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- BG Reads // October 27, 2025
BG Reads // October 27, 2025
A.J. Bingham
October 27, 2025
faustin a
Presented By
www.binghamgp.com
October 27, 2025
✅ Today's BG Reads include:
🟪 Early voting has started for the Nov. 4 election. Here's what to know for the Austin area. (KUT)
🟪 Business leaders wary of Prop Q passing (Austin Business Journal)
🟪 How Austin and Houston take radically different approaches to taxes (Austin American-Statesman)
🟪 Round Rock council approves downtown zoning overhaul to allow taller buildings (Community Impact)
🟪 After scrapped deal, Midway calls experience with Hutto 'disappointing' (Austin Business Journal)
🟪 Erosion issues persist in Zilker Park amid limited resources (Austin Monitor)
🟪 SNAP benefits will run out soon, impacting millions of Texas residents as shutdown drags on (CBS News)
🟪 More first-generation students in Texas are applying for college (Texas Tribune)
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]
✅ Early voting has started for the Nov. 4 election. Here's what to know for the Austin area. (KUT)
Voters across the Austin area will decide on funding for city services, some mayoral and city council races, and — along with the rest of the state — changes to the Texas Constitution.
Here's what you need to know about when, where and how to vote.
Austinites will get to vote on Proposition Q, a proposed tax rate increase funding a variety of city programs that has faced controversy and a lawsuit in the months leading up to the election.
Voters will also get to weigh in on 17 constitutional amendments that cover property taxes, bail, water infrastructure, dementia research funding and more. Here's our guide to the proposed amendments and how they would affect the state.
KUT has put together voter guides for Travis and Williamson counties with more detailed information and links to sample ballots:
✅ Business leaders wary of Prop Q passing (Austin Business Journal)
As Austin voters decide whether to back the City Council’s request to raise taxes to maintain city services, business groups are coming out against the proposed tax increase over affordability concerns.
Austinites will vote to raise property taxes by 5 cents per $100 valuation, which is being called Proposition Q, on the November ballot. The Austin City Council called for the tax rate election in August to support a $6.3 billion budget.
Many businesses and advocacy groups in Austin have signed a letter that opposes Prop Q over concerns that it would help make Austin unaffordable for residents and businesses.
“Increasing the cost of living in Austin won’t just harm our existing residents and businesses; it will also impact our ability to attract new economic engines,” said the letter. “It is imperative that Austin remains a good place to do business, and an affordable tax structure is crucial to being economically competitive.”
The groups that signed the letter include: the Austin Regional Manufacturers Association, Opportunity Austin, the Austin Chamber of Commerce, Austin Technology Council, Real Estate Council of Austin, Austin Apartment Association, Central Texas Public Safety Commission and Building Owners and Managers Association of Austin.
If property taxes increase, property owners will either eat the increased costs or pass them along to their tenants, likely resulting in higher rents for both residents and businesses. Early voting for Prop Q started on Oct. 20, and election day is Nov. 4… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ How Austin and Houston take radically different approaches to taxes (Austin American-Statesman)
By many measures, Austin and Houston could not be more different.
Austin is smaller, wealthier and more homogenous; Houston is twice the size, far more diverse and working-class. It also operates under a strong-mayor system, giving Whitmire sweeping authority over the budget and city operations.
Austin, by contrast, has a council–city manager form of government, meaning City Manager T.C. Broadnax — rather than Mayor Kirk Watson — has significant control over Austin’s financial approach. While Watson can champion policy goals, it’s Broadnax who translates them into fiscal reality.
“Austin and Houston are very different cities,” Broadnax said in a statement sent in response to questions about the different fiscal approaches.
Still, one could argue the cities are mirror images: fast-growing, left-leaning metropolises grappling with affordability and infrastructure strain.
Both are led by longtime Democratic politicians who know each other well: Whitmire and Watson served for years together in the Texas Senate before retiring to govern their respective hometowns, where they’ve struggled to balance progressive ideals with financial and political realities.
