BG Reads // May 23, 2025

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A.J. Bingham
May 23, 2025

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✅ Today's BG Reads include:

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ City Memos:

May 20:

May 19:

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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Austin City Council agrees on $104M for roadway elements (KXAN)

Austin City Council voted Thursday to move forward with committing $104 million to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) for the roadway elements of “caps and stitches” over TxDOT’s I-35 project.

Those “caps and stitches” are decks over the highway that may eventually support parks, trails and community spaces.

The funding committed Thursday will support caps between Cesar Chavez Street and Fourth Street, between Fourth Street and Seventh Street and between 11th Street and 12th Street. It also covers two stitches, which are thinner than caps, in north Austin.

This specific plan was brought forward by Austin City Council Member Zo Qadri. Council Members Krista Laine and Marc Duchen voted no on the resolution. Council Member Mike Siegel abstained.

“I really hope that we can apply the same tenacity to finding the money to fund the needs of our residents who cannot afford to live this close to the city,” Laine said before the vote.

“I wish we could cap every inch of I-35 from Lady Bird Lake to 51st Street. But I’m glad we were able to make the investments we made,” Council Member Chito Vela wrote on social media after the resolution passed… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin has one of the busiest arenas in the world (Austin Business Journal)

On the heels of Moody Center celebrating its third anniversary of opening on the University of Texas campus, General Manager Jeff Nickler heralded it for exceeding all expectations, in terms of how busy it's been for concerts, sports and other events.

Since Moody Center opened in April 2022, it's hosted 538 events and generated $315 million in gross ticket sales from 412 non-UT events – and ranked eighth in the world in 2024 in terms of ticket sales at $117.2 million, according to Pollsta. The 15,000-seat, $375 million arena was developed and is run by Los Angeles-based Oak View Group LLC.

"We understood and we knew it was going to be busy, but I don't think in our wildest dreams we would have realized how busy this venue was going to be," Nickler said. "This city continues to buy tickets for all of our concerts and events in record numbers. That's really what drives those rankings — the community support."

What's new is the prestige of events. Some of the biggest acts in music are going out of their way to come to Austin, such as Billie Eilish for two nights this November. The arena has hosted awards shows, San Antonio Spurs games and soon the Blast.tv e-sports tournament that is set to draw 40,000 people.

Nickler said the biggest challenge is not having enough dates available for artists who want to come here. That and not being big enough for some of the talent — think Beyonce or Taylor Swift – who fill stadiums… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas Education Agency accountability scores expose longstanding inequities in Austin ISD (Austin American-Statesman)

When the Texas Education Agency released its latest round of releasable academic rankings for schools on April 24, a map began circulating in online Austin parent groups. The map showed that schools earning “A” grades under the state’s A-F rating system were located west of Interstate 35. Meanwhile, schools receiving an “F” grade were concentrated across the highway, in a swath sometimes called the Eastern Crescent. It was a stark picture, said Sharyn Vane, the mother of two Austin district graduates and a longtime education advocate. To Vane, the divide on that map is emblematic of historic discrepancies in how schools have been resourced in the Austin district.

“I certainly don't want to say that the board is doing nothing,” Vane said. “They are doing something, but they are also trying to balance a system that has been unbalanced for years if not decades.” The adequate resourcing of schools has been a point of conversation as the district has proposed plans this month to improve academic scores at Dobie, Webb and Burnet middle schools — three North Austin schools that are facing consecutive years of “F” ratings, according to the state’s A-F scoring system.

While some parents and teachers have blamed district officials for not providing enough staffing, programming or funding to those campuses — which serve high proportions of low-income students and English learners — officials have stated that they are working to address decades of inequity and simply need more time. The Austin district consists of areas that are very high income and areas that are low income, both with different levels of need, said Allen Weeks, executive director for Austin Voices for Youth and Education, a nonprofit that provides services to families in high-needs schools. “I think there's a lot of advantages to that, long-term just in the social benefits, in keeping a district that looks like America,” Weeks said. “However, that lower-income area is going to have higher needs and is going to need more investment.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Bill that would allow Dallas to move city elections to November clears hurdle (Dallas Morning News)

A Texas House committee on Thursday advanced a bill that would allow the Dallas City Council to move city elections from May to November. The legislation was nearly dead after state Rep. Matt Shaheen, R-Prosper, said last week it would not be voted out of the Elections Committee he chairs. Dallas-area lawmakers and Dallas business leaders responded by lobbying Shaheen and committee members, and some local leaders put in calls to Gov. Greg Abbott. The bill on Thursday was unanimously passed out of committee after a hasty meeting. It is now up to the Calendars Committee to move it to the House floor for a vote. “The bipartisan vote coming out of the Elections Committee shows strong momentum for this bill,” said state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas. “The work is not over. We still need to get it to the House floor in order for Dallas to be able to increase voter turnout.”

