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Presented By

September 9, 2025

✅ Today's BG Reads include:

🟪 Austin City Council Work Session @9AM // Agenda + Video Link(ATXN 1)

🟪 2 Austin cultural districts earn state designations (Community Impact)

🟪 Council to vote on stricter licensing, platform rules for short-term rentals (Austin Monitor)

🟪 Abbott expected to issue executive order setting age requirements for THC-products, other restrictions (Texas Tribune)

🟪 Supreme Court lifts restrictions on LA immigration stops set after agents swept up US citizens (Associated Press)

READ ON!

[CITY OF AUSTIN]

🏛️ [NEW] 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]

✅ 2 Austin cultural districts earn state designations (Community Impact)

Two of Austin's cultural districts were officially designated by the Texas Commission on the Arts this month, a potential economic boost that opens the door for the districts and local arts organizations to receive future state grant funding.

Official designations for Austin's Govalle Cultural District and 5th Street Mexican American Heritage Corridor were approved by state arts commissioners Sept. 4.

There are now 57 TCA-recognized cultural districts across Texas, with four in Austin including the two new additions. The districts are meant to stimulate the economy through local business, tourism and civic activity centered around their cultural resources, according to the TCA.

Austin's Mexican-American heritage corridor, locally designated in 2011, runs from Republic Square in western downtown to the Plaza Saltillo area in East Austin. The Govalle district along Springdale Road on the east side was created earlier this year after a City Council vote in June. The two join the Red River Cultural District downtown and the Six Square African American Cultural Heritage District on the east side as Austin's only state-designated cultural areas… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Council to vote on stricter licensing, platform rules for short-term rentals (Austin Monitor)

City Council on Thursday will consider the next steps in short-term rental regulations, which were initiated by a February vote. The proposed ordinance would impose new licensing and eligibility standards, add enforcement mechanisms and expand regulatory obligations for platforms like Airbnb and VRBO.

If approved, the new rules will take effect in two stages, with most provisions implemented Oct. 1. New requirements for short-term rentals would take effect May 1, 2026.

Under the proposed ordinance, STR operators would face new density restrictions and ownership requirements, particularly for properties with three or fewer dwelling units. Individual owners, rather than corporations or partnerships, would be eligible to operate STRs at smaller sites, and no two rentals owned by the same person could be located within 1,000 feet of each other… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ City of Austin to take unauthorized billboard to court (Community Impact)

The city of Austin is pursuing legal action to address what it describes as a “prohibited” billboard placed on Bee Caves Road, near the intersection of River Hills Road.
An Austin Development Services Department representative confirmed Aug. 18 that the billboard’s owners, Media Choice, had not taken the appropriate action required in the city’s notice of violation within 14 days of its issuance July 30.

Consequently, the case was taken to municipal court, the representative said. As of Sept. 5, a court hearing has not yet been scheduled… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ 2025 Austin-San Antonio Growth Summit on horizon (Austin Business Journal)

The booming cities between Austin and San Antonio will be on display soon.

The annual Austin-San Antonio Growth Summit is scheduled to take place over lunch on Oct. 8 in San Marcos. The event typically attracts more than 500 business and civic leaders eager to network and is co-hosted by the Austin and San Antonio business journals.

This year, after a keynote presentation by ABJ Editor Colin Pope, economic development leaders up and down the I-35 corridor will sit down with SABJ Editor Ed Arnold to discuss the economic growth pipeline and how they attract and retain businesses… 🟪 (READ MORE)

[TEXAS/US NEWS]

✅ Abbott expected to issue executive order setting age requirements for THC-products, other restrictions (Texas Tribune)

Gov. Greg Abbott will soon issue an executive order to regulate THC and set a minimum age of 21 to purchase those products in Texas, according to three people who spoke with the governor’s office.

The Legislature’s second special session of the year ended last week after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick announced that the House, the Senate and Abbott would not reach a deal on the matter. Patrick has been dead set on a full ban, but Abbott called for a regulatory framework like one he outlined on page 3 of his Senate Bill 3 veto letter.

