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Texas Republican leaders previously shunned Bo French for his racist social media posts. Now they want him to regulate the state’s oil and gas industries.
The Austin City Council voted in May to annex a 2,600-acre site in the eastern part of the city. City leaders had planned the Dog’s Head development for months, but neighbors nearby only had a few days to make their voices heard about those plans.
What happens to the dead animals the city picks up on the roads here in Austin? In the latest from our ATXplained project, we meet some of the people handling that service with care.
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The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Texas Republican leaders previously shunned a man for his racist social media posts, now they want him to regulate the state’s oil and gas industries, the reason for that reversal. And Austin City Council voted in May to annex a 2,600 acre site in the eastern part of the city. Plans were made for the development for months, but neighbors nearby only had a few days to make their voices heard about those plans. We’re going to tell you more about those stories that’s coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:35] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:40] Plus, what happens to the dead animals the city picks up on the roads here in Austin? The question was asked of our ATXplain project and the answer is probably what you’d expect. But today, we’re gonna meet some of the people handling that service with care. We’ve got plenty more coming up next, right here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there. Thank you for tuning in to Austin Signal. It is Monday, June 8th. I’m your host Jerry Kehannel. Thank for making us part of your day. This brings some of the biggest voices in Texas Republican politics lined up to oppose Beau French in his bid to join the Texas Railroad Commission. That’s the state agency that, despite its name, regulates Texas oil and gas. French had become popular in right-wing circles with his racist and anti-Muslim social media posts, but He also alienated people like Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott, who just last month said French would, quote, wreck Texas oil production. Now, after his primary victory, those same GOP critics have backed him enthusiastically in the general election. KUT’s Moe’s Bouchelle reports on how the electorate and the industry may respond.
Mose Buchele [00:01:59] The last time a railroad commissioner faced a serious political challenge was in 2022. That’s when Sarah Stogner, a lawyer from the Permian Basin, launched an insurgent primary campaign against incumbent Republican Wayne Christian. Writing a wave of discontent over abandoned oil wells and groundwater contamination, Stogmer shocked many by forcing Christian into a primary runoff. She says it was only then that her campaign hired political consultants.
Sarah Stogner [00:02:28] Those consultants, they told me, okay, you need to be talking about the wall. You need to talking about abortion. You need be talking about the hot button topics at the time. And I said, absolutely not.
Mose Buchele [00:02:39] Instead, she kept hammering her opponent on issues related to oil and gas, and she lost the runoff by 30 percentage points.
Sarah Stogner [00:02:47] If I’d talked about maybe abortion in the wall, I might’ve had a better shot.
Mose Buchele [00:02:51] Stagner, now a district attorney in West Texas, shared the story to explain the victory of Beau French, former chair of the Tarrant County GOP over incumbent commissioner Jim Wright in this year’s primary. Unlike her, French made his campaign almost exclusively about hot-button culture war issues, ginning up outrage and media attention with racist and xenophobic pronouncements often on social media. Some examples. He believes that the US should, quote, round up every Muslim and send them home. He has called a group of Native Americans, quote third world savages, and said that they should be deported too. And then there was this one
News Reporter [00:03:33] Some of Texas Republican party leaders are denouncing Tarrant County GOP chairman Beau French after his recent post on X that polled users who posed a bigger threat to the United States, Jews or Muslims.
Mose Buchele [00:03:45] That last tweet prompted Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick to call for French’s resignation from party leadership. Not only did Patrick and Governor Greg Abbott endorse French’s opponent, Jim Wright, in the primary, so too did some big oil companies and the Texas Oil and Gas Association PAC, the political action committee of the state’s biggest oil industry lobbying group. None of it stopped French from winning. Cal Jillson is a political scientist at Southern Methodist University. He says It all has to do with who votes in primary runoffs.
Cal Jillson [00:04:18] Republican turnout was 7.4, so it boils down.
Mose Buchele [00:04:23] Even a more deeply.
Cal Jillson [00:04:25] MAGA Republican.
Mose Buchele [00:04:28] But Jilson says French’s extreme politics may become a liability in the general election. One person betting on that is his democratic opponent.
