Austin, TX
From Ames to Austin, Barnes Continues Spurs’ Giving Back Tradition
AUSTIN, Texas — For Harrison Barnes, “Home Club” is the Boys & Girls Clubs of Story County in Ames, Iowa. The winters are cold, the population is small and the basketball courts once left much to be desired.
The latter changed in June 2025 after the Club’s $7 million expansion was completed to increase capacity and better serve children in the ninth-largest town in Iowa. Barnes’ name isn’t on that court, but it’s been on several others.
The latest? The outdoor court at the Boys & Girls Home Club on the Sheth Family Campus in Austin, roughly 100 miles Northeast from the San Antonio Spurs’ home at Frost Bank Center.
“This is significantly nicer than anything I had growing up,” Barnes said Wednesday to the Club Kids sitting in clumps awaiting their chance to be the first to play on it. “I hope you guys appreciate that.”
Judging by their smiles, they did.
Shortly after Barnes cut the ribbon to officially open the Harrison and Brittany Barnes Community Fund court, kids lined up on both ends to participate in shooting drills with the 6-foot-8 veteran and the Spurs Coyote.
They missed often. Barnes used to, as well, as a former Club Kid himself. It’s what has kept him coming back to Boys & Girls Clubs across the country since being drafted to the NBA in 2012.
“I’ve been in their shoes,” Barnes said. “To be able to, all these years later, come back to Boys & Girls Clubs in different markets that I’ve played in and give back, it (makes) me smile.”
Since joining the Golden State Warriors as a rookie, Barnes has made his rounds with the Boys & Girls Club. From 2014 to 2024, the forward served on the board of trustees for the Club in Oakland.
Once he and his wife, Brittany, got married in the summer following Barnes’ first season with the Mavericks, the pair began donating to Clubs in Oakland, Dallas and Sacramento through their community fund.
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Despite being only one season into his tenure with the Spurs, Barnes added both San Antonio and Austin to that list. To him, continuing a long-standing Spurs tradition was of utmost importance.
“The Spurs are synonymous with their community,” Barnes said, “whether it’s Austin or San Antonio. Continuing that tradition of being a Spurs player and giving back is important to me.”
The City of Ames once celebrated “Harrison Barnes Day.”
July 13, 2015 came just under a month after Barnes won his only NBA championship with the Warriors and nine days after he played the role of Grand Marshall for his hometown’s Fourth of July Parade.
But Barnes did plenty more than win to deserve the honor.
Barnes first left Ames in 2010 bound for Chapel Hill, N.C. as a top recruit for then-North Carolina coach Roy Williams’ Tar Heels. The forward was a two-time state champion and the centerpiece of Ames High School’s Little Cyclones along with eventual Spur Doug McDermott.
Back then, visits from Fred Hoiberg were a big deal. Barnes still recalls the moment he first met the Iowa State Cyclones legend, coincidentally at the Story County Boys & Girls Club.
“It’s kind of funny how that all came full circle,” he said.
Barnes made it through the ranks at North Carolina before becoming a top-10 selection for the Warriors. Behind Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, Golden State made the playoffs in each of the four seasons he was there and went on to face LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers in The Finals twice.
It paid off the first time; Barnes and the Warriors fell short of a repeat championship in 2016. Still, Ames remained at Barnes’ core. It was where he first picked up basketball.
“That was my first indoor court,” he said. “It was a safe space.”
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Ten years after he left the 65,000-person town, Barnes helped finance a new high school gym for the Little Cyclones, complete with new jerseys. He led the team to a 56-game win streak in his latter two seasons, marking the first 4-A program in the state to go undefeated in consecutive seasons, and surpassed Hoiberg on the team’s all-time points list.
Barnes also made the All-State First Team, earned the Gatorade Player of the Year Honor in 2009-10 and was named Mr. Basketball in Iowa.
Fittingly, Ames High School now features the Harrison Barnes Gymnasium and Court, where Barnes regularly hosts basketball camps. At times, he’ll see kids from the local Boys & Girls Club. Those are his favorite.
“I’m a living example of the happiness and success that our young people can achieve when they’re supported and cared for,” Barnes said. “I wouldn’t be here, not only without the Boys & Girls Club, but without all the people that helped me and poured into me.”
“When you see the success of someone like Harrison, for the kids, it’s: ‘I can do that, too,’” Austin Area Boys & Girls Club CEO Zenae Campbell added. “At the club, we’re able to nurture that … that’s what we want to instill.”
Harrison Barnes wasn’t granted a chance to speak on the side of the NBA he’s become acclimated to several times throughout his career.
With his Spurs inching toward contention, several big-name NBA stars have expressed, even preliminarily, some level of interest in joining Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio. Barnes’ sizable contract puts him on the short list of players to be re-routed.
That was the least of his concerns Wednesday morning.
“Basketball has taken me all over the world,” Barnes said, conversely. “It’s allowed me to live my childhood dreams … (and) to have people to help me get there? That’s what my wife and I aim to do. We want to give back.”
