🟪 ‘Is it SpaceX?’ Travis County Commissioners question Austin’s Dog’s Head plan. (Austin Current)

🟪 Zipline delivery drones expanding to Austin later this year (KVUE)

🟪 Camp Mystic files for bankruptcy after months of investigations, lawsuits on flood deaths (KUT)

🟪 Texas water officials seek more funding as crisis worsens, costs soar: ‘This is not going to stop’ (The Hill)

🟪 Trump signals he may pull out of trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, which could impact Texas businesses (Houston Public Media)

🟪 Will Texas' new top voting official be a 'disruptor'? Locals are preparing for it (Houston Public Media)

🟪 A landmark housing bill passed Congress. Home builders fear it will fizzle. (Wall Street Journal)

READ ON!

Yesterday’s Chairman's Circle Luncheon hosted by the Austin Chamber of Commerce brought together Austin City Manager T.C. Broadnax, Deputy City Manager Jon Fortune, and Assistant City Manager Dr. Eric Johnson for an insightful conversation on the city's most pressing priorities.

The panel covered Austin's $50 million budget shortfall heading into a difficult summer, Austin Energy's $735 million grid hardening investment, and the city’s push to use development speed as a tool for housing affordability, among other topics.

Fortune confirmed the city will present a data center policy framework to Council in late July, and Johnson announced the city's new Economic Development Director starts July 27 with a 90-day stakeholder engagement plan already in motion.

Small world footnote: All three of us attended Washburn University in Topeka, KS (I came along a little later for law school).

✅ ‘Is it SpaceX?’ Travis County Commissioners question Austin’s Dog’s Head plan. (Austin Current)

The City of Austin and local developers made their case for Dog’s Head on Wednesday, urging Travis County Commissioners to financially support the 2,600-acre development planned for Southeast Austin even as major questions remain about what the project will actually entail.

Endeavor Real Estate Group,and city staff are seeking approval for a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, or TIRZ, that would allow the project to finance infrastructure using future property tax revenue. If approved by both the city and county, the deal could generate up to $2.2 billion in public subsidies over 35 years.

But after nearly an hour of pointed questions, commissioners couldn’t get the answer they wanted to a big question: Exactly what will be built on that land?

“What that actually looks like right now is to be determined,” said Kimberly Olivares, director of financial services for the City of Austin. “The market, the community needs and feedback from various folks will help determine what actually happens on the site.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Zipline delivery drones expanding to Austin later this year (KVUE)

Austinites could soon see mini-drones delivering food from the sky.

Officials with Zipline, the world's largest autonomous drone delivery company, confirmed to KVUE that they plan to expand into Austin later this year.

The California-based company has been flying drones in Dallas and Houston since last year, delivering everything from groceries to fast food. They also deliver medical supplies to multiple countries in Africa.

Customers order through an app, a drone picks up the item, flies to their location, then lowers it down on a tether before returning to its charging base – all without a pilot.

Company officials said Zipline has flown more than 135 million commercial autonomous miles "without a serious injury."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Camp Mystic files for bankruptcy after months of investigations, lawsuits on flood deaths (KUT)

Camp Mystic has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy relief, according to court records.

The case was filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Texas on Wednesday by an attorney on behalf of Camp Mystic.

The move follows multiple lawsuits by families alleging that the camp failed to protect campers and counselors. Twenty-five campers, two counselors, and Dick Eastland, camp owner and executive director, died when the Guadalupe River flooded nearly a year ago.

The bankruptcy complicates the fate of these lawsuits and may delay resolution, experts said.

While the filing itself does not address the litigation, Chapter 11 bankruptcy generally triggers an automatic stay that can temporarily pause lawsuits while the bankruptcy case proceeds. A bankruptcy judge can modify or lift that stay under certain circumstances… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas water officials seek more funding as crisis worsens, costs soar: ‘This is not going to stop’ (The Hill)

Texas water officials pleaded with members of the Texas House Natural Resources committee on Tuesday to provide more funding for water supply projects as project costs skyrocket. Despite the Texas Legislature allocating increased funding to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) in 2013, and again last year, water experts are concerned about a lack of funding available for local governments to undertake needed water infrastructure projects. In 2013, the Legislature passed House Bill 4, which created the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT).

This fund had an initial investment of $2 billion and provided communities with low-interest financing to address state water plan projects. Examples of these projects include building new pipelines and conservation efforts.

The plan was to use that initial investment as the base of an endowment to build a sustainable fund — funneling $27 billion towards water infrastructure projects for 50 years. However, Temple McKinnon, water supply planning director for TWDB, says their drafted 2027 five-year State Water Plan far exceeds current funding. “It’s an ongoing challenge. We do our absolute best to essentially squeeze as much capacity as we can out of our financial assistance programs, but there is growing demand as evidenced very clearly by the kind of new $174 billion price tag for the State Water Plan,” McKinnon told lawmakers Tuesday.

McKinnon clarified that increased costs are attributed to a wide range of factors, including inflationary pressure, labor costs, and materials. Last year, the Texas legislature passed a constitutional amendment to dedicate $1 billion a year towards water infrastructure from 2027 through 2047. The voters of Texas confirmed their support with a constitutional amendment referendum. However, the first funds won’t likely be granted until at least 2028… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Democrats head to convention with optimism, but questions about November remain (KUT)

While they haven’t done so in more than three decades, Texas Democrats believe they have a real chance to win a statewide seat in November. That idea was backed up this week by a new Texas Politics Project poll that shows the races essentially at a dead heat.

They will have time to gameplan how they can come out on top when they meet in Corpus Christi this Thursday for a three-day convention stacked with a slate of statewide candidates and big names in the political arena from outside of Texas.

