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September 25, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 City of Austin rolling out new AI system, speeding up zoning review process for developers (KXAN)

🟪 A fresh look at Austin's next big music venue (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Austin Police North Metro Tactical Unit announces 19 arrested in two-month operation (KXAN)

🟪 Number of evictions in Travis County on track to surpass 2024’s record (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Texas teachers, parents fear STAAR overhaul won’t take testing pressure off kids (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Trump administration rehires hundreds of federal employees laid off by DOGE (Associated Press)

🟪 White House budget office tells agencies to draft mass firing plans ahead of potential shutdown (Associated Press)

READ ON!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ Austin City Council Agenda - September 25, 2025 // Livestream (ATXN1)

🏛️ Memo: Austin’s Downtown Homeless Shelters - September 15, 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]

✅ City of Austin rolling out new AI system, speeding up zoning review process for developers (KXAN)

The City of Austin is launching a new AI tool next week in hopes of expediting the zoning review process for residential developers.

The city’s Development Services Department is partnering with Archistar for the AI pre-check beta test.

“This is a cutting-edge artificial intelligence tool that will enhance our review process for residential building plans, improving your experience as an applicant,” the City of Austin Development Services Department said in a memo to stakeholders. “During this beta phase, we will work with a small group of applicants within Expedited Residential Building Plan Review to gather feedback and integrate Pre-Check into our intake process.”

Beginning Sept. 30, city staff said they will reach out to applicants who have projects that would be a good fit for pre-check. Applicants will submit their plans through Archistar’s web form, and the pre-check AI tool will begin its review process… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ A fresh look at Austin's next big music venue (Austin Business Journal)

Austin’s next big music venue is set to make its debut in 2027 as part of a major mixed-use development's first phase. 

Located at the northwest corner of East Riverside Drive and Crossing Place, the River Park mixed-use development may yield 10 million square feet of multifamily units, office, retail and entertainment venues on 109 acres. River Park's developers, Dallas-based Presidium Group LLC and Switzerland-based Partners Group, was set to break ground on Sept. 24 on the project's first phase, and a 4,400-person-capacity music venue from AEG Presents is the first building rising there. 

Check out some fresh renderings of the venue below. It is being built by Rogers-O’Brien Construction.

AEG’s music venue will be 65,000 square feet. With its 4,000-person capacity, the venue will be among Austin’s largest. For reference, the ACL Live theater has a 2,750-person capacity. The venue could open as soon as the first quarter of 2027, according to previous reporting.

River Park's first phase will include about 1.2 million square feet of development in total, broken into four parcels. One will have 426 multifamily units; another will have 214 units plus about 10,000 square feet of retail space; a third will have 312 multifamily units with about 10,000 square feet for retail; and a fourth will be home to the entertainment venue with about 7,000 square feet of retail space, the developers have said previously… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin Police North Metro Tactical Unit announces 19 arrested in two-month operation (KXAN)

The Austin Police Department’s North Metro Tactical Unit said Wednesday afternoon that it made 19 arrests as part of an “extensive investigation” into “high-crime areas,” according to an APD press release.

Those areas “garnered a reputation for open-air drug markets,” APD said. Six of the seven areas were “drug-free zones” under the Texas Health and Safety Code, which means that they were within 1,000 feet of schools, youth centers and/or playgrounds.

The APD press release said that the unit made arrests at:

• 1800 Colony Creek Dr.

• 900 Rutland Dr.

• 800 W Rundberg Ln.

• Manor Rd. & Rogge Ln.

• 6800 Berkman Dr.

• East St. Johns Ave. & N I-35

• Georgian Dr. & Jennifer Ln.