Cal Jillson [00:04:38] I’m John Rosenthal. I’m currently the Texas State Representative for House District 135 in Northwest Houston.
Mose Buchele [00:04:45] Rosenthal says he entered this race to highlight the vulnerability of the state’s gas supply system in big winter storms, like the kind that caused the 2021 blackout. He was expecting to run against the incumbent in the general election, and he had a plan for that.
Cal Jillson [00:05:01] And I was gonna hit him on self-dealing and having conflicts of interest in the industry.
Mose Buchele [00:05:06] Beau French’s upset victory changed those plans, but Rosenthal thinks it’s also brought an opportunity.
Cal Jillson [00:05:13] You know, in an environment where normally the lobby and big business will line up with an incumbent. In this case, it becomes an open seat race and I can buy for that support.
Mose Buchele [00:05:23] To do that, he has a message for people in the oil business. His Republican opponents’ politics are not just offensive, they are, echoing the words of Governor Abbott just a few weeks ago, a threat to energy production in Texas.
Cal Jillson [00:05:39] All be good for business. For someone to run on an Islamophobic platform where they’re going after companies just because part of their ownership is from the Middle East, that’s bad for business
Mose Buchele [00:05:49] French, whose campaign did not respond to an interview request, has his own allies in the world of Texas oil. Funding for much of his primary campaign came from two wealthy independent oil men, Tim Dunn and Ferris Wilkes, who put big money behind him through their right-wing political action committee. According to a report by Inside Climate News, that funding was not just about culture war politics, it was also about waste pit regulation. Tim Dunn opposes rules recently passed by the Commission for overseeing those pits and funded French’s campaign in part to get them overturned.
Tim Dunn [00:06:26] Well, I would look to roll back some of those regulations that just went into effect last July.
Mose Buchele [00:06:30] Here’s Beau French taking a break from the culture wars to talk about waste pits with KLTV and Tyler last month.
Tim Dunn [00:06:38] A lot of people I know in the oil industry are upset about these new rules and so I would look to work with my industry friends and partners and figure out how we can right size these in a way so that it’s fair for everybody in the business.
Mose Buchele [00:06:49] Dunne and Wilk’s political action committee did not respond to requests for comment, but Cal Jillson, the SMU political analyst, says he expects more industry backing for French, especially from those Texas independent firms, which tend to be more conservative and anti-regulation than the oil majors.
Speaker 8 [00:07:06] As long as he stays out of the way and does not become a distraction and embarrassment.
Mose Buchele [00:07:16] A source at the Texas Oil and Gas Association told KUT News that the group’s political action committee will be looking at endorsements for the fall race later this year, while prominent Texas Republicans who once opposed both French, like Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Patrick, have already thrown their support behind him. Of course, it’s the voters who will decide in November. Sarah Stogner, who ran for railroad commission in 2022, does not expect a lot of enthusiasm for French. And his brand of politics in the general election.
Sarah Stogner [00:07:49] I personally know a lot of lifelong Republicans that are just not going to cast a ballot.
Mose Buchele [00:07:54] While she ran as a Republican four years ago, she says she now plans to vote for Democrat John Rosenthal. In Austin, I’m Mo’s Boucher.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:11] Austin City Council voted in late May to annex a 2,600-acre site in east Austin known as Dogshead. The plan is to develop the former industrial site into a mixed-use development, but neighbors say they were given little notice about that vote. Andrea Ball is a Growth Development Reporter for Austin Current. Andrea, welcome back to the show.
Andrea Ball [00:08:31] Thank you for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:32] So tell us a little bit about the plan for this dog’s head development. Who is involved and what is eventually planned for this piece of land?
Andrea Ball [00:08:40] So Dog’s Head is called Dog’s head because it looks like a dog’s head. It’s 2,600 acres in Southeast Austin along the Colorado River and near the airport. It’s a project being developed by Endeavor, which is, you know, they are the folks who did the domain. Recently, the owners of the property decided they wanted to be annexed into the city of Austin, which would ensure them water services, wastewater service, whatever they need kind of thing. Um, and ordinarily, um, people find out things, uh, about these coming projects earlier in the process, not necessarily through the city, but you know, an, an advocacy group finds out, somebody finds out something and.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:22] Somebody in the community.
