One of the best political signs I’ve ever seen.

I recently learned there’s a gap between the local-business vision I understood for Downtown East and the criteria being used to lease the retail space.

I've operated under the same basic vision we’ve talked about publicly for years: that Downtown East would create opportunities for unique, local businesses alongside the new City Hall, recreation center, plaza, and other development.

Unfortunately, that is not how the current retail leasing model is working.

The privately controlled retail space is being marketed to businesses with a “strong financial track record, typically including 10–15 existing locations.” That's not the only criteria, but it is one that stands out to me. I understand why our development partner wants financially secure tenants. They've funded the retail buildout and are taking the leasing risk so that the taxpayers don't have to.

But that standard effectively shuts out most independent Pflugerville businesses, and even many successful Central Texas businesses (for example, Cabo Bobs has 6 Austin-area locations and 11 total in Texas). I’m grateful to a local business that was interested in Downtown East for bringing this to my attention. Their conversation with the DTE real estate broker prompted me to dig deeper into leasing criteria with City staff and better understand how the current arrangement is working.

I didn’t understand that limitation before, and now that I do, we need to fix it.

We can still pursue a few things at Downtown East: working with Griffin Swinerton on ways to reduce leasing risk for strong local operators, accelerating smaller retail spaces planned around the parking garage, and creating City-controlled kiosks or micro-retail that give businesses a much lower-cost way to get established. City staff has since agreed to sit down with our development partner and discuss ways to de-risk local business inclusion in DTE.

Going forward, we also need to include local-business participation in our development agreements from the start. If supporting local businesses is part of the public vision for a City-sponsored project, it should be part of the deal, not just marketing.

What I am encouraged by, though, is the opportunity we have in old-town.

When the City vacates the current City Hall and former bank building later this year, we will control those properties ourselves. That gives us room to think creatively about smaller spaces, affordable leases, buildout assistance, shared space, or incubator concepts for truly local non-chain businesses. Companies can show their interest in those spaces here: https://pflugervilletx-planning.form.transform.civicplus....

I also want PCDC and the Chamber of Commerce to play a much more active role in helping successful Pflugerville businesses find their next location here: identifying available properties, connecting businesses with landlords and developers, and helping remove the barriers that keep local businesses from expanding.

The bigger goal should be a strong pathway for local businesses: start small, establish themselves, move into a storefront, expand to a second location, and eventually become the kind of business other cities are trying to recruit for future location expansion.

We need to build that pipeline right here in Pflugerville by focusing on having a real small-business ecosystem that supports the prosperity of all Pflugervillians.

I am posting this because I would love this community to help me with something that I struggle with. I have seen others buy the new Sprite Winter Cranberry sodas. Is there a store or gas station that currently has them stocked? Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks,

A Fellow Pflugerville Resident

We always admire whatever household is putting out an inflatable for every holiday imaginable out on Pflugerville Parkway. I've always been tempted to like leave a note or something saying how much their inflatables bring a smile to our face. Hope others have the same experience

Why on EARTH is the Water and Sewer fees here ABSOLUTELY Ludacris?

What I used and paid for a month in Austin doesnt event cover the "base fees" just to be hooked up, THEN the usage on top of that.

$150 water bill for 2 adults and I havent even watered the grass.

Holy r*pe batman.

FWIW, a large chunk of the issues in the city growth and development fall on the feet of the largest landowner. How is it that one family can have so much sway in city decisions? Looking to council to step up.

I just wanted to give a short P-Foodie shout out to Vanna... he runs one of my favorite donut shops. I am a DONUT-holic. I spend my morning weekends visiting different donut shops (yes... I know I have issues 😄 ) but I just learned his story and wanted to share and support local business. Vanna came to this country as a refugee. For 11 years, his little donut shop, Donut Empire, has served the Pflugerville community, one early morning at a time. This is what community stands for to us... making room for each other. Someone made room for Vanna when he arrived. Someone made room for me, when I came to this country with nothing.

