🟪 ‘Not yet’: Austin mayor comes out staunchly against 2026 bond (KXAN)

🟪 TEA rejects Austin ISD turnaround partnership plan for 3 middle schools (CBS Austin)

🟪 Austin audit finds progress on pedestrian safety, but major data and funding gaps remain (KVUE)

🟪 City poised to transfer St. John property to housing authority for two-parcel development (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Leander mayor touts ‘responsible’ growth in state of the city address (Community Impact)

🟪 Developer eyes Austin's Northcross Mall for development (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Latino voters set to play key role in Texas Senate battle (The Hill)

Austin City Council meets tomorrow at 10AM

AGENDA

LIVESTREAM (ATXN 1)

✅ ‘Not yet’: Austin mayor comes out staunchly against 2026 bond (KXAN)

During Thursday’s Austin City Council meeting, Mayor Kirk Watson voted down two items relating to a potential 2026 bond and, for the first time publicly, came out against asking voters for more money at the end of the year.

Watson said while he’s not against building parks and community spaces — which the bond could largely focus on — he doesn’t feel the city is following its own financial policies, and doesn’t think voters are ready for another tax hike.

“I believe the better course is to continue rebuilding trust … and come back in a stronger and more responsible position in 2028,” Watson said.

Watson pointed to the failed tax rate election in November and noted the city’s financial position hasn’t gotten better since, nor has the pinch on taxpayers. Watson said he compromised on last year’s tax rate election ask, but was unwilling to do that again with a bond just seven months later… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ TEA rejects Austin ISD turnaround partnership plan for 3 middle schools (CBS Austin)

The Texas Education Agency has rejected Austin ISD’s proposal to partner with an outside organization to help improve academic performance at three struggling middle schools, according to a letter obtained by CBS Austin on Thursday.

The decision affects Burnet, Dobie, and Webb middle schools, which Austin ISD had hoped to place under a Texas Partnership agreement with the Texas Council for International Studies, or TCIS, to avoid potential state intervention or campus takeover.

In a letter sent to Superintendent Matias Segura, TEA said the district’s application for partnership benefits under Senate Bill 1882 was denied because TCIS lacked the demonstrated capacity necessary to successfully turn around the campuses… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin audit finds progress on pedestrian safety, but major data and funding gaps remain (KVUE)

A new audit from the city of Austin says the city has made significant efforts to improve pedestrian safety in recent years, but incomplete crash data, limited funding, and jurisdictional barriers continue to slow progress toward reducing pedestrian deaths and serious injuries.

The May 2026 report, released by the Austin City Auditor’s Office, examined the city’s pedestrian safety programs, infrastructure investments, and crash data trends as Austin continues pursuing its Vision Zero initiative — a long-term effort to eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries on city streets.

A new audit from the city of Austin says the city has made significant efforts to improve pedestrian safety in recent years, but incomplete crash data, limited funding, and jurisdictional barriers continue to slow progress toward reducing pedestrian deaths and serious injuries.

The May 2026 report, released by the Austin City Auditor’s Office, examined the city’s pedestrian safety programs, infrastructure investments, and crash data trends as Austin continues pursuing its Vision Zero initiative — a long-term effort to eliminate traffic deaths and severe injuries on city streets… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin to require landlords to disclose hidden fees during leasing process (KXAN)

Austin’s city council has finally passed an ordinance that will require landlords to disclose all additional fees outside of the cost of rent during the leasing process, before a tenant signs the lease.

Requiring that landlords disclose these so-called “junk fees” — mandatory monthly charges, like pest control or trash collection services, and optional fees, like pet rent or internet — has been something the city council has been trying to push forward for a couple of years now.

The item, number 45 on the council’s May 28 agenda, asks the council to “Approve an ordinance amending City Code Chapter 4-14 (Rental Property) to add a new Article 4 to require persons who rent dwellings or mobile home/recreational vehicle spaces to households to disclose certain fees during the leasing process; and creating an offense and establishing a penalty.”

This was first introduced by Councilmember Ryan Alter, District 5, back in 2024. On October 24, 2024, the council approved a resolution that directed staff to “develop an ordinance requiring disclosure of rental housing fees at the time of application and to assess disclosure in advertisements.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Leander mayor touts ‘responsible’ growth in state of the city address (Community Impact)

Leander Mayor Na’Cole Thompson discussed how the city is responding to rapid demographic and economic growth during her "State of Leander" address May 26. Thompson updated business leaders and community members about the city’s initiatives relating to water, economic development and transit, among other topics.

