🟪 Push to establish another regional economic development organization east of Austin is stalling( Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Austin ISD proposes nonprofit partner to revamp Burnet, Dobie and Webb middle schools (Community Impact)

🟪 City Hall changes how lobbying is reported (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Air taxis to be tested between Austin, DFW, San Antonio, Houston (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Fort Worth $10b data center developers hold tense meeting with nearby residents (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

🟪 Houston rodeo leaders strip Lina Hidalgo of board role, deny she was ‘manhandled’ in concert dispute (Houston Public Media)

🟪 How Trump and his advisers miscalculated Iran’s response to war (New York Times)

🟪 Iran says its new leader made his 1st address, vowing to keep Strait of Hormuz closed (NPR)

READ ON!

🏛️ Client Spotlight: Delta Air Lines & the SEC Mayors Alliance

Bingham Group client Delta Air Lines served as a proud sponsor of the inaugural in-person meeting of the SEC Mayors Alliance, hosted by Austin Mayor Kirk Watson at The University of Texas at Austin.

The gathering brought together mayors from across the Southeastern Conference footprint for what Mayor Watson called "a cool, fun evening" — capped off with a Delta-sponsored dinner on the Forty Acres.

Delta's sponsorship reflects the airline's ongoing investment in Austin and its commitment to building relationships with civic and regional leaders. We're proud to support Delta's continued engagement in the communities it serves.

✅ Push to establish another regional economic development organization east of Austin is stalling( Austin Business Journal)

As Bastrop continues to be a target for large projects like Elon Musk's growing business empire, some leaders in the region east of Austin have been quietly maneuvering to stand up a regional economic development organization aimed at promoting collaboration and regionalism.

They have hit a wall, though.

What's being called the Bastrop County Economic Development Partnership has remained in the shadows over the last several months. The Bastrop County-led public-private initiative would bring together representation from the county; its three cities —Bastrop, Elgin and Smithville; unincorporated communities like Paige, Webberville and Rosanky; and private companies so they can all coordinate efforts to court large companies and help local businesses expand.

The Smithville City Council voted last month to support its creation. But when it came time for the Bastrop City Council and Bastrop Economic Development Partnership to do the same, representatives for the county's largest city opted not to do so this week due to concerns over the potential costs, transparency and return on investment. The city of Elgin has not yet taken any action… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin ISD proposes nonprofit partner to revamp Burnet, Dobie and Webb middle schools (Community Impact)

Three North Austin middle schools may undergo another major overhaul next school year.

At a March 12 board meeting, Austin ISD officials discussed applying for a three-year contract with the Texas Council for International Studies to operate Burnet, Dobie and Webb middle schools. The educational nonprofit specializes in the International Baccalaureate, or IB, program and is advised by the Region One Education Service Center.

This school year, the district implemented a turnaround plan to restart the three campuses by hiring new principals and teachers who were required to meet certain performance and experience criteria.

“We really want to be responsive to the needs of the school, our students [and] do something that we knew met the urgency with the plan we're bringing forward,” AISD Superintendent Matias Segura said at the March 12 meeting. “I'm hopeful that we'll be successful in the application.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City Hall changes how lobbying is reported (Austin American-Statesman)

Austin City Council approved changes to the city's lobbying rules, shifting the reporting of lobbyists' interactions with city officials away from departments to the lobbyists themselves — a move some council members warn could make it harder for the public to track influence at City Hall.

The updated rules now require lobbyists to report all interactions with city officials rather than only scheduled meetings. The changes also eliminate a requirement that city departments provide a reporting method, shifting that responsibility to the lobbyists. They also cut a requirement for lobbyists to disclose their meetings — and whether they receive or expect to receive compensation — in writing to the department.

Council members Vanessa Fuentes and Ryan Alter voted against the changes, raising concerns about transparency. 

“Austin has long held itself to a higher standard of transparency than the State of Texas, but this ordinance would only move us closer to the state's weaker lobbying requirements,” Fuentes said in a statement. “At a time when trust in government is already fragile, scaling back transparency is the wrong choice. Our focus should be on strengthening public trust, not eroding it.”

Alter said in a statement: "The public should know how lobbyists are interacting with their representatives. I'm concerned this change could reduce that transparency."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Air taxis to be tested between Austin, DFW, San Antonio, Houston (Austin Business Journal)

The federal government and Texas transportation officials are partnering to test out flying cars as a way to move people between major Texas cities.  

The Texas Department of Transportation announced on March 10 it had been picked by the Federal Aviation Administration to participate in the new Electrical Vertical Takeoff and Landing Integration Pilot Program. This program aims to accelerate the integration of Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing vehicles or eVTOLs into everyday transportation. 

TxDOT and industry partners will soon support regional test flights that will connect the four main metro areas within the Texas triangle – Austin, Dallas / Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio — and test out air taxi networks. 

A TxDOT spokesperson said the department is currently reaching out to industry partners to set up agreements for this program.