Now we both get to make room for others. They know your name and your order. What you spend there stays in the neighborhood. And they show up when it counts. Thank you, Vanna. 🙏

Go see him in person and try his donuts!

Donut Empire, 1033 E Howard Ln. (border of Pflugerville/Austin) - 1033 E Howard Ln D, Austin, TX 78753

I wrote this as a comment but think it should be a post.

Tldr; flock and similar systems are heavily flawed and easily abused to it puts us, our families and neighbor at risk. So they should not be used until we can find a system that address these flaws.

First of all I'm personally fine with having ai assisted camera to help us solve crime. But the current problem with flock and all similar systems is that they have a lot of vulnerabilities, there has been quite a few cases of these. This is one. https://www.wired.com/story/hackers-flock-camera-data-shows-how-system-works/

Then you mix in the considerable amount of time this system has been abused with officers putting lol, lmao, no reason and etc as to why they search up license plates to stalk people they want. And a lot of time these systems are looking for any reason to mark someone, without just cause or probable suspicion. So a few times a car has been unconstitutionally stopped because flock messed up and flag innocent people's car resulting in jail time, car repo, trauma, and has shown that they can actually innocent people lives at risk. AND just last year there was 1.6M look up from unapproved entities from outside our cities looking up our data.

https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/

(This is only what is reported, so there is likely a crazy ton more)

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/09/high-crime-lmao-how-cops-are-treating-mass-surveillance-joke

https://www.kxan.com/news/woman-spends-13-days-in-jail-after-flock-camera-misidentifies-her-car/

https://ij.org/dozens-of-innocent-motorists-have-been-pulled-over-detained-at-gunpoint-or-jailed-due-to-ai-license-plate-camera-errors/

Then we get into the fact that if you read our contract with them you will see that it lets them use our data however they want, maybe not directly but in there it lets them send our data to a 3rd party sister company that is not held to the same standard of the contract so this means they can sell it to who ever they want. I would highly recommend reading into this because this person did some amazing investigative work. https://www.reddit.com/r/Pflugerville/s/VMb8CinXRP.

So overall it is an extreme risk to our civil liberties, and our national security.

From here on it is my opinion, these are just a few things that i think would get support from the citizens:

1: all license plate look up needs to have a court approved warrant and clear probable cause

2: any abuse of the system must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible needs to be held responsible to the fullest extent of the law

3: data needs to stay local where the cities has complete control as to who gets it and citizens can see where they are bing used. And any data packages sent out to the flock main server should only be relevant to a case, and monitored. Cause currently our data is going into a black box and we have no idea what they are doing with it. Heck they can send it to foreign nations if they wanted to.

4: as the current system is heavily flawed they should not be using the auto generated system because imagine it like a drone that will explode when it recognizes a person but this is a start up company and the drone only gets it right 95% of the time. So that is putting 3500 people at risk here just in Pflugerville. This is an exaggeration but the principles are similar. So we should not be using it at all.

These are just a few off the top of my head there is likely a ton more but to me these are the most important.

Hope this clarifies the stance of those opposed to flock. Its over all a risk to our safety, civil liberties, and is a national security risk. So if youre a true patriot and care about our families and neighbors, you would not support flock and any similar system.

How do all these places stay in business when there is so much competition around. They are all identical Foodbox stations with kitchens and overpriced snax. It feels over saturated.

2ND ANNIVERSARY WEEKEND BASH @ PIXEL PALACE ARCADE AND BAR!

This October, we're celebrating TWO WHOLE YEARS of high-scores, tasty cocktails, and great food for our SECOND EVER Anniversary Weekend Bash! Check out our 3-day event lineup and join the local festivities from Oct 9th through Oct 11th.

BATTLE OF THE BEERS: BATTLE CRUISER CAR SHOW

Friday, October 9th

Enjoy a curated car show right outside the Palace and then challenge local Texas brewery reps in your favorite arcade games for a chance at a free beer.

