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A former Austin Energy employee has been accused of defrauding the city utility of nearly $1 million over the course of six years by falsifying credit card payments to contractors and paying fake vendors that had addresses tied to him or his relatives.
The YMCA in downtown Austin wants to expand and renovate, adding housing, restaurants and office space – but some nearby residents are concerned about how the project could affect the neighborhood. We’ll hear about the proposal and next steps.
The Christmas season has arrived, but for a bar in North Austin, every day is Christmas. What’s the reason behind it?
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 [00:00:09] A former Austin Energy employee has been accused of defrauding the city utility. The man is blamed for siphoning off nearly $1 million over the course of six years. We’re gonna talk about how he did it and what Austin Energy is doing to prevent it from happening again. Plus, the YMCA in downtown Austin wants to expand and renovate its current digs, adding housing, restaurants, and office space. But some folks around the spot are concerned about how it could affect the neighborhood. Hear about their plans coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:40] The Austin Signal is a production of K UT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:45] And Christmas time is here, but at a bar in North Austin, it’s Christmas Day every single day. What’s the reason behind it? Stay with us and find out. That’s on today’s Austin Signal. Howdy out there. This is Austin Signal. It is Wednesday, December 10th. We’re glad to have you here with us. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano, and we appreciate you tuning in to Listener Powered Public Radio. Let’s get into today’s show. A former Austin Energy employee is accused of defrauding the city of almost one million dollars over the six years that he was working for the city owned utility. For more about the story, we’re joined by Andrew Weber. He is KUT’s government accountability reporter. Hiya, Andrew. Hey Jerry. So tell us how how was this fraud discovered?
Andrew Weber [00:01:41] This fraud was discovered by us through a city audit, but Austin Energy sort of tipped off the city auditor’s office about this employee, Mark Ibotta. Back in twenty twenty-three. He was basically using credit card like sort of procurement as they call the pro card, I think a lot of folks would know. And basically charging for services that were you know, non existent through contractors that were connected to him and his family, and it was ultimately about nine hundred not about, it was nine hundred eighty thousand dollars that they could estimate. They said there there could be more, but that’s the sort of final amount that they that they could confirm.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:26] And this happened over the course of six years. The audit I’m guessing happened this year in twenty twenty five. Was there something that spurred it?
Andrew Weber [00:02:32] Yeah, it was I mean, his firing it was like this is something they’ve been looking into for a minute, but it was released this year. So and that was after, you know, they the the auditor’s office looked at this over a couple of years, over more than a year and a half, and found that, you know, had to sort of, you know, do the paper trail of it, follow the money kind of thing. And then reached out to APD and then he was indicted in August, August twenty eighth, I believe, and then he was arrested and then released on bottom.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:01] Okay, so what has Austin Energy done as a result of this incident or these this fraud? What how has it changed its policy to avoid ha this from happening in the future?
Andrew Weber [00:03:13] Well, they’ve cut down on those sort of pro card payments for contracting because he was Marky Barrow was in a very unique position where he could do maintenance and then he could determine, okay, we need a third party to do this, and that’s how this all sort of happened, and he would just charge it to a credit card. So there was no city contracting, you know, per se on the books and since then they’ve cut down I believe the last three years the average was like one point five million per year. Last year it was down to I believe five hundred seventy thousand. So they’ve they’ve cut down on those payments and they’ve required management to approve these sort of purchases.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:47] Okay, so this was a a an audit conducted by Austin Energy. H have there been criminal charges? What what is the status of that?
Andrew Weber [00:03:53] Yeah, yeah. After this audit sort of wrapped up, the auditor’s office passed all this off to ABD. He was indicted by a grand jury in August, and then he was arrested shortly after and released on bond.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:07] Okie dokie. Well, you can read more about this story over at KUT.org. It’s from KUT’s government accountability reporter Andrew Weber, who we’ve been chatting with here on Austin Signal. Andrew, thank you. Yes, sir. Thank you, Jerry. All right, thank you for making this part of your Wednesday. The Town Lake YMCA in downtown Austin is planning an expansion and a renovation of its current property to include housing and other commercial and community spaces. KUT’s Luz Moneno Lozano has that story over at KUT.org. And she’s got the details for us today on Austin Signal. Howdy Luz.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:04:43] Hey Jerry, how’s it going?
