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Plans for high-voltage transmission lines have hit a snag after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his allies this morning called for a halt to the proposal. The power lines are meant to help meet growing energy demand in West Texas, but the plan faced fierce opposition this week at a public hearing at the state capitol.
Fallout continues after Austin Police fatally shot unarmed teenager Anthoneil Williams II. Activists gathered at city hall this week demanding better mental health resources.
Music and film collide next week at the 6th Sound Unseen Austin Film Festival. We’ll talk with the festival’s director about what’s in store.
Plus, some of the best art to experience this weekend.
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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.
Alexandra Hart [00:00:08] Plans for high-voltage transmission lines have hit a snag after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and his allies this morning called for a halt to the proposal. The power lines are meant to help meet growing energy demand in West Texas, but the plan faced fierce opposition this week at a public hearing at the state capitol. We’ll tell you more. And fallout continues after Austin police fatally shot an unarmed teenager. Activists gathered at City Hall this week demanding better mental health resources. That’s coming up on today’s show. The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News. Hosted by Alexandra Hart. Music and film collide next week at the sixth Sound Unseen Austin Film Festival. We’ll talk with the festival’s director about what’s in store, plus some of the best art to experience this weekend. Up next on Austin Signal. Good afternoon Austin. It’s Friday on this last day of July 2026. I’m your host Alexandra Hart. Thanks for joining us here on Austin Signal. Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and his allies in the state senate are calling on regulators to put the brakes on plans to build big new transmission lines to carry electricity across the state. The announcement comes after a marathon public hearing on the issue at the state capitol this week. KUT’s Moze Bouchelle was at that hearing and is joining us now. Moze, thanks for being here.
Mose Buchele [00:01:40] Pleasure’s all mine.
Alexandra Hart [00:01:41] So tell us about this plan for these new transmission lines. What exactly is being proposed?
Mose Buchele [00:01:45] So the idea is that you need to build more transmission because there’s this ever-growing energy demand in Texas, right? This plan would have built three ultra-high voltage transmission lines starting kind of along the I-35 corridor. There’d be a most southern line, a kind of middle line, and then one further up north towards Dallas. And it would run. Out to West Texas. And these would be what they call 765 kilovolt lines. They’re bigger than any other kinds of lines that we have in Texas right now, and they can carry more electricity than any other kinds of lines that we have.
Alexandra Hart [00:02:22] Well, why are state regulators and the grid managers saying that we need these lines?
Mose Buchele [00:02:26] Well, it’s a question of growing energy demand. There’s a lot of growing demand out in West Texas, especially coming from oil and gas operations and oil extraction. There is also just forecasted growing demand all over the state. We hear a lot about data centers. Those are going to be sucking up more energy and then just growth. And so to keep up with all that, you need a beefier grid and that’s what these would provide.
Alexandra Hart [00:02:51] Okay, well this plan has obviously faced quite a bit of pushback, including now, from Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. What are opponents concerns about the proposal?
Mose Buchele [00:03:00] So, like I said, these are bigger transmission lines than we’ve ever seen in the state. And when these first three lines were kind of moving forward in the routing phases, we heard from a lot of rural landowners who were kind shocked and horrified that these things could suddenly appear in their communities. In this Texas Hill country, there’s a lot concern about local environmental damage and just kind of like degradation of the landscape. There’s concern about what it could do to tourism, you know, if people want to go and see the kind of pretty hill country landscape and suddenly these transmission lines are there. And then just a lot of landowners concerned about their property rights, they just, they don’t want these things on their land. And so that opposition organized quite quickly and effectively. And has been pushing back against the project that really had been more or less green lit by state lawmakers last legislative session and then gone through this whole process at ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission over the last couple of years. Now there’s this massive reaction to it that was very on display, I guess I’ll say, at the Capitol this week.
Alexandra Hart [00:04:10] Right. And then just since since this week, you know, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick coming out also pushing back against it. What is he saying?
