🟪 Austin council addresses deadly police shooting (KXAN)

🟪 What's on track and behind schedule with Austin's transit expansion nearly 6 years later (KUT)

🟪 Guadalupe County sued over data center development agreements (Community Impact)

🟪 Thousands of apartments going up thanks to new Texas housing laws. But resistance lingers in the suburbs. (Texas Tribune)

🟪 San Antonio Mayor Jones asks execs, philanthropists to help close city budget gap (San Antonio Express-News)

🟪 Dallas mayor’s budget blueprint: Reduce taxes, shrink bureaucracy (Dallas Morning News)

🟪 Texas GOP cuts ticket prices to Trump’s unconventional convention (Dallas Morning News)

🟪 Inside the phone-throwing drama at the troubled, broke Democratic Party (New York Times)

READ ON!

🏛️ COUNCIL MEETINGS:

💰 Review the Fiscal Year 2026-27 budget documents here

🏛️ MEMO: Fiscal Year 2026-2027 Budget Adoption Timeline

🎙️ The BG Podcast is back! Episode 269 features my conversation with former San Antonio Mayor and HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros about the Austin–San Antonio mega region.

The discussion comes as the new Central Texas Alliance seeks to build consensus across 13 counties along and around the I-35 corridor.

Listen on:

✅ Austin council addresses deadly police shooting (KXAN)

Some members of the Austin City Council are speaking out following the officer involved shooting death of a 17-year-old last week.

Austin Police continue to investigate a fatal shooting involving officers that APD Chief Lisa Davis said was “potentially a suicide by police.”

Davis identified the individual as a 17-year-old black male and said the department would release his name once his family notified the rest of their loved ones.

The incident started with a 911 call that came in before 4 a.m. The caller reported seeing a teenager walking around with a gun.

“I’m looking out my window. It seems to be a kid. It looks like he has a gun. I’m not sure… He keeps on messing with his waistband,” the caller said.

Davis said it was eventually determined the subject himself was the one who made the call.

“Officers did not locate a firearm on scene. It was later determined that a water bottle was in his waistband,” Davis said. “I cannot imagine the pain and the grief that his family is going through, and I want them to know that I’m thinking about them.”

No additional information about mental health was relayed.

The shooting happened in northeast Austin in an area off of Dessau Road in the Pioneer Hill neighborhood on Baden Lane.

Now multiple Austin council members are calling for transparency and accountability… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ What's on track and behind schedule with Austin's transit expansion nearly 6 years later (KUT)

Project Connect is Austin's long-term plan to build a larger, more connected public transit system.

Voters approved the proposal in November 2020 as a sweeping package that included light-rail, faster bus service with an all-electric fleet, park-and-rides, expanded commuter rail, neighborhood shuttles and $300 million for housing near future transit lines.

Nearly six years later, pieces of that plans are arriving, often behind schedule.

New rapid bus service was launched with 10-minute frequencies and park-and-rides at the end of each line. CapMetro's Red Line commuter rail has one new station and another on the way. Transit leaders are powering through the volumes of federal paperwork required to build the light-rail system.

But the biggest promise has been scaled back. The city's first modern light-rail line is smaller and no longer includes the downtown subway or connection to the airport that helped sell the original vision… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Guadalupe County sued over data center development agreements (Community Impact)

On July 20, the Data Center Action Coalition and local residents filed a lawsuit against the Guadalupe County Commissioners Court to stop the development of the data center Cloudburst, along with the development of Palomino Alpha, another data center in the county. The Data Center Action Coalition, formed in 2025, raises awareness of the potential threats of data centers in a cluster outside San Marcos, according to a news release.

The Commissioners Court approved a $500 million property tax abatement and development agreement with CloudBurst Texas in April for the construction of an over 700-acre data center, according to previous Community Impact reporting.

The Data Center Action Coalition is alleging that the approvals of the developments were advanced through “inadequate public notice, private negotiations and unlawful conflicts of interest,” according to a news release.

The lawsuit claims the commissioners approved tax abatements and development agreements for the projects while violating the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Tax Code and state conflicts-of-interest laws… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Thousands of apartments going up thanks to new Texas housing laws. But resistance lingers in the suburbs. (Texas Tribune)

The law that appears to be enabling the most new housing is Senate Bill 840, which allows owners of offices, shopping centers and warehouses to redevelop properties into apartments or mixed-use complexes with residences.

The law has enabled at least 8,400 apartments since it took effect Sept. 1, according to a tally by a bipartisan coalition that supported the bill, including Texans For Reasonable Solutions, American Enterprise Institute and Texas Appleseed. That’s an amount equivalent to about one in five of the multifamily units permitted in Texas since the law took effect, a separate Texas Tribune analysis of building permits shows.

Apartment construction has slowed in Texas and the rest of the country amid a temporary glut of new apartments and higher construction costs. But while multifamily permits fell 10% statewide in the period since the bill passed, those permits have risen in the 19 cities where SB 840 relaxed local zoning restrictions, The Tribune’s analysis of the Texas A&M University’s building permit data found… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Universities can use conservative-favored entrance exam as Texas eyes wider use, agency chief says (Texas Tribune)

Texas’ higher education commissioner signaled last week that the state could expand the use of the conservative-favored Classic Learning Test in public university admissions even though an independent review found far less evidence linking the exam’s scores to college performance than SAT and ACT scores.

In a letter to campus leaders on Thursday, Commissioner Wynn Rosser clarified that universities can immediately consider CLT scores for any applicants who fall outside the top-10% automatic admissions window. While the letter did not alter current statewide rules that currently recognize only the SAT and ACT, it signaled the state’s plan to formally approve the CLT by fall 2028 as a new test option for home school, private school or out-of-state applicants.