Jerry Quijano [00:04:44] It’s going well. So tell us, where’s the current space and and what’s the approximate size of it?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:04:49] Yeah, so this is like a hundred and ten thousand square feet, give or take. You know, this is a kind of a popular YMCA location. I mean, w there’s several locations all across the city, but if anyone is going to the YMCA, I’ve heard a lot about this town lake one. It does sound like the the current facility is was kind of nearing the end of its life. So they were gonna have to renovate anyway. And so this is gonna be part of this whole like how can we not only improve the on site facility, but expand it to include other amenities.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:21] So what are some of the amenities that they want to include?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:05:23] One of the big things is this is gonna include is housing. They said it was gonna include around ninety affordable housing units, up to seven hundred and fifty condos. Okay. But there’s also gonna be space for community events and sp and things like that. There’s also gonna be youth programming, there’s gonna be a child care facility. And so all of this is kind of playing into like how can we bring more affordable housing and childcare downtown, especially to people who are working downtown, but don’t necessarily live here. And so it kind of puts it all together.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:57] Okay, and this was presented to city council yesterday, correct?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:06:00] It was. Yeah. So this was just kind of it’s a it’s an initial step. It’s a first step in in the process. So the YMCA team basically presented their plan to the city council. You know, they they went through all of their amenities and things that this was gonna include and why they thought it was important. But there’s still a lot of steps that are gonna have to take place before this becomes official. But I think they’re hoping to break ground assuming that they kind of get all their ducks in a row in twenty twenty eight.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:28] Okay, and how did c city council members f feel about the idea?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:06:31] I I think we had a lot of positive feedback. I think the city council is realizing that we do need some kind of housing child care combination in addition to some of the other things that the YMC already offers. Downtown. So it they seemed pretty on board. There was some concerns that we that were raised about traffic that if you’ve if anyone drives on Lorthamar and sees your Chavez, you know that that is a it gets pretty backed up.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:59] A little busy around there.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:07:00] Just just a little bit. And there was concerns about environmental impacts, like where would the like extra wastewater and those kinds of things, how was it gonna impact that? So it sounds like council had a lot of questions just as they’re kind of initially kind of proposing this. But I do think that several of them were like, I’m really excited about this opportunity and we hoping that this is gonna make it to the finish line.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:22] And I know some of the neighbors who live in that area they also shared some of those concerns or maybe had some concerns of their own. What did they have to say?
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:07:29] Yeah, one of the biggest things was how it’s gonna change the look and feel of the neighborhood. That particular corner of of the lake is filled with trees. If you like kind of look over North Lamar from the what would that be, the south side of the river. It’s just it’s it’s it’s beautiful, you know. This is what we do in Austin. We love our trees, we love our nature, we love our green. If they put these three buildings up, it is definitely gonna change what that view looks like. And there was a lot of concern about that. And several neighbors also had traffic concerns because it’s already it’s already a congested intersection and people who live there are like, Okay, this is like my normal route to things. But one of the big things that this will do that they really talked about is it does give them access like to the hike and bike trail. You can walk to restaurants and grocery stores. So, you know, they’re hoping that this will kind of play into that as well.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:24] Okay, well like I said, you have the story over at KUT dot org. We have been speaking with KUT City Hall reporter Luz Moreno Lozano. We appreciate your reporting. Thanks for coming on Austin Signal.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:08:35] Thanks, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:36] And thank you out there for tuning into the signal. We’re gonna have a story about lalas coming up next. It’s Christmas time year round over there. Come partake in it. Join us. We’ll be back in one moment.
Matt Reilly [00:09:00] You’re listening to the Austin Signal? Hi, I’m Matt Reilly, Program Director for KUTX. One of my favorite songs out of Austin from this year is from Die Spitz. It’s called Punishers. The intro of the song grabs me right away. It’s just these sort of gloomy, fuzzed-out, Black Sabbath-inspired notes. I like this song because it has those elements of post punk and grunge and those sounds are a part of my musical DNA and I’m a jaded old Gen X guy. So when I hear members of Gen Z making sounds that resonate from my youth, it just makes me happy. So Dice Bits started pretty much in high school, and we’ve been fans of this band since their inception. And they’re a former KUTX artist of the month. And we’ve watched them evolve into this snarling little punk band into a more expansive sound that brings in elements of post punk and grunge and is mature beyond their years. The vibe of this song is just face punching. Brain melting. Exactly what you want from rock and roll. Thundering, lots of drums. Love this song, and you can run through a brick wall after listening to it. My name is Matt Reilly, and I’m the program director here at KUTX, and you can find out all of our favorite songs from 2025 at our website at KUTX.org. This is the Austin Signal.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:30] Thank you to Matt and thank you to you for tuning in to Austin Signal. We are listener powered public radio. You might have noticed things looking a lot more Christmasy around town lately, you know, ’tis the season and such. But at a bar in North Austin, it’s Christmas time all the time. Why though? KUT’s Marissa Charpentier has the story told at a past AT explained live event.