Mose Buchele [00:04:17] Right so i’m basically you know there was this fifteen hour long hearing on the grid and a much of it was it was dedicated to uh… This transmission project hundreds of people showed up to protest and to give testimony against these projects these are people from all over the state who would be impacted by these lines uh… The chair of that of that uh… Senate committee uh… Charles shortner and lieutenant governor dan patrick have now announced that they’re kind of siding with those protesters they’re saying They do not want these projects to move forward. They are asking the Public Utility Commission to deny the kind of next stage in the process of routing. The PUC ultimately has to approve the plan, right? And they’re telling the PUC not to do that or asking them not to that. Patrick is essentially saying that this is an issue that should return to the state legislature next legislative session next year. And they are going to have to figure out how to do this without the same level of opposition. A lot of that also comes to… Uh… How long uh… The that let landowners have to get notified about these plans there was a lot of complaint that they didn’t get enough time to kind of consider them in respond
Alexandra Hart [00:05:29] Well, you had mentioned that this plan was more or less greenlit, but now with this rapid pushback, where do we go from here?
Mose Buchele [00:05:36] You know, yeah, like I said, it’s still, I mean, this is, it’s anybody’s guess, you know, they’re asking the PUC to deny this. There are other people who say that the Puc, you that essentially they may face lawsuits if they try to back out of this plan at this stage in the game, right? That’s just something I’ve heard, you know, talking to people at the Capitol. There could be legal considerations around this because we were kind of further down the line in the routing of some of these lines than other transmission projects that are kind of planned for further in the future. So, we just have to wait and see what happens at the PUC, and then if it’s pushed to the legislation, to the legislative session, there’s going to be a lot of action on transmission in next year’s legislative session.
Alexandra Hart [00:06:22] All right. Well, we’ve been speaking with KUG’s Moe’s Bouchelle. He’s the energy environment reporter and he’s going to continue to follow this story. Moe, thanks for joining us. Thank you. The fallout has continued after 17-year-old Anthonyl Williams II was fatally shot last week by Austin police officers. The teenager allegedly called 911 to report a young man brandishing a gun. Responding officers shot Williams several times as he lifted his shirt and reached for his waistband. Williams was unarmed. In response to the killing, there were several demonstrations this week. KUT’s Luz Moreno-Luzano was at City Hall yesterday where activists called for justice and better mental health resources. She spoke with host Jeri Quijano earlier today on Morning Edition.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:15] How has the Austin Police Department described the shooting and how has the department responded so far?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:07:20] Yeah, we heard Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis say that this was potentially a suicide by police. Now, they are still investigating the incident, but as they’re kind of investigating this, they have placed those police officers that were involved in the shooting on administrative leave.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:35] Okay so, APD Chief Lisa Davis is characterized as a suicide by police, how about if it gets for Williams push back against that description?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:07:44] Well, they’re not buying that. I spent quite a bit of time yesterday at City Hall and we heard Chas Moore, he’s the founder of the Austin Justice Coalition, basically be like, this is just an excuse. Anthony didn’t have resources when he was struggling with a mental health crisis at 3 a.m. And that’s what advocates seem to be rallying around. Yeah, focused on? Mental health resources. Okay, I’m gonna
Jerry Quijano [00:08:10] Okay, I’m going to ask you a little bit about what happened at City Hall. I do want to just paint the picture further for our audience. There was also a skirmish this week at the office of Travis County DA Jose Garza. What is being demanded of him?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:08:21] Yeah, I, you know, it is his job to like look at these kinds of investigations. And so they are, the community is asking him to prosecute these officers, um, and hold them accountable. He has said that he will review the incident once the APD special investigations unit has completed their part of the reveal.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:38] OK, well, city council was already meeting this week to talk about the budget. That’s something that you have been covering in detail. Activists gathered out front of City Hall and eventually made their way inside as well. How did their demonstrations impact the discussions yesterday?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:08:50] Yeah, a lot of people spoke during public comment yesterday, but the City Council was looking at the public safety budget yesterday. The Austin police budget is set to increase by about $25 million. We heard Chief Davis basically say a lot of that has to do with this labor agreement that the city and APD or their labor union agreement that they agreed to, I think, last year. So a lot of the money is going to that and all of the other things that go with that equipment, cars, you know, all of that thing. So I think we heard a lot from council about like, where are some of these these other monies going and how can we work around that? So that maybe we could put some of this money toward social service contracts that do support mental health support services. You know, there are plenty of nonprofits that the city supports that do provide. Mental health resources, peer support specialists, and those kinds of things to, yeah, to respond to these kinds of incidents.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:52] I was reading this story that you and Andrew had on the KUT app and at KUT.org, and I was reminded that it’s actually against the law to decrease state funding, excuse me, decrease funding for police. Right. It’s a state law. Are any activists demanding that police budget be reduced? I think it’s…
