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At the Dec. 2 meeting of the Dripping Springs City Council, two resolutions were passed to help the city comply with new state laws that were passed by the Texas Legislature this year.
The first presentation, by city attorney Aniz Alani, covered the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy, which would establish guidelines for the safe and responsible use of AI systems by city employees, contractors, and vendors in accordance with Texas state law.
Alani said that staff would benefit from clear, consistent rules on the matter. The proposed policy aligns with several new laws passed in the 89th Texas Legislature. It establishes a practical governance framework for safe, lawful, transparent AI use, and classifies it in two categories: Regular, for non-critical, assistive tasks; and Heightened scrutiny, when AI is intended to autonomously make or be a controlling factor in consequential decisions.
Alani said that the city does not currently have any AI uses in the second category, nor does it have plans to use AI in that capacity. The policy outlines an oversight structure for the use of AI, and specifies that only AI products that have been explicitly allowed under the policy are permitted. The approved AI platforms follow the template policy that has been prepared by a coalition of cities and include ChatGPT, Copilot, Grok, Gemini and Claude, for example.
Several council members, including Taline Manassian and Travis Crow, expressed concern that AI use was a complicated subject that they didn’t feel equipped to understand fully. However, council members ultimately decided to adopt the policy to bring the city into alignment with state law.
That was also the case with the second policy, which is intended to bring the city into compliance with the Texas Women’s Privacy Act, which went into effect on Dec. 4.
That law requires municipalities to designate certain multiple-occupancy private spaces in buildings they own, operate, or control for use based on sex, and to take reasonable steps to ensure compliance by users.
The state law has been referred to as the bathroom bill. It requires that people use the restrooms, locker rooms and changing rooms that match the sex on their birth certificate. It applies to spaces that are designed to be occupied by more than one person, and in which people may be in a state of undress.
There are exceptions for rendering emergency aid, assisting an elderly person, law enforcement reasons, rendering assistance in preventing a threat, accompanying a child under 9, and maintenance, custodial or inspection issues.
There were questions from council members about how this law is supposed to be enforced within the city, and the council decided to move the item to the agenda for the closed session in order to confer with the city attorney. Upon returning to session, the council approved the policy, which therefore went into effect at the same time as the state law, on Dec. 4.
The other key action taken at the meeting was approval of a petition for voluntary annexation from Cypress Forks Ranch. The approval gives the city staff permission to proceed with the petition. The next step would be a recommendation for zoning that would come before the council on Jan. 27. Then, a public hearing and recommendation would be heard at the Feb. 17 meeting.
Staff recommended approval of the petition, as it aligns with the city’s Conceptual Future Land Use map and would allow the city full enforcement of current tree and landscape ordinances, as well as city taxes and land use controls that do not apply in the Extra Territorial Jurisdiction. Cypress Forks Ranch is a medium density residential development that is intended to have about 18 single family lots, each about half an acre. Annexation would provide municipal services to the area.