Marissa Charpentier [00:11:58] There’s a place in Austin where it’s been Christmas every day since 1972. It’s a small dive bar called La La’s Little Nugget. Red and green ornaments dangle from the ceiling. There are snow globes and Christmas trees and tons and tons of Christmas lights. And it kind of still feels like the 70s. There’s a velvet Elvis painting on the wall, an old pool table, and a really outdated jukebox. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, just drive around the Crestview area, look for the building with Santa Slay and some reindeer on the roof. They’re always there, even in the dead of summer. I went there recently to meet someone. My name is Angela Reed. Angela and I each ordered one of Lala’s signature Christmas-themed cocktails, and we walked around to sit on the patio. She told me she used to go to Lala’s a lot in the 90s when she lived in the neighborhood. In those days, she says the bar was truly a hole in the wall.
LaLa customer [00:13:08] Dark, smoky, kind of like old Christmas ornaments in there. Which today it seems like they’ve like freshened it up and it’s almost like they decorated it to be this way. But back then it seemed like no, they had been there for a long time.
Marissa Charpentier [00:13:24] She said there was a story back then about why the decorations were always there.
LaLa customer [00:13:29] The owner owned this bar with her husband and they had decorated for Christmas and that he’d left her on Christmas Eve. And so almost as a vengeance, she kept the bar and never changed the decor.
Marissa Charpentier [00:13:44] But she wanted to know if that was true. Surely someone at the bar would know, so we grabbed our drinks and wandered around asking people why was it always Christmas at La La’s? We started talking to this older man and his friends, but then a young sort of hipster guy who was like reading a book or something leaned over to us.
LaLa customer [00:14:06] I’ve heard a tragic story about how the owner’s daughter died on Christmas or Christmas Eve. He’s dealt with it s through making the decor of the bar Christmas all year long.
Marissa Charpentier [00:14:19] Then we walked a few tables over. There was a group of women wearing ugly Christmas sweaters. One of them offered to Google the answer for us, but like, where’s the fun in that? And then finally we spotted some people wearing actual La La’s shirts. They were sitting down, having some drinks, so we went up to them. They told us the bar owner was a woman. She just didn’t want to take she didn’t want to take it down. Now, they also told us to look up a Kenny Chesney song called Jesus and Elvis. They said the lyrics to it were inspired by La La’s. It turns out it was originally written by Texas musician Hayes Carl. I found this video where he said he used to spend a lot of time at La La’s.
Kenny Chesney [00:15:05] I asked around what the story was ’cause I was curious and what I heard was a tragic one. It was that Lalad had a son who’d gone off to fight in Vietnam at Christmas time and she promised she wouldn’t take those lights down until he made it back home. And all these years later those lights are still hanging up there. So this is a song about that place that’s called Jesus and Elvis. Jesus and Elvis painted on velvet, hanging at the bar here every night. It’s good to be back again. Oh me and my old friends, Beneath the neon crossing a string of Christmas legs.
Marissa Charpentier [00:15:49] So let’s review. An ex-lover? Just a general love of Christmas? A son killed at war? This can’t all explain why La La’s is always decorated for Christmas, right? To get the real story, I’d need to get someone official on the record.
Max Moreland [00:16:10] My name is Max Moreland. I oversee all operations for the bar division of FBR, based here in Austin, Texas.
Marissa Charpentier [00:16:18] Max’s company took over La La’s about eight years ago when the original owner retired. I asked him for the story behind the Christmas decor, but he gave me the same three stories. The owner’s husband left her on Christmas.
Max Moreland [00:16:34] Fell into this depression from her, you know, ongoing divorce.
Marissa Charpentier [00:16:38] Си декорадва Christmas one year and when the holidays were over.
Max Moreland [00:16:42] She took them down and the bar felt too naked.
Marissa Charpentier [00:16:45] And finally, her son went off to war in Vietnam.
Max Moreland [00:16:48] And she swore these decorations will stay up until my son comes home.
Marissa Charpentier [00:16:52] Now I asked Max which one is the real story. Is any of that true?
Max Moreland [00:16:58] One of ’em is.
Marissa Charpentier [00:16:59] Is that the second one?
Max Moreland [00:17:00] It’s up for you d whatever you wanna whatever you want to believe in. So it’s like Santa, you know? It’s up to you. It’s open for interpretation.
Marissa Charpentier [00:17:08] I mean come on I asked him a few more times and he still wouldn’t give in. To learn the real story, I’d need to learn more about the woman behind the bar. A woman named Frances.
Mike Levine [00:17:21] She was tough. She was hard to impress.
