BG Reads // July 17, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
July 17, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 With balanced $6.3B budget on the table, Austin City Council members raise concerns about potential gaps (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Austin assistant city manager, former Dallas police chief Eddie Garcia named finalist for Fort Worth chief job (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 City looks to cut some costs on police, fire budgets (Austin Monitor)

🟪 How ‘Weird Austin’ went from pot-smoking slackers to right-leaning provocateurs (Austin Monthly)

🟪 Big money shaping GOP primaries for Texas attorney general, comptroller (Texas Tribune)

🟪 As Trump looks to net five GOP seats through Texas redistricting, Democrats grasp for response (Texas Tribune)

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ With balanced $6.3B budget on the table, Austin City Council members raise concerns about potential gaps (Austin American-Statesman)

Some Austin City Council members are choosing to approach coming budget discussions with an open mind as questions loom over whether the city government will be able to adequately fund city services next year.

City Manager T.C. Broadnax during a Tuesday work session proposed a balanced budget based on a 3.5% increase in property tax revenue — the maximum allowed under state law without calling a citywide election. The $6.3 billion spending plan is the largest ever pitched at Austin City Hall and represents an increase of about 5% over the 2025 budget, driven largely by airport expansion projects and utility expenditures.

But some members of the City Council shared concerns at the meeting that deep cuts to other city programs could leave Austinites without key services and set the city up for a worsening financial outlook in 2027.

The budget calls for a notable reshuffling of public safety staffing, zeroes out the city’s housing trust fund and proposes a $14.1 million transfer from reserves to make ends meet.

Other cuts include the elimination of the Neighborhood Partnering Program, which helps private groups fund and construct neighborhood improvement projects, and the closure of the library system’s Recycled Reads bookstore.

“This budget does more than just cut out fat; we hit some bones,” said Council Member Ryan Alter, who represents parts of South Austin.

Council members are choosing to keep all options on the table, though, as they move through the budgeting process —  including a tax-rate election. Mayor Kirk Watson indicated Tuesday he plans to ask the city manager for alternative proposals that include higher tax rates… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin assistant city manager, former Dallas police chief Eddie Garcia named finalist for Fort Worth chief job (Austin American-Statesman)

A high-ranking Austin official is a finalist to lead Fort Worth’s police department. 

Eddie Garcia, a former Dallas police chief who now serves as Austin’s assistant city manager for public safety, is among four top contenders for the job, Fort Worth City Manager Jay Chapa announced in a news release.

The three other finalists are: Fort Worth’s interim Chief Robert Alldredge; former Dallas Deputy Chief Vernon Hale; and Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides from the Los Angeles Police Department.

Garcia took the job in Austin late last year after abruptly retiring from the Dallas Police Department.

As assistant city manager for public safety, he oversees the Austin Fire Department, Austin Police Department, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services, Downtown Austin Community Court, Forensic Science Department; and the Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Garcia works directly with Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax, who also left Dallas as that city’s chief executive just more than a year ago. Broadnax started his role in Austin in May 2024.

Garcia joined Dallas police in 2020 after serving for 29 years in the San Jose, California police department, the last four of those as its chief, the American-Statesman previously reported. He left Dallas in 2024 even though he committed to stay until at least 2027, according to WFAA-TV… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City looks to cut some costs on police, fire budgets (Austin Monitor)

City budget planners had to make some tough decisions in proposing a budget for the upcoming fiscal year and the following year.  As part of the proposal laid out by City Manager T.C. Broadnax and Budget Officer Kerri Lang at Tuesday’s Council work session, staff is proposing a $9 million decrease in the Police Department overtime budget and an $8.3 million reduction in the overtime budget for the Fire Department.

The proposed budget for the police department is over $542 million. The fire department budget is about $263 million and the city’s proposed EMS budget is about $148 million.

