Presented By

October 28, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Navigating Central Texas Land Use: A New Practice at Bingham Group

🟪 Proposition Q opponents report fundraising, spending advantage ahead of Austin tax rate election (Community Impact)

🟪 Former Austin City Council Member Kathie Tovo is running for Gina Hinojosa's Texas House seat (KUT)

🟪 Local food banks overwhelmed as SNAP funding set to expire amid government shutdown (CBS Austin)

🟪 SNAP cutoff could hurt Texas grocers and the rest of the economy, experts say (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Texas attorney general sues Tylenol company over autism claims (Texas Tribune)

🟪 The Fed is expected to cut interest rates as job market shows signs of weakness (NPR)

🟪 Texas energy policy leaders see a future for batteries in Texas (Dallas Morning 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

🏛️ 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]

✅ Proposition Q opponents report fundraising, spending advantage ahead of Austin tax rate election (Community Impact)

Campaigns against Austin's Proposition Q reported a strong fundraising advantage over supporters of the tax increase ballot measure in the weeks leading up to the November election.

Voters are now considering a city tax rate election, or TRE, that'd increase Austin's property tax rate by 20% to fund a variety of city programs and services. The election is required after City Council passed a fiscal year 2025-26 budget with a tax rate that'd raise more revenue than allowed without voter approval under a state cap on such increases.

If Proposition Q passes Nov. 4, Austin's budget will stand as approved and the typical resident will pay several hundred dollars more in property taxes than last year, based on city estimates. If the ballot measure fails, council members would have to reconvene to reduce the budget based on a lower tax rate that's still about 10% higher than last year's. Regardless of the election outcome, typical utility charges and other city fees are expected to rise in the coming year as well.

Several political action committees, or PACs, are working to support or oppose Proposition Q this fall. Groups already spent tens of thousands of dollars on their campaigns as of late September. And based on new reporting released this week, that activity has ramped up with PACs for and against the proposition spending well over $400,000 in the past month… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Former Austin City Council Member Kathie Tovo is running for Gina Hinojosa's Texas House seat (KUT)

A ground delay at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS) that was issued due to staffing issues has now been lifted.

It comes after flights into the airport were completely grounded earlier in the day.

At 2:43 p.m., the FAA issued a ground stop affecting departures to the airport. Just before 4 p.m., the agency lifted the ground stop and issued a ground delay for most domestic flights into AUS. That ground delay was lifted before 7 p.m… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Local food banks overwhelmed as SNAP funding set to expire amid government shutdown (CBS Austin)

Millions of Americans are wondering how they’ll feed their families this November as funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is set to expire Saturday, leaving more than 40 million people nationwide in limbo.

Here in Central Texas, local food banks are already seeing a surge in demand as families prepare for the pause. Without SNAP benefits, many are now relying on local organizations like the Baptist Community Center Mission, which has been serving Austinites for nearly a century.

“I have savings, but we don't all have that blessing; we don't all have the financial stability,” said a single mother of two living in Pflugerville. “From morning to night, you don't know if, okay, am I even gonna be able to put food on the table?”

Across Texas, more than three and a half million people, from parents to seniors and those with disabilities, are now wondering how they’ll afford groceries next month. 🟪 (READ MORE) 

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ SNAP cutoff could hurt Texas grocers and the rest of the economy, experts say (Texas Tribune)

State Sen. Sarah Eckhardt launched her campaign for Texas’ 10th Congressional District on Monday, saying voters in the district, long held by Republicans, deserve choices.

The Austin Democrat’s announcement comes a month and a half after Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, said he is vacating the Republican-leaning district after more than 20 years in office.

In her launch video, Eckhardt compared the spirit of her campaign to the efforts to build large-scale infrastructure projects in the district, like Lake Livingston and the Mansfield Dam, and the level of cooperation it took the Founding Fathers to create the country.

“We’re not going to agree on everything, but just like those original 13 colonies, we can work together to build things that last as long as Mansfield Dam — not just until the next election cycle,” Eckhardt said.

Eckhardt was elected to the Texas Senate in 2020. She is now serving her second term, which ends in early 2029. This means she won’t have to give up her seat to run for Congress… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas attorney general sues Tylenol company over autism claims (Texas Tribune)

exas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Johnson and Johnson, accusing the pharmaceutical company of failing to warn consumers about the risk of taking Tylenol while pregnant.

This lawsuit, the first of its kind from a state government, comes a month after President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced updated guidance discouraging pregnant women from taking acetaminophen, citing it as a possible cause of autism. The announcement set off a wave of controversy in the health care community, and confusion among pregnant women unsure how they should manage fever and pain during pregnancy.

The science around Tylenol and autism is uncertain. While some studies suggest a correlation between taking Tylenol while pregnant and having a child with autism, others have repudiated those findings. Major medical associations rejected Kennedy and Trump’s claims as overly generalized and potentially harmful… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Texas energy policy leaders see a future for batteries in Texas (Dallas Morning News)

The head of Texas’ electric grid and the state’s top energy regulator said Monday that industrial-scale batteries are still in their early phases, despite rapid growth. The growth of battery storage’s prominence as part of Electric Reliability Council of Texas,the state’s stand-alone power grid, has been nearly unrivaled in the United States. In the past two years, Texas’ capacity to store electricity at large-scale battery stations has almost quadrupled. Industrial-scale batteries can now power at least 3.7 million homes. They are regularly releasing power into the grid during times of high demand and charging up when power demand and prices are low.

