BG Reads // May 27, 2025

Author

A.J. Bingham
May 27, 2025

Presented By

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

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]

✅ Report: Austin is the No. 1 innovation hub in the South (Austin Business Journal)

A new report ranks Austin as the top innovation hub in the southern U.S. — just days after a different study indicated the city's startup and big tech sectors are cooling off.

The latest report was produced by CommercialCafe, an online marketplace for commercial real estate that is owned by California-based real estate software company Yardi Systems Inc.

Austin came in at No. 1 in the ranking — followed by Raleigh, North Carolina, and Irving, near Dallas — because of its strong performances across employment, business and innovation indexes, according to the report.

"More precisely, out of a total of 75 cities across the South that we analyzed, Austin boasted the highest number of patents granted to local businesses between 2020 and 2024," the report said. "Its 82,467 total placed it head and shoulders above Texas rival Houston, as well as Miami and Washington, D.C."

Austin ranked No. 3 overall in STEM-related employment. It ranked No. 2 for its business environment, which included factors such as R&D and life sciences offices. And it was No. 17 in education, which included graduation rates and density of students pursuing STEM degrees... 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ New policy for voter-approved tax hikes in Austin set ahead of possible election (Community Impact)

Austin leaders adopted a new policy meant to guide city planning for a tax rate election, or TRE, when local officials move to seek voter approval for a tax hike in the future.

Under Texas law, cities typically can't increase their property tax collections by more than 3.5% year over year. However, local governments do have the ability to go beyond that limit if they earn voter approval to increase taxes beyond that limit, up to an 8% annual revenue jump.

Austin hasn't yet used a TRE for general budgeting purposes since the 3.5% cap was imposed by state leaders in 2019. But with projected budget shortfalls and the loss of some federal funding, officials are preparing for the likelihood that more funding will be needed to maintain services and address local priorities like homelessness response.

After recent review by members of City Council's finance committee, officials on May 22 approved a new blueprint to be used before calling a TRE. Mayor Kirk Watson said the outline was created to ensure any possible tax increases are justified and clearly outlined to residents in advance… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Council looks to change the ‘unhappy experience’ of DB90 (Austin Monitor)

City Council is preparing to initiate a broad review and recalibration of the city’s density bonus programs, including DB90, which was introduced last year as a tool to encourage the development of affordable housing through additional entitlements.

The resolution, which is scheduled to be taken up at the June 5 Council meeting, is sponsored by Mayor Kirk Watson and directs city staff to explore structural changes to the bonus programs, which are intended to allow more development entitlements in exchange for various community benefits, like affordable housing. The programs face increasing scrutiny for under-delivering on affordability goals and creating unintended consequences in areas with naturally occurring affordable housing.

Watson acknowledged last week that DB90 has not worked as intended, describing it in a recent message board post as “an unhappy experience.” He said the program has become difficult to use as intended and is increasingly divisive, particularly in cases where existing affordable housing is at risk of being demolished in exchange for new development with limited affordability set-asides… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Mustang Ridge, the 'last frontier' of Austin metro, is booming (Austin Business Journal)

Mustang Ridge Mayor David Bunn, a retired Austin Fire Department captain, likens growth in the small city he leads to an explosion — and he jokes that it's "not even a controlled explosion."

In the next couple of years, hundreds of jobs will be created as industrial projects rise to support business from a Tesla Inc. supplier and e-commerce company. A project with a surf lake and other mixed uses could rise. The city estimates that 5,000 homes are set to be built within half a decade.

Mustang Ridge is just another example of how Austin's growth is filling out every nook and cranny of the region. The city, which is 25 miles southeast of downtown Austin along the Travis-Caldwell county line and has a population roughly 1,000, is next up.

But many go further and say that Mustang Ridge will be the next boom town between Austin and San Antonio. It's near Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, the Tesla gigafactory and a robust system of highways and interstates. Land there is cheaper, and there's a perception of less red tape. Utility issues have been addressed. Caldwell County is among the fastest-growing counties in the country… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Council moves to expand Austin's solar generation capacity (Community Impact)

In an effort to expand local solar generation, City Council is seeking to study how much public property could be used for new solar capacity across Austin Energy's service zone.