“The future of aviation is taking flight,” said Sergio Roman, TxDOT’s emerging aviation tech director, in a statement. “This is a first of its kind effort to safely integrate electric aircraft into U.S. airspace and puts Texas squarely in the center of the next generation of aviation as we work to improve safety and connectivity across the state.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City advances economic relief to legacy local businesses in East, Southwest Austin (Community Impact)

Austin is advancing two economic support incentives totaling nearly $140,000 to East and Southwest Austin legacy small businesses, with the first approved by City Council in March.

Austin Economic Development Place-Based Enhancement Program is aimed at providing affordability relief to longtime local businesses, nonprofits and creative entities. The program is one of several commercial incentives offered by the city, and is designed to offset economic pressures on businesses and groups providing a "high community impact" in Austin, according to the economic development department.

“Austin’s creative and community-serving organizations are essential to the strength and character of our local economy,” Anthony Segura, Austin Economic Development deputy director, said in a statement. “Programs like the Place-Based Enhancement Program help ensure that legacy institutions, from performing arts venues to childcare providers, can continue serving our community while contributing to Austin’s economic strength.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ H-E-B scores $20M incentive to turn Buda landfill site into new store (Austin Business Journal)

H-E-B LP has secured the last approval needed as part of a $20 million incentive package aimed at helping the grocery chain convert a 21-acre former landfill site in Buda into an expanded store.

H-E-B on March 10 was unanimously approved by the Hays County Commissioners Court for the agreement – codenamed in discussions as Project San Antonio – tied to the buildout of the property at 15000 N. I-35 into a 135,000-square-foot store with a drive-thru True Texas BBQ restaurant, pharmacy and garden center.

Construction on the site is expected to ramp up this year, and the company is said to have started demolishing existing buildings on site, officials said. The grocer is mandated by an incentives deal to invest at least $70 million in the project, create 50 full-time equivalent jobs within one year of opening, and source construction materials locally.

The company back in October was approved by the Buda City Council and Buda Economic Development Corp. for their portion of the incentives. It also received approval from Hays County Emergency Services District No. 8… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin halts project after historic building, former Cenote location almost completely destroyed (KUT)

The city has stepped in to halt construction after a South Texas developer exceeded its approved demolition plans, tearing down all but a small portion of a 19th-century building in East Austin that preservationists say is part of the neighborhood’s rapidly disappearing historic fabric.

The structure at 1010 East Cesar Chavez Street was most recently home to the popular cafe and restaurant Cenote. The new owner, Haidar Properties, applied for a permit in 2024 to renovate the structure and bring in the Southern California-based coffee chain Urth Caffé. A little more than a year later, the lot is nearly bare, and the city has stepped in to halt work on the project and assess the demolition.

The developer presented its plans to Austin’s Historic Landmark Commission in December 2024, saying at the time “the intent would be to preserve as much as possible of the shell.” But looking at the remains on the site, critics say it’s clear that intent never became a reality. Despite the developer telling the commission it would preserve more than 3,000 square feet of the original property, only a small fraction of the historic facade remains standing, potentially jeopardizing its ability to receive historic landmark designation and underscoring the steady loss of historic structures on Austin’s east side… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Fort Worth $10b data center developers hold tense meeting with nearby residents (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

The developers behind a $10 billion data center coming to southeast Fort Worth held a meeting on March 11 to show residents in nearby Forest Hill — which shares a border with some of the land that the city of Fort Worth has rezoned for the project — a site plan for a portion of the campus that was approved by the Fort Worth City Council in 2025. The site plan is for a 187-acre portion of the future campus for a data center that was initially approved by the Fort Worth City Council in 2025, located at the corner Lon Stephenson Road and Forest Hill Drive.

The data center is being developed by the Fort Worth-based energy consortium Black Mountain. Presenting a site plan is a requirement for the developer to get a final stamp of approval from the Zoning Commission and the City Council.

Black Mountain has successfully petitioned the city of Fort Worth to rezone more than 430 acres of land for its AI data center, with another roughly 80 acres’ worth of land headed to Zoning Commission and the City Council later this year after council members pumped the brakes. The data center will be in the city of Fort Worth, but it is directly next to the boundary with the nearby city of Forest Hill. Leaders there, and in nearby Kennedale, have said they want more transparency from Black Mountain on how their cities will benefit from the development.

Wednesday’s meeting was intended to be focused on that site plan, said Black Mountain CEO Rhett Bennett. Bennett was accompanied by Bob Riley, a consultant with Richardson-based Halff, who is working on behalf of Black Mountain. Videos were not allowed at the meeting, but photos were. “This is our opportunity to present what the site plan looks like, to socialize with the community,” Bennett told the dozens of people sitting in a meeting room at a Best Western hotel. “Feel free to ask me questions.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Houston rodeo leaders strip Lina Hidalgo of board role, deny she was ‘manhandled’ in concert dispute (Houston Public Media)

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo leaders revoked Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo’s leadership role after a dispute in which she said she was threatened with arrest, shoved by security personnel and escorted out of a rodeo concert.

An executive rodeo committee voted Thursday to revoke Hidalgo’s status as an ex-officio director — known as a non-voting member of the rodeo’s Board of Directors, a spokesperson for the rodeo confirmed to Houston Public Media.