Andrea Ball [00:09:24] Somebody in the community, whatever, and they decide they want to talk about it, but that didn’t happen in this situation.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:31] Uh, since we don’t know exactly yet what is going to be put at this dog’s head development, why is the city so interested in developing the land?
Andrea Ball [00:09:38] Oh gosh, we need to broaden our tax base. Essentially the state put a cap on property taxes so they can’t generate more money that way. We are no longer getting federal money that was used for COVID relief money. So that has, have we seen in other ways played out so that you don’t have that money. And so one of the ways that we can get a better source of money is to. Go out and take the ETJs, you know, the parts of the city that are not actually in the city limits and adopt them if they are so willing to be adopted.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:19] OK, well, let’s talk about the pushback from neighbors in the area. What did the residents tell you about this process?
Andrea Ball [00:10:26] So these people live maybe quarter of a mile from like the end of dog’s head or these people live very close. They’re already in the city. Okay. And so they weren’t being annexed. They were already there, but they did not know from anybody, they never received any kind of notice that there would be a hearing to annex dog’s had and to enshrine certain uses of that property that the city would determine at a particular meeting. They found out through a friend who happened to be looking at the agenda or whatever. The thing is they never had to be notified. That’s not how it works. So essentially the city did what it was supposed to do. It posted on the website, it posted a notice in the Austin American Statesman. It notified the local Del Valle school district, Travis County, and some emergency services group. That’s what they have to do and they did do it. The question in these situations become, what is legal, what is right, and what is being done for expediency? And Austin has this reputation of being slow going and the city is trying to move that process faster so they can bring people in to the community and broaden that tax base faster. So in this case, they didn’t notify the neighbors, because they didn’t have to. But of course, that’s offensive to those who live nearby. It’s hard to separate that from what is a city’s responsibility to its constituents? What is its responsibility to do good things economically because you know we’re having problems with our budget right now. So they’re really trying to figure that out. So what’s best for the community? What’s best the city? And what’s for economics? And people are like, don’t we count? And the city’s like, yes, you count. But don’t you want to have like a strong budget?
Jerry Quijano [00:12:28] Okay, so where does this go from here? What are you watching for next?
Andrea Ball [00:12:31] So there are some additional planning processes that have to happen to be able to get certain development going. So basically they will be working with the city to figure out, okay, we wanna build this here. What are the rules for that? We want this company to come in here. What kind of stuff do we need to do to make this happen? I don’t know how much of that will actually be public and how much it won’t.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:56] All right, that is Andrea Ball. She is the growth development reporter for Austin Current, a reporting partner with KUT News and Austin Signal in covering the city of Austin. Andrea, always great to talk with you.
Andrea Ball [00:13:06] Thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:07] And thank you out there for making Austin Signal part of your day, 88 degrees outside our studio. And it’s raining! I didn’t expect that, but taking a look at the radar, it looks like some storms moving up southern Travis County, so if you’re out to lunch, make sure and grab that umbrella. Be safe, keep it tuned in right here. This is KUT News. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. It happens all the time, you’re walking or you’re biking or driving down the street and there it is, a lump in the road, usually it’s furry, sometimes it’s even bloody. This is what happened to someone who wrote to KUT’s ATXplained project. He found a dead possum in the bike lane in front of his house. So he called 311 and within a day the poor little guy was picked up by the city, but. That got him wondering where did they take it. So he asked our ATXplain project. KUT’s Matt Largie went to find out, and a warning, this story does include descriptions that some people might find disturbing.
Matt Largey [00:15:11] To find this answer, we’re gonna have to do it the hard way. We’ll start from the beginning.
Marvin Levan [00:15:16] Right now I’m trying to recover an animal that one of the residents reported. I think their pet had passed away and it’s a dog in the box right over there and I’m gonna collect it up.
Matt Largey [00:15:24] Marvin Levan is 63 years old. He works for Austin Resource Recovery, the city’s trash department. He’s a dead animal man.
Marvin Levan [00:15:31] Most of the animals that we pick up are usually like possums and raccoons, but we get quite a few cats.
