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September 29, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin becoming FEMA-approved emergency alert authority, planning 1st test alert (KXAN)

🟪 After heated talks, Austin, firefighters reach a deal on a four-year labor contract (KUT)

🟪 Austin city leaders to hold press conference Monday on Yogurt Shop Murders (KVUE)

🟪 Data centers are thirsty for Texas’ water, but state planners don’t know how much they will need (Texas Tribune)

🟪 San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones blames lack of data for falling short on 100-day agenda (San Antonio Current)

🟪 Trump says he is ordering troops to Portland, escalating domestic use of military (Wall Street Journal)

🟪 Government shutdown draws closer as congressional leaders head to the White House (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]

✅ Austin becoming FEMA-approved emergency alert authority, planning 1st test alert (KXAN)

Austinites will receive a test emergency alert on Monday, Sept. 29, as the city of Austin becomes a FEMA-approved authority that can use the national emergency alert system IPAWS.

IPAWS, which stands for Integrated Public Alert and Warning System, is a federally regulated system that allows jurisdictions to contact the public via cell phone towers, television, and radio without requiring any service subscriptions, according to the city. It’s FEMA’s national system for local alerts that provide authenticated emergency and life-saving information to the public.

IPAWS uses Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) to contact cell phones within a geotargeted area and can send messages to televisions and radio stations via the Emergency Alerts System (EAS).  

According to the city of Austin, only Texas counties could become alerting authorities through FEMA, until recently. Now, more large cities are going through the process of becoming an IPAWS Alerting Authority… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ After heated talks, Austin, firefighters reach a deal on a four-year labor contract (KUT)

The Austin firefighters union has agreed to an 11th-hour deal on a new labor contract with the city.

The agreement late Friday ends a weekslong stalemate after the Austin Firefighters Association rejected of a proposal that it said wouldn't substantially increase wages for its personnel. The AFA agreed to a deal that would raise wages by at least 3 percent over four years. The contract also would eventually reduce firefighters' hours to fewer than 50 per week, a key provision that the city pushed back on.

In a statement, City Manager T.C. Broadnax said the deal is "an important step in the right direction."

“I am pleased we have reached a tentative agreement that invests in our firefighters, ensuring not only pay increases, but also a work schedule that prioritizes firefighter wellness,” Broadnax said.

Austin initially offered a proposal without across-the-board wage increases. That and a disagreement over reducing the number of hours worked per week scuttled discussions after a meeting Sept. 10… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin city leaders to hold press conference Monday on Yogurt Shop Murders (KVUE)

Leaders with the City of Austin and the Austin Police Department are set to hold a press conference on Monday to provide new information about the murder of four girls at a "I Can't Believe It's Yogurt!" shop in North Austin in 1991.

On Friday, Law enforcement sources confirmed to KVUE Senior Reporter Tony Plohetski that the 1991 Yogurt Shop Murders have been solved using genetic genealogy technology. The perpetrator was identified as American serial killer Robert Eugene Brashers, who died by suicide in 1999.

Brashers’ DNA profile has previously been connected to a number of other serious crimes, including a 1990 murder in Greenville, South Carolina; the 1997 rape of a 14-year-old in Memphis; and the 1998 double murder of a woman and her 12-year-old daughter in Missouri.

The press conference is set to start at 10 a.m. Monday morning. KVUE will carry the press conference on all of its platforms… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Data centers are thirsty for Texas’ water, but state planners don’t know how much they will need (Texas Tribune)

Sai Abhideep Pundla has been awake since 3 a.m. After a red-eyed flight from Las Vegas, where he briefed data center company executives and local government officials about the future of artificial intelligence, he’s back in a lab at UT-Arlington, tinkering with a prototype he thinks could solve one of the industry’s biggest challenges: how to keep data centers cool without draining finite water supplies.

Pundla, a doctoral candidate in engineering, is testing a system that cools the computer servers using a recirculating chemical refrigerant instead of water.

It’s a timely innovation. Texas is building dozens of massive data centers — some as large as New York’s Central Park — and experts say they’re expected to guzzle millions of gallons of water a year in a state facing an increasingly urgent water crisis.

Every snap of a photo, message sent, or Google search requires data, which has to go somewhere. That “somewhere” is a data center.

These massive facilities filled with servers that store and process everything we do online keep our digital lives intact. However, keeping all that data takes electricity to power the data centers and cooling systems to keep their equipment from malfunctioning. And both of those require water… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Texas A&M System regents authorize settlement with former president (Texas Tribune)

The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents unanimously voted to authorize a settlement with former Texas A&M University President Mark A. Welsh III during a meeting on Friday.