Renewable energy advocates see batteries as complementary to weather-dependent wind and solar power, and many battery storage developments are now being built alongside renewable power generation facilities in hopes that together they can provide power 24 hours a day, regardless of whether the sun is shining or the wind is blowing.

The perception of unreliability has been the biggest political headwind for renewable energy. Lawmakers in the Texas Legislature have generally preferred legislative proposals that favor natural gas power plants for their ability to start generating power at the flip of a switch. During the Trump administration, the federal government has also rolled back tax incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act that made it cheaper to build renewables and batteries.

American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet said industry insiders feel when the state Legislature convenes every two years that the industry begins a biennial “fight for our lives” despite batteries’ growth in Texas. ERCOT CEO Pablo Vegas said Monday at a battery storage industry event in Austin that lawmakers’ intentions are “misunderstood.” “It’s grounded in good intentions,” Vegas said, adding that his refrain since he was hired to run ERCOT in the aftermath of the 2021 deadly winter freeze was an all-of-the-above approach to creating more power resources on the grid… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ See what Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and her staff are asking ChatGPT (Houston Chronicle)

As major companies rush to embrace artificial intelligence, Harris County officials have also begun adopting the technology for everything from email editing to policy research. The Houston Chronicle secured ChatGPT queries submitted by employees of Judge Lina Hidalgo’s office between July 1 and Sept. 18 through a records request. The technology has clearly found its place in the judge’s office — staffers queried ChatGPT on everything from policy research to email wording, including one example in which an employee instructed the software to restructure an email to “sound like it was written by a man.” Hidalgo said in a statement that her staff is constantly working to determine how to use the technology to improve efficiency.

“Our office does not rely on artificial intelligence to make policy decisions,” the statement read. “As AI tools continue to develop and become more common, we’re working with our team to implement guidelines and ensure that they’re using the tools effectively and responsibly. We continue to update our AI guidelines as needed.”

While the responses provided by the platform were redacted, the Houston Chronicle found Hidalgo’s staffers used the technology for basic research and copy editing. Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston, said she doesn’t see any issues with government employees using ChatGPT to help iron out kinks in the policy-making process — so long as adequate controls are in place to address potential hallucinations or inaccuracies. “It's the same as AI everywhere; it needs to be checked and double checked,” Sims said.

“So if it can be used to save time and make services more efficient, great, but it still needs to be checked and double checked because you can't rely on it completely.” As with many other educators, Sims has grappled with the rising prevalence of large language models, such as ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, in her classroom. Sims said the technology is really no different than a search engine — it can provide information, leads and context, but it can’t be solely relied on without human oversight… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ An Alzheimer's pill appears to protect some in a high-risk population (KUT)

In April, the future was looking bleak for an experimental Alzheimer's drug called valiltramiprosate, or ALZ-801.

Researchers had just released topline results of a study of more than 300 people age 50 or older, who were genetically predisposed to Alzheimer's. Overall, those who got the drug did no better than those given a placebo.

But in September, a closer look at the results revealed benefits for a subgroup of 125 people who had only mild memory problems when they started taking the drug.

Those participants, initially diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment rather than mild dementia, "showed very meaningful responses," says Dr. Susan Abushakra, chief medical officer of Alzheon, the drug's maker.

By one measure, the drug slowed cognitive decline by 52% in people with mild cognitive impairment. That result appears comparable with benefits from the two Alzheimer's drugs now on the market: lecanemab and donabemab… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump administration shakes up ICE leadership across the country in major overhaul, AP sources say (Associated Press)

The Trump administration is reassigning at least half the top leadership at Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices around the country in a major shake-up of the agency responsible for carrying out the president’s vision for mass deportations, according to one current and one former U.S. government official.

The current official, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity, said 12 ICE field office directors — the officers who run the network of field offices around the country responsible for immigration enforcement — were being reassigned.

Half are to be replaced by existing or retired Customs and Border Protection staff, while the other half would be replaced by ICE officers, both the current and former officials said. The changes were initiated by the Homeland Security Department, the current official said, without specifying which cities were impacted… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ The Fed is expected to cut interest rates as job market shows signs of weakness (NPR)

The Federal Reserve is expected to cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point Wednesday, as policymakers work to shore up the softening job market.

That would be the Fed's second rate cut in six weeks, after holding rates steady for much of the year in an effort to curb stubborn inflation.

Prices are still climbing faster than the central bank would like, but for now, policymakers are more concerned with preventing a big jump in unemployment.

A number of prominent corporations have announced job cuts in recent days. Amazon announced plans to cut 14,000 corporate positions. (Amazon is a financial supporter of NPR and pays to distribute some of our content.) Target said last week it's cutting about 1000 corporate jobs and leaving another 800 jobs unfilled. And the federal government cut about 100,000 jobs in the first eight months of the year, with many more workers expected to drop off the federal payroll in October… 🟪 (READ MORE)

Have comments or questions? 📩 Contact me