A joint statement issued by rodeo president and CEO Chris Boleman and board chairwoman Pat Mann Phillips on Thursday disputed Hidalgo’s claims in a since-deleted Facebook post that she was “manhandled” by security officials as they attempted to escort her out of the chute — a premium seating area in NRG Stadium that is closest to the rodeo arena and concert stage.

Rodeo officials said she attempted to access the chute area for a sold-out Megan Moroney concert with several guests, including two children, without valid credentials on Tuesday night. The incident escalated when Hidalgo refused to go back to her designated seat inside of a stadium suite.

Hidalgo is the only local elected official to request exclusive seats at the rodeo this year, according to the statement. Rodeo officials said she was previously provided with 21 chute tickets to attend concerts at the rodeo this year — including J Balvin, Forrest Frank and Luke Bryan — totaling close to $9,000 in value… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ White House takes first step toward permanent fix for illegal tariffs (Washington Post)

The Trump administration took a major step toward replacing the global tariffs that the Supreme Court recently invalidated, announcing new investigations of unfair trading practices that will almost certainly result later this summer in permanent new taxes on U.S. imports.

Jamieson Greer, the president’s chief trade negotiator, said Wednesday that he is launching an investigation of “structural excess capacity and production in the manufacturing sectors” of China, the European Union, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, India, Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Cambodia. The investigation, which the administration previewed last month, will be conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act. President Donald Trump relied on the same provision in his first term to impose sweeping tariffs on Chinese products, which largely remain in effect.

Greer’s announcement came less than three weeks after the Supreme Court ruled that many of the tariffs Trump imposed last year, relying on a 1977 economic emergency powers law, were unconstitutional. At the time, the president vowed to continue his campaign to reshape global trade using other legal authorities. “The policy remains the same. The tools may change depending upon the vagaries of courts,” Greer told reporters. Within hours of his Supreme Court defeat, the president turned to another trade tool, Section 122 of the 1974 act, to impose a global 10 percent tariff. Under the law, that measure — which Trump said he would increase to 15 percent — expires after 150 days.

Earlier this week, the Liberty Justice Center, the nonprofit legal group that successfully challenged Trump’s emergency tariffs, sued the president over the new temporary levies, saying the financial conditions required by the law had not been met. The administration intends to conduct the new Section 301 investigation, and a second probe of U.S. trading partners’ use of forced labor, on an “accelerated time frame.” The aim is to have new tariffs ready to replace the Section 122 measures when they lapse… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Senate passes bipartisan housing bill targeting large investors and easing regulations (NPR)

The Senate has passed the largest housing bill in decades — bipartisan legislation designed to improve housing affordability and availability through deregulation, expanding old programs and banning institutional investors from buying single-family homes, with few exceptions.

The bill passed 89 to 10.

"It's Democrats. It's Republicans. It's pieces they built out together," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., a co-sponsor of the bill, in an interview with NPR. "That is the strength of this bill."

"It's not a Republican issue or a Democrat Issue," said Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., the bill's other sponsor, speaking in advance of the vote on the Senate floor. "It's an issue about helping moms like the one who raised me, the amazing woman that she was, become homeowners."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ How Trump and his advisers miscalculated Iran’s response to war (New York Times)

On Feb. 18, as President Trump weighed whether to launch military attacks on Iran, Chris Wright, the energy secretary, told an interviewer he was not concerned that the looming war might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in energy markets. Even during the Israeli and U.S. strikes against Iran last June, Mr. Wright said, there had been little disruption in the markets. “Oil prices blipped up and then went back down,” he said.

Some of Mr. Trump’s other advisers shared similar views in private, dismissing warnings that — the second time around — Iran might wage economic warfare by closing shipping lanes carrying roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. The extent of that miscalculation was laid bare in recent days, as Iran threatened to fire at commercial oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, the strategic choke point through which all ships must pass on their way out of the Persian Gulf.

In response to the Iranian threats, commercial shipping has come to a standstill in the Gulf, oil prices have spiked, and the Trump administration has scrambled to find ways to tamp down an economic crisis that has triggered higher gasoline prices for Americans. The episode is emblematic of how much Mr. Trump and his advisers misjudged how Iran would respond to a conflict that the government in Tehran sees as an existential threat. Iran has responded far more aggressively than it did during last June’s 12-day war, firing barrages of missiles and drones at U.S. military bases, cities in Arab nations across the Middle East, and on Israeli population centers.

U.S. officials have had to adjust plans on the fly, from hastily ordering the evacuation of embassies to developing policy proposals to reduce gas prices. After Trump administration officials gave a closed-door briefing to lawmakers on Tuesday, Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, said on social media that the administration had no plan for the Strait of Hormuz and did “not know how to get it safely back open.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Iran says its new leader made his 1st address, vowing to keep Strait of Hormuz closed (NPR)

The war with Iran entered its 13th day Thursday, as Iran issued what it said was the first message from its new supreme leader, while attacks on commercial ships spread to Iraq's waters and oil prices climbed back above $100 a barrel.

In the statement that Iranian media attributed to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and keep up attacks on U.S. bases in the region. Another person was heard reading out the remarks, with a photo of Khamenei posted on the TV screen, as the statement was broadcast around the world. 🟪 (READ MORE)