Hutto City Council voted 6-1 on Oct. 1 to authorize City Manager James Earp to send a formal notice to Williamson County Emergency Services District No. 3 stating that newly annexed properties are intended to be covered under a future municipal fire service plan.

Zooming out: Under the Texas Health and Safety Code, cities must notify emergency services districts of their intent to provide fire services in newly annexed areas within 30 days of annexation.

The city recently annexed two properties:

• A retail site at the southwest corner of Limmer Loop and Merger Lane

• The 18.733-acre Hutto Tech and Trade Center

Sending the notice does not obligate the city to implement a fire service plan.

The background: This action follows a May directive for the Hutto Economic Development Corporation to move forward with a new fire station and establish a city-owned fire department.

Snyder said a primary driver for creating a municipal department is capturing local sales tax revenue from large commercial projects and retaining direct control over municipal development approvals.

For more than two decades, Outlaw Paintball has given Central Texas paintballers a place to compete, practice and spend the weekend together.

The background: Outlaw opened in 2003 and is located just east of I-35 on Grand Avenue Parkway.

Owner Debra Shaffer said the site was originally a concrete business that she and her family transitioned into a paintball facility. The 11-acre spot features four courses suitable for players of all ages and abilities.

Fun for the family: Paintball is a competitive sport where players, in teams or individually, eliminate opponents by hitting them with paintballs. Masks are mandatory on the playing field and only paint purchased at the facility may be used. Players may rent gear at Outlaw or bring their own.

The sport is accommodating to all skill levels, and games often feature a diverse group of players, including parents with their children, Shaffer said.

Shaffer said Outlaw prioritizes family-friendly fun and safety.

“One of the challenges is setting up fields that are safe,” Shaffer said. “Our No. 1 thing is, have a good time, but be safe.”

Travis County election staff are working through more than 35,000 voter registration records that the Texas Department of Public Safety failed to send to the county, including some submitted nearly a year ago.

What happened: DPS said in a Sept. 24 statement that a third-party vendor whose software handles the daily batch files to the state updated its software in October 2025, cutting off parts of some records and leaving the state unable to process them.

What voters should know: Registrations count from the day of the DPS transaction, so anyone who registered through DPS on or before Oct. 5 is eligible for the November election even if the county processes the record later, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Anyone missing from the rolls after registering online through DPS can still vote a provisional ballot, which officials will count once they confirm the DPS transaction, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Voters can check their status at votetexas.gov or with Travis County.

Check out six Austin-area stories trending Sept. 28-Oct. 2.

1. Round Rock OKs alcohol sales in The District

2. GFiber breaks ground in Georgetown, plans 2027 service launch

3. Lammes Candies returns under new owners, with holiday preorders open now

4. Bastrop County property tax rate to rise 6.2%

5. 1,000 apartments cleared for MoPac site in Southwest Austin despite Circle C residents' traffic, safety concerns

6. Pflugerville to gain 2 restaurants, plus other business news

Texas school districts using the state-developed Bluebonnet Learning curriculum saw slightly better year-over-year achievement last school year than other districts, according to Texas Education Agency data released Sept. 30.

What's happening: During the 2025-26 school year, 619 of Texas' 1,200 public school districts opted in to implement at least one of the three Bluebonnet curriculum programs—elementary math, secondary math and elementary language arts.

On this spring's State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam, districts using the state-developed math materials saw student improvement that was 0.6 percentage points higher than students in other districts, while districts that implemented the reading materials performed 0.2 percentage points higher on the STAAR than other schools.

What they're saying: The TEA said the gains in student achievement are an "encouraging sign of early progress."

Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, a statewide educator union, disagreed, calling the results "rather paltry."

"It may take a few more years to determine if this is a valid trend or simply an anomaly," Capo said in a statement.