The Austin Current

The Austin school district has charged dozens of parents, policy experts, journalists and other members of the public thousands of dollars in the past year for access to government records, raising concerns that the cost of obtaining information could keep residents from understanding how the district makes some of its most consequential decisions.

Less than a year after Austin voters rejected the Proposition Q property tax increase, city leaders are again confronting difficult spending decisions. City Manager T.C. Broadnax on Friday night proposed a $6.6 billion budget for the upcoming fiscal year that calls for cuts to social service contracts, parks and public health programs, eliminates vacant positions across several departments and preserves funding for other priorities as the city continues to balance the budget.

After weeks of public debate and calls for more guardrails on the massive Dog’s Head development, the city seems poised to listen to those asking for assurance that a project that seems to be offering the city a financial lifeline does not harm the environment.

For the first time in more than three decades, Travis County’s southeast Precinct 4 has a new voice on the Commissioners Court. George Morales recently took office after succeeding Margaret Gómez, the county’s longest-serving commissioner, inheriting both a well-established legacy and growing challenges that include infrastructure demands, budget pressures and rapid growth.

For people experiencing homelessness in North Austin, accessing food, shelter or a shower can mean taking the bus to downtown or South Austin. A new navigation center is set to open this summer near the intersection of North Lamar Boulevard and Rundberg Lane. It aims to bring those services to the city’s north side. The project is led by local nonprofit We Can Now. Antony Jackson, the organization’s CEO, still can’t believe this was possible.

For Cori Modisett, the long fall of 1704 Westover Rd. began 19 years ago when she parked in front of the house and saw a rat in the yard dart across the street in broad daylight. Modisett, who lives across the street, watched things grow worse over the years. Rats, raccoons and possums flourished at her neighbor’s home. Paint peeled. Wood rotted. Dead tree branches littered the yard.

A tree-covered lot in northwest Travis County is all that remains of a family home that stood beside Big Sandy Creek for nearly 50 years. Now the land is marked by rocks, patches of wildflowers and lingering debris. “It makes me feel lost,” said Sherry McCutcheon as she walked around the now-unrecognizable plot nearly one year later.

As book bans surge across Texas and the country, Austin’s Library Commission is urging the City Council to take a formal stand against censorship by declaring the city a “Book Safe Harbor,” a move supporters say could strengthen protections for what remains on public library shelves. The proposal lands amid an intensifying political fight over who decides what people, especially children, can read.

For generations, Sir Swante Palm Neighborhood Park has been a gathering place for Mexican American families in East Austin. Now, as the city and Waterloo Greenway Conservancy prepare to revamp it, some residents say a plan to give naming rights to donors threatens to rewrite that history. As the design process continues for the 1.8-acre park south of Third Street downtown, Waterloo Greenway Conservancy says it wants to name 10 features after donors.

The Austin Independent School District is postponing most of its districtwide school boundary realignment changes until the 2028-29 school year. The new plan could include closing more schools in the next couple of years, though which ones is unclear. The district first mentioned a plan to realign attendance zones in 2025, but it was postponed after community pushback.