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:10:12] Sort of right so like they they don’t want it to necessarily be reduced because I guess like the city will be penalized if that Happens, but I do think at the bare minimum they do want it To be flat right like not increase it any more than we already have it now
Jerry Quijano [00:10:25] So no change basically from last budget to this budget.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:10:27] Correct, correct. And so, you know, the money that $25 million that they are set to increase it by next year proposed to could go toward those social service contracts, could go toward more peer support specialists at APD and some of these other resources and needs at 9-1-1 that kind of surround mental health resources and mental health response, especially in the Not a lot of things are happening or open at that particular time.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:57] Yeah, there’s certainly less activity around here in Austin around those times, okay? So you use the key word there, proposed budget. This budget process is a long one. Where are we currently at in this process?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:11:09] Well, we’re about halfway through. Oh, my gosh, okay. They’re not set to adopt the budget until like mid-August. So right now they’re still going through and deciding what programs they’re supporting. We just got a list of the social service contracts that they are proposing to cut and the city council can change that. They could go through and be like, you know what, we wanna support this other program over this one. And after everything that’s gone on with this particular case, it wouldn’t be surprised to me if they start moving some of those funds around. But yeah, it’ll be a couple of weeks before we see a final decision on that.
Alexandra Hart [00:11:43] That was KUT City Hall reporter Luz Moreno Lozano talking with host Jerry Quijano on Morning Edition earlier today. There is more from her reporting along with our colleague Andrew Weber, who have both been covering this online at KUT.org. And a quick headline for you heading into the weekend. Paredes Middle School will officially close just weeks before the start of the new school year. Yesterday, Austin ISD trustees approved a last-minute proposal to close the school as the district works to avoid a state takeover. The Austin Current Report’s Superintendent Segura told parents in a standing room-only meeting that he did not believe the school could improve enough within the next school year to avoid failing state accountability grade. Students who were set to attend Paredes Middle School in a few weeks will now be assigned to Bailey or Mendez Middle Schools. More on that at KUT.org and we’ve got more Austin Signal coming up next. Stay with us. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. Austin may be the live music capital of the world, but cinephiles know we’ve got quite the film scene as well. So it’s only appropriate that we’d have a film festival devoted to all things music, from documentaries to music videos. It’s called Sound Unseen Austin, now in its sixth year, and it’s happening next week at AFS Cinema. Here to tell us more about the festival is Becky Ariaga. She’s festival director of Sound Unseen Austin. Becky, thanks for joining us on Austin Signal. Thank you for having me. So first, give us a little background on Sound Unseen. What’s it all about and how to get started?
Becky Arreaga [00:13:35] Yeah, so Sound and Scene Austin is actually an offshoot of the iconic Minneapolis Festival. In Minneapolis, Sound and Scenes has been going on for 26 years. We started here in Austin in that great year of 2020 when everybody loved getting out and going to the movies. Right. But we launched along with Minneapolis virtually and then since then have been in-person and growing steady ever since.
Alexandra Hart [00:14:01] What were some of the challenges of launching during the pandemic? I’m sure there was probably sort of a unique experience.
Becky Arreaga [00:14:07] Well, I mean, it’s funny. I mean the backstory on the festival is that I had met Jim Brunzell, who’s the festival director from Minneapolis. He had been living here in Austin, working for another festival. And he kept talking about this festival that he ran that was all about music. And I’m like, Jim, what are you talking about? And he goes, yeah, it sounds insane. It’s music documentaries, music features, everything music. And I was like, Jimmy, you realize we are the live music capital of the world. We need to have this festival. Literally for six years, I bugged him. And for six years, he basically ignored me until finally, I think I wore him down. And he was like, at the end of 2019, he’s like, let’s do it. We’ll get set up for 2020. And then, yeah, come March, we all stopped and they decided to go ahead and do a virtual festival. So it was, I mean, kind of easy for us to tag on to kind of their virtual network. And we, you know, I call it a very soft launch, but it was a start, you’ve got to start somewhere.