Matt Largey [00:15:36] Marvin doesn’t have any cats waiting for him at home, but he does have some guppies and a winter white dwarf hamster.
Marvin Levan [00:15:42] His name’s Gizmo.
Matt Largey [00:15:45] Marvin opens the doors on the back of his truck. The dog he’s collecting is in a cardboard box at the curb. Some green plastic HEB bags are duct-taped over the top of the box, kind of like a little coffin. It must be a small dog. The box is pretty light. As Marvin picks it up, brings it over to the truck. He gently slides it into the back.
Marvin Levan [00:16:05] We usually load them up and then at the end of the day we take them to our disposal facility, you know, so they can be buried.
Matt Largey [00:16:12] Marvin tells me it’s unusual to pick up a pet dog from its home, but it happens.
Marvin Levan [00:16:18] Most people usually will set their pets out at the curbside and bag them and stuff. But occasionally we’ll run across them and they’re just laying there. But that really makes me sad, if you have a pet and then it’s something that you loved for a few years or something. And then you just lay it out on the ground. But I take good care of them when I get there.
Matt Largey [00:16:39] You’re kinda like an undertaker for some of these dogs. Yes, sir.
Marvin Levan [00:16:42] It gets sad sometimes, but you know, I’m just glad to tidy them up or whatever and put them away properly and just not leave them out there on the roads or streets to ride.
Matt Largey [00:16:54] On to our next stop.
Dwight Leonard [00:16:56] We have a squirrel already bagged up from the, I guess the neighbors already did it earlier today.
Matt Largey [00:17:02] Dwight Leonard is the other driver working today. We’re in Barton Hills. He walks over to the mailbox in front of a fancy house. Next to it, a paper bag.
Dwight Leonard [00:17:11] Mmm. Yep. Oh, yeah, this is gonna be him. This one’s a E.
Matt Largey [00:17:16] One today. Are they usually not bagged up?
Dwight Leonard [00:17:19] Oh no, they’re usually not bagged up. A lot of times they may be in the middle of the street. Oh. Ha ha ha. I’ll pitch for it, we’ll do it.
Matt Largey [00:17:30] I’ve been lucky so far. We haven’t had to actually see either one of the animals we’ve collected. And I’m worried about how I’ll feel if we do. Do you ever think about the animal? Do you think about what happened to it?
Dwight Leonard [00:17:42] You know, every now and then you do, but how can I say? With this job, you might not want to think too much because you see a lot of it. You try not to think about what happened and just bag him and go.
Matt Largey [00:17:58] Stop number three, east side, near 183 and 969. Back with Marvin. So what do we got here?
Marvin Levan [00:18:05] It’s going to be a collection of a dog, their pet died so they got it in a blue bin on the side of the house.
Matt Largey [00:18:15] We head over to the bin. Marvin opens it up and we peer inside.
Marvin Levan [00:18:19] This bagged up, but…
Matt Largey [00:18:21] It’s a big dog, graying black fur, I think. Oh, oh no. It’s hard to tell because it’s wrapped in plastic like a mummy. It’s nestled at the bottom of the recycling bin with a handful of cans and a plastic bottle. Marvin is matter of fact about it. I’m horrified.
Marvin Levan [00:18:37] This is going to be a larger dog so you’ll get an opportunity to see me loaded up on the wind Let me go get a bag. Ah man, I’ll be right back. Okay.
Matt Largey [00:18:49] He comes back with a big bag, dumps the recycling bin over, puts the dog in the bag, then he drags it over to the truck, wraps a cable around the dog, turns on the winch, and lifts it up into the open truck.
Marvin Levan [00:19:07] Okay, that’s that. I got them all loaded up and secured.
Matt Largey [00:19:13] Do you ever say a few words for the animal?
Marvin Levan [00:19:16] No, not really. Maybe a little prayer or something inside my head or sometimes I’ll talk to them if nobody’s around and say, I’m going to take good care of you and put you away proper.
Matt Largey [00:19:30] Next stop, Copperfield Drive. There’s a possum in the road, or at least it was reported. I don’t see one anywhere. There is something in the row. Robin goes to check it out.
