BG Reads // May 13, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
May 13, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🏛️📊 A new Assistant Manager at Austin City Hall covering economic development and real estate (see below)

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[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.

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️📊: Dr. Eric Anthony Johnson, Ph.D. has joined the City of Austin as an Assistant City Manager. In this role, he will oversee the following departments:

Prior to joining the City, Dr. Johnson served as President and CEO of Aeon, a nonprofit affordable housing developer based in Minneapolis. Aeon owns and manages nearly 6,000 affordable housing units. Under his leadership, the organization navigated post-pandemic challenges and moved toward long-term sustainability.

Dr. Johnson previously served as Chief of Economic and Neighborhood Revitalization for the City of Dallas where he provided oversight of housing, urban planning and design, permitting, historic preservation, and economic development.

He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Washburn University, a Master’s in Business Administration from the University of Tennessee and a Doctorate in Urban Affairs and Public Policy from the University of Delaware.

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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ A dangerous and unusually early heat wave will bring triple digits to Austin this week (KUT)

The cool air you felt if you went outside Monday morning? It might not be like that again in Austin for months.

That's because an unusually powerful heat wave is barreling towards Central Texas.

The National Weather Service is predicting highs of 102 on Tuesday, 104 on Wednesday and 102 again on Thursday and has issued a heat advisory through Wednesday.

Orlando Bermúdez, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, said the sudden shift in temperatures is due to “a perfect recipe” of wind patterns.

Those patterns are pushing hot air over the mountains of Northern Mexico into Texas. As that air drops in altitude in a process known as “downsloping,” it will become drier and hotter as it enters the state.

“It happens later in July. It happens in August,” Bermudez said. “But this early? That's what is making this kind of a headline.”

Hot days in May are becoming more common as greenhouse gasses, released by the burning of fossil fuels, warm the Earth's atmosphere.

Austin is no exception… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin's airport sees lower activity levels to start 2025 (Austin Business Journal)

Fewer people and less cargo are flying through Austin’s airport this year. 

Data from Austin-Bergstrom International Airport's monthly activity report shows that total passenger activity in the first three months of 2025 is down 4.9% compared to the first quarter of 2024. Cargo activity fell by 9.7% during the same period.

About 4.62 million passengers flew through ABIA in the first three months of 2025; last year there were 4.86 million passengers. This year's passenger levels so far show ABIA’s 2025 passenger numbers are tracking behind 2023 and 2024 but are ahead of 2022.

Within the 4.9% decline in total passenger activity, there was a bigger drop in international visitors — down 9.6% — while the domestic passenger total dropped by 4.7%.

Sam Haynes, ABIA’s deputy chief of communications and marketing, said the airport has heard from other peer airports and airlines that a drop in passenger activity is due to a decline in consumer sentiment, and the drop in international visitation began in the last quarter of 2024… 🟪 (READ MORE)

🟪 Facing overwhelmingly negative feedback, city drafts refinements to residential permit parking program (Austin Monitor)

Transportation and Public Works officials presented draft changes to the director’s rules governing the department’s Residential Permit Parking program to the Urban Transportation Commission on May 6, teasing a set of tweaks and formalizations rather than an overhaul of the current program

The new rules will address how the department evaluates applications for participation in the program and how the program actually works in places where it’s already been implemented. This includes how distribution and revocations of permits are handled and alternatives to a rigid residents-only version of the program that critics have said is unfair to renters, commuters and visitors on the block.

Meanwhile, new applications for the program has been on pause since March 25 to accommodate the process of updating it. Joseph al-Hajeri, who oversees it as the department’s Parking Enterprise Manager and gave the presentation, noted recent results from a survey on the program which were “negative to critical,” and that “several responses contained emotionally charged or profane language, demonstrating [the] level of discontent.”… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Austin officials consider rezoning former Apple Campus for mixed-use development (Community Impact)

The former Apple Campus site off Riata Vista Circle in Northwest Austin could be converted into a mixed-use development featuring residential and retail space, life science offices, and more.

Austin's zoning and platting commission approved a recommendation to rezone the site during its April 15 meeting, and it will next go to City Council for approval in May.

Per agenda documents, the 28.85-acre site includes four two-story buildings that were previously occupied by Apple.

The site is currently zoned Limited Industrial, or LI, which allows for industrial uses such as manufacturing and warehouse activities… ✅ (READ MORE)

✅ AU40 2025: 17 young Austin pros honored (Austin Business Journal)

Winners for the 26th annual Austin Under 40 awards have been revealed.

KXAN News anchor and reporter Jennifer Sanders walked away with the top honor, Austinite of the Year, after winning in her category. The glass award presented to her at a gala on May 10 will join an Emmy and Edward R. Murrow award already on her shelf.

The list of finalists and winners of the Austin Under 40 awards is used widely in the business world by eager networkers, job recruiters, mentors and mentees. They are listed below, with the winners italicized… 🟪 (READ MORE)

🟪 City, county moving ahead with long-range local food plan (Austin Monitor)

The city will implement the joint Austin/Travis County Food Plan under a new interlocal agreement approved by City Council last week, formally launching a 42-month process to build a more sustainable and equitable local food system.

Under the agreement, Travis County will pay the city up to $281,648 through September 30, 2028, to oversee the initial phase of implementation. The agreement does not require the City to contribute funding, but formalizes a partnership in which the city will provide staffing, oversight, and contract management while the County contributes resources to support implementation.