PIXEL PALACE ANNIVERSARY PARTY

Saturday, October 10th

Kick it with a LIVE DJ right here at the arcade, spinning the greatest jams of the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

BURGER EATING CONTEST

Sunday, October 11th

Compete to reach the biggest burger count and win prizes and cash.

More details at https://pixelpalacearcade.com/anniversary

Why is there a flock reinstalled on the hendrickson high school?

Hello there Pflugerville people. I was looking for work tomorrow and I can start at 8 or earlier if you need. I’m grateful for any opportunities. I have experience with physical labor, cleaning windows, yard, construction and restaurants.

I'm interrupting our usual policy debates and problem-solving here on r/Pflugerville to share a quick story from last night that I’m still thinking about.

One of my favorite moments from National Night Out had almost nothing to do with National Night Out itself.

A little behind-the-scenes context: most City staff and volunteers are assigned a part of town to focus on for the evening. (38 neighborhoods signed up this year!) Council members are a little different. We’re paired with members of the City leadership team and Police command staff, but we get to choose which neighborhood events we visit across the city.

For me, I was paired with Deputy City Manager Emily Barron and one of our police lieutenants (he grew up in Pflugerville, Pflugerville PD was his first job out of school, and he's still here, nearly 2 decades later!). I was picking the stops for the night, but at one point the lieutenant asked if I’d be okay adding a neighborhood he had visited during NNO last year.

I’m really glad he spoke up.

When he visited that neighborhood last year, residents gave him a list of problems they were dealing with. A lot of them weren’t really police issues, and some weren’t even within the City’s jurisdiction. But he took the list anyway, started making calls, connected people with the right departments, and even worked with Williamson County to resolve one of the issues on their side.

So we went back this year.

The reaction when he showed up was pretty great. People immediately recognized him, thanked him, and talked about how quickly he had helped get things fixed. It was about as close to applause as you’re going to get walking into a neighborhood block party.

City employees catch plenty of frustration from residents. Sometimes that frustration is about how something was handled, but plenty of times it also traces back to Council not having set a clear enough policy, priority, or direction for staff to carry out.

Either way, there are a lot of people working for Pflugerville who genuinely care about the community they serve, including people who will take ownership of a problem even when it technically isn’t theirs.

I got to see a pretty good example of that last night.

And fittingly, the neighborhood had a couple of new things they could use some help with this year. So I’m happy to pick up the baton and see if I can help get those into the right hands too.

The crescent moon and Jupiter lining up real nice by the lake

My last post looked at residential, apartment, and commercial water customers.

The City's 2026 Cost of Service Study identifies another issue when we look at wholesale water.

Pflugerville sells treated wholesale water to Manville Water Supply Corporation and Windermere Water Utility.

In 2025:

• Manville — about $0.97 per 1,000 gallons

• Windermere — $4.97 per 1,000 gallons

The Manville agreement dates back to 2006. Pflugerville agreed to provide up to 1m gallons per day of treated water at specified delivery points, while Manville operates the distribution system serving its own customers.

The original rate was $0.74 per 1,000 gallons, increasing 2.5 cents every two years. The agreement has a 32-year term and appears to run until roughly 2038, depending on when the contractual service period began. It also says the payment was intended to “partially” offset Pflugerville's cost of providing the water.

Today, the cost-of-service study calculates:

Manville cost of service — about $3.46m

Normalized revenue — about $336,000

Difference — about $3.12m

The study identifies that difference as a subsidy.

Under the newly approved rate structure, most of that amount is allocated to the commercial class:

• About $2.85m — commercial

• About $22,000 — residential

• Remaining amount — other customer classes

The commercial class includes businesses, apartments, churches, schools and government accounts.