Marvin Levan [00:19:42] Usually if it’s something that’s been squished, you know, a hundred times or something, you know it’s kind of pointless to pick it up. But I don’t think that’s a possum. No, it’s just some trash. Looks like a diaper or something.
Matt Largey [00:19:57] Sometimes they come out to collect an animal, and it’s already gone. Vultures, scavengers got their.
Marvin Levan [00:20:02] First. Coyotes and foxes and stuff, they’re kind of nocturnal creatures if they see something like that, a squirrel, a possum, that’s a free meal for them.
Matt Largey [00:20:11] So empty-handed it’s on to the next call Marvin makes a few more stops picks up another dog a couple of possums that haven’t been scavenged yet And then it’s time to finish up for the day Last stop, the Texas Disposal Systems Landfill, southeast of town. Where do the dead animals go after they’re picked up? We’re about to see. I’m not allowed to ride in with Marvin, just for safety reasons. So his supervisor, Tony Dudley, gives me a lift in his pickup truck. That’s all trash? We wind through the mountains of decomposing trash. Looks like rolling hills covered with dirt, grass growing over the mounds. They tower over us as we drive into a valley where it finally resembles what I imagine a landfill to look like, just an open pit of garbage. We park the truck, but we keep the windows closed. At one point, I opened the window to get a smell. That is… You can smell it down here, right? That is unpleasant. Yeah, this is the end of the line We watch as Marvin backs his truck up to the jumble of garbage bags construction debris and assorted junk There are giant bulldozers driving over the pile grinding it up mixing it all together Tony narrates
Tony Dudley [00:21:30] He’s going to get all the way against to the trash area open the doors and then he’s going to lift up the bed of the truck. So now he’s lifting the bed of the truck up. Sometimes animals get stuck, and you got to kind of rock it a little bit, but look like majority of his just slid right out.
Matt Largey [00:22:05] The dead animals disappear into the abyss of garbage. The dogs, the possums, are swallowed into the tangle of shopping bags, food wrappers, and IKEA furniture. They’re one with the pile now. It all seems so undignified. Pets that we loved. Living things that died by our hand. At least our car tires. Carcasses discarded like an old pair of socks. I catch up with Marvin after it’s done. It’s the end of the day and he’s ready to go home to Gizmo and his guppies. I ask him what he thinks about dumping the animals in the landfill.
Marvin Levan [00:22:49] They get sort of a burial. It’s a little different, but at least they’re not out there left on the streets, decomposing or something, or buzzards just eating at them.
Matt Largey [00:23:01] Do you think that’s better for them?
Marvin Levan [00:23:03] What the animals? Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s better for them to go out to a place like that Then just be sitting left on the side of the road right and you know in their bones there for years, you know
Matt Largey [00:23:13] I mean, that’s kind of like their final resting place, I guess.
Marvin Levan [00:23:16] Yes, sir. Yeah, eventually they they fill all that in with dirt and green grass grows over the top of it. It’s just unmarked graves, you know, for those animals.
Matt Largey [00:23:27] But they they go on to become part of something else I guess
Marvin Levan [00:23:30] Oh yeah, yeah, I guess they go back into the earth or whatever. You know, like they say, man’s made from dust. I guess animals are the same way and they turn back into dust after they’re long gone.
Matt Largey [00:23:51] Maybe Marvin’s right. Maybe this is kindness for these poor critters. Our human rituals of dignity and death mean nothing to nature. Would it be different if they were each given a proper burial in a little possum-sized coffin? No. It’s not perfect, but returning them to the Earth, even if it’s a landfill, might be the best care we can give. I’m Matt Largi in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:24:22] That story was part of KUT’s A.T. Explained project where we answer your questions about Austin’s people, places, and sometimes animals. Catch up on all the questions we’ve answered on the A. T. Explain podcast. You can ask your own question over at KUT.org. That is it for today’s show. Thanks for being with us. There’s more from us at Kut.org slash Signal. Casey Cheek is our technical director, Alexandra Hart is our producer, and Kristin Cabrera is our managing producer. Austin Signal will be back at the same time tomorrow. We’ll talk to you then.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