Marissa Charpentier [00:17:25] That’s Mike Levine. He’s been going to La La’s since the nineties.
Mike Levine [00:17:29] I mean we didn’t hang out socially outside the bar, but I don’t know that she was ever outside that bar. I’m fairly certain that if the bar was open she was there.
Marissa Charpentier [00:17:36] He told me that Francis opened La La’s in nineteen seventy two and she ran the place for the next forty years.
Mike Levine [00:17:44] One of the reasons that she created la La’s and and and had the environment she had in there was because and she used to say this often was because she wanted a place where women could feel safe to drink alone. And she’ve created you know, in the modern parlance a safe space to do that.
Marissa Charpentier [00:18:05] For most of the decades the bar was open, it was just Francis and her business partner Sarah behind the bar making drinks. Francis didn’t take bull from anyone.
Mike Levine [00:18:17] Francis Who would never overpour your drink. If you ordered a Jameson on the rocks, it was gonna be two fingers of Jameson and that is it. No more, no less, and she had little fingers.
Marissa Charpentier [00:18:34] Frances was also a private person. She didn’t share a lot about her family or her background.
Mike Levine [00:18:42] There she was behind that bar for I don’t know, thirty five whatever years and nobody knew anything about her.
Marissa Charpentier [00:18:49] To give you an example, Frances died shortly after she sold the bar, about six years ago. It wasn’t until the day she was buried that Mike learned her real name.
Mike Levine [00:19:02] I always thought the name La La’s was Christmassy. Like I thought the law follow la la or something. I thought the La La’s thing was a a nod to Christmas. And then you know, I’m a pall bearer in her funeral.
Marissa Charpentier [00:19:16] He looked down at the program and saw her last name was Lala.
Mike Levine [00:19:24] That was to me the ultimate surprise of like, you know, her life was like, Oh my god, that was her last name all along. And it sounds s silly but like that would have also jabbed with her sense of humor.
Marissa Charpentier [00:19:36] Frances was the kind of person who’d keep up Christmas lights well past the month of December. And then when Halloween would come around, put Halloween decorations over the Christmas ones, she was the kind of person to embellish the truth, just to mess with people. So I brought the rumors about La La’s Christmas decorations up to Mike. The husband who left on Christmas, the son sent off to war.
Mike Levine [00:20:04] She would have absolutely exaggerated on the story to mess with the college kids in the eighties. No doubt in my mind. Like that’s her MO all the way. She liked to mess with folks. But again, that that doesn’t mean that none of it’s true.
Marissa Charpentier [00:20:19] Mike wouldn’t say which story was true either. He didn’t want to set the record straight. He brought up an old phrase I’d heard before.
Mike Levine [00:20:29] Well they say print the legend, you know, don’t don’t worry about the truth.
Marissa Charpentier [00:20:33] Print the legend. This idea that sometimes in life the stories we tell ourselves become bigger than the truth. I asked Mike one more question. Did he think Frances herself would want the real story to be revealed?
Mike Levine [00:20:49] I mean, look, she might have been a tough lady. She might have had her her moments and and people don’t remember her as maybe the most warm human being that ever walked the earth. But the fact is that she created this place that has a sense of humor about it and is a a safe place for people to come and hang out. And so clearly she was a warm person and clearly she was somebody who cared about her fellow human. And I think that is the legacy of the bar, you know. And the story is fun or sad or interesting. Or whatever you need it to be.
Marissa Charpentier [00:21:26] Now, for the sake of honesty, I will say someone did tell me which story is the true story. But in preparing for tonight, I kept thinking back to that phrase: print the legend. It’s actually part of a longer quote from an old Western called The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. In the movie, a newspaper editor gets a scoop. He learns that the story that’s long been told about the person who killed the local outlaw is actually a myth. But the editor decides not to reveal the truth.
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance excerpt [00:22:04] You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott. No, sir. This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Marissa Charpentier [00:22:20] Sometimes the lore of an event or a place is more interesting than what really happened. And what kind of person would I be if I spoiled the fun? Okay, at this point, if you still want to know what the true story is, come find me, buy me a drink after the show. Maybe I’ll tell you. But for now, I’ll just say, this is the West.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:53] That was our former colleague Marissa Charpentier at an ATX Plain live show at the Paramount Theater back in February of 2023. Maybe you were there that night. That’s it for today’s episode of Austin Signal. Thank you to KUT’s Andrew Weber and Luz Moreno Lozano, as well as Matt Reilly from our sister station KUTX. And thank you to Kristen Cabrera, our managing producer, and Rayna Sevilla, our technical director. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. Austin Signal will be back at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon. 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.