Both cities are perpetually in the crosshairs of the Republican-dominated Legislature, which has in recent years taken extraordinary measures to both rein in local property taxes and curb the influence of the state’s Democratic-leaning cities.
One of the most consequential moves came in 2019 in the form of a cap on local property tax revenues – a measure that now defines local budget debates across Texas. The policy says that cities can’t raise property tax revenue more than 3.5% a year without going directly to voters, turning each tax election into a political minefield.
For Austin, the cap is in large part what made Prop Q necessary. For Houston, it’s one reason Whitmire has resisted revenue hikes, knowing he’d need voter consent to exceed the cap anyway.
“Over the last several years, Austin has focused on managing rising costs as we deal with the impacts of the state-imposed 3.5% revenue cap,” Broadnax said in his statement… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Round Rock council approves downtown zoning overhaul to allow taller buildings (Community Impact)
Round Rock City Council approved an update to the city’s downtown zoning and development rules Oct. 23, marking the first major overhaul in nearly a decade.
Council passed all four ordinance changes to rezone 114 parcels across downtown, allowing for taller buildings in certain areas. Along May Street and Round Rock Avenue, buildings can now go up to 8-stories tall; and up to 12 stories tall on property along I-35.
Buildings at this height will be required to include privately-owned public spaces, such as a plazas and courtyards.
Additionally, new bars within the historic core of the downtown area are prohibited, while bed and breakfasts are now allowed… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ AG Ken Paxton investigates Austin Prop Q donations, claims 'potentially illegal fundraising scheme' (KUT)
Attorney General Ken Paxton is investigating nonprofit Foundation Communities and Love Austin Political Action Committee over what he called a “potentially illegal fundraising scheme" to pass Proposition Q.
Prop Q is the city of Austin tax increase measure currently before voters that would generate $110 million for public safety, parks, and homelessness services.
Campaign finance records show Foundation Communities, which provides affordable housing along with educational, health care and financial services to low-income residents, has donated $75,000 to the PAC so far.
Paxton said the donations were a “sham” and “could be illegal.”
“Every nonprofit, including Foundation Communities, that is unlawfully contributing to an effort to squeeze more taxes out of Texans must immediately stop,” Paxton said in a statement. “We will determine if there is an illegal scheme where organizations that are funded by the government pour money into raising the tax rate in return for potential future benefits.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ After scrapped deal, Midway calls experience with Hutto 'disappointing' (Austin Business Journal)
Bradley Freels, CEO and chairman of Houston-based Midway Companies LLC, recently fired back at Hutto after the city's economic development board ended a nearly two year-long negotiation with the company to develop the 250-acre Cottonwood tract, calling the experience "disappointing."
The Oct. 15 letter, obtained by the Austin Business Journal, marks the company's first public comments after the Hutto Economic Development Corp. board voted unanimously earlier this month to cease negotiations with Midway. The developer was picked in December 2023 to turn the site at U.S. Highway 79 and County Road 132 into a major mixed-use project, potentially with a grocery store, restaurants, entertainment options, parkland and space for city facilities.
Mayor Mike Snyder, who is a member of the EDC board, announced the decision on social media and reiterated comments in an interview with the ABJ, in which he primarily referenced concerns about the lack of the progress on the development as the reason for the vote.
Freels wrote in his letter that it was intended to respond to Snyder, as his comments "could potentially harm Midway's reputation," adding that "Midway is deeply disappointed by our experience with the city of Hutto."
"In an environment where policymakers appear to rewrite rules for personal reasons, we feel it is our responsibility to clarify information that is misleading so the community can make informed decisions. We share this not to seek anything in return but to emphasize that transparency and 'good faith' is crucial in what is effectively a public/private partnership," Freels wrote… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Erosion issues persist in Zilker Park amid limited resources (Austin Monitor)
In August of 2023, after three years of planning and many thousands of dollars, City Council was forced to scrap its comprehensive Zilker Park Vision Plan, amid a bitter battle waged by detractors and the park’s surrounding residents. But the million or so visitors to the park have not flagged in the years since, and many of the issues identified with the vision plan have only persisted: principally, severe erosion stemming from overflow parking and recreational trail use.
