BG Reads // May 2, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
May 02, 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]

🏙️ José G. Roig, Director of City of Austin Development Services announced via LinkedIn this week that he will be stepping down from the position effective June 2nd.

Department Memos:

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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Artists say Pecan Street Festival's move away from Sixth Street is a long time coming (KUT)

In the late ‘80s and ‘90s, downtown Austin's Pecan Street Festival was the place to be.

Attendees shuffled by hundreds of vendor tents run by eager painters, musicians, chefs and other local creatives trying to market their goods. And Sixth Street, known then as Pecan Street, had plenty of space for them.

“If you really wanted to be an artist, you had to do the Pecan Street Festival,” said Lynda Coleman, a painter and a leader of Generational Artists Collective, an Austin-based group for youth painters. She has worked the festival since 1996.

But in the last 30 years, the festival's long-term location on East Sixth Street turned into a hotspot for the bustling nightlife scene. The homeless population in the area also increased, according to event organizer Luis Zapata.

Festival organizers announced in late March that the festival, scheduled for this weekend, would move to the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave, due to the “recent restructuring” on Sixth Street they said presented an “unsustainable financial future” for the event… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Density bonus programs under review to address affordability needs, market conditions (Austin Monitor)

The city is moving forward with reforms to several of its density bonus programs, following the recommendations from an analysis completed earlier this year. A recent presentation to City Council’s Housing and Planning Committee outlined several modifications underway or in the planning stages that will better align with the changing economics of development and construction, and the city’s goals for affordable housing production.

Staff emphasized that reforms will proceed incrementally, with each program being reviewed and updated individually rather than as part of a sweeping consolidation. That approach reflects feedback gathered during the analysis phase and reflects the many different goals of the programs that are currently active.

While a more unified structure remains an aspiration, Planning Department division manager Stevie Greathouse said an array of legal complexities and procedural constraints make a case-by-case revision more feasible in the near term… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Samsung amends some agreements with city of Taylor as work on massive chip plant continues (Austin Business Journal)

With Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. planning to open its Taylor semiconductor factory later than initially expected — albeit by the end of next year — the Taylor City Council has revamped some of its agreements with the company.

Council members on April 30 unanimously approved amendments to a slew of agreements the city had made with the South Korean electronics giant dating back to 2022. The changes come as Samsung continues to build a 1,200-acre campus in the city northeast of Austin as part of a $37 billion investment there and in North Austin.

Among the amendments, the company's reimbursement payments on inspection and plan review fees will be capped at $9 million. That comes as Mayor Dwayne Ariola said the company has encountered more processes and construction reviews over the years related to its installation of $2 billion in equipment at the factory. Those fees are estimated to generate about $5 million for the city, but if they go higher they'll be capped at $9 million.

Ariola said Samsung also agreed to remove land from a previously designated tax increment reinvestment zone for a portion of the site where Linde Inc. will build an industrial gas plant. That means the entire taxable value of the Linde project, estimated at $291 million, will now be captured in the city's general fund… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ 4ATX Foundation announces $2 million investment in public soccer spaces alongside several partners (Austin FC Communications)

Austin FC’s nonprofit arm 4ATX Foundation teamed up with local and national partners to launch the Verde Pitch Alliance, a group of like-minded organizations working together to expand access to soccer for all across Central Texas. Founding members, 4ATX Foundation, Austin FC, Soccer Assist, Street Soccer USA, and Austin Parks Foundation, have invested an initial $2 million to bring more free and public soccer spaces to Central Texas.

“We’re incredibly proud to join forces with our partners to launch the Verde Pitch Alliance,” said Executive Director of 4ATX Foundation, Kaitlin Mauro. “This Alliance is a powerful step forward towards our goal of ensuring 1 million Central Texans are within three miles of a 4ATX soccer space.”

To date, 4ATX Foundation has helped bring nine (9) state-of-the-art soccer mini-pitches and one multi-sport court to Central Texas. Beyond building new spaces, the Foundation has also revitalized existing pitches, donated nearly 200 goals and nets, and brought over 100,000 hours of free, youth soccer programming to the heart of the communities it serves… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Texas House panel advances THC bill with stricter regulations — but no ban — for hemp industry (Texas Tribune)

A Texas House panel late Wednesday advanced a bill to tighten regulations on Texas' consumable hemp industry, setting up a potential clash with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and the Senate, who are pursuing a total ban on THC products.

The latest draft of the lower chamber’s THC regulation bill would allow retailers to continue selling edibles and drinks, along with low-dose smokable hemp flowers. It would ban vapes and allow counties to vote to ban consumable hemp.

The bill calls for a much tighter regulatory system than what exists today, six years after the GOP-controlled Legislature inadvertently set off the state’s booming consumable hemp market. It would require products to be sold in child-resistant packaging that does not resemble popular snacks or otherwise appear marketed to kids. And it would establish an age limit that does not exist under the current law, restricting sales to those 21 and older.

Sales would also be barred within 1,000 feet of a school or certain other areas frequented by children… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[US and World News]

✅ Bipartisan push to ban lawmakers from trading stocks gets boost from Trump (NPR)

President Trump and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., don't agree on much. But their public support of legislation to ban members of Congress from trading individual stocks could revive prospects for a bipartisan effort that's stalled on Capitol Hill for years.

Earlier in April around President Trump's tariff announcement, a flurry of lawmakers' stock trades raised questions about whether they got any advance notice.

Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one of the members whose trades have attracted scrutiny. According to House disclosure filings, Greene purchased between tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in stock around the tariff announcements. She also disclosed more trades around the news that Trump was pausing many of the tariffs for 90 days. Some of the specific stocks she purchased increased in value significantly… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump signs executive order directing federal funding cuts to PBS and NPR (Associated Press)

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR as he alleged “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and further requires that that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”

It’s the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with. Since taking office, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agreed to eliminate diversity programs and other measures Trump has found objectionable… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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