Bastrop ISD's board of trustees will not see turnover in the 2026 election cycle, candidate filings show. 

What you need to know: Only Place 3 trustee Josh Coy and Place 4 trustee Priscilla Ruiz submitted applications to appear on the ballot for the board race before the deadline Feb. 13. No other applications were submitted, according to the district. 

What's next? With no challengers having filed, the district will not hold an election, Evan Moilan, BISD's executive director of communications, confirmed. 

The Capital Area Rural Transportation System will launch two new regional commuter bus routes March 2, offering express service to downtown Austin.

One route will serve Bastrop and Smithville, while the other will have stops in Georgetown and Round Rock.

Learn more: The rides will be free for a limited time, according to a city of Georgetown news release. The service is funded by Austin’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grant program, supported by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The new routes are intended to relieve heavy traffic on Hwy. 7, Hwy. 290 and I-35, the news release states.

What they’re saying: “These routes are about getting cars off the road and giving people a smarter way to commute,” CARTS General Manager Dave Marsh said. “One bus can replace dozens of single-occupancy vehicles. If you’re tired of sitting in traffic, this is your exit ramp.”

City voters won't consider a measure aimed at stopping the Austin Convention Center redevelopment and reallocating associated tourism tax revenue this spring, although the group behind the proposal is now working to call an election on the issue this fall.

The details: The $1.6 billion project has received pushback from a group seeking to halt construction. The Austin United PAC's effort to have voters weigh in on the project stalled out in court this year.

Some context: A PAC petition campaign last year sought to halt the old convention center's demolition through an election. After the city rejected the PAC's petition in the fall, the group sued in an attempt to overturn that decision and force a May vote on the convention center project.

After a two-day trial in January, a district court judge sided with the city, and the PAC's proposed ordinance was left off the ballot as of the Feb. 13 filing deadline. The group now says it'll restart its efforts in an attempt to land a similar measure on the November ballot.

During an arctic blast last month, the Texas power grid remained stable throughout the storm and the state came away largely unscathed. The Lone Star State has not seen widespread blackouts since February 2021, when millions of Texans lost power and nearly 250 people died.

The response: In Uri’s wake, state lawmakers and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas made changes to restructure ERCOT’s governing board, mandate earlier public alerts during tight grid conditions and require that energy providers “weatherize” their facilities to withstand extremely hot or cold temperatures.

Roughly 40,000 megawatts of power—enough to serve about 10 million residential customers—have been added to the grid since 2021 and the state’s energy supply has become more diverse.

Looking ahead: State leaders have expressed confidence that the grid would hold up during “a storm similar to Uri.” Yet some energy analysts caution that rapidly rising electric demand, driven by the construction of new data centers throughout Texas, means challenges may still lie ahead.