The bill, authored by state Sen. Nathan Johnson, D-Dallas, would give the Dallas City Council until the end of 2026 to move elections from May to November in odd numbered years. Anchia had an identical companion bill. Johnson said he was pleased with the outcome. In November Dallas voters approved a proposition that would allow the council to move May elections to November in odd years. Supporters say the move could double Dallas voter turnout, which in May was just over 7%. The Texas Legislature sets the state’s uniform election dates, and any changes — even for local elections — must be approved by state lawmakers. Though written for the city of Dallas, the bill would give local jurisdictions across the state the chance to move their elections from May to November if they act before Dec. 31, 2026. The Elections Committee also advanced a bill that would mandate that all local elections be held in November, with the option of odd years or alongside the partisan elections that are staged in even years. That bill, authored by state Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, also would give Dallas the power to move its election. Hughes’ bill would remove May as an option for elections, except in the case of runoffs or emergencies… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas House passes bipartisan bill clarifying abortion ban exception (Houston Chronicle)

A bipartisan bill meant to clarify when doctors can perform emergency abortions in Texas will soon be headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk. The Texas House overwhelmingly passed the legislation on Wednesday that standardizes the definition of medical emergency and clarifies that a physician need not wait until the risk to their patient’s life is “imminent.” Medical emergency is the only exception to Texas’ abortion ban passed three years ago; there is none for rape, incest and fetal anomalies. Senate Bill 31 already passed unanimously out of the Senate at the end of last month and needs one more procedural vote in the House before heading to Abbott, who hasn’t weighed in publicly on the bill.

State Rep. Charlie Geren, a Fort Worth Republican who authored the House version of the bill, applauded the fact that the bill was supported by both anti-abortion and pro-abortion rights groups. It passed the chamber 129-6. “It’s simple: We do not want women to die for medical emergencies during their pregnancies,” Geren said. “We don’t want women’s lives to be destroyed because their bodies have been seriously impaired by medical emergencies during their pregnancies. We know women have died after care was delayed or denied.”

Just months after the state’s abortion ban went into effect in 2022, nearly two dozen women who were denied abortions and suffered health consequences sued the state, arguing that the law was so vague doctors were uncertain about when and if they could terminate dangerous pregnancies. The Texas Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the law is clear enough.

Other anti-abortion groups and politicians said doctors were misinterpreting the law and causing women to suffer unnecessarily. But examples continued to surface, and investigative news nonprofit ProPublica found that at least three Texas women have died under the ban. Though Republican lawmakers had always maintained that the law did not need changing, earlier this year, top leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, expressed openness to a possible legislative fix, and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick placed this bill on his priority list… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[US and World News]

✅ Here's what's in the GOP megabill that's just passed the House (NPR)

House Republicans have passed their massive bill to enact the heart of President Trump's domestic agenda, overcoming deep divisions inside the party to advance legislation that would cut trillions of dollars in taxes while scaling back safety net programs such as Medicaid and SNAP.

The final vote was 215-214.

"Today the House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation to reduce spending and permanently lower taxes for families and job creators, secure the border, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength and make government work more efficiently and effectively for all Americans," House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after the vote. "House Democrats voted against all of that."

The legislation aims to satisfy competing demands from fiscal hawks looking to reduce the deficit to blue state Republicans looking to lock in more favorable taxes for their constituents.

The Thursday vote followed a day of near-constant negotiations within the GOP. The talks included a White House meeting between Trump, Johnson and several holdouts and skeptics… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump’s Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster Clubs are taking in more money than ever (Wall Street Journal)

Donald Trump’s private clubs have emerged as a moneymaking venture for the president’s second term, and a hub for donors and favor-seekers alike. It now costs a record $1 million to join Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort, according to people familiar with the membership fees, up from about $500,000 during his first term. The initiation fee at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J., rose to $125,000, surging from $75,000 in recent years, a person close to that club said. Another Trump golf club in Florida, near Mar-a-Lago, now charges more than $300,000 to join, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump has encouraged Republican Party officials to hold events at his clubs, where he headlines official dinners and cocktail parties. The clubs have in turn also attracted a new clientele of donors seeking to influence policy in the White House, including cryptocurrency executives pushing for deregulation, advocates seeking pardons for allies, and business leaders looking for exemptions from tariffs, among others.

One of the biggest such events yet is set to take place Thursday at Trump’s golf course outside Washington, when his cryptocurrency venture is hosting a gala dinner for his $TRUMP meme coin’s biggest holders. Many of the investors are foreign, and some of the top givers have been promised official tours of the White House, according to the advertisement for the event. He is forging ahead with the event over the objections of some of his own aides and lawyers, who were initially shocked that he had agreed to it, according to people familiar with the event’s planning. Organizers asked prospective guests to take part in background checks, but the White House hasn’t extensively vetted them, the people said.

A White House official said the president’s assets are in a trust managed by his children and added that the White House had nothing to do with the Thursday event, which the official said was in “the president’s personal time.” “The president left his real-estate empire to run for office and serve our country, and he has sacrificed greatly in doing so. Every decision he makes as president is always in the best interest of the country,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization didn’t respond to requests for comment. Presidential historians say there has never been such a moneymaking venture run by a president from inside the White House… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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