Alexandra Hart [00:15:03] Well, it sounds like, you know, despite that kind of unusual start, you know, it’s really grown since then. Can you talk about how it sort of evolved from that original festival and how it’s grown over the years?
Becky Arreaga [00:15:14] Yeah, so as I said, we were an offset of Minneapolis or started out as an offset. So their festival is in December, which makes a lot of sense when you’re in Minneapolis and it’s zero degrees. And we would tag along kind of the week after and here in Austin, there’s so many things to do in December. It’s such a busy month for us. The team here, myself and Dash Donato, my co-producer had always thought, you know, it’d be better if we were in the summer, but to do that, there’re logistics. And so at the end of 2024, Minneapolis was coming off their 25th year celebration. So Jim had decided, do it, let’s take a break next year. We’ll regroup, see where we go from here. And during that time period, he came to me and said, hey, if you would like to do Austin, you wanna go for it, go for. And it’ll give you the chance to move the dates. And so I took him up on that offer. And so now we’re running fully independent, which means we bring in our own submissions. We do our own invitations. And yeah, so we’re all. All on our own.
Alexandra Hart [00:16:14] Well, so this isn’t just a music film festival, this is a music, film festival and a music festival. What are some of the challenges with that? Because a lot of festivals either do one or the other, we all sort of do both.
Becky Arreaga [00:16:26] Yeah, we try to do both because we are definitely a celebration of film and music. When we started our kind of our first full year, we did one day of all music showcases over the high noon. So it was great because we had some local artists that were featured in our films playing that Sunday. So every year we try to do something musically last year or the 2024 in our last year we did some celebrations at Seaboys, and we always kind of try to bring that music element. Sometimes we’ll even bring it into the theater with live performances. This year as our first year, we don’t necessarily have anything in theater or in kind of in market during the festival, but we’ll be launching the festivals kind of our launch date for kind of our next full year, where throughout the year we’ll be doing music showcases, feature spotlight films, and kind of get a good pace going, kind of leading up to the festival in 27. Nice, so it’s kind of like an ongoing effort.
Alexandra Hart [00:17:25] Out. Spread the love. Right, right. Well, so tell us a bit about the line of what can folks expect this year?
Becky Arreaga [00:17:32] Can expect to have a good time. So without a doubt. I am so excited about our lineup. It truly to me has such diversity not only in genres of music, but generations of music. There’s really something for everyone. So we’re kicking off on Thursday with the 20th anniversary screening of a film called Shut Up and Sing, which chronicles the chick’s journey from one comment to, you know, Anthony. And what was so unique and powerful to me about that film was, I mean, it truly was my first music documentary to see 20 years ago. And it made such a lasting impact that, I mean it’s always kind of stuck with me in terms of being able to see kind of behind the scenes of that very emotional moment and the vulnerability and the courage and the bravery and the backlash that, you know, the chicks had to endure. And to have somebody capture it, like what are the odds? So it’s an incredible film. We have the directors, Academy Award winning Barbara Koppel is one of the directors and Cecilia Peck. They’ll both be joining us. It’s gonna be a celebration. It’s going to be a triumph. It’s also gonna be, I think, a little heartbreaking in some instances where it’s like, ah, it’s been 20 years and we’re still here, great. Right. Awesome. But it’s.
Alexandra Hart [00:18:55] It’s gonna be a good time. And there’s other genres and stuff too. I also saw there was like a shorts element as well. Can you talk about that?
Becky Arreaga [00:19:02] Yes I can. I love our Shorts program because it really allows us an opportunity to showcase more local filmmakers and also more local bands. So we not only screen short documentaries and short films, we also screen music videos. And for me, it’s so rewarding to see a musician see their music video up on a giant screen when, you know, in reality, normal day to day, they’re used to looking at it on an. You know, on a phone screen. So it’s a very impactful moment. Very cool. So where can folks find out more and where can they get tickets? Yeah, they can go to www.soundunseenaustin.com. You’ll have all of our festival information, all of the tickets and the lineup. We have a lot of directors flying in, so be sure and kind of look through all of all of screenings. And I would encourage everyone to, of course, go and see the film of your favorite musician. But if something piques your interest and you’re like, wow, what, I’ve never heard of that. Go to that film because that’s gonna be the film that just, you know.