In order to reduce the Fire Department budget, staff has proposed revising the existing requirement for four-person staffing on all firefighting equipment, so that some units would operate with only three firefighters. Austin Fire Association President Bob Nicks has already said his union is opposed to that idea, but Council members did not express disagreement with the idea at Tuesday’s meeting.

Broadnax said he anticipates the change to start in January. Firefighters and city negotiators are scheduled to begin negotiations on a new labor contract this week. The current contract expires at the end of September… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ How ‘Weird Austin’ went from pot-smoking slackers to right-leaning provocateurs (Austin Monthly)

Ask any Austinite, and they’ll tell you with certitude that the city has transformed at a dizzying pace. But identifying the exact moment we crossed the Rubicon is a murkier endeavor—everyone seems to have a personal answer. Beyond the visible changes of new skyscrapers and urban sprawl, a subtler shift has transpired with the cast of characters that shape the city’s identity. 

It’s fair to wonder: How the hell did we get here?

A thread connecting Willie Nelson to Elon Musk may seem initially preposterous, but perhaps it’s not. The influx of money has made Austin an unmistakably different place, but it has always been a cultural outpost, a haven for nonconformists.

Maybe its identity hasn’t shifted so much as everything else around it. In recent years, fringe thinking has become more mainstream, and Austin’s growth (especially in the tech sector) gave it a louder voice in the national conversation. In retrospect, it seems clear that the city’s ethos stemmed more from being iconoclastic than politically liberal. In other words, the type of strange might change, but Austin remains unequivocally weird… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Austin FC adds heavy hitters as part of minority ownership group (Austin Business Journal)

Austin FC announced July 14 that it added five more minority owners, all of whom have residences in Austin and at least three are reported to be billionaires.

The five new owners are:

  • Jenny Just and Matt Hulsizer, who are the co-founders and managing partners of Peak6 Investments, a financial services and technology firm that recently moved its headquarters to Austin. The duo have held ownership stakes in several European soccer clubs, including AFC Bournemouth and Wolverhampton Wanderers FC. Just was involved in an effort to bring the Women's National Basketball Association to Austin. Both are reported to be billionaires.

  • Tench Coxe, who has spent more than 30 years investing in hardware and software technology companies and was a managing director at Sutter Hill from 1989 to 2020. He has served on the board of Nvidia Corp. since 1993. Coxe is reported to be a billionaire, and on a side note, Nvidia is on the cusp of expanding here, sources said.

  • Tanuj Gulati, an entrepreneur and investor, who has founded and run multiple cybersecurity companies, including as the co-founder and chief technology officer of Securonix Inc., a business that raised more than $1 billion in growth investment funding several years ago.

  • Dave Snyderman is the managing partner of Illinois-based Magnetar Capital LLC, an asset management company with reportedly more than $13 billion in managed assets… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Fixing Austin's low-water crossings would take 200 years at the current pace (KUT)

Austin has nearly 70 low-water crossings that can flood during heavy rains, covering familiar roads with fast-moving currents strong enough to kill.

The city is working to fix these crossings. But it's going slowly. At the current pace of about one upgrade every three years, it would take more than 200 years to eliminate them all.

The biggest obstacle is money. Fixing one low-water crossing can cost anywhere from a few hundred-thousand dollars to millions. In a cash-strapped city with many competing priorities, drainage isn't always at the top of the list.

Low-water crossings are one of the most dangerous places to be during a flash flood. Until the Fourth of July floods claimed a staggering number of lives — at least 132 with dozens more still missing — most flood deaths in Texas each year happened at low-water crossings, according to the Texas A&M Transportation Institute… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Home sales spike in Hutto, dip in Pflugerville (Community Impact)

The Hutto housing market experienced a year-over-year increase in homes sales in June, according to data by Unlock MLS, while the Pflugerville housing market saw a slight dip.

With the median price of single-family homes in Hutto dropping from around $390,000 to $347,500 in June, the city saw a 42.6% increase in home sales year-over-year.

