BG Reads // May 20, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
May 20, 2025

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✅ Today's BG Reads include:

Plus: Austin Council Work Session today at 9AM and New City Memos posted

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Memos(May 19):

We’re growing BG Reads and want to better understand who’s reading. Your quick answers help us shape content and build a stronger community.

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ After early spring heat wave, forecasters predict a hotter than average summer in Austin (KUT)

After a springtime of breezy, cool mornings and dry air, a heat wave hit Austin like a train last week. Those triple-digit highs and thick humid days are likely a taste of things to come, as Central Texas moves closer to what are typically its hottest months of the year.

But, forecasters say, that doesn’t mean the summer will bring a repeat of record-breaking heat waves like the one in 2023 that delivered 45 days in a row of triple-digit highs.

“The signals that I'm seeing right now don't call for a summer as hot as 2023,” Mack Morris, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Austin/San Antonio office said. “However, it will be warmer than normal. It will be hot.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Army will expand presence in Austin under command merger plans (Stars and Stripes)

The Army will house the headquarters of a merged Futures Command and Training and Doctrine Command in Austin instead of Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Va., as part of its efforts to downsize the service and reduce general officer billets.

The merged command will be the Army’s Transformation and Training Command, according to Gen. Randy George, Army Chief of Staff. Its primary headquarters will remain in the Texas capital because “we like what’s down there as far as the culture, the [Army] Software Factory, the ideas for innovation and change,” George told the House Appropriations Committee earlier this month.

The changes are part of the Army’s efforts to restructure and downsize to fill an order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. That includes a reduction of about 20% of the military’s four-star generals and admirals. Futures Command and TRADOC are both led by four-star general officers. The Army has two additional four-star commands — Army Materiel Command and Army Forces Command — which are also absorbing other missions… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Funding vote Thursday for park decks over I-35, Austin city council split on road forward (KXAN)

Thursday, Austin city council will decide whether it wants to commit funding to design and build roadway elements for park decks over the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) I-35 expansion project near downtown.

For Austin to build out all of the highway covers it wants, called caps and stitches, city staff said it would cost more than $1.4 billion. Austin city council only has to commit funding for the early construction elements for now, but that alone will still cost hundreds of millions of dollars.

“Thursday, we are going to decide whether or not we have the opportunity to bridge our community’s east and west, to cover a highway for more than half of the area between Cesar Chavez and the Red Line or if that opportunity disappears altogether,” Austin City Council Member Ryan Alter said… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ JE Dunn Construction focusing on these key areas amid economic uncertainity (Austin Business Journal)

With uncertain headwinds roiling economic waters, where is one of Austin’s top construction firms steering? Away from multifamily and office projects and toward public sector work and data centers.

JE Dunn Construction officials said they have seen construction levels in some sectors slow in recent years and the rise of economic uncertainty caused by new U.S. tariff policy isn't helping turn things around.

“Everybody's feeling the uncertainty with what may happen with tariffs and other economic policies,” said Chuck Lipscomb, a senior vice president and JE Dunn’s Austin office leader. “The private development sector has been slow for a couple of years, so we've reacted by leaning on other market sectors that we have experienced and qualifications in, including the public sector … in addition to the data center market, which has been really strong for us as well.” 

JE Dunn is the second-largest construction company in Austin, according to the Austin Business Journal’s 2024 list of commercial construction companies. The Kansas City-based firm had $615.9 million worth of local office construction billings and has about 300 employees based here in 2023.

Two areas where JE Dunn has seen a slowdown in construction activities are in the office and high-rise multifamily markets, Lipscomb said. He said the slowdowns in these sectors have been felt in recent years due to high interest rates and higher-than-desired vacancies in office as hybrid work continues to be a trend. On the residential side, vacancy rates are relatively high due to a lot of housing supply hitting the market… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ TEA takeover led to academic gains but also turmoil in Houston. Is Fort Worth next? (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

When Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath warned Fort Worth school officials this month of the possibility of a state takeover, he acknowledged that such an intervention would be a major step, but said it was necessary for students who haven’t received the quality of education they deserve. But if the Texas Education Agency does take over the Fort Worth Independent School District, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s intervened in one of the state’s big urban school districts. In 2023, Morath took over Houston ISD, Texas’ biggest school district, after one high school received a failing grade for five straight years.

Now two years into the state takeover, Houston ISD could offer a glimpse into where Fort Worth schools might be headed in the coming months. Earlier this month, Morath sent Fort Worth ISD officials a letter notifying them of the possibility of a state takeover. Morath told district officials that state law requires him to intervene after one campus, Forest Oak Sixth Grade Center, received a failure rating for a fifth consecutive school year. The school received its fifth F rating in the 2023 A-F accountability ratings, which were tied up in court until last month.

