BG Reads // May 1, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
May 01, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

[EVENT SPOTLIGHT]

✅ Austin Chamber ATX Policy Forum 2025 // Wednesday May 14th // 8AM to 10AM

Mayor Kirk Watson will take the stage alongside these influential policymakers from across Central Texas including County Judges for Bastrop, Caldwell, and Williamson Counties.

✅ An Austin-area guide to the May 3 election (KUT)

Voters across Travis, Williamson and Hays counties will line up on May 3 to cast their ballots, deciding who represents them and how their local school districts get funded. Here’s what you need to know to vote in the election.

Over a dozen mayoral and city council seats are contested across multiple cities, including Cedar Park, Round Rock and West Lake Hills… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

Department Memos:

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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Gov. Abbott threatens state funding if San Marcos calls for ceasefire in Gaza (KUT)

Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to pull state funding after the City of San Marcos placed a resolution in support of a ceasefire in Gaza on its City Council agenda for Tuesday.

The resolution, proposed by council members Alyssa Garza and Amanda Rodriguez, calls for an “immediate, permanent and sustained ceasefire in occupied Palestine,” an “arms embargo on the state of Israel” and “recognition of Palestinian sovereignty and protection of constitutional rights.”

Although these measures don't have a direct impact on federal policy, cities across the country — including Portland, Maine; Detroit and Oakland, California — have passed ceasefire or divestment resolutions.

"For over a year, residents have urged us to pass a symbolic resolution calling for an end to the violence in Gaza," Rodriguez said on social media. "Speaking out against atrocity is not hate, it's humanity."

Palestine Solidarity SMTX worked with City Council members to get the item on the agenda.

“ We've just been working to try to build up the solidarity in our city so that we can stand with everyone else that is organizing to try to stop our government's complicity and the genocide that's happening,” founder Scott Cove said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ New libraries, parks, health centers among facilities eyed for 2026 bond proposal (Austin Monitor)

Up to four new libraries, more neighborhood health centers, and a host of new park properties and recreation centers are among the facilities being considered for the city’s next bond election that will likely take place in 2026. Representatives from three city departments presented their bond project goals and plans this week to the city’s Bond Election Advisory Task Force, which will play a major role in deciding the scope of the proposals expected to go before voters next fall.

The Austin Public Library is expected to seek funding to acquire land and begin design work for four regional branches, with an initial goal of constructing at least one of those facilities. The department is also proposing expansions at several existing branches and upgrades to ensure facilities can serve as warming and cooling centers.

These requests are part of the implementation phase of the Austin Public Library Comprehensive Strategic and Facilities Plan, which identified service gaps in areas that have grown beyond the reach of the current branch network in 2023… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Tesla denies report that the EV maker is looking to replace Elon Musk (CNBC)

Shares of Tesla were flat in premarket trading Thursday after the EV maker denied a Wall Street Journal report that its board was searching for a replacement for chief executive Elon Musk.

The report, citing comments from sources familiar with the discussions, said that Tesla’s board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding the company’s next CEO. Shares of Tesla fell as much as 3% in overnight trading on trading platform Robinhood following the news, before paring losses.

Tesla chair Robyn Denholm wrote on the social media platform X that the report was “absolutely false.”

“Earlier today, there was a media report erroneously claiming that the Tesla Board had contacted recruitment firms to initiate a CEO search at the company,” she wrote… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Endeavor reworking big plan for riverfront land (Austin Business Journal)

It's back to the drawing board for the redevelopment of East Austin’s Borden Dairy Co. factory and site on the Colorado River.

Previous plans from Austin-based Endeavor Real Estate Group LLC were aimed at transforming the 21-acre site near the banks of the Colorado River into a bustling district with 1,400 residential units, more than 400,000 square feet of office space, more than 100,000 square feet of retail space and a 220-room hotel. The land is along Levander Loop near Cesar Chavez Street, East Seventh Street and U.S. Highway 183.

But Endeavor Prinicipal Josh Lickteig said recently "we don’t foresee any meaningful office component materializing."

He added: "We don’t have an outside date yet for groundbreaking — we need the capital markets to turn around a bit before these deals start to make sense again."…  🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin likely to ask taxpayers to fund continued, expanded homelessness response efforts (Community Impact)

As Austin projects growing fiscal deficits this decade, city officials are considering how to support their priority of homelessness response and sustain that funding into the future.