A system spokesperson said Friday they couldn’t share details of the agreement with Welsh until it was finalized. Chair Robert L. Albritton said the regents had seen the agreement before voting to authorize it.

The vote follows weeks of turbulence at Texas A&M, after state Rep. Brian Harrison posted a video on Sept. 8 that went viral on X of a student confronting a professor over gender-identity content in a children’s literature course. Republican lawmakers called for firings over how the incident was handled… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones blames lack of data for falling short on 100-day agenda (San Antonio Current)

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones marked her first 100 days in office by sending out a statement blaming the city’s lack of quality data for her failure to deliver on key campaign promises she’s pledged to deliver on by now. Friday marked the 100-day milestone for Jones, who promised to bring radical change to City Hall during that time period. Among other things, the former Under Secretary of the Air Force said she’d streamline the approval process for low-income housing projects, develop a home-ownership program for frontline workers and update the city’s Tenant Bill of Rights, according to her mayoral campaign website. She also said she’d boost Pre-K for SA enrollment and hold “corporate landlords and investors accountable for their role in the housing crisis” during her first 100 days.

So far, none of that’s happened. “In exploring solutions on topics like early childhood education, affordable childcare and workforce development, the data is not readily available to inform our decision-making, and by working with City Staff, we can better understand and address these gaps to put plans in place that build a strong foundation across the city,” Jones said in a statement issued Thursday. St. Mary’s University political science professor Art Vega told the Current he can’t say for sure whether the city keeps tabs on those records. However, he said it’s likely a lack of record keeping got in the way. “I wouldn’t be surprised that if that turns out to be the case that [the city] is not capable or doesn’t have the capacity or time to collect that data to help with her agenda,” he added. However, Vega added that the issue more likely hampering Jones’ ability to get stuff done at City Hall is a lack of a voting coalition. “The other part of this is building the agenda among a majority of the council so that she can then move forward with her plans,” Vega said... 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Trump says he is ordering troops to Portland, escalating domestic use of military (Wall Street Journal)

President Trump said he was directing the Pentagon to send troops to Portland, Ore., to protect federal facilities, escalating his push to deploy the military in U.S. cities. Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Saturday he was ordering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to use the military to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he said were “under siege from attack by antifa,” a loose network of antifascist protesters that Trump recently called a terror group. “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary,” Trump wrote, apparently referring to troops’ authority to use weapons.

The announcement was the latest move by Trump to push the boundaries of domestic use of troops, which has triggered fierce legal debate over the armed forces expanding footprint at home. Trump is also using military bases for migrant detention centers and has deployed National Guard troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and on the southern U.S. border.

It wasn’t clear whether Trump was calling for sending National Guard troops or active duty forces to Portland. Their mission, he said, was to “protect War Ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE facilities.” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said Saturday she told Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem that local officers can handle protecting Portland. “There is no insurrection, there is no threat to national security and there is no need for military troops in our major city,” she said at a news conference. A group of Portland residents has protested outside of an ICE building in the city for over 100 days, and their standoffs with federal police have led to arrests of some of the demonstrators. In a memo this week, Trump cited “riots” in Portland as part of growing attacks on ICE agents. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement: “We stand ready to mobilize U.S. military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the President’s direction.”

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement, “The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city. Our nation has a long memory for acts of oppression, and the president won’t find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it.” Wilson, a Democrat, said Friday that the city had seen “a sudden influx of federal agents.”… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Government shutdown draws closer as congressional leaders head to the White House (Associated Press)

Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are heading to the White House for a meeting with President Donald Trump on Monday in a late effort to avoid a government shutdown, but both sides have shown hardly any willingness to budge from their entrenched positions.

If government funding legislation is not passed by Congress and signed by Trump on Tuesday night, many government offices across the nation will be temporarily shuttered and non-exempt federal employees will be furloughed, adding to the strain on workers and the nation’s economy.

Republicans are daring Democrats to vote against legislation that would keep government funding mostly at current levels, but Democrats so far have held firm. They are using one of their few points of leverage to demand that Congress take up legislation to extend health care benefits.

“The meeting is a first step, but only a first step. We need a serious negotiation,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in an interview Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Trump has shown little interest in entertaining Democrats’ demands on health care, even as he agreed to hold a sit-down meeting Monday afternoon with Schumer, along with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries. The Republican president has said repeatedly that he fully expects the government to enter a shutdown this week… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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