The Office of Climate Action and Resilience will serve as the lead department, managing a competitive solicitation process to identify a community-based organization that will administer a new food systems collaborative. The collaborative is a central component in the adopted Food Plan, which calls for a stakeholder network to guide the plan’s goals and promote broad community participation… ✅ (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Can Florida’s school vouchers program be a preview for Texas? (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

When Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ billion-dollar school voucher plan into law this month, he said the program would immediately become one of the biggest in the nation. But Texas isn’t the first big state to launch a universal private school choice plan. In 2023, Florida lawmakers expanded an existing school voucher program, making every student in the state eligible to apply.

Two years later, Florida’s program offers a preview of where Texas may be headed. Since the expansion, Florida’s program has been massively popular. This year, the number of Florida students receiving school vouchers surpassed 500,000. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that total represents about a third of the school vouchers awarded nationwide.

But that growth carries a high price tag. As students opt for private schools, school districts lose revenue. School leaders in Florida say shrinking budgets are already leading to program cuts, teacher layoffs and larger class sizes. Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ new education savings account program into law earlier this month. The $1 billion voucher-like program will give families roughly $10,000 to put toward private school tuition.

All students in the state are eligible to apply, as long as they are U.S. citizens or were admitted into the country lawfully. The bill had a long road to Abbott’s desk. Republican leaders have made the policy a priority for years, but they ran up against opposition from Democrats and rural Republicans, who worried such a program would drain money from public schools. But after a bill failed to pass the Texas House of Representatives in 2023, Abbott supported a slate of primary challengers looking to unseat anti-voucher Republicans.

At a May 3 signing ceremony in Austin, Abbott told a crowd of supporters that the program would give families more freedom to decide how they want their children educated. The Texas plan immediately joins Florida’s as one of the nation’s biggest school choice programs. Florida has two main private school choice programs: Florida Tax Credit Scholarships and Family Empowerment Scholarships, both of which families can use to pay private school tuition. Both programs were originally targeted at helping students from low-income families get out of failing public schools. But in 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill eliminating eligibility requirements, opening the program up to all students in the state… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas faces major housing market correction as prices drop across state (Newsweek)

The Texas housing market is undergoing a substantial correction, driven by a combination of oversupply, declining demand and persistent affordability issues. "We need to talk about Texas. Listings just hit 123,000 in April 2025. 53 percent higher than normal. And prices are now dropping across the state," Nick Gerli, a real estate analyst and the CEO of Reventure App, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.

He warned that Texas is now the fourth most oversupplied housing market in the United States. Newsweek contacted the Texas Economic Development & Tourism Office for comment on Friday via email outside of regular office hours.

Texas experienced a significant migration boom during the pandemic, attracting new residents with the promise of affordability, space and lower taxes. In 2022, net domestic migration brought 222,100 new residents to the state. However, by 2024, that number fell to 85,200, a 62 percent decline, according to Gerli. Additionally, Texas led the nation in homebuilding, issuing 15 percent of the country's new-home permits in 2024. But as population growth slowed and high mortgage rates locked out potential buyers, the increased supply outpaced demand, resulting in downward pressure on prices in major metropolitan areas such as Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.

Gerli argued the housing inventory increase is primarily fueled by three factors: a wave of resale of newly constructed homes, a decline in migration into the state and a growing number of locals being priced out of the market. "Values are down -0.7 percent over the last year, and have dropped -1.6 percent from the middle of 2022," Gerli wrote on X, adding in a separate post.

"Buyer demand keeps dropping, and listings keep rising." According to data from Norada Real Estate Investments, home prices in 31 Texas metropolitan areas are expected to decline by the end of the year. Austin, one of the hardest-hit markets, is projected to experience a 0.4 percent home price drop by October. The city has also seen a 20.4 percent fall in home values from peak pandemic highs, Gerli said, adding, "That's the biggest metro-level correction in America in that timespan."…. 🟪 (READ MORE)

H

[US and World News]

✅ Episcopal Church refuses to resettle white Afrikaners, citing moral opposition (NPR)

In a striking move that ends a nearly four-decades-old relationship between the federal government and the Episcopal Church, the denomination announced on Monday that it is terminating its partnership with the government to resettle refugees, citing moral opposition to resettling white Afrikaners from South Africa who have been classified as refugees by President Trump's administration.

In a letter sent to members of the church, the Most Rev. Sean W. Rowe — the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church — said that two weeks ago, the government "informed Episcopal Migration Ministries that under the terms of our federal grant, we are expected to resettle white Afrikaners from South Africa whom the U.S. government has classified as refugees."

The request, Rowe said, crossed a moral line for the Episcopal Church, which is part of the global Anglican Communion, which boasts among its leaders the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a celebrated and vocal opponent of apartheid in South Africa… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump’s plan to slash drug prices may struggle to get off the ground – here’s what to know (CNBC)

President Donald Trump on Monday moved forward with a plan to lower U.S. drug costs by linking prices to those paid in other developed countries – a proposal he will have a tough time putting into effect, experts said.

Trump signed a sweeping executive order directing several federal agencies to renew that effort to cut prices, called the “most favored nation” policy. It essentially aims to tie the prices of some medicines in the U.S. to significantly lower ones abroad, or what Trump described as “equalizing” prices. 

He did not disclose which exact medications the order will apply to, but said it will affect the commercial market as well as the public Medicare and Medicaid programs. That’s broader than a similar policy proposal from Trump’s first term, which was ultimately blocked in court after the pharmaceutical industry challenged it… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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