Alexandra Hart [00:20:05] Opens up your world. All right, we’ve been speaking with Becky Ariaga, Festival Director for Sound Unseen Austin. Becky, thanks for coming on the show. Yeah, thank you. And Friday here on The Signal wouldn’t be complete without a look at where the art is. Here to tell us about her top picks for events this weekend is Stephanie Federico, KUT’s Artbeat editor. Hi, Stephanie. Hey there. So I’m currently in my space era with all the Artemis news this year, and I actually just rewatched Apollo 13 over the weekend. Coming off of that, I was very excited to hear you mention that one of your recommendations involves the things going wrong in space genre. Tell me more.
Stephanie Federico [00:20:47] Totally. There is a show called Passage at Bottle Alley Theater that tomorrow is the last night of it, so it’s closing. But it just sounds really interesting. I have not seen it, but there’s a crew on this spaceship called Aquarius 300. They’re looking for a new planet to inhabit. And of course, then they’re pulled into a black hole, right? So they’re fighting for survival. They confront these questions of love and loss. What is human existence and connection, and that sort of thing. And what also piqued my interest about this is that this play was originally written as a radio play by theater folks back in 2020, so.
Alexandra Hart [00:21:24] Very cool. Okay, well, I know we are also in for a hot weekend again and we’re in the peak of sitting a cold, dark theater season. Is there anything going on in the film scene this weekend we should check out?
Stephanie Federico [00:21:35] Sure, yeah, the Pan-African Film Festival just opened last night at AFS Cinema. It runs through Sunday, and this is the fourth year we’ve had it in Austin. Apparently, it’s the country’s largest black film festival. They’re gonna be showing 10 different premieres and specifically curated for an Austin audience. So it’s closing out Sunday. There’s gonna be a free panel on storytelling and AI, which sounds really cool, and it’s followed by a little mixer, so.
Alexandra Hart [00:22:02] Okay. Well, summer also feels like the perfect time to dabble in some arts and crafts, something a little low stake. Is there anything going on a little more?
Stephanie Federico [00:22:11] Hands on. Hands on, well, Future Front is having their downtown creative retreat and this is a second annual day of play is happening on Saturday. Yeah, right? There are four workshops that are going to be taught by local artists from drawing to clay making and collage, so you can make a little clay spaceship if you want to check that out. It’s like a camp for adults. It’s $20.
Alexandra Hart [00:22:36] This over at the Lion Hotel. Okay that sounds fun. Okay and before we let you go for those hungry for more, any galleries to check out this weekend?
Stephanie Federico [00:22:44] Well, one exhibit that I am interested in is over at Martha’s and it’s called Aftertaste. It’s a solo exhibit by an artist named Sam Keller. And he does sort of these like, he uses a lot of food in his artwork. Like he bedazzles crushed cans and found objects. Apparently this exhibit is like a little fantasy convenience store. Okay. He’s got a model of the White House created with French fries. Found French fries, yeah, found French fries right. There’s like a bronze cast of a pizza slice. And I guess the whole idea is about consumption and addiction. And that sounds really, really cool. OK. Oh, yeah. I saw. I saw.
Alexandra Hart [00:23:29] Pictures and one had like a it was like a tree with like jewel pods. Yeah. In the addiction thing. Okay. All right convenience store.
Stephanie Federico [00:23:36] Okay, real quick, anything else we should check out? Well, it’s open studios over at Canopy. So one to four on Saturday, if you feel like checking out some stuff, you know, there’s stages over there, a Vester, almost real things. But then there are like the individual artists galleries that are going to be open to check out this weekend at Canopy
Alexandra Hart [00:23:52] Okay, sounds good. Well, Stephanie Federico is editor of KUT’s Artbeat. Stephanie, thanks for the recommendations. Happy day.
Stephanie Federico [00:24:00] Happy to be here for recommendations. You know what I mean.
Alexandra Hart [00:24:04] All right, that is it for us today on Austin Signal. Thank you to KUT’s Mo’s Bouchelle and Stephanie Federico for coming on the show today. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. Jimmy Moss is our showrunner. And I’m your host, Alexandra Hart. We’ll talk to you again on Monday. Have a great weekend.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