• 889 Wilks Ave

“These hotspots have been characterized by continuous loitering and the sale of various illicit narcotics, fostering an environment prone to multiple criminal activities,” the release reads. “Historically, these locations have been linked to offenses such as assaults, thefts, robberies, weapon-related crimes, prostitution, vandalism, and disturbances that detrimentally affect the quality of life for local residents.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Number of evictions in Travis County on track to surpass 2024’s record (Austin Monitor)

In 2024, there were 13,210 eviction filings in Travis County, the highest ever. And, in just the first three months of this year, there had already been 10,545 filings, compared to 9,305 during that time span last year, meaning the county is on track to surpass last year’s numbers… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin firefighters and the city can't come to an agreement on a labor contract (KUT)

The city of Austin’s deadline to OK a labor contract with the Austin Fire Department is coming up fast, but contract negotiations are at a standstill.

Talks broke down earlier this month, when the city rolled out an offer to the Austin Firefighters Association. The union balked at the offer, arguing it didn't give any across-the-board wage increases to firefighters, and walked away from the bargaining table. Talks will continue this week.

Ron DeLord, an attorney who is representing AFA, called the city’s offer insulting, given the raises it has given to police and EMS employees over the past few years.

"The city has been very good to the police and very good to EMS and treated them with respect," DeLord said at the Sept. 10 meeting. "This is not a respectful offer."

EMS staff saw pay increases starting at 4% starting in 2023 after they negotiated their most recent contract. The Austin Police Department nabbed a 28% raise over five years in its labor talks last year… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Texas teachers, parents fear STAAR overhaul won’t take testing pressure off kids (Texas Tribune)

Texas public school administrators, parents and education experts worry that a new law to replace the state's standardized test could potentially increase student stress and the amount of time they spend taking tests, instead of reducing it.

The new law comes amid criticism that the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, creates too much stress for students and devotes too much instructional time to the test. The updated system aims to ease the pressure of a single exam by replacing STAAR with three shorter tests, which will be administered at the beginning, middle and end of the year. It will also ban practice tests, which Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said can take up weeks of instruction time and aren’t proven to help students do better on the standardized test. But some parents and teachers worry the changes won’t go far enough and that three tests will triple the pressure.

The law also calls for the TEA to study how to reduce the weight testing carries on the state’s annual school accountability ratings — which STAAR critics say is one reason why the test is so stressful and absorbs so much learning time — and create a way for the results of the three new tests to be factored into the ratings.

That report is not due until the 2029-30 school year, and the TEA is not required to implement those findings. Some worry the new law will mean schools’ ratings will continue to heavily depend on the results from the end-of-year test, while requiring students to start taking three exams. In other words: same pressure, more testing… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Trump administration rehires hundreds of federal employees laid off by DOGE (Associated Press)

Hundreds of federal employees who lost their jobs in Elon Musk’s cost-cutting blitz are being asked to return to work.

The General Services Administration has given the employees — who managed government workspaces — until the end of the week to accept or decline reinstatement, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Those who accept must report for duty on Oct. 6 after what amounts to a seven-month paid vacation, during which time the GSA in some cases racked up high costs — passed along to taxpayers — to stay in dozens of properties whose leases it had slated for termination or were allowed to expire.

“Ultimately, the outcome was the agency was left broken and understaffed,” said Chad Becker, a former GSA real estate official. “They didn’t have the people they needed to carry out basic functions.”

Becker, who represents owners with government leases at Arco Real Estate Solutions, said GSA has been in a “triage mode” for months. He said the sudden reversal of the downsizing reflects how Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency had gone too far, too fast… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ White House budget office tells agencies to draft mass firing plans ahead of potential shutdown (Associated Press)

The White House is telling agencies to prepare large-scale firings of federal workers if the government shuts down next week.

In a memo released Wednesday night, the Office of Management and Budget said agencies should consider a reduction in force for federal programs whose funding would lapse next week, is not otherwise funded and is “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

That would be a much more aggressive step than in previous shutdowns, when federal workers not deemed essential were furloughed but returned to their jobs once Congress approved government spending.

A reduction in force would not only lay off employees but eliminate their positions, which would trigger yet another massive upheaval in a federal workforce that has already faced major rounds of cuts this year due to efforts from the Department of Government Efficiency and elsewhere in the Trump administration… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

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