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October 2, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Rep. Doggett says Austin travelers could ‘face challenges’ if government shutdown continues (KXAN)

🟪 Anxious families left with questions ahead of Austin ISD consolidation plan release (CBS Austin)

🟪 Urban Alchemy lays off 109 employees as Austin shelters change hands (KVUE)

🟪 SXSW provides more details about 2026 festival, announces clubhouses (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Texas Comptroller provides rollout details on state’s online education savings account marketplace (Houston Public Media)

🟪 Shutdown enters first full day with no hint either side will give (New York Times)

 🟪 Stephen King is the most banned author in US schools, PEN report says (Associated Press)

READ ON!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ Memo: Austin Government Relations Office – Federal Legislative Update (9.24.2025)

🏛️ City Memo: Short-Term Rental Regulations – Upcoming Action Item (Development Services Department)

🏛️ City Manager Executives and Advisors Staff Visual Chart

🏛️ City of Austin Org Chart (as of July 2025)

💰 2026 City of Austin Bond - Public Input

ℹ️ 2025 Essential Resources for Navigating the City of Austin

[AUSTIN METRO NEWS]

✅ Rep. Doggett says Austin travelers could ‘face challenges’ if government shutdown continues (KXAN)

While Rep. Lloyd Doggett said his top concern right now is the funding standoff between Democrats and Republicans, he also talked to KXAN Wednesday about the possible impacts of the federal government shutdown, specifically on Austin’s airport.

“I think that everyone going to the Austin airport over the next month will face challenges, particularly at times related to Formula 1,” Doggett said. Austin will also have significant air travel in and out of the airport for Austin City Limits Music Festival and University of Texas football games.

As Austin enters its busiest season for air travel, Doggett said issues with air traffic controller staffing at Austin’s airport could get worse.

“We now have only 27 of the 60 air traffic controllers that we are supposed to have, according to the Federal Aviation Administration,” Doggett said. “Those people are working six day a week, mandatory overtime, overworked, understaffed. And if they as essential workers — which they are — continue to serve without pay for an extended period of time, we only need a few of them to not come to work to create a real crisis.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Anxious families left with questions ahead of Austin ISD consolidation plan release (CBS Austin)

Austin ISD is set to release a draft of its consolidation plans on Friday evening, leaving families anxiously awaiting information about potential impacts on their schools.

The consolidation project by the district comes as it faces a $110 million budget deficit this year and has 25,000 empty classroom seats.

Parents worry the solution may be rushed.

"It's very stressful. It's one of the hardest things that I've had to do," said Patrick Rosenthal, a parent to three Austin ISD students. "There's a lack of details. There's a lack of clear communication. And we really don't know what the plans are for our school."

He's one of thousands waiting for Friday at 5:30 p.m., when Superintendent Matias Segura says the district will announce a draft of its consolidation plan… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Urban Alchemy lays off 109 employees as Austin shelters change hands (KVUE)

Nonprofit Urban Alchemy has laid off 109 employees at its two Austin shelters.

According to a notice from the Texas Workforce Commission, Urban Alchemy let go of 55 workers at its ARCH shelter and 54 at its Eighth Street Shelter.

The layoffs took effect on Tuesday, the same day the city's contract with the organization ended over data mishandling allegations.

According to a city memo, Urban Alchemy caught staff mishandling data that goes into the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), and reported it to officials.

The ARCH and the Eight Street Shelter will be taken over by Endeavors, which runs the Marshalling Yard, under an emergency contract.

"We have an obligation to our taxpayers and to our clients to hold our vendors to a very high standard," City of Austin's Homeless Strategy Officer David Gray told KVUE last month. "So when misrepresentations like this happen, the only consequence is for us to allow the contracts to end."… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Coalition launches in East Austin to back Proposition Q tax hike (Austin American-Statesman)

A crowd gathered Tuesday morning under the oak trees at Parque Zaragoza Neighborhood Park in East Austin to launch a coalition supporting Proposition Q, the proposed property tax increase Austin voters will decide on in the Nov. 4 election. The tax increase would generate an estimated $110 million to fund city programs including housing, park maintenance, public health and public safety for the next year.

About 20 members of the new coalition, Care not Cuts — composed of unions, first responders, social workers and community leaders — rallied to call on voters to support Prop Q. 

Brydan Summers, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1624 union, called Prop Q a “labor issue.” 

“We’ve got 4,000 members that work at the city of Austin and these programs that we’ve been talking about today, particularly Austin public health who’s been dramatically affected by the federal funding cuts — those are people’s jobs,” he said. “When you hear about the broader labor movement and the dignity for workers to know that they’re going to have stability in their jobs and go in there and do it everyday and serve the public, this issue is focused on them in a lot of ways.” 

Summers said the organization is volunteer based and has been knocking on doors and talking to voters about supporting Prop Q… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Applied Materials gains local support for trade relief at Austin-area sites amid tariff pressures (Community Impact)

City Council gave the go-ahead this fall to semiconductor manufacturing supplier Applied Materials' request for federal trade policy relief at its Austin-area facilities under foreign trade zone, or FTZ, designations.

“Applied Materials has the largest U.S.-based manufacturing footprint among semiconductor equipment providers, and we have invested more than $400 million in our U.S. manufacturing footprint over the past five years—the majority of which is centered in Austin," a company spokesperson said in a statement. "Establishing a foreign-trade zone in Central Texas will give Applied significant operational efficiencies and make the equipment we build in Texas more competitive globally."

