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- BG Reads // November 21, 2025
BG Reads // November 21, 2025
A.J. Bingham
November 21, 2025
✅
faustin a
Presented By
www.binghamgp.com
November 21, 2025
✅ Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Austin cuts $95 million from its budget, shrinking funding to parks, homelessness services (KUT)
🟪 Austin ISD approves plan to close 10 schools after hours of public comment (KUT)
🟪 Austin FC announces 2026 MLS Regular Season schedule presented by YETI (Austin FC)
🟪 Austin is mourning the loss of a landmark: The ‘Dazed and Confused’ School (Wall Street Journal)
🟪 Abbott, Republican lawmakers’ comments cited in court order overturning Texas’ congressional gerrymander(Texas Tribune)
🟪 Trump and Zohran Mamdani to meet in the Oval Office (NBC News)
READ ON!
[FIRM NEWS]
Bingham Group is proud to announce the launch of our Land Use & Entitlements Practice, expanding our ability to support clients navigating policy, development and permitting challenges across Central Texas.
The practice is anchored by Senior Consultant Anaiah Johnson, who brings two decades of land development and urban planning experience, including senior leadership at the City of Austin’s Development Services Department and private-sector entitlement management for one of the nation’s largest homebuilders.
For nearly nine years, Bingham Group has represented clients ranging from Central Texas–based firms to national and international companies before municipal governments in the region.
With this new practice, we now provide integrated support across both the political and technical aspects of moving land use policy and development projects forward.
Learn more about Bingham Group’s new practice — and review all of our services here: binghamgp.com/services
[CITY OF AUSTIN]
🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart
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[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]
✅ Austin cuts $95 million from its budget, shrinking funding to parks, homelessness services (KUT)
The Austin City Council cut more than $95 million from its annual budget Thursday night. The changes come after voters earlier this month rejected a property tax rate hike known as Prop Q. Its passage would have generated an additional $110 million. The budget approved by the council in August included those additional dollars.
The cuts include reducing the number of new people the city will hire for park and ground maintenance, along with eliminating additional funding for rapid rehousing beds, homelessness diversion programs and efforts to help people get jobs. The city also had to cut additional dollars that would have gone to emergency rental assistance and additional needs for EMS… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Austin ISD approves plan to close 10 schools after hours of public comment (KUT)
The Austin ISD Board of Trustees voted yes to a highly contentious plan to close 10 schools and make several major programming changes before the 2026-27 school year.
The vote came early Friday morning after months of community meetings and school protests.
Superintendent Matias Segura estimates the plan will generate $21.5 million — eliminating the district’s $19.7 million budget deficit — and reduce the number of "empty seats" in the district by 6,319 from more than 20,000.
“This is difficult, and I wish we didn’t have to do it," Segura said at the meeting. "But the pressures are gargantuan, and without significant change, we will not be the school district that ultimately can protect who we are moving forward.”
The board's vote gives the district the green light to close eight elementary schools — Barrington, Becker, Dawson, Oak Springs, Ridgetop, Sunset Valley, Widén and Winn Montessori — as well as Bedichek and Martin middle schools… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Austin FC announces 2026 MLS Regular Season schedule presented by YETI (Austin FC)
Austin FC announced on Thursday the full 34-match schedule for its 2026 Major League Soccer (MLS) regular season. Austin will kick off its sixth season with its home opener presented by Q2 on Saturday, February 21 at 7:30 p.m. CT against Minnesota United FC. Austin FC’s first road match of 2026 will see the Verde & Black take on Charlotte FC on Saturday, March 7 at Bank of America Stadium.
Austin FC’s schedule will feature 28 total matches against its 14 fellow Western Conference clubs: one (1) home and one (1) away match against every other Western Conference team. The 2026 MLS regular season will conclude on Decision Day, November 7, when Austin will host Portland Timbers. More details on the Audi 2026 MLS Cup Playoffs will be announced at a later date… 🟪 (READ MORE)
[TEXAS/US NEWS]
✅ Abbott, Republican lawmakers’ comments cited in court order overturning Texas’ congressional gerrymander(Texas Tribune)
In mid-August, amid Texas’ high-profile redistricting fight, CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Gov. Greg Abbott on why the state was suddenly redrawing its congressional map.
“You are doing this to give Trump and Republicans in the House of Representatives five additional seats, right?” Tapper asked. “That’s the motivation, is to stave off any midterm election losses.”
Abbott pushed back, citing a recent 5th Circuit ruling that barred Black and Hispanic voters from joining together to bring voting rights lawsuits.
“Again, to be clear, Jake, the reason why we are doing this is because of that court decision,” Abbott said. “Texas is now authorized under law that changed that was different than in 2021 when we last did redistricting.”
This insistence, which Abbott repeated across several news interviews and was initially echoed by Republican lawmakers, is one of the key allegations that led a federal court to this week strike down Texas’ new congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ DNC ‘all in’ for Democrat in Miami mayor race against Trump-backed Republican (Politico)
The Democratic National Committee is sending reinforcements to help elect a Democrat as Miami’s mayor, further nationalizing the race after President Donald Trump endorsed a Republican ally for the job.
Though the position of Miami mayor is nominally nonpartisan, the race is headed to a Dec. 9 runoff between former Miami-Dade County Commissioner Eileen Higgins, a Democrat, and former Miami city manager Emilio González, a Republican. Both emerged as the highest vote-getters among 13 candidates in the Nov. 4 general election, with Higgins finishing almost 17 points ahead of González.
The DNC doesn’t typically get involved in mayoral races, but the announcement comes after high-level wins during off-year elections — and as Democrats have seen some encouraging signs that Hispanic voters are dissatisfied with the GOP given worries about the economy. A win for Higgins would make her Miami’s first Democratic mayor in three decades and its first-ever woman mayor… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Trump and Zohran Mamdani to meet in the Oval Office (NBC News)
Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani will sit down Friday in a highly anticipated meeting between the upstart 34-year-old mayor-elect of New York and a president who sought to kneecap him during the campaign.
The White House and Mamdani’s team worked behind the scenes to secure a session between the two men, who will speak face-to-face for the first time. Trump announced the get-together Wednesday on social media, saying Mamdani, whom he again called a “communist,” would be coming to the Oval Office... 🟪 (READ MORE)
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