At Friday’s camp safety bill signing, reporters asked Abbott whether he would wait till 2027 for a THC bill or call a special session… 🟪 (READ MORE) 

✅ Spurs launch campaign to convince voters to say yes to arena money (San Antonio Express-News)

With less than two months to go before the election, the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday launched their campaign to persuade voters to approve funding for a new $1.3 billion arena downtown. Spurs Sports & Entertainment hosted a rally at Idle Beer Hall & Brewery, about two miles away from where the arena could be built at the former Institute of Texan Cultures site at Hemisfair. Attendees wore shirts stating “A new arena. An expanded rodeo. Good jobs. With no taxes on SA families!” and posed with the Coyote mascot. Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt, former Spurs star Manu Ginobili, local restaurateur Johnny Hernandez, former University of Texas at San Antonio quarterback Frank Harris, San Antonio Stock Show & Rodeo CEO Cody Davenport, and current and former SS&E employees urged voters to back a pair of referendums.

They touted SS&E’s proposed investment in the arena and surrounding area, and using visitor taxes to help pay for it along with renovating the Frost Bank Center, the Freeman Coliseum and the surrounding facilities for the rodeo and coliseum to expand programming. They said they want to ensure the NBA team remains in San Antonio. “Name another small market that has five championships,” Holt said, cupping a hand around his ear. “We want to bring more.” Bexar County residents will weigh in on two separate propositions: whether to raise the county’s taxes on hotel rooms and car rentals to pay for up to $311 million of the Spurs’ arena and to pay for $192 million to renovate the Frost Bank Center and grounds around it. Early voting will take place from Oct. 20-31, with Election Day on Nov. 4.

The county’s portion of the price tag for the arena is the only piece the public will vote on. The remainder of the money would come from the Spurs and the city, according to a non-binding term sheet the San Antonio City Council recently approved with SS&E. The Spurs would contribute at least $500 million to the project and cover any cost overruns. The city would kick in the lesser of either 38% of the cost of the arena or $489 million, and would also pay about $60 million to acquire the former Institute of Texan Cultures site where the arena is slated to be built… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Supreme Court lifts restrictions on LA immigration stops set after agents swept up US citizens (Associated Press)

The Supreme Court on Monday cleared the way for federal agents to conduct sweeping immigration operations for now in Los Angeles, the latest victory for President Donald Trump’s administration at the high court.

The conservative majority lifted a restraining order from a judge who found that roving patrols were conducting indiscriminate stops in and around LA. The order had barred immigration agents from stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.

The court’s 6-3 decision followed a pattern of at least temporarily allowing some of the Republican administration’s harshest policies, while leaving room for the possibility of a different outcome after the legal case plays out fully. The net effect, meanwhile, has Trump pushing ahead in many of the areas he considers most critical.

The majority did not explain its reasoning, as is typical on the court’s emergency docket. But Justice Brett Kavanaugh said the lower-court judge had gone too far in restricting how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents can carry out brief stops for questioning. “The prospect of such after-the-fact judicial second-guessing and contempt proceedings will inevitably chill lawful immigration enforcement efforts,” he wrote in a concurrence… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Republicans brace for redistricting ‘catastrophe’ in California (Politico)

IRepublicans wield almost no power in California. But as a moribund state party gathered here over the weekend, it confronted an even grimmer reality now suddenly settling in: If the state gerrymanders its congressional map, they’ll practically be an endangered species. “It’s a guillotine,” said Dale Quasny, a party delegate and real-estate broker from suburban Los Angeles County.

“We won’t be able to pick up the pieces and move forward. I mean, we were making a little headway, but this would be a catastrophe.” Long locked out of power in Sacramento, one thing that Republicans here and nationally have counted on for years from California was influence in U.S. House races — and the ability to help deliver Republican majorities by winning battleground races in the state’s Central Valley and Orange County.

Now they’re on the brink of losing even that — a consequence of the redistricting wars that could cost the GOP as many as five House seats in California. It is in part the Republican president, Donald Trump, who got them here. The GOP base in the state is as ardently MAGA as anywhere. But it was Trump’s push for a Republican gerrymandering in deep-red Texas that sparked a national battle over redistricting, provoking Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democratic leaders to respond with a Nov. 4 ballot measure to gerrymander California’s lines.

Even Republicans here, while chiding Newsom, were critical of Trump’s redistricting effort. And as rank-and-file members of the GOP gathered in Orange County for their annual convention, the festivities were overshadowed by angst over the consequences of redistricting in a deep-blue state. “I’m certainly frustrated that our party’s leadership has not been more proactive in trying to stop a redistricting war,” said Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose seat in the Sacramento suburbs is at risk of being drawn out of existence. “We shouldn’t be having mid-decade redistricting in any state.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

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