Austin has been a longtime user of solar power, and currently has 29 active systems on various city-owned properties, according to AE. Solar installations in places like airport parking garages and on the Palmer Events Center roof generated 670,800 kilowatt-hours for the local distribution grid in the past year, saving the city an estimated $66,500.

Council member Ryan Alter said those totals could greatly expand with a renewed focus by city leaders, many of whom are supportive of various climate and renewable energy initiatives. City Council also recently passed a new resource plan for AE that calls to add hundreds of megawatts of new solar capacity in Austin over the next decade… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS NEWS]

✅ Ban on THC products in Texas heads to Gov. Abbott’s desk after Senate agrees to House changes (Texas Tribune)

A bill that would ban all products containing tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk after the Senate late Sunday approved the House version of the bill advanced by the lower chamber last week.

If the measure avoids Abbott’s veto pen, Texas’ $8 billion hemp industry and its estimated 50,000 jobs would be dissolved in September, when the ban would take effect. Retailers and recreational users would be allowed to sell and consume only the non-intoxicating, non-psychoactive cannabinoids known as CBD and CBG.

The about-face comes six years after the Legislature inadvertently touched off a massive boom in hemp-based products when lawmakers, intending to boost Texas agriculture, authorized the sale of consumable hemp. Though that 2019 law does not allow products to contain more than trace amounts of delta-9 THC, it did not establish that same threshold for other hemp derivatives.

Critics say the hemp industry has exploited that loophole to the tune of more than 8,000 retailers now selling THC-laced edibles, drinks, vapes and flower buds. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who oversees the Senate, has spearheaded the push to eradicate the industry since he named it one of his top priorities nearly six months ago… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas foods win round in fight over labeling high-fructose corn syrup as unfit for humans (Dallas Morning News)

An effort that would force some of Texas’ most iconic foods and drinks — including Dr Pepper, Blue Bell Ice Cream and Buc-ee’s Famous Beaver Nuggets — to change recipes or label their products as “not recommended for human consumption” was decisively rejected by the Texas House on Sunday. Led by a group of House Republicans whose districts include those companies, 79 lawmakers voted to weaken the labeling requirement tucked inside a sweeping nutrition and fitness bill championed by Washington, D.C., Republicans.

They also chose to remove the inclusion of high-fructose corn syrup from a section that lists about 50 ingredients — including several artificial colors, flavors and sweeteners — that trigger the warning label if they’re not removed. “I want to make Texas healthy again, but I do not want to hurt Texas business,” said Rep. Pat Curry, R-Waco, whose district includes Dr Pepper.

The labels are found in Senate Bill 25, a 20-page bill focused on public nutrition and making students more physically active. It is known as “Make Texas Healthy Again,” inspired by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again.” Sen. Lois Kolkhorst — a Republican whose district includes Blue Bell Creameries in Brenham — authored the bill. Rep. Lacey Hull, R-Houston, fought hard against Sunday’s efforts to remove or weaken the label requirement.

“This is about the MAHA parents and the crunchy granola parents coming together to say we are sick and tired of being sick and tired,” Hull said. “This is Republicans and Democrats coming together for Texas kids.” Hull said she had “personally spoken with the White House” about the proposal and was told that “they are looking to us, looking to Texas, to get this done and to stand for our children and our future.” Kennedy called her on the House floor during the debate, she told lawmakers right before the vote… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ 3 years after Uvalde massacre, Texas still struggling to address police failures (Houston Chronicle)

About 400,000 school children all around this state completed the 7th grade this week and are setting off for the 8th grade. But it was different for Uvalde. Nineteen children who should be moving on to the 8th grade won’t because of the horrors that still haunt many in this state three years after the senseless attack on Robb Elementary School. “We haven’t done enough,” state Sen. Roland Gutierrez, D-San Antonio, said about exposing the mistakes by law enforcement that added to the tragedy.

