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Austin’s unhoused folks say they lose everything when the city sweeps though their camps, despite a City Council resolution aiming to improve the sweeps and provide more notice ahead of time.
The City of Austin overpaid hundreds of employees to the tune of more than $1 million. Most employees expected having to pay the money back —but didn’t expect to face potential legal action for the city’s error. Andrea Ball of Austin Current joins us now to talk about this.
Gran Moreno, the KUTX Artist of the Month, has only one rule: There are no rules.
Plus: The latest on Athena, the resident owl at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and her 2026 owlets.
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] Austin’s unhoused population say they lose everything when the city sweeps through their camps. Those kinds of sweeps are ramping up following a year old city council resolution to do so. We’ve got that story. And the city of Austin overpaid hundreds of employees to the tune of one more than $1 million. Most employees expected having to pay the money back but didn’t expect to face legal action over something that the city was at fault for. More about both of those stories 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] The KUTX Artist of the Month for April has only one rule. There are no rules. We’re gonna chat with the duo behind Gran Moreno. And a sad update from Athena. The Great Horned Owl nesting here in Austin was believed to have lost both her owlets, but we’ve got some good news to share with you. That is up next here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, you are listening to Austin Signal. It is April 20th and a rainy Monday outside the KUT studios. The National Weather Service is forecasting rain chances to increase through daytime tomorrow, so be sure to keep those umbrellas and raincoats handy. I’m your host, Jerry Kiechanel. Thank you for tuning in today. Austin plans to ramp up the clearing out of homeless camps and public spaces starting next month. The city is supposed to provide people with options for housing and other resources, but many in the community say they are not getting that help. KUT’s Luz Moreno Lozano has the story.
Tony Carter [00:01:48] This right here is one of the entrances that we had.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:01:53] This is Tony Carter, a man who’s been experiencing homelessness since 2019. We’re in Southeast Austin at the former homeless camp he was living in with about 10 other people. But a few weeks ago, the city came in and forced everyone in the camp to leave. All that’s left are scraps of what used to be living quarters. Pieces of tents anchored to the trees and lots of blankets, clothes and other belongings are strewn through the property.
Tony Carter [00:02:17] As you can look over here to your left. This is where I was staying with my son and his girlfriend.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:02:30] It’s where he has lived since last November and where he stored all his belongings.
Tony Carter [00:02:34] I had a nice tent, my clothes was inside the tent, I had the box spring mattress that we had put down inside the tents and stuff, actually I had it stapled down right in here.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:02:53] Tony and others living in the camp were given no notice before they were cleared out. His son told them Austin police and other city workers came in and told everybody to leave, threatening to arrest them if they didn’t. Tony was at work at the time and lost all his possessions.
Tony Carter [00:03:09] You know, that’s the way they want it.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:03:11] The Gawson City Council wants to make that experience less traumatic. Last year, the council passed a resolution to better coordinate the clear-outs. That includes giving advanced notice to people living there and providing access to housing and other resources. But Paulette Soltani says that’s not happening. She’s with Vocal Texas, the group that fights on behalf of people experiencing homelessness. She and others are calling out city officials for their lack of compassion and their inability to follow their own rules.
Paulette Soltani [00:03:38] The heart of this problem can only be solved with housing, with services, with health care. These suites are never going to do anything about harm our community, our entire community, not just our unhoused folks. We need to invest in those solutions.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:03:54] Flottani spoke at a press conference this month to highlight what they considered are poorly managed sweeps of an encampment in Austin. Kari Ann Smith was one of the speakers. She had been swept out of her camp in Austin a few weeks ago.
Kari Ann Smith [00:04:07] They took all of my stuff. They took my generator. They took every single thing. And they do not offer resources. The shelter was cold. The shelter just filled up and everything. They don’t give you no resources. They just leave you out to sleep on the concrete.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:04:24] The press conference was held near the corner of E. Caesar Chavez and San Marcos streets. The area highlights the struggle to support the homeless population while also creating the camps in the first place. In that area, there are several service providers for the unhoused. That includes the Angel House soup kitchen where people can get a warm meal, take a shower, and get a fresh change of clothes, along with the Texas Harm Reduction Alliance, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, and other organizations. Shannon Taylor, who lives in the East Cesar Chavez neighborhood, says because there is that concentration of homeless services, people tend to congregate there. Many of the services set up near the Terrazas Library parking lot. That has led to an increase in trash in public areas and safety concerns for people visiting the library and other area businesses. Taylor says the neighborhood is looking to the city to enforce the camping ban and keep the area safe.
Shannon Taylor [00:05:15] And while we’re waiting for a comprehensive citywide solution to this problem of homelessness, unfortunately, the solution just can’t be to allow our neighborhood to become a default shelter.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:05:28] The city has cleared out that area several times as part of its housing-focused Encampment Assistance Link, or HEAL, initiative. The goal of the project is to close unsafe homeless camps, like those near busy roads or in flood-prone areas, and offer people shelter and access to other resources. David Gray is a director for the city’s Homeless Strategy Office.
