement video. “And the people that we elected to help — politicians like John Cornyn and Ken Paxton — are too corrupt to care about us and too weak to fight for us.”

Allred is the first major Democrat to announce his candidacy for the seat currently held by Cornyn, but several others have indicated their interest, including Beto O’Rourke, a former El Paso congressman and statewide campaign veteran; U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a longtime San Antonio legislator; and state Rep. James Talarico, a four-term lawmaker from Austin who is seen as a rising star in the party.

Former astronaut Terry Virts and former flight attendant Mike Swanson are already running in the Democratic primary… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg gearing up to run for office (Texas Public Radio)

Since former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg left City Hall earlier this month, there’s been a lot of speculation about his next move in politics. Nirenberg told TPR he’s gearing up for the midterm elections. He made the comment at a rally hosted by former El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke Friday at Pearl's Stable Hall.

“This is more than about Democrats and Republicans — this is about right and wrong," Nirenberg told a crowd of more than 1,000 people who turned out to see O'Rourke along with fellow Democrats, Rep. Joaquin Castro and State Rep. James Talarico.

They are all being talked about as statewide office candidates in 2026. Nirenberg, who served as mayor of San Antonio from 2017 to 2025, said he could also be on the midterm ballot.

“I will tell you that the challenges that are facing this country and our nation and our state and our communities are complex and they're urgent — and I'm not going to sit on the sidelines," Nirenberg said. He said he’s not ready to make an announcement yet on what office he might pursue, but his time in politics isn’t over… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Wealthy families are buying homes to get in-state tuition at Texas universities (KUT)

This was not a luxury apartment. The place had popcorn ceilings, laminate countertops and faux marble bathroom sinks. The vinyl flooring was warped in places.

Two recent graduates from the University of Texas at Austin had moved out weeks before. Hired cleaners hadn’t come yet, so there was a layer of scum on the bathroom mirror and a damp smell the realtor blamed on old ventilation, but which he later deemed West Campus’ signature scent: beer, vomit and shoddy attempts to clean up both.

“You’ll smell it,” said Miller Gill, the realtor tasked with selling the 750-square-foot campus condo last month.

But Gill wasn’t worried about his bottom line. The week before, a family from New Jersey agreed to buy the place. To them, and to many others across the country, this 1980s condo was worth more than its parts; it was a ticket to a cheaper college education.

Texas lets out-of-state students buy homes to get in-state tuition. The law has fed a niche but growing industry of real estate agents, like Gill, who specialize not only in buying homes but also helping primarily California, Illinois and New York-bred students use these homes to save tens of thousands of dollars on a degree from a public university.

“It’s the tuition savings that is the big seller here,” said Ryan Gomillion, another realtor who has helped families use property to secure in-state tuition… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ National pride is declining in America. And it's splitting by party lines, new Gallup polling shows (Associated Press)

Only 36% of Democrats say they’re “extremely” or “very” proud to be American, according to a new Gallup poll, reflecting a dramatic decline in national pride that’s also clear among young people. The findings are a stark illustration of how many — but not all — Americans have felt less of a sense of pride in their country over the past decade. The split between Democrats and Republicans, at 56 percentage points, is at its widest since 2001. That includes all four years of Republican President Donald Trump’s first term.

Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults who are part of Generation Z, which is defined as those born from 1997 to 2012, expressed a high level of pride in being American in Gallup surveys conducted in the past five years, on average. That’s compared with about 6 in 10 Millennials — those born between 1980 and 1996 — and at least 7 in 10 U.S. adults in older generations.

“Each generation is less patriotic than the prior generation, and Gen Z is definitely much lower than anybody else,” said Jeffrey Jones, a senior editor at Gallup. “But even among the older generations, we see that they’re less patriotic than the ones before them, and they’ve become less patriotic over time. That’s primarily driven by Democrats within those generations.”

America’s decline in national pride has been a slow erosion, with a steady downtick in Gallup’s data since January 2001, when the question was first asked. Even during the tumultuous early years of the Iraq War, the vast majority of U.S. adults, whether Republican or Democrat, said they were “extremely” or “very” proud to be American. At that point, about 9 in 10 were “extremely” or “very” proud to be American. That remained high in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the consensus around American pride slipped in the years that followed, dropping to about 8 in 10 in 2006 and continuing a gradual decline.

Now, 58% of U.S. adults say that, in a downward shift that’s been driven almost entirely by Democrats and independents. The vast majority of Republicans continue to say they’re proud to be American. Independents’ pride in their national identity hit a new low in the most recent survey, at 53%, largely following that pattern of gradual decline. Democrats’ diminished pride in being American is more clearly linked to Trump’s time in office. When Trump first entered the White House, in 2017, about two-thirds of Democrats said they were proud to be American. That had fallen to 42% by 2020, just before Trump lost reelection to Democrat Joe Biden… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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