The discussion was punctuated by Leander’s rapid growth. Between 2010 and 2024, Leander's population grew from 23,295 to 74,067, or by nearly 218%, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey's five-year estimates.

Thompson said the city is planning infrastructure for a future population of 225,000 in mind, based on an estimated 6% growth rate annually.

“When you have explosive growth like that, it is difficult to keep up with the infrastructure,” Thompson said. “No one plans for growth at that level.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Developer eyes Austin's Northcross Mall for development (Austin Business Journal)

North Austin’s Northcross Mall is being targeted for redevelopment.

One of the mall’s former owners, Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co., in the 2000s partially redeveloped the 1970s-era mall at West Anderson Lane and Burnet Road. That effort gave rise to the Walmart store there. Now, local real estate developer Riverside — which purchased the mall in 2019, according to property records — is working through plans to demolish and redevelop the rest of the mall.

Details of what Riverside, formerly known as Riverside Resources, is planning for Northcross Mall are scant. But the developer in recent months filed a site plan application with the city of Austin proposing “the demolition of existing building and utilities and construction of water quality, parking and utility improvement for future mixed use development.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

📝⏱️ Q2 2026 Survey: 5 minutes, 9 questions. Click here to share your input.

✅ With limited options, Corpus Christi focuses on delaying – not avoiding – its looming water crisis (Texas Tribune)

Five straight years of record heat, sporadic rainfall and divided leadership has Corpus Christi in danger of becoming the first U.S. city to run short of water.

Only rain — lots of it — can keep the coastal city from that grim fate.

Accessible sources of short-term water, including newly drilled wells, have already been tapped. A controversial desalination plant with the ability to filter seawater — rejected last year over cost and environmental concerns — is back on the table but years away from producing. Building a new lake-size reservoir is another option, but that would take even longer… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ How did 'underdog' Letitia Plummer upset Annise Parker in the runoff? (Houston Chronicle)

Despite Annise Parker outraising, outpolling and outperforming Letitia Plummer in the March primaries, the former Houston City Council member took a surprise victory Tuesday, earning the Democratic nomination for Harris County judge by a narrow margin. Parker, a former three-term Houston mayor, blamed the combination of low countywide turnout driven by voter fatigue and high turnout among Plummer's base, drawn to the polls by other contests on the ballot.

Experts agreed, in part, but suggested the race's broader dynamics — the candidates' age gap, and the perception of Parker's establishment politics against Plummer's progressivism — also spurred the upset. The March election saw Parker come within four points of avoiding a runoff and securing the nomination outright.

Two polls conducted by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs also pegged Parker as the likely winner, with a double digit lead over Plummer. But Plummer's 51% to 49% victory Tuesday bucked both the results of the March primaries and both polls. Political experts and Parker herself pointed to turnout driven by a runoff between U.S. Reps. Christian Menefee and Al Green in the 18th Congressional District and voter fatigue elsewhere in the county as factors in the upset.

“The 18th Congressional District race drove the vote — in particular, the Black vote,” said Michael Adams, a Texas Southern University political scientist. “I think they turned out in force to support Plummer.” It's a theory that's at least partially supported by voter data, which showed precincts in the district generally swung in favor of Plummer. Some precincts in south Harris County also reported higher turnout that ultimately played in Plummer's favor… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Dallas built and sold more homes than any other U.S. city last year, data shows (WFAA)

More people in the United States are going hungry now than during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic six years ago.

A survey released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found higher levels of food insecurity this year than during the summer of 2020, when the coronavirus outbreak sparked double-digit unemployment.

The New York Fed periodically asks Americans whether they're having to skip meals, having to rely on food donations or receiving federal assistance to buy groceries. Replies from the most recent survey, in February, show hunger is a more pervasive problem now than at any time in the last six years… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Treasury Department prepares $250 bill with Trump's face on it (NPR)

President Trump's face could soon appear on a $250 bill as part of the Trump administration's celebration of the 250th anniversary of the country.

The law currently states no living president can appear on currency, but the administration is preparing for the possibility that Congress will pass legislation authorizing the special Trump bill.

"It's all in the hands of… Capitol Hill," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in the White House briefing room Thursday. "We prepared things in advance… but we will stick to the law."

Bessent added that he didn't think there was anything "untoward" about having the president who was in office during the country's 250th anniversary appear on the bill… 🟪 (READ MORE)