Rosser issued the letter one day after the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board voted to send an independent review of the CLT, SAT and ACT to legislative leaders. The board did not vote to approve CLT’s use or change the state’s admissions rules… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ San Antonio Mayor Jones asks execs, philanthropists to help close city budget gap (San Antonio Express-News)

Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones has asked local business and philanthropic leaders to financially support organizations that have counted on city dollars to trim a little from the city’s nearly $160 million deficit over the next two years. It’s the second such proposal Jones unveiled this week to cut city spending without affecting city services. On Tuesday, she suggested redirecting millions of sales tax dollars that were raised for the Ready to Work job-training program to other projects. Jones has said raising property taxes to generate more revenue is a “last resort.” City staff have proposed raising the tax rate from 54 cents per $100 of assessed property value to almost 58 cents. Both of Jones’ proposals have taken City Hall by surprise, with the mayor announcing them via memo or letter — her preferred way of conducting city business.

Jones’ Friday letter is addressed broadly to “Business, Foundation, and Philanthropic Leaders.” Chief of Staff Andrew Fuentes has not responded to a request for the specific recipients. Jones asks whether the leaders would consider “a three-year funding commitment” to match what the city gave 15 organizations this fiscal year. The organizations received a combined $6.5 million this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. They include the San Antonio Botanical Garden, which Jones singled out during a June 18 budget briefing as an entity that should not receive city dollars at the expense of other services, such as city-run nutrition sites that provide free lunches to seniors. “If you charge a ticket fee, then you can figure it out,” Jones said at that meeting. The garden received nearly $1.1 million in this year’s general fund budget, which pays for city services such as fire and police protection, libraries, parks, and street maintenance and repairs. The nonprofit pushed back against the mayor’s comments, saying a funding cut would limit its ability to offer free or reduced-entry… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Dallas mayor’s budget blueprint: Reduce taxes, shrink bureaucracy (Dallas Morning News)

Coffee shops in Dallas libraries. Higher prices for suburban visitors at the zoo, arboretum and other city attractions. A smaller city government. Mayor Eric Johnson proposed those ideas in a newsletter Sunday as ways to cut spending and raise revenue while Dallas confronts a projected $51 million gap in its next budget. In his most extensive prescription yet for confronting the shortfall, Johnson called for cutting excess spending and shifting some services to other government or private entities while protecting public safety and reducing the property tax rate.

“The City’s bureaucracy is simply too large and too expensive,” Johnson wrote in a memo Friday to the city manager. He said spending has expanded over the past decade, and while some of it was necessary – such as in public safety – much of it has been “growth for the sake of growth.” Johnson’s suggestions come as most city employees are being asked to take unpaid leave to overcome a midyear gap in the current budget. City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert previously ordered hiring freezes and travel restrictions, saying rising costs, constrained sales tax collections and overtime expenses meant the city already was short nearly $30 million. Johnson’s recommendations are not binding.

Tolbert will present her proposed budget to the mayor and City Council, which can revise the plan before it goes into effect Oct. 1. Her draft will be made public Aug. 11, kicking off town halls in every district where residents can weigh in. In his memo and newsletter, Johnson said Dallas should concentrate its resources on public safety, streets, infrastructure, parks, planning and development and code compliance. Services outside those areas should be examined to determine whether they could be handled by Dallas County, private businesses or other organizations, he said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas GOP cuts ticket prices to Trump’s unconventional convention (Dallas Morning News)

The cost of getting close to President Donald Trump is falling. Texas Republicans have slashed the price of their premium convention packages, cutting thousands of dollars off the price of a coveted spot at the Trump-led September gathering in Dallas. D’rinda Randall, chair of the Republican Party of Texas, said in a July 14 video on X that the party had fielded “questions about the cost and the access” to its top-tier offerings for the Sept. 9-10 event at the American Airlines Center.

The discounts offer one of the first public glimpses into how Republicans are building the gathering, and how state parties are taking markedly different approaches to deciding who gets in. When Trump announced the event, it carried the trappings of a national political convention. Weeks later, it increasingly resembles a hybrid rally and GOP fundraiser with convention-style branding. State parties are selling or distributing access through five-figure honorary delegate packages, premium tickets, raffles and applications, even though there will be no presidential nomination, delegate votes or official party business. At the same time, Republicans have not disclosed overall attendance projections, state-by-state participation estimates or the expected public cost to Dallas taxpayers. Randall, the Texas GOP chief, has said fundraising has been part of the concept from the outset… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Inside the phone-throwing drama at the troubled, broke Democratic Party (New York Times)

The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections. The bookkeeping maneuver, which was described by three people briefed on it, is the latest sign of financial duress for the Democratic National Committee and its embattled leader as money troubles threaten to undercut Democratic momentum with 100 days until the midterms. So much is going politically right for Democrats these days.

President Trump’s approval is down, gas prices are up and an unpopular war with Iran drags on. But dysfunction and debt inside one of the party’s key institutions — which is getting crushed in fund-raising by its Republican counterpart — are creating rising anxiety for top Democrats.

At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members.

Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs. Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department. The fallout from the phone-throwing episode was described by half a dozen people familiar with the incident, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss internal party matters. None of them witnessed the encounter, and there was some dispute over how aggressively the phone was tossed. Mr. Martin was said to have thrown the phone at the desk, rather than at the aide. Mr. Martin later met with D.N.C. human resources officials about his behavior, according to three of the people. The Democratic National Committee declined to comment on the incident. Mr. Martin declined an interview request… 🟪 (READ MORE)