This differs from the trend seen across the Austin metro in June, during which residential home sales rose by only 0.5%, compared to June 2024. The median price for homes also remained flat at $450,000.

Vaike O’Grady, research advisor at Unlock MLS, said the median sales price in Central Texas underscores the ongoing demand and reinforces “long-term confidence in the Austin market.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Big money shaping GOP primaries for Texas attorney general, comptroller (Texas Tribune)

Texas’ first open GOP primaries for attorney general and comptroller in a decade are on the horizon, and both races are shaping up to be big money battles.

In the race for attorney general, former Department of Justice lawyer Aaron Reitz raised $2.1 million in the first three weeks of his campaign, outpacing the combined haul of his two GOP primary rivals, state Sens. Joan Huffman and Mayes Middleton. But Middleton, an oil and gas businessman, kicked in $10 million of his own money, giving him a massive financial edge to start the race. Huffman raised nearly $764,000, mostly from her establishment Republican base in Houston, leaving her with $3 million in her campaign account.

For comptroller, Republican Texas Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick outraised Kelly Hancock, the interim comptroller, by almost $1.5 million — though Hancock reported having more cash on hand. A third contender, former state senator Don Huffines, previously announced an eye-popping $15 million haul for the fundraising period, though his filing with the state ethics commission showed $10 million of that came from a personal loan. He otherwise reported raising $4.7 million, a total that included a $3 million contribution from his brother… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Gov. Greg Abbott, Border czar Tom Homan praise U.S.-Texas partnership on immigration (Dallas Morning News)

Gov. Greg Abbott and federal Border czar Tom Homan did not address the prospects of Texas building its own detention center similar to one revealed in Florida earlier this month when they appeared together Tuesday at Fort Worth. Over the weekend, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters she was in talks with five Republican-led states to build another detention center with Alligator Alcatraz “as a model,” Noem said. On Monday, when Abbott was asked if Texas has had conversations with Noem to build detention centers, the governor did not directly answer the question and said the state has previously offered to host more detention facilities.

“We want to do everything we can to make sure that those who are here legally are allowed to remain legally and those who are here illegally, they’ll be turned over to ICE,” Abbott said. Instead, the conversation Tuesday touched on recent attacks on federal immigration agents, including one at the Prairieland Detention Center 25 miles south of Fort Worth in Alvarado; the state’s efforts to assist the Trump administration; and new laws passed by the Republican-controlled state Legislature targeting border security.

“We’re a force multiplier for them whenever they go into a danger zone,” Abbott said. “We’re going to be there to assist them in that danger zone.” President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda has been highly controversial, resulting in nationwide protests against him, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other sectors of the federal government that assist with immigration enforcement. Homan blamed Democratic lawmakers for their rhetoric, saying comments comparing ICE agents to Nazis lead to violence.

“It’s an insult to the men and women of ICE and the Border Patrol,” Homan said. Homan said he went Monday to Alvarado and visited with local law enforcement officials. On July 4, a group of about a dozen individuals allegedly attacked federal officers at the facility, resulting in an Alvarado police officer being shot in the neck. The officer survived. At least 12 people have been charged with federal crimes. Homan also said there will be more immigration enforcement actions in the near future, highlighting Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill that was signed into law on July 4. The bill, which included significant tax cuts, also dramatically increased the funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency responsible for immigration enforcement and border security… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump slams his own supporters as ‘weaklings’ for falling for what he now calls the Epstein ‘hoax’ (Associated Press)

President Donald Trump is lashing out at his own supporters, accusing them of being duped by Democrats, as he tries to clamp down on criticism over his administration’s handling of much-hyped records in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, which Trump now calls a “Hoax.”

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bull——,” hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote Wednesday on his Truth Social site, using an expletive in his post. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore!” he went on. There is no evidence former Democratic officials tampered with the documents or played any role in promoting conspiracies about the files, which members of Trump’s administration stoked for years… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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