The FTZ program can reduce impacts of tariffs and U.S. Customs fees in designated areas by treating some domestic business operations as if they were offshore, reducing costs that otherwise would be shouldered when importing or exporting goods. Products within FTZs can also be exempted from local or state taxes.

Several companies with an area presence like Samsung Austin Semiconductor and Flex already use the FTZ program. A regional trade zone formed in the 1990s in response to the local tech boom is also in place to work with businesses, local governments, economic entities and federal agencies on the program… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ SXSW provides more details about 2026 festival, announces clubhouses (Austin Business Journal)

More details have emerged regarding how South by Southwest will operate next year as the festival works around the temporary closure of the city’s convention center, which used to serve as the main hub for the tech, music and film festival.

Instead of using the convention center for the heart of its operations, SXSW will use three industry-specific clubhouses to anchor next year’s festivities, which marks the 40th anniversary of the festival. Registration for badges and hotels opened Oct. 1.

The clubhouse locations are:

• Brazos Hall, which will host the Innovation Clubhouse;

• 800 Congress, which will host the Film and TV Clubhouse; and,

• The Downright Austin, which will host the Music Clubhouse.

SXSW also released a map of downtown Austin that highlights other key venues that will host events for the 2026 festival, including:

• Courtyard Marriott;

• Fairmont Austin;

• Hilton Austin;

• JW Marriott;

• The LINE Austin;

• Marriott Downtown; 

• Omni Austin Hotel;

• Paramount Theatre; and,

• Thompson Austin.

Next year's SXSW will be more dispersed than in years past because the Austin Convention Center is undergoing a $1.6 billion redevelopment effort that aims to increase the rentable space at the center by 70%. Plans call for the new, larger convention center to reopen in time for SXSW's 2029 festival… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texas Comptroller provides rollout details on state’s online education savings account marketplace (Houston Public Media)

Acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock recently provided new details about the state's rollout of its new school voucher program during a roundtable at The Imani School, a private school in Houston.

Last May, Governor Greg Abbott signed a $1 billion private school voucher bill into law, which creates education savings accounts (ESAs). These accounts allow parents to use state tax dollars toward costs associated with educating their children outside of Texas’ public school system. The voucher program is scheduled to begin during the 2026-2027 school year.

Hancock said his office is working to create an online marketplace to distribute the ESA funds and facilitate the transactions between families and private education providers.

"The best way we've talked about [it] before is kind of like an Amazon with a list of schools," he said. "Ideally, it'll be very similar to anything, any other transactions they do online."

As far as the timeline for the rollout, Hancock said the website will "be ready to go in January."

The marketplace will also host peripheral services that are eligible for ESA spending and allow private schools and other providers to opt in to the program.

"Everybody — private schools, tutors, therapists, all of them — will be placed on [the website] in the fall," Hancock said… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Shutdown enters first full day with no hint either side will give (New York Times)

The government shut down on Wednesday morning at 12:01 a.m., amid a bitter spending deadlock between President Trump and Democrats in Congress that will disrupt federal services and leave many federal workers furloughed. It was the first federal shutdown since 2019, when parts of the government were shuttered for 35 days in a standoff between congressional Democrats and Mr. Trump over the president’s demand to fund a wall at the southern border. This time, the dispute is over Democrats’ demand that the president agree to extend expiring health care subsidies and restore Medicaid cuts enacted over the summer as part of Mr. Trump’s marquee tax cut and domestic policy law. The shutdown became all but inevitable on Tuesday night after Senate Democrats voted just hours before a midnight deadline to block Republicans’ plan to keep federal funding flowing. In back-to-back Senate votes that reflected how acrimonious the funding dispute has become, each party blocked the other’s stopgap spending proposal, just as they had earlier in the month.

On a 55-to-45 vote, the G.O.P. plan, which would extend funding through Nov. 21, fell short of the 60 needed for passage. Republicans also blocked Democrats’ plan, which would extend funding through the end of October and add more than $1 trillion in health care spending, in a 47-to-53 vote. Shortly afterward, Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, directed agencies in a memo to “execute their plans for an orderly shutdown.”

Senate Republican leaders held the votes as a part of what they promised would be a daily effort to force Democrats to go on the record against extending government funding. “The Democrats’ far-left base and far-left senators have demanded a showdown with the president,” said Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader. “And the Democrat leaders have bowed to their demands. And apparently, the American people just have to suffer the consequences.”

Democrats said they were resolute in their determination to continue the standoff until Republicans relented to their demands, which include the extension of Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as the reversal of cuts to Medicaid and other health programs that Republicans included in the tax cut legislation. “If the president were smart, he’d move heaven and earth to fix this health care crisis right away, because Americans are going to hold him responsible when they start paying $400, $500, $600 a month more on their health insurance,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader. “We have less than a day. If there was ever a moment for Donald Trump and Republicans to get serious about health care, it is now.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Stephen King is the most banned author in US schools, PEN report says (Associated Press)

A new report on book bans in U.S. schools finds Stephen King as the author most likely to be censored and the country divided between states actively restricting works and those attempting to limit or eliminate bans.

PEN America’s “Banned in the USA,” released Wednesday, tracks more than 6,800 instances of books being temporarily or permanently pulled for the 2024-2025 school year. The new number is down from more than 10,000 in 2023-24, but still far above the levels of a few years ago, when PEN didn’t even see the need to compile a report.

Some 80% of those bans originated in just three states that have enacted or attempted to enact laws calling for removal of books deemed objectionable — Florida, Texas and Tennessee. Meanwhile, PEN found little or no instances of removals in several other states, with Illinois, Maryland and New Jersey among those with laws that limit the authority of school and public libraries to pull books… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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