David Gray [00:05:48] And so that area is an area that we do work hard to keep clear. It’s also a high traffic area, a high injury roadway. And with the increase in construction along I-35, we know there’s even greater potential for, for injury to folks.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:06:06] Still, he says there’s room for improvement.
David Gray [00:06:08] We’re working with APD on learning those lessons and making sure that in the future, we do things with the spirit of compassion, that we maybe do better rounds of outreach, and then on the actual cleanup day, give folks a little bit more time to gather their personal effects before we begin taking away debris and doing the garbage removal.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:06:32] Better coordination will be important because Gray’s office has announced a new plan that would increase the number of sweeps and implement a plan to keep those areas clear of future camps. With a mix of police, city staff, and others, the goal would be to provide people with safer places to sleep and other resources to help them get back on their feet. And giving at least 72 hours advance notice before cleanup begins. After the sweep, another team would monitor the area to make sure people are not creating new camps. Tony Carter says a city can ramp up campsweeps all it wants, but without the proper resources, people will continue to live on the streets.
Tony Carter [00:07:06] If you…
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:07:08] The homeless people not to be home.
Tony Carter [00:07:13] Get something done.
Luz Moreno-Lozano [00:07:14] The City Council still has to approve the plan. It will start its debate on that in May. I’m Luz Moreno Lozano in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:29] Well, times are tough and an unexpected bump on your paycheck might seem like a blessing in disguise, but for some City of Austin employees, it was more of an annoyance mixed with anxiety that happened when the city accidentally overpaid 10% of its employees last month and had to demand that pay back. For more, we are talking with Andrea Ball, Growth Development Reporter for Austin Current. Welcome back to the show, Andrea. Thank you for having me. So how did exactly how did the city end up overpaying some of its employees and how much in total did they overpay?
Andrea Ball [00:08:02] So in March, the city inadvertently paid 675 of its employees a total of 1.4 million combined in their paychecks. It was an accident. Somebody basically pressed the wrong button, the machine overrode it, it was kind of technical error, human error, combo, whatever it happened. And so once the city realized that, they made an initial outreach to their staff saying, hey, hey, we made a mistake. Don’t go spend that money. We’re getting it back
Jerry Quijano [00:08:33] And some of the employees were kind of already under the suspicion that they were going to have to pay this money back anyway, correct?
Andrea Ball [00:08:39] Oh, yeah, they knew. I mean, the people that I talked to were like, Oh, I know, not I don’t get to keep this. They told us it was fat. It was right before or right after the checks went out that they knew and some people got two times their regular pay. Some people it appears were paid more than $5,000 extra.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:58] How do you, when you’ve been overpaid, how do you get the money back to the city?
Andrea Ball [00:09:03] So just to back up for a little bit, what had happened was with some employees who didn’t get the message, hey, this is coming, they were walking up to their supervisor saying, what’s up with my paycheck? And everybody was sort of, we have a normalcy bias as people, right? Like, oh, it must be that thing, that would make it normal. Oh no, this would make normal. Maybe I was like promoted, who knows what happened? But they reached out pretty soon, but people really didn’t know what had happen. It became clearer that the city which controls the direct deposit was like, okay, we’re going to take it out and you can decide if you want to do it over one pay period or four pay periods, or if you want to pay us by check, we take check too.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:45] So how did it end up coming to be that some of these employees were facing legal action from the city?
Andrea Ball [00:09:52] Yes, so the employees received a document that was a paid like a basically a clawback agreement, a payment agreement that says, Hey, we overpaid you. This is your name. This is how much you were overpaid. We want it back. And, uh, it was a few sentences and then like really the second paragraph says signing this agreement means that we’re going to avoid a dispute and it’s going to, avoid a contested lawsuit. And it’s going to, you know, make sure whatever. And people were like, wait, what? Why are you automatically assuming that we’re going to a lawsuit here? I didn’t even say I didn’t want to pay it. And so it felt like there were some employees who just signed it no big deal, no problem. But there were other employees who said, I really need to know how this affects how much I give to my retirement. How does this affect my taxes? That kind of thing. And so basically, people started asking questions, but there were so many people asking questions at the same time that they couldn’t meet the April 10th deadline by which they were supposed to sign. And so people were getting really angry and some refusing to sign and the city says they did not intend it to be a threat. But lawyers are lawyers and so lawyers are gonna lawyer and they want to make sure that all their options are available to them should someone decide I’m not paying it back.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:17] Do you know how much, if any, the city has been able to recoup already?
Andrea Ball [00:11:21] I don’t know dollar figure, but as of last week, I think they were down to like 30 something people, 39 people who had not signed it. So out of 675, they’re getting most of it. But the people that I had spoken to who either had signed it or hadn’t signed it weren’t fighting about the agreement. They were just saying, just answer our questions. As soon as they give me questions answered, I want them in a legal document. I want you to specify it because I don’t trust you because you just messed up my paycheck. And I don t think this city intended to come across aggressive or forceful or whatever but they have said this is taxpayer money. We kind of bombed it and so we need to make sure that money is protected and that That’s what we’re doing.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:07] All right, we have been speaking with Andrea Ball. She is the growth development reporter for Austin Current. KUT and Austin Signals partnering, covering the city of Austin. Andrea, always great to talk with you.