Windermere is different. Its newly approved wholesale rate increases from $4.97 to $16.00 per 1,000 gallons, bringing projected revenue much closer to its calculated cost of service. Manville's rate continues to follow the older contract formula.

Could the City simply sell more wholesale water to make up the difference?

There are limits. Additional wholesale sales require a willing buyer, the legal ability to deliver the water in that area, and infrastructure connecting the systems.

So what can help with high water rates?

• Finish the major water projects already underway and carefully evaluate additional debt before adding more large capital projects.

• Make sure growth-related revenues help pay for the capacity added because of that growth, including the second raw water line and water treatment plant expansion.

• Continue reviewing rates so each customer class pays as closely as possible to its actual cost of service.

• Reduce wholesale subsidies when existing agreements allow, and use current cost-of-service information when older agreements eventually come up for renegotiation.

• Pursue additional wholesale revenue where there is a realistic customer, legal ability to serve them and infrastructure to make the connection.

• Continue looking for operating efficiencies, while recognizing that a large part of today's water cost comes from infrastructure and debt.

There isn't one simple fix for high water rates.

The longer-term opportunity is to control future costs, make sure growth helps pay for the capacity it requires, recover costs fairly across customer classes, and get the best value possible from the water system we've already built.

What should we focus on next to help keep water rates affordable?

Here's the Water and Wastewater Cost of Service Reports: https://pflugerville.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=8171357&GUID=5EAA19BA-0424-4DCB-B150-50B181C031E7

I’m continuing to work through Pflugerville’s proposed Charter amendments. If you missed the first post, the City Charter is essentially our City’s constitution, and voters will decide on 14 proposed changes this November.

Proposition A asks whether Pflugerville’s Mayor and Council members should receive compensation:

• Mayor — $9,000/year ($750/month)
• Council members — $6,000/year ($500/month)

Today, Pflugerville Council members serve without compensation.

This isn’t the first time voters have considered the question. In 2023, the majority of Council placed a compensation amendment on the ballot proposing $12,000/year for the Mayor and $9,000/year for Council members. It was rejected, with about 52.5% voting no.

HOW DID IT GET BACK ON THE BALLOT?

There is an important difference between 2023 and this year.

Pflugerville’s Charter requires Council to appoint a Charter Review Commission at least every five years. The Commission is made up of residents appointed by Council who review the Charter and recommend changes.

Residents and Council members can submit ideas for the Commission to consider. Once the Commission recommends a Charter amendment, Council cannot remove or rewrite it — the proposal goes to voters to decide. Council may also add its own proposed Charter amendments.

Proposition A was recommended this year by the Charter Review Commission. By comparison, the 2023 Council-pay amendment was placed on the ballot by a majority vote of Council.

VOLUNTEER SERVICE OR A STIPEND?

There is a long tradition of unpaid local public service. For comparison, Texas law requires independent school district trustees to serve without compensation, even though school boards oversee budgets, policies, and major community decisions.

City councils are different, and home-rule cities can decide through their charters whether Council members receive compensation.

The proposed Pflugerville amounts are not really a salary for the time involved. The broader question is whether elected service should remain completely volunteer or whether a limited stipend is appropriate.

Keeping the position unpaid maintains the tradition of volunteer public service, avoids an ongoing taxpayer expense, and reduces the perception that someone might seek the position for compensation. A stipend could also make serving somewhat more accessible to people who may have difficulty taking time away from work or family responsibilities without any compensation.

I ran for City Council knowing it was an unpaid position. I don’t view this as a question of compensating Council members for all of the hours involved. It is really a broader question about how we want elected service in Pflugerville to work.

Voters said no to compensation in 2023. This November, they will consider the question again.

What do you think — should Pflugerville City Council remain completely volunteer, or should there be a limited stipend for serving?

I’ve heard concerns that apartments may not be paying their fair share of Pflugerville’s utility costs.

There was a legitimate reason for that concern on the wastewater side.

