From the team behind Bella Sera of Leander, a new Italian restaurant has opened in Cedar Park, Tutta Bella. A representative of the company confirmed the new concept has been open for a little more than a week.

A closer look: The restaurant serves a selection of traditional Italian dishes, including appetizers such as fresh-fried calamari, minestrone soup, mussels marinara, bruschetta and fresh burrata.

The menu includes home-baked pasta dishes such as lasagna, manicotti stuffed with ricotta and mozzarella, baked ziti, cheese ravioli and baked tortellini. Other pasta favorites include short rigatoni Venice with alla panna sauce and burrata cheese, fettuccine Alfredo, fettuccine with mixed vegetables and mushrooms, and gnocchi with Bolognese sauce.

Tutta Bella also offers an extensive selection of wine available by the glass or bottle.

Quote of note: “Italian cooking, generous pours and an evening made to linger with the people you love,” the company’s website states.

• 1310 Cypress Creek Road, Ste., 120, Cedar Park

The new Marriott Hotel and Conference Center next door to NFM and Scheels in north Cedar Park is set to open in April, director of Sales and Marketing Stephanie Shives said.

The details: The hotel, which will be located in the new CedarView development, will have 197 rooms, Shives said. Of those rooms, 17 will be suites.

The conference center will total 30,000 square feet and will feature a variety of meeting rooms and ballrooms, with the largest ballroom being almost 10,000 square feet, she said.

Shives said Marriott chose the location due to a combination of factors, including the tourism that NFM and Scheels are expected to bring and the growing business community in Cedar Park.

“We can really cater to all different kinds of business,” she said. “You have your business travelers, but you also have your youth sports and with this being right in the heart of the CedarView development, there's going to be a ton of foot traffic between Scheels and [NFM] and the restaurants and other retail concepts that are going to be coming to CedarView.”

Travis County Commissioners Court approved Central Health's $650 million fiscal year 2026-27 operating budget Sept. 15, including $127.5 million for crisis and recovery mental healthcare with $54 million in new investments.

The breakdown: New funding includes $33.1 million for 22 inpatient psychiatric beds and 10 psychiatric emergency department bays, $16 million for a new Mental Health Crisis Care Center, and smaller allocations for jail-based health support, an expanded crisis care team and medication access.

The budget also carries a tax rate of $0.132863 per $100 valuation, raising the median homeowner's bill by about $36 a year.

What's next: The new psychiatric beds could open within months, while the standalone crisis center is years away. Austin City Council is expected to receive a briefing on the related No Wrong Door initiative during its Oct. 6 work session.

Texas does not have a single system to connect first responders in emergencies, meaning local and state agencies often operate on a network of radio systems that are not always compatible with one another.

The big picture: State leaders said there are more than 50 different radio systems used by first responder agencies across Texas.

"We have situations where counties and cities are on separate ones, and they never know it until they have to [communicate with] each other," state Rep. Ken King, R-Canadian, said during a Sept. 14 legislative hearing.

Looking ahead: King has vowed to pass a bill to integrate first responder communications under a statewide system during the 2027 legislative session, with some emergency management experts calling interagency communications "the No. 1 issue" in the aftermath of disasters.

"[This] is not simply a communication issue—it's a responder safety issue and an operational effectiveness issue," said Kyle Mills, head of planning and preparedness for the Texas A&M Forest Service.