Barnes launched a refurbishment initiative with the Spurs upon being traded to the team in the deal that landed DeMar DeRozan in Sacramento. He started in San Antonio, refurbishing a court at the Guadalupe Community Center in March, before doing the same in Austin with a plan to round out the process later this month at Plaza Mirasierra Spurs in Saltillo, Mexico.
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His time spent in Austin was a continuation of the Spurs’ ongoing pursuit of a market expansion to the Texas capital, headlined by an annual pair of games at The University of Texas’ Moody Center.
“There’s a lot of teams that claim to want to meet the fans where they are,” Spurs SVP of Strategic Growth Brandon James said. “We are sort of a living testimony of truly doing that.”
With the Coyote in attendance, Barnes brought the Spurs to Austin. He noticed no difference in support between the parent city and its secondary home.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to play for great franchises and programs in college,” Barnes began, “but the Spurs’ fan base is different. It’s predicated on the history and culture of the team on the court, but also off the court.”
As unique as the fan base is, the Spurs feel similarly toward Barnes.
“I’ve never seen anybody like him,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said of the veteran. “We talk a lot about him being a mentor and a vet … (but we need to talk about) how he carries himself off the court and the way he’s impacted this community and city in such a short time.”
That goes for San Antonio and Austin.
“Harrison,” Spurs CEO R.C. Buford said. “You … since you came into our program, have been such a model for what a great teammate, a great community leader, a great hero (looks like).”
A photo of Barnes waiting for Hoiberg’s autograph still exists at the Story County Boys & Girls Club. Barnes is wearing an old jersey, excited to meet a man he saw as a living legend. In front of several young Spurs fans Wednesday, he became that legend.
Perhaps now Austin’s “Home Club” has something for its walls, too.
“You can see what the club means to him,” Campbell said. “It’s still so real and so important to his upbringing. To have an opportunity to do something he loves, and for that to come to fruition is amazing.”
AUSTIN, Texas — Self-driving cars have become a common sight on Austin streets, but a new Texas law is adding tougher requirements for the companies behind the wheelless vehicles.
Senate Bill 2807 imposes stricter rules on autonomous vehicle companies operating in the state, including state authorization, emergency response plans for law enforcement, and a public portal where residents can verify operators and file safety complaints.
The changes come as Austin continues to track incidents involving autonomous vehicles. The city’s autonomous vehicle dashboard shows 75 incidents in 2026, including a collision, eight near misses, and seven incidents of ignoring police direction.
Attorney Drew Gibbs, a partner at Slingshot Law, said one crash involved a Waymo vehicle.
“There was a T-bone collision. A pretty serious T-bone collision where a Waymo just crashed into the side of my client’s vehicle,” Gibbs said.
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KEYE
One of the incidents of ignoring police direction happened during the mass shooting on West Sixth Street back in March, when three people died, and 15 others were injured.
Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock said autonomous vehicles can struggle in unusual situations.
“It didn’t impede on anything in the moment, but it’s not necessarily uncommon where these vehicles don’t quite know how to deal with these one-off scenarios,” Bullock said.
The new law requires autonomous vehicle companies to be authorized by the state, to provide an emergency response plan for law enforcement, and to participate in a public-facing portal that allows the public to verify operators and submit safety complaints.
Kara Kockelman, a professor of transportation and engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, welcomed the added oversight.
“I’m glad that the state is taking this a bit more seriously now,” she said. “It’s important not to just let others slip in without kind of meeting those basic minimums.”
Bullock said the emergency planning requirement may not make a major difference in fast-moving situations. Asked how impactful it is to have a fully laid out emergency response plan, Bullock said, “These plans are great, but it takes time to work through all of those versus the immediacy of having someone behind the wheel.”
The four autonomous vehicle companies operating in Austin — Waymo, Zoox, AV-Ride, and Tesla — are all state-authorized.
The Texas DMV said an autonomous vehicle company can lose its authorization to operate in Texas if the agency deems the vehicles are operating in a way that endangers public safety.
Waymo was contacted for comment, but had not responded.
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson said Tuesday she will leave the post next month.
What we know:
In a statement, Nelson said her resignation will be effective July 17 but did not provide a reason for the departure.
“It has been an honor to serve the people of Texas in this role,” Nelson said. “My time as Secretary came at an important moment for Texas, and I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish as an agency in under four years.”
Nelson has served in the role since 2023.
Among other things, the Secretary of State oversees elections and business filings in the state and serves as the chief diplomat of Texas.
View of Texas State Senator Jane Nelson, during the 80th Texas Legislature, on the floor of the Senate at the Texas State Capitol, Austin, Texas, January 22, 2007. (John Anderson/The Austin Chronicle / Getty Images)
What they’re saying:
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott described Nelson as extraordinary.