“We’re not always going to get it right, we’re not always going to do it where everybody agrees, and we’re not always going to probably put money where everybody thinks all the money ought to go. But we’re looking at doing it in a different way so that we’ll be in a position to make better decisions going forward," Mayor Kirk Watson said. "This is all about, right now, the budget that’s upcoming.”

Over the past several years, many of Austin's homelessness programs have been funded with one-time local spending and federal relief dollars from the American Rescue Plan Act. Officials are now looking to turn some of those one-time items into permanent investments, replace the federal ARPA funds that are running low, and expand some services to meet the community's growing need.

With the city facing budget gaps that are set to widen through the 2020s, Austin may not be able to keep all current programs in place or add new ones without a revenue boost of tens of millions of dollars. That increase could come through a tax rate election, or TRE, asking voters to authorize hiking taxes beyond a state-imposed cap… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Former Bee Cave city manager alleges he's 'fall guy' in business park controversy (Austin Business Journal)

The former city manager of Bee Cave is combating a claim by city officials that he was involved in a fraudulent scheme to mislead them about the development of a controversial business park.

The city alleged in a lawsuit filed in February that Clint Garza and developers of the West Austin Business Park, a joint venture between Velocis and KBC Advisors, worked together to keep the Bee Cave City Council in the dark about plans to develop an industrial site in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.

In an April 28 court filing in response to the lawsuit, Garza denied all the allegations and contended that he was added as a defendant “in bad faith” and to give Mayor Kara King and others a “fall guy” for their own actions and “bad judgement.”

“Garza asserts that whatever damages, if any, the City of Bee Cave incurred for their lack of knowledge of the Development Agreement or the disputed construction was their own fault,” the filing said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Advocates fear Texas lawmakers are about to worsen the state’s homelessness crisis (Texas Tribune)

As thousands of Texans sleep on the streets, Republicans in the Texas Legislature have pushed proposals that advocates worry will only worsen the state’s homelessness crisis.

GOP lawmakers have advanced bills to force cities to beef up their enforcement of a statewide ban on homeless encampments and prevent organizations that provide services to the homeless from setting up shop near schools. They’ve also pushed legislation that housing advocates fear will accelerate evictions, potentially driving up homelessness as a result.

As the state’s housing costs rose in recent years, so did the number of people experiencing homelessness. Nearly 28,000 Texans did not have a permanent roof over their heads last year, according to federal estimates — about an 8% increase from the year before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Of those, more than 12,000 were unsheltered — meaning they lived outside, in their cars or in other places not fit for human habitation… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ All eyes in San Antonio's political arena turn to Saturday's election (Texas Public Radio)

Early voting for the May 3 election ended at 8 p.m. Tuesday. Now, all candidates planned to make a final push toward victory on Saturday.

The open mayor’s seat is the highlight of the election, with 27 candidates vying to fill the role that Mayor Ron Nirenberg is vacating due to term limits.

The entire city council is also up for election, with no incumbent in four of the 10 district seats.

Following changes to the San Antonio City Charter last November, winners of council and mayoral elections this year will have four-year terms.

There are several school board and bond elections on the ballot too… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[US and World News]

✅ The U.S. economy shrinks as Trump's tariffs spark recession fears (NPR)

As President Trump marks his 100th day in office this week, there's not much to celebrate about the U.S. economy.

Economic output is shrinking. The stock market has dropped sharply. And consumer confidence has tumbled to its lowest level since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That hardly looks like the new "golden age" the president promised on Inauguration Day just over three months ago.

Figures released by the Commerce Department Wednesday show that the United States' gross domestic product contracted at an annual rate of 0.3% in the first quarter of the year, after growing at a solid pace of 2.4% in the final months of 2024… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ US and Ukraine sign deal giving US access to country’s valuable mineral wealth (Associated Press)

The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.

The two sides offered only barebone details about the structure of the deal, which they called the United States-Ukraine Reinvestment Fund. But it is expected to give the U.S. access to Ukraine’s valuable rare earth minerals while providing Kyiv a measure of assurance about continued American support in its grinding war with Russia.

“This agreement signals clearly to Russia that the Trump administration is committed to a peace process centered on a free, sovereign, and prosperous Ukraine over the long term,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “President Trump envisioned this partnership between the American people and the Ukrainian people to show both sides’ commitment to lasting peace and prosperity in Ukraine.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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