New Braunfels City Council approved a $175,000 professional services agreement with engineering firm Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. to develop a citywide Streets and Utility Design Master Plan on Jan. 26.

The big picture: The agreement authorizes the firm to work with city staff to create a comprehensive plan and establish consistent standards for right of way improvements. The plan will apply to city-led infrastructure projects as well as developments completed through public-private partnerships, according to agenda documents.

The master plan is intended to guide future improvements, such as underground utility conversions, pedestrian enhancements, on-street parking, landscaping, lighting and other streetscape features. Once completed, the master plan will be shared with developers to ensure new projects align with the surrounding area and the city’s long-term infrastructure goals, agenda documents state.

The plan is anticipated to be completed in fall 2026, according to the city.

Beverage shop Texan Tea has plans to open a second New Braunfels location.

What residents should know: Texan Tea will be opening at 2286 Alyssa Way, near the Fischer’s Neighborhood Market gas station that opened in November off Hwy. 46. The business is anticipated to in the spring, according to a Facebook post from Texan Tea.

“Our New Braunfels community is at the heart of everything we do, and we couldn’t be more grateful for this new journey,” the post states.

The context: Texan Tea opened its first New Braunfels location in 2022 at 580 S. Business I-35, according to previous reporting from Community Impact.

The beverage shop offers a variety of specialty teas along with a selection of lemonade.

• 2286 Alyssa Way, New Braunfels

The Comal ISD board of trustees approved academic calendars for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 school years during its Jan. 22 meeting.

What you need to know: All three calendars, the current 2025-26 calendar and the newly approved 2026-27 and 2027-28 calendars, contain the same number of instructional days, instructional minutes and staff development days, Ben Peacock, Comal ISD’s director of secondary leadership, said.

Spring break will fall during the second week of March in both years, aligning with Northeast Lakeview College’s schedule, where several hundred Comal ISD students attend the college for dual-credit coursework, Peacock said during a Dec. 11 meeting.

The details: The new academic calendars were developed with guidance from the Districtwide Educational Improvement Council, or DEIC, a committee made up of teachers, administrators, parents, business leaders and community members. The process began in September to create calendars for two school years at once, providing greater predictability for families and staff, according to board documents.

Three new domestic flights are launching at San Antonio’s international airport as spring approaches.

In case you missed it: San Antonio International Airport, or SAT, announced three new nonstop flights serviced by Breeze Airways in a Jan. 28 news release.

New routes include flights to Raleigh-Durham beginning May 7, Memphis starting on May 8 and Pensacola launching June 10 on a seasonal basis, according to the release.

An additional “one-stop, no-change-of-plane BreezeThru service” will be available for flights connecting from San Antonio to Tampa.

“With these new routes, passengers traveling from SAT have more convenient options than ever to connect with new destinations for business or leisure,” Jesus Saenz, the Director of Airports for the city, said in the release.

Many changes have taken place at SAT over the past year, according to previous reporting by Community Impact.

• 9800 Airport Blvd., San Antonio

The March 3 primary election is coming up, and so is the deadline to register to vote. Eligible Texans must register by Feb. 2 to cast votes in dozens of races, including 18 statewide officials, 38 members of Congress, 166 state legislators and various local seats, such as county judges and commissioners.

How to register: Texans must submit a paper voter registration application by Feb. 2. Applications can be mailed to their county elections office or delivered in-person.

To avoid delivery delays under new federal postmark rules, prospective voters may requests that mailed applications be hand-stamped at a local post office.

The big picture: Texas holds primaries for partisan elected positions at the federal, state, regional and local levels. Republican and Democratic primary voters will have a say in which candidates will represent their chosen political party on the November ballot, shaping who is ultimately elected to each seat.

In recent years, no more than one-fourth of registered Texas voters have cast ballots in primary elections, state data shows.