While the Texas Legislature is on the cusp of passing House Bill 33, mandating more training for law enforcement and demanding better communication among agencies, Gutierrez and others say there needs to be more open conversation about failures that compounded on May 24, 2022. The most damning of those mistakes is clear to Gutierrez. For one hour and 17 minutes, nearly 400 officers had assembled at the school yet no one went into the classrooms where some children were alive and making calls to 911 for help. “All of those cops failed to act,” Gutierrez said.

But it went beyond that. First responders carried wounded children into the hallway to treat them when they shouldn’t have been moved all, and in some cases when medics couldn't do anything to help them, according to an investigation from the Texas Tribune and the Washington Post.

Teacher Eva Mireles was put into an emergency vehicle but never taken to a hospital and died on scene, according to the Tribune. The Washington Post investigation and the Uvalde paper says that she first treated on the sidewalk, even though ambulances were nearby, and was eventually put into one but it's not clear why she wasn't driven to the hospital.

Police helicopters were at an airport three miles away, but weren’t used to airlift wounded children straight from the school when they could have used the playground as a loading zone, the Tribune reported. “There was chaos everywhere, leadership was nowhere to be found,” said State Rep. Don McLaughlin, a Republican who was the mayor of Uvalde when the shooting occurred.

“The response wasn’t just delayed. It was disorganized, directionless and deadly.” McLaughlin, who is in his first year in the Texas House, is the author of HB 33, which he says will create a clear, unified statewide response protocol to make sure police are better organized the next time a school shooting happens. While politicians continue to react to the tragedy, it's a good time to remember the faces of the children and teachers we lost that day. Much more on each of them here… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[US and World News]

✅ Cuban exiles were shielded from deportation. Now Trump is cracking down (Associated Press)

Immigration officials said Tomás Hernández worked in high-level posts for Cuba’s foreign intelligence agency for decades before migrating to the United States to pursue the American dream.

The 71-year-old was detained by federal agents outside his Miami-area home in March and accused of hiding his ties to Cuba’s Communist Party when he obtained permanent residency.

Cuban-Americans in South Florida have long clamored for a firmer hand with Havana and the recent apprehensions of Hernández and several other former Cuban officials for deportation have been extremely popular among the politically powerful exile community.

“It’s a political gift to Cuban-American hardliners,” said Eduardo Gamarra, a Latin American expert at Florida International University. But many Cubans fear they could be next on Trump’s list, he said, and “some in the community see it as a betrayal.”

While President Donald Trump’s mass deportation pledge has frightened migrants from many nations, it has come as something of a shock to the 2.4 million Cuban-Americans, who strongly backed the Republican twice and have long enjoyed a place of privilege in the U.S. immigration system.

Amid record arrivals of migrants from the Caribbean island, Trump in March revoked temporary humanitarian parole for about 300,000 Cubans. Many have been detained ahead of possible deportation… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Corporate America's retreat from DEI has eliminated thousands of jobs (NPR)

Sunday, May 25, marked the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a white police officer and the start of a national reckoning over systemic racism. Corporate America rushed to join in, loudly proclaiming that businesses should and would do more to fight discrimination and create more opportunities for workers of all backgrounds.

However superficial some of these promises turned out to be, big companies spent a lot of money on them — and hired thousands to implement them. By early 2023, U.S. companies employed more than 20,000 people focused on DEI. That was more than double the number of such jobs five years earlier, according to Revelio Labs' analysis of 8.8 million employers.

But almost as soon as companies had staffed up these DEI teams, they faced a backlash — from conservative influencers, activists, lawyers, and state and federal officials. These critics argue that DEI is itself discriminatory, and that employers have added barriers for white people, especially white men, to get jobs or promotions, even if they are the most qualified candidates… 🟪 (READ MORE)

Have questions ?

📩 Contact me at: [email protected].

Learn more at: ⬇️