“I am deeply grateful for her long and loyal service and outstanding leadership. She has represented our state with grace and honor across the globe, and Texas is better because of it,” Abbott said. “Cecilia and I wish her all the best in the next chapter of her distinguished career.”
Dig deeper:
According to the Secretary of State’s office, Nelson has presided over seven statewide elections during her tenure with a cumulative 27 million ballots cast and broke a record with more than 3 million active business filers.
Nelson also served three decades in the Texas Senate, where she remains the longest-serving Republican in state history.
The Source: Information in this story came from the Texas Secretary of State’s office.
Michael Dorman
Austin, Texas, is revving up to sell $2.35 billion of debt for a convention center and a wastewater treatment plant, while a legal battle continues over bonds to help finance a light rail system.
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The bond boom comes as the city council voted on Thursday to pursue the development of a $390 million baseline general obligation bond package for the November ballot despite a call by Mayor Kirk Watson to wait until 2028.
“I believe we can and we should bring forward significant investments in the future,” he said. “In fact, if we restore compliance with our financial policies and we maintain the discipline we actually will have greater future capacity to do more for this community in 2028.”
A bond election would
The city, which last held a successful GO bond election in 2022 for $350 million of debt for affordable housing, had $1.03 billion of unissued voter-approved GO bond authorization as of the Sept. 30 end of fiscal 2025. Last year,
On Thursday, the city council signed off on a $34.5 million wrongful prosecution and conviction settlement with four individuals to be financed through the sale of non-voter-approved GO bonds.
The council approved up to $1.35 billion of special tax revenue bonds on May 21 for a $1.6 billion project to replace the city’s now-demolished convention center with a facility that will increase rentable event space to 620,000 square feet from 365,000 square feet.
Rich Saskal
The bonds are backed with revenue from certain city hotel occupancy taxes and incremental state tax revenue generated within a project finance zone the city established in 2024. Amounts and timings for issuing the debt are being determined, according to the city, which filed a petition with a Travis County District Court for an expedited validation of the bonds.
An ordinance approved in October
The city also plans to refund hotel occupancy tax-backed debt issued for the prior convention center in order to pledge a 4.5% hotel tax for the upcoming bonds.
“The refunding bonds are a separate, but related item to the expansion bonds and will only be secured by 2% venue HOT,” city documents said. “The 2% venue HOT will not be pledged to the expansion bonds and will cease to be collected upon final maturity or early payoff of (the refunding bonds).”
A petition drive that would have delayed the project fell 494 signatures short of a requirement for 20,000 valid signatures of registered voters, Austin City Clerk Erika Brady determined in November.
Petition backers are appealing a district court’s refusal to force validation in state appellate court after the Texas Supreme Court dismissed
The petition drive by Austin United PAC and others sought a ballot measure to stop the demolition and reconstruction of the convention center for seven years — or until the project was approved by voters — and prioritize city funding for local live music, arts, cultural, and outdoor tourism.
The Austin City Council also approved as much as $1 billion of water and wastewater system revenue bonds last month for the Walnut Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion and enhancement project. The bonds will be used to obtain a direct low-interest loan from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act program.
Other financing sources for the $1.5 billion project are $59 million from the Texas Water Development Board Clean Water State Revolving Fund program and funding from Austin Water.
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The plant, which serves more than 50% of Austin and operates at a treatment capacity of 75 million gallons per day, will have its capacity increased to 100 MGD, helping meet future demand and requirements set by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for Austin’s projected growth of 1.5 million by 2040, according to a city statement.
A legal logjam over a light rail system eased May 22 when the Texas Supreme Court finally ruled on a procedural issue related to an initial $150 million of bonds for the project. The high court ordered a Travis County Court judge to decide whether the bonds’ issuer, the Austin Transit Partnership, a nonprofit corporation created by the city and Capital Metro Transportation Authority, has standing to seek court validation for the debt.
City taxpayers who filed a lawsuit in 2023, along with the Texas Attorney General’s Office have been challenging the legality of the bonds, which would be paid off with a portion of Austin’s operation and maintenance property taxes
Escalating costs led ATP to downsize Project Connect to an initial less than 10-mile, 15-station system with a similar price tag. The completion of a federal environmental review in January allowed the project to continue a process
ATP said Project Connect is moving forward with construction scheduled to begin next year.
“We are confident in our case and look forward to our day in court,” ATP said in a statement. “The pending litigation has not slowed our progress advancing Austin light rail, which has hit major milestones in the federal funding process, design, and pre-construction work this year.”
Bill Aleshire, an attorney who filed the taxpayers’ lawsuit, cautioned that several issues remain before the court, including the legality of the downsized project and the ability to pay off bonds with property tax revenue that is supposed to be used for operations.
“Their federal funding is uncertain, their ability to issue bonds is uncertain, and they just stubbornly will not listen to us and say it’s time to pause Project Connect and rethink it, that maybe rail isn’t the best way to go at this time and maybe we can’t afford it at this time,” he said.
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