“It’s not lost on any of us — especially those of us up here that know some of the issues in the park that have been there over the years — that those will need to be addressed at some point,” said Council Member Paige Ellis in a meeting of Council’s Climate, Water, and Parks Committee last week. Austin’s Parks and Recreation (PARD) and Watershed Protection departments presented a slew of projects aimed at mitigating that erosion, but warned that they lack the necessary funding.
“Our current plans, in terms of short- and midterm efforts, are a lighter touch and doing what we can with the limited resources we have,” explained Janna Renfro, managing engineer with watershed protection. She added that PARD and Watershed Protection have a “limited ability to make larger term plans and decisions about the area,” so the plan is “keeping with the maintenance and making improvements within those constraints that we have.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)
[TEXAS/US NEWS]
✅ SNAP benefits will run out soon, impacting millions of Texas residents as shutdown drags on (CBS News)
The ongoing government shutdown is now the second-longest in history. It will become the longest on record on Day 36, which would be Nov. 5, unless enough Senate Democrats join Republicans in voting to reopen the government.
About 730,000 federal employees are working without pay, including TSA agents at airports and air traffic controllers. About 670,000 other federal employees have been furloughed, meaning they are not working and not being paid.
If the shutdown continues past Oct. 27, funding for the SNAP food assistance program will run out in Texas, meaning benefits will not be provided for November. That will impact 3.5 million Texans, including 1.7 million children, which reportedly translates to $614 million.
"It shouldn't be that you've got to go in your pocket later to get cash that's going to short your bill and go, 'one bill won't get paid today,' just to make sure your children and you have food," said Articia Jackson, a mother who uses a food pantry… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Kate Rogers out, Hope Andrade in at Alamo Trust after call for resignation (San Antonio Express News)
Former Texas Secretary of State Hope Andrade has been named president and CEO of the Alamo Trust, one day after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for the resignation of Kate Rogers from the post. Rogers resigned Thursday after Patrick called for her ouster with a $550 million makeover of the historic site fully under construction. Patrick complained that Rogers had a “totally different view of how the history of the Alamo should be told.” Reporters trying to reach Rogers by email Friday morning received an automatic reply that “Kate Rogers is no longer at Alamo Trust, Inc.” It referred people to two others on the staff for assistance.
The Alamo Trust met Friday to discuss next steps for the site and announced late Friday that Andrade would replace Rogers as president and CEO. Andrade, who has served on the Alamo Trust board, will step down from that volunteer position.
Patrick drew a rebuke from local leaders and praise from the boss of the state office that oversees the Alamo. The city of San Antonio is a major partner in the Alamo project, having invested $38 million, while leasing about 1.4 acres of right-of way to the state in and around Alamo Plaza. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said Rogers has been a model leader at the Alamo. “The Alamo Trust was well-served by Dr. Rogers for many years, and this is a huge loss for our state. The courage to tell the varied experiences of those at the Alamo — not pandering to certain people — should drive how we help the next generation learn about this historic site,” Jones said.
Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, who is Japanese American, called Patrick’s demands for the resignation “gross political interference.” “The next thing you know, they will be denying Japanese internment,” Sakai said in a statement, referring to U.S. confinement of Japanese Americans and others at camps in Texas and nationwide during World War II. “We need to get politics out of our teaching of history. Period… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ More first-generation students in Texas are applying for college (Texas Tribune)
In recent years, Texas has received national attention for being one of the first states to ban all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in colleges and for ending in-state tuition rates for undocumented students. At the same time, the state has seen the number of first-generation college applicants more than triple in the last five years. Many of them are Hispanic.
After a 2023 state law banned DEI initiatives, providing tailored services to first-generation students became one of the few legal ways that colleges can offer special support to students from marginalized groups.
