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[TOP CLICKS OF THE WEEK]

🛣️🌳 Parks over I-35: Austin city council agrees on $104M for roadway elements (KXAN)

🏘️🛑 City opens $5 million grant round for anti-displacement work (Austin Monitor)

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

🤖🚗 Elon Musk confirms Tesla plan for robotaxis on Austin roads in June (NBC News)

📉💻 Austin’s reign as a tech hub might be coming to an end (Wall Street Journal)

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The Week Ahead at Austin City Hall and Weekend News below

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🟪 Austin City Hall Week in Review (Week of May 19, 2025)

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[WEEKEND NEWS]

🟪 Central Texas ‘stuck’ in middle-income affordability crisis: National Association of Realtors (KXAN)

A report published May 15 by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) claims that Texas’ major metros face a “significant shortage of homes” available for middle-income families.

The NAR said that in order to meet demand, the US must build two homes that list below $260,000 for each home above $680,000. Unless that happens, “homeownership will remain blocked for millions of Americans who are otherwise financially ready to buy,” the NAR said.

“Middle-income buyers – those who are supposed to form the backbone of the homebuying market – are making progress, but they’re still shut out of more than half of the homes for sale today,” the NAR wrote.

Austin leads the nation in affordable multi-family construction, but has the 10th lowest homeownership rate.

Austin Habitat for Humanity’s Chief Impact Officer Billy Whipple spoke with KXAN about the report.

“Even as homes are coming online, the asking prices are higher than a lot of our wage earners. If you look at the median incomes, they’re not able to afford the product coming online,” Whipple said. “We’ve experienced a lot of growth here in Austin, and with that has come a lot more homes, a lot more units. I think we’ve all seen the construction.”… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Funding for up to 1,000 new slots for child care may be coming soon for Travis County residents (Community Impact)

The first significant round of Travis County’s new child care funding could be available as early as fall 2025, following a tax rate increase approved by voters last November.

Travis County Health and Human Services staff updated commissioners May 20 about the status of the $75 million annual child care program. With the initially projected summer 2025 launch, the program has taken longer to implement than expected, according to commissioners.

As staff continue negotiating vendor contracts—which can take up to a year—they’ve recommended using a portion of the first year’s tax revenue to grow capacity within existing partner programs.

HHS County Executive Pilar Sanchez said an estimated $30 million could be used this year to expand programs already under county contract as well as new agreements with local school districts like Austin ISD.

Creative Action and African American Youth Harvest Foundation—both existing county partners—are currently in negotiations to boost services, with agreements expected by this summer for out-of-school care.

Presently, Creative Action receives $375,000 in county funding, and African American Youth Harvest receives $275,000, Sanchez said.

She noted that under current regulations, the county is only able to modify existing contracts for a total cost of up to $500,000; however, staff is working with legal to see if that number can be extended without an additional solicitation process… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Justice Department cuts to public safety grants leave police and nonprofits scrambling (NPR)

The Justice Department has drastically scaled back its support for anti-crime initiatives across the country, leaving law enforcement agencies and private groups scrambling to try to replace the money. The cuts were announced in late April, and the Council on Criminal Justice estimates 373 grants were terminated, totaling about $500 million.

The sweeping nature of the cuts took many public safety groups by surprise.

"We knew that there were federal cuts coming," says Kelsie McDaniel, the district attorney in Union County, Oregon. "But we didn't think that it would include things that were within the program goals and agency priorities that the DOJ had previously talked about."

Her office used a federal grant to pay for an investigator to do more in-depth crime investigations, such as building a case against fentanyl dealers whose product had led to fatal overdoses.

"We wouldn't be able to do that without him," McDaniel says. "We thought, well, where other programs might be getting cut, we thought we might actually see an increase in funding."

Instead, that grant was one of the ones cancelled. Most of the money had already been spent, but she worries that the cancellation means Union County won't be able to get this kind of federal funding again in the future.

"Federal grants allow agencies to really do things that they wouldn't ordinarily otherwise be able to do," says Jim Burch, president of the National Policing Institute, which helped distribute many of the grants to rural law enforcement. He says the sudden cuts, many of them mid-stream, "could result in layoffs of things like crime analysts and IT professionals. And it could mean that the agency has fewer staff for patrol services."… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Travis County officials weigh plans for potential historical district (Community Impact)

Travis County commissioners discussed potential heritage tourism opportunities for a nearly 100-year-old downtown courthouse, as renovation efforts move forward May 6.

Opened in 1931, the Art Deco building is known for its role in the local civil rights movement. In 1946, Heman Marion Sweatt—an African American—filed a lawsuit against The University of Texas at Austin after being denied admission to its law school because of his race.

The building was renamed after Sweatt in 2005 to honor a milestone in civil rights history.

Today, the Heman Marion Sweatt Courthouse houses the Justice of the Peace for Precinct 5 under local statute, which performs services like landlord-tenant disputes and small claim lawsuits, as well as some traffic violations, public intoxication and minors in possession of alcohol or tobacco… ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Data center 'megasite' is coming to Lockhart as similar facilities strain Texas' water, energy supply (KUT)

Only a few weeks after Austin City Council passed a resolution requiring various regulations on artificial intelligence operations, a new 2-gigawatt data center is coming to Lockhart. Tract, a Colorado-based developer, has secured 1,500 acres for a “megasite” in Caldwell County, only about six miles away from famous barbecue joints Smitty’s Market, Kreuz Market and Black’s. It has received enthusiastic support from Gov. Greg Abbott, who said in a statement that it will “create good-paying jobs, bolster the state’s power grid, and enhance our technology infrastructure.”

However, data centers threaten to have a detrimental effect on Texas’ energy infrastructure. Data centers, which operate 24/7 and provide computing power for cloud operations and AI, require cooling units, fans and tons of water to operate. They account for almost 2% of overall global energy demand. Indeed, Texas energy demand is projected to nearly double by 2030, mostly thanks to data centers and cryptomining facilities, which account for about 50% of that expected demand.

As President Trump took office in January, he announced that Texas will be a cornerstone of his $500 billion Stargate initiative, with 10 data centers already under construction and 10 more planned. In a panel discussion on energy planning in April, Tom Oney, vice president of external affairs for the Lower Colorado River Authority, warned that data centers were a concern, saying: “The amount of load that’s coming to this area is something that we’re struggling with every day. ERCOT is putting out the alarm bell, and I think it’s right, because there’s not enough wires to move that kind of megawatts.”…  ✅ (READ MORE)

🟪 Trump seeks to boost nuclear industry and overhaul safety regulator (NPR)

President Trump signed a series of executive orders aimed at boosting nuclear power and restructuring the independent Nuclear Regulatory Commission during an Oval Office event on Friday.

"It's time. It's time for nuclear and we're going to do it very big," President Trump told reporters, while flanked by executives from the nuclear industry.

NPR had previously reported on the executive orders, which have been circulating for several weeks.

One order calls for major reforms at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent agency that oversees America's nuclear reactors. The order calls for approvals of new nuclear reactor designs to be completed in no more than 18 months. It also asks the agency to reconsider strict radiation standards that are currently used to ensure safety for workers and the public.

Finally, it would require restructuring of the NRC itself and a wide-ranging revision of regulations to be conducted in conjunction with the White House and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency… ✅ (READ MORE)