What you need to know: The city of Liberty Hill will terminate its contract with Flock Safety and remove all seven city-owned Flock automated license plate reader cameras.

The Liberty Hill City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 9 to end the contract, which was set to automatically renew in October, following public pushback over privacy and data security concerns. Privately owned Flock cameras in the area are not affected by this decision.

Some context: Flock Safety ALPRs photograph passing vehicles and use artificial intelligence to tag the photos with data such as license plate numbers, vehicle color, and make. This data can be searched and shared between law enforcement agencies. Liberty Hill joins other Central Texas governments cutting ties with Flock, including:

• Leander, where the City Council voted to discontinue funding for the cameras.

• Austin, which ended its contract in June.

• Pflugerville, which voted to end its contract on Aug. 25 after an operating system problem allowed unauthorized agencies to access city data.

Dozens of new homes are now available for pre-sale near CR 175 in Leander. The Edgewood community will feature fifty homes across 66 acres, with a grand opening planned for November 2026.

What they're saying: “We see these 50 homesites as an exciting opportunity to introduce Tri Pointe’s premium designs and personalization to buyers within a thoughtfully planned, amenity-rich community while supporting Leander’s continued growth,” Bryan Havel, division president of Tri Pointe Homes Austin, said.

The details: The homes will range from 1,838-2,975 square feet on 50-foot sites. The single-family homes will be one- to two-story with three to five bedrooms.

While the homes are still under construction, a range of amenities already exist in the community. Residents will have access to walking trails, pickleball courts, a pool, a playscape and a basketball court, according to a news release.

Southwest Airlines will open a lounge at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, set to welcome guests in late 2027.

A closer look: The airline also announced on Sept. 2 its first-ever lounges will be built at:

• Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport

• Daniel K. Inouye International Airport

• Nashville International Airport

The lounges, including at Austin, are already under construction, according to a Southwest Airlines news release. The company also plans to build seven more lounges at different airports but did not specify where in the release.

Diving in deeper: ABIA is currently undergoing an expansion to accommodate passenger growth.

In July, airport officials announced that June 2026 was the airport's busiest month ever for passenger traffic, servicing 2,102,853 departing and arriving passengers. Southwest Airlines saw the most passenger traffic that month, with 916,510 passengers served, up 10.9% year over year, according to previous Community Impact reporting.

The Texas comptroller's office is requesting that lawmakers provide more than $2 billion for the second and third years of the state's education savings account program, which gives participating families taxpayer dollars for private education and homeschooling.

How we got here: The legislature created Texas Education Freedom Accounts in 2025 and allocated $1 billion for the program's first year, the 2026-27 school year.

Nearly 110,000 students have received state dollars from the program so far, and officials said providing another $1 billion annually would ensure the state can "maintain our current participation" in the next two years.

Zooming in: According to the comptroller's legislative appropriations request for the 2028-29 biennium, it would cost approximately $4 billion to maintain funding for current participants, accept the siblings of participating children who will soon qualify for the program and admit more than 106,000 waitlisted students.

Something to note: The comptroller's $2 billion base budget request would not fully cover the waitlist and interest list, which would cost nearly $4 billion for the 2027-28 and 2028-29 school years.