College enrollment dropped in the years after the pandemic amid worries from young people about high tuition rates, housing costs and student debt. But in Texas, the ranks of first-gen college applicants are steadily increasing because of concerted state efforts to get them to see college as an affordable possibility, experts say… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Trump says he will raise tariffs on Canada by 10% over Ontario ad (Wall Street Journal)
The U.S. will impose an additional 10% tariff on Canada, President Trump said on Saturday, a punitive measure in response to an ad campaign that he said misrepresented comments by former President Ronald Reagan. “Because of their serious misrepresentation of the facts, and hostile act, I am increasing the Tariff on Canada by 10% over and above what they are paying now,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
The ad campaign, released by the Canadian province of Ontario, uses audio from a 1987 radio address delivered by Reagan, in which he explains that despite putting tariffs on Japanese semiconductors that year, he was committed to free-trade policies. While tariffs can look patriotic, Reagan said, “over the long run such trade barriers hurt every American worker and consumer,” lead to “fierce trade wars” and result in lost jobs.
Trump had threatened to cut off trade talks with Canada on Thursday over the ad, claiming it misrepresents Reagan’s comments, and was being used to influence the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of a hearing on the administration’s tariffs next month. In response, Ontario Premier Doug Ford said that he would call off the campaign, effective Monday.
But the ad still ran on Friday night during the first game of the World Series—a fact Trump noted in his Saturday post, saying that the ad “was to be taken down, IMMEDIATELY.” U.S. tariffs on Canada currently stand at 35%, with energy products at 10%, but goods that comply with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, are carved-out of the duties, meaning that about 85% of Canadian exports to the U.S. come in tariff-free. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has removed most of the retaliatory tariffs that his predecessor Justin Trudeau imposed.
The White House didn’t respond to a question on when the new tariffs take effect, if USMCA-compliant goods would be exempted on the additional levies, and what authority the U.S. is using to impose these tariffs. “As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we stand ready to build on the progress made in constructive discussions with American counterparts over the course of recent weeks,” said Canada’s minister in charge of Canada-U.S. trade, Dominic LeBlanc, in a post on X… 🟪 (READ MORE)
✅ Nation’s biggest law firms back off from challenging Trump policies (Washington Post)
The largest law firms in the United States have been far less likely to challenge President Donald Trump’s policies than they were during his first term, and smaller firms are carrying much more of the burden of high-stakes legal challenges, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.
Large firms represented plaintiffs in 15 percent of cases challenging Trump executive orders between the start of his term in January and mid-September, compared with roughly 75 percent of cases during a comparable period in Trump’s first term, The Post found.
The analysis examined civil complaints and court records from legal research website CourtListener mentioning Trump and the term “executive order” for each time period. The shift by large firms has put a significant extra burden on small- and medium-sized firms. They have taken on more of the workload in the nearly 400 lawsuits filed between January and mid-September, according to The Post’s analysis. Trump signed more than 200 executive orders in that time period, well above the count from the first eight months of his first term. Some of his executive orders this spring targeted major law firms.
The Post’s analysis was largely based on reviews of court records and interviews with attorneys who have litigation experience challenging government actions. The disputes examined in the analysis covered issues including dismissal of federal employees, health benefits, education resources and immigration. In some cases, firms whose resources were stretched thin and whose lawyers became worn out have turned down clients facing life-changing issues tied to Trump’s policies.
Firms such as the Baltimore outfit Brown, Goldstein & Levy, with about 20 attorneys, aren’t equipped to assist the deluge of people who say they have been harmed by the administration’s directives, said Eve Hill, a partner.
“They beg us,” said Hill, who represents people with disabilities suing the government over cuts to the Social Security Administration. “They say, ‘I’m going to lose my job and my home. … I’m going to lose my family.’” Not only are fewer cases being brought by large firms, the biggest firms also make up a reduced share of those getting involved in litigation against the government. Nearly 90 percent of firms suing the government during Trump’s second term through mid-September employ fewer than 500 lawyers, an increase in small- and medium-sized law office involvement from 60 percent during the same stretch of the president’s first term… 🟪 (READ MORE)
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