State law requires the education commissioner to do one of two things when a campus receives five consecutive failure ratings: Close the school or take over the entire district, replacing its elected school board with a state-appointed board of managers. The commissioner may also replace the district’s superintendent as part of the takeover. Once the commissioner decides to take over a district, TEA calls for applications from district residents who are interested in serving on the board of managers.

TEA officials screen the candidates, ask them to go through governance training and conduct interviews. After that process is complete, officials present a list of finalists to the commissioner for final approval. Complicating matters is the fact that Fort Worth ISD closed Forest Oak Sixth last year and moved its students to Forest Oak Middle School. In his letter to district leaders, Morath said the fact that the campus is already closed doesn’t remove the need for intervention. But he also didn’t specify what form that intervention would take.

All 2023 A-F scores are considered preliminary until they’re finalized in August, and school districts have the right to appeal. Fort Worth ISD officials have said they plan to appeal the rating, and Morath isn’t expected to make a decision until after that process is finished… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Is it law yet? See how far some of the most consequential bills have made it in the 2025 Texas Legislature (Texas Tribune)

Texas lawmakers filed thousands of bills during the 2025 legislative session. However, most of those bills won’t become law. Lawmakers will spend the final weeks before the session ends on June 2 trying to push through their priorities. They will also try to stop certain bills from going through by delaying votes and letting them miss key deadlines. If a bill fails, it might still be revived as an amendment to other legislation. Most new laws take effect Sept. 1... 🟪 (READ MORE)

[US and World News]

✅ How President Trump is sparking a crypto revolution in America (NPR)

For years, crypto was viewed by many as a weird and fringe investment, hyped up by a bunch of math geeks and used widely by all kinds of unsavory characters, from drug dealers to hackers. It was known for spectacular returns — and spectacular crashes: Top crypto exchange FTX collapsed just two years ago, landing its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried, in prison. Now, a radical shift is taking place under President Trump: From financial regulators to the halls of Congress and all the way to the Oval Office, the U.S. is fully embracing — and even promoting — crypto. It is a remarkable turnaround from the Biden administration.

And crypto companies are emerging as big winners. On Monday, one of the top exchanges in the sector Coinbase is joining the S&P 500, the stock market index that tracks the biggest traded companies in the U.S. "I think it's a historic moment for the industry and it's a really special moment for Coinbase," says Faryar Shirzad, the company's Chief Policy Officer. "Having Coinbase be the first crypto company that's on the S&P 500 and (to be) be in a position where more and more people are beginning to watch how we operate (and) what we do is really exciting for us." President Trump himself also stands to benefit financially. Shortly before his inauguration he even launched his meme coin — a crypto asset known more for being tied to Internet memes and jokes.

And his family is getting into the action too with financial interests in crypto companies. Advocates of cryptocurrencies welcome the developments, believing the U.S. is finally embracing — and taking a global leadership role in promoting an area they say will help define the future of the financial sector. But critics are aghast, warning the U.S. is promoting an investment with a history of incredible volatility that will end up hurting scores of average Americans, potentially setting up a financial crisis like the one the world experienced in 2008… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ The coalition that powered Trump to victory in 2024 is starting to fray (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump’s victory in 2024 not only put a Republican in the White House but gave the party hope that its appeal was attracting new groups of voters. Trump drew unexpectedly large shares of young voters and Black and Latino voters—groups that had largely resisted the GOP. After broadening the Republican coalition, Trump is at risk of shrinking it. Trump came close to winning young voters—those under age 30—in 2024, a sharp reversal from his 25-point loss among young voters in 2020. He also made gains among Black, Hispanic and other minority groups, losing by a far smaller margin than in 2020. And he improved his showing among seniors. Now that he is back in the White House, these groups have grown increasingly unhappy with his job performance.

Since taking office, Trump’s job-approval rating has fallen across all segments of the public—even among his most ardent supporters. Now, he draws positive job ratings from only a few major voter groups. One is the group that has backed Trump since he became a national political figure: white, working-class voters without a four-year degree. Even among white, working-class voters, Trump now draws equivocal or even negative job ratings among women.

His support remains strong, by contrast, among white men who don’t have a four-year degree. Trump’s improvement among young voters, those under age 30, was one of the noteworthy developments in the election. He lost among such voters by only 4 percentage points, a large survey of the electorate called AP VoteCast found. Now, disapproval outweighs approval by 10 points and even more than 20 points among young people. Similarly, voters who are Black or Latino, and those from minority groups overall, give increasingly negative assessments of the president’s performance… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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