“I think it reflects optimism in the Texas Democratic Party and among national Democrats that believe that Democrats this cycle have a realistic prospect of breaking the losing streak that dates back to 1996,” Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, told The Texas Newsroom.

On the list of speakers are U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson and giving the final keynote speech on Saturday is U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Will Texas' new top voting official be a 'disruptor'? Locals are preparing for it (Houston Public Media)

Just months ahead of closely contested midterm elections, Texas is about to get a new top voting official. Many locals there fear the frontrunner is a 34-year-old conservative state lawmaker and pastor with no election administration experience. In Texas, the governor picks the secretary of state, and it's unclear when Republican Gov. Greg Abbott will make a formal announcement.

The current top elections official, Secretary of State Jane Nelson — who announced her resignation earlier this month — is expected to stay in office until July 17. For weeks though, signs have pointed to Nelson's successor being state Rep. Nate Schatzline, a pastor at a Fort Worth megachurch with ties to Christian nationalism, who has repeated baseless claims about widespread fraud in American elections.

"I personally have not heard of another name floated," said Chris McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, the professional organization for the state's hundreds of local voting officials. In preparation for the announcement, McGinn drafted an analysis report for his members on how Schatzline could affect elections this year as secretary of state. It noted that previous secretaries of state, including Nelson, have been institutionalists who "prioritized stabilizing relationships with county officials, providing bipartisan-friendly training resources, and shielding local administrators from overt partisan warfare." Schatzline, however, would seem to present a change.

"It is believed that Schatzline would represent a disruptor model of [secretary of state] leadership: highly ideological, responsive to grassroots activist demands, and comfortable using the office as an active enforcement agency," McGinn's report said. Schatzline, who is not running for reelection for his statehouse seat, did not respond to an NPR request for an interview or comment. An Abbott spokesperson did not respond to questions about Schatzline, saying only that "an announcement on an appointment will be made at a later date."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump signals he may pull out of trade agreement with Mexico and Canada, which could impact Texas businesses (Houston Public Media)

The Trump administration is pushing up against a July 1 deadline to renew the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). President Donald Trump's public remarks are leading to fears among some Texas businesses that he could pull the U.S. out of the agreement.

When Trump negotiated the USMCA during his first term as president, to serve as a replacement for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he called it the “fairest, most balanced, and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed into law.” But last week, he said he'd rather see it terminated than renew it.

"I would rather not have the agreement," Trump told reporters. "I may sign it, but we do better as a country if we don't have an agreement."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Disinvited elsewhere, Kanye West found a city that couldn’t say no (Texas Public Radio)

In the midst of major budget discussions, economic development deals and utility rate hikes, this week San Antonio city leaders once again found themselves scrambling to react to a broader cultural debate that landed squarely at their feet. The last-minute scheduling of a Ye, or Kanye West, concert caught the attention of an outspoken mayor and rankled Jewish leaders who consider his track record of antisemitic comments dangerous.

Now four days later, the San Antonio City Council has been tested by debates weighing morals vs. money, a hard-to-pass-up-on lucrative Alamodome contract, a last-minute ban on swastika merch and a mortifying moment for one of its most spotlight-averse members. Before this week, some of the council’s 10 members said they weren’t even up-to-speed on West’s history of public comments.

Conservative Councilwoman Misty Spears (D9) had already accepted free tickets to the show before issuing a mortified apology from her trip to Israel days later. “Anyone who knows Councilwoman Spears would be able to guess she’s not a Kanye fan,” spokeswoman Megan Coleman said Wednesday. By the time the dust seemingly settled, most of the city leaders had denounced West’s speech — but a majority had signaled they wouldn’t seek to cancel a show with high earning potential for the city.

Now the mayor wants more say over how such events are scheduled in the first place, while others fear a censorship fight with wide-ranging implications. “When the government begins making decisions about which artists, speakers or events are acceptable based on ideology or viewpoint, those tools can later be used in ways that harm other communities and causes,” progressive Councilman Jalen McKee-Rodriguez (D2) wrote on social media… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ A landmark housing bill passed Congress. Home builders fear it will fizzle. (Wall Street Journal)

Congress on Tuesday passed its most-ambitious housing legislation since the 1980s, a package of more than 50 provisions aimed at making it easier to build homes and make housing more affordable. The House passed the bill 358-32 with broad bipartisan support a day after the Senate voted 85-5 to approve the measure. President Trump is expected to sign it into law as soon as Wednesday. Home builders and developers are responding mostly with a shrug. The legislation offers no new funding for affordable-housing projects.

And it is up against economic headwinds that are keeping builders from expanding the housing stock, such as elevated mortgage rates and higher construction and materials costs. Ultimately, the bill exposes the limits of the federal government’s ability to increase housing supply. Congress doesn’t have the authority to change the local zoning regulations and building codes that actually determine what gets built in America and that have bogged down new-housing development for decades.

Builders, scarred by the years of local bottlenecks that have delayed and killed their projects, fear that Congress’s new legislation could meet the same fate when cities and towns try to implement it. “All of this has to be administered at the state and local levels,” said Ed Brady, president and chief executive of the Home Builders Institute.

“It’s going to take some time for this to actually filter down, if at all.” Still, the bill known as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is at least a step in the right direction and sends the correct signals, according to housing economists. It includes measures speeding up federal environmental reviews for certain housing projects, removing restrictions on building manufactured homes, and tying cities’ federal funding to their housing production.

Aaron Pechota, the executive vice president of development at NRP Group, said there are bits and pieces of the legislation that could make a difference, such as easing the limits on what banks can invest in public-welfare projects including affordable housing. He added that eliminating federal environmental reviews would save months on certain projects. “This is like ordering an appetizer,” Pechota said. “It’s not going to fill you up; it’s not going to be a complete meal.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)