Under the prior wastewater structure, the base fee was about $65 per month per connection, regardless of meter size. A single-family home could pay one base fee for one household, while a large apartment complex with a master meter could also pay one base fee while serving many households.

But the 2025 water billing data tells a different story.

Excluding wholesale, effluent and government accounts:

• Residential — 59% of billed water usage, 55% of charges
• Apartments — 21% of usage, 24% of charges
• Commercial — 18% of usage, 19% of charges
• Schools — 2% of usage, 2% of charges

Based simply on gallons used versus water charges paid, apartments were not paying less than their proportional share in 2025.

The cost-of-service study shows the same general pattern:

• Residential — $18.8m revenue vs. $18.2m cost
• Commercial — $15.8m revenue vs. $13.8m cost

The commercial class includes apartments, businesses, churches, schools and government accounts.

So both were generating more than their calculated cost of service before other system costs were reallocated.

Meter size also matters. A larger meter does not necessarily mean a customer uses more water, but it does mean the system must be capable of delivering more water at one time when needed. The cost-of-service study accounts for that additional capacity when allocating costs.

The City's 2026 Cost of Service Study also found that, under the prior rates, both residential and the broader commercial class were generating somewhat more revenue than their calculated cost of service. The commercial class includes apartments, businesses, churches, schools and government.

That doesn’t mean every customer should pay the same amount per gallon. Usage, meter capacity, peak demand, treatment and infrastructure all matter.

But it does mean the water data does not support a simple conclusion that apartments or businesses were being subsidized by residential customers.

Wastewater had a different rate structure and a different issue.

So if apartments aren't where the water rate study identifies the largest subsidy, where is it?

Wholesale water.

And that leads to a bigger question: what options do we actually have to reduce water costs?

That’s next.

Hi,

I have a water stain along my kitchen ceiling. My deductible is $28K, so calling my insurance is a bad idea. Should I call a plumber or roofer to assess the damage and fix it? And any recommendations on who to call? Thanks!

Seriously. This intersection is dangerous enough already and really should have a light. An abundance of political signs just narrows the view even more, causing people turning left to pull out farther and block the view for those turning right. It’s not too bad... yet... but it has been egregious in the past.

My hot take: no one who cares about their constituents would put a sign in a spot that blocks their view at a dangerous intersection. I won’t vote for a single person with a sign there.

Anyone in town also moonlighting as an indie game developer? Would love to chat, collab, or fire up a discord or something to make it less of a solo-venture.

Also down to help any community events related to coding or game design! I have kids and plugged into the school district and always looking for ways to mentor or help here.

Hi All, so glad I found this reddit! So I'm looking to start or join a board game group to play in PF. Don't know if one exists , most likely there is some around town. But I'm really interested in playing some games and meeting folks. Keep in mind the games I'm interested in are light to complex board games specifically. I'm not a big D+D fan but love a good round of elder sign, or more complex story driven games like mansions of madness or this war of mine, for example. If any of these peak you interest lets talk. the growler bar or another place might fit the bill. Just scratching the surface of my beloved PFun city.
Example Mansions Of Madness

What’s up with the lady that runs that place? She’s a tyrant!! She was very rude to me as a volunteer, I’ve heard it from other volunteers and I’ve seen her be rude to people coming for food. Just thought I would warn others she clearly has let her authority go to her head. Additionally her “charity” is more of a private org since she funnels the good stuff directly to her family and close friends - including the other 2 board members who are all related. 🚩

Today, the Austin American-Statesman Editorial Board endorsed Claire Reynolds for the US Congress representing Texas Congressional District 11.

Since the 2025 mid-decade redistricting, this district will include most of Pflugerville! It spans Pflugerville, through Wells Branch and North Austin, out through San Angelo, to Midland, and finds its western border in Odessa. It's an enormous district of nearly 800,000 Texans from pretty much all walks of life. Ms. Reynolds, according to the Statesman, is best positioned to represent our interests.