Andrea Ball [00:12:18] Thank you for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:20] Thank you for tuning in to Austin Signal. We have more show coming up after the break This is Austin Signal, I’m Jerry Quijano. Bird lovers in Austin and beyond may be familiar with Athena, the great horned owl that has for many years made her home at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center during breeding season. Thanks to a partnership with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, birders far and wide have had the chance to watch Athena raise her young over the years on one of the lab’s live bird cams. Sadly that camera went dark over the weekend as Athena appeared to have abandoned her after at least one of her outlets died. And while the second outlet on Sunday was also believed to have died, Cornell and the Wildflower Center reported today that that outlet showed signs of life and is now being rehabilitated. Here with an update is Scott Simons with the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower center. Welcome to the show, Scott.
Scott Simons [00:13:14] Thank you very much.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:15] So earlier reports from the Wildflower Center and partners at the Cornell Lab said both of Athena’s outlets had died, but now we know that one has survived. Can you tell us about the status of that outlet and how the center discovered that it survived in the first place?
Scott Simons [00:13:29] Yes, so the allot is alive and well and in the care of Austin Wildlife Rescue we’re very happy to report and it is eating well this morning and is asking for more food and so there’s a reason to be really hopeful there. What happened is, you know, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who’s arguably the leading expert of birds in the world, was monitoring the nest site. They monitor our camera 24-7, whether it’s staff or volunteers. And noticed that after one owl had passed away, of course, on Friday, and we had noticed that Athena was spending less time at the nest at the very same time. So there was indication to believe that perhaps the male had stopped attending the nest or something had gone wrong, and that is really the first red flag. Yet, Athena was still coming back to the nest. And on Saturday, we started to see some behavior that led us to believe that Athena was abandoning the mast. On Sunday morning, after the night, it appeared that perhaps the second chick was struggling. Even though Athena had not officially abandoned the nest yet, at a certain point, Cornell had decided that perhaps that chick had passed away. And at this very same time, Athena was tending to spend less and less time at the nest. So this was all sort of happening very quickly. We believed that the second outlet had passed and we had turned off the live stream, which is the practice of Cornell. When a nest season is over, no matter the outcome, the live-stream is turned off. The Cornell lab staff continued to monitor the nest site through the camera without publishing it and notice that the outlet exhibited some movement after a couple of hours. And so they alerted us at the Wildflower Center and we immediately got in touch with our friends at Austin Wildlife Rescue and we sort of worked together very, very quickly to get to the Wildflower center and get to that nest site and get up there and rescue that owl yesterday. So the baby owl, the little owlet was rescued late yesterday afternoon and by this morning the owl was responding really well and asking for more food. So we’re very, very grateful that we were able to act quickly and make a difference in this instance.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:03] Yeah, definitely some great news after what seemed like a really sad situation over the weekend. Now, Athena has been returning to the center for years to nest. Has anything like this happened before?
Scott Simons [00:16:13] She abandoned the nest early on and so you know it’s not that unusual occasionally for an owl parent or or or mother to abandon the nest for multiple reasons and so she has abandoned nest in the past but more or less Athena has been incredibly steadfast as we like to say she has this would this was her 15th nesting season at the Wildflower Center. And so we have reason to be hopeful that Athena will return. She has an incredible nesting location that she’s returned to again and again. And so, you know, we have, we have a reason to hopeful for the future with Athena.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:55] We have been speaking with Scott Simons. He is the Director of Marketing and Communications at Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. Scott, thank you for your time.
Scott Simons [00:17:02] Thank you, it’s a pleasure.
Jerry Quijano [00:17:07] The KUTX artists of the month for April is Gran Moreno. Their upcoming album is a conceptual two-part release, side A, El Sol, which is out now, and side B, La Luna, coming soon. They’re a duo of brothers, Ricardo and Cristian Rodriguez, and they’ve been making music for many years now. As a duo, yes, but with many other people and in many other projects. But now they’re focusing their energies on Gran Moreno. The fellas have been out on a tour of the Midwest, but before they hit the road, they made time to speak with us here on Austin Signal to talk about their journey and the decision to focus on working as a pair. We’re gonna hear first from Ricardo, followed by Cristian.
Ricardo [00:17:49] We were traveling around and I feel like we really missed to play and we start just jamming just because we missed the music. And to be honest, we’re not looking for anything specific. We don’t want to go into the book shows and you know, that stuff. But everything happened so fast because we start jamming together and then we do open mic somewhere just because we want to play. And everyone, like some people, always, every time that we play, it’s like, hey guys, you should play in this, in this venue, blah, blah. And so everything starts happening, happening. And look at us now, we’re again on the road.
Christian [00:18:27] I mean, it took us probably like a year to define our sound right now, because at the beginning he was just playing the guitar, that’s it, but now he’s switching like guitar or playing the guitar and bass at the same time, but it took, you know, like probably six, seven months to figure something out.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:45] I know it’s kind of hard because there’s a lot of influences and it sounds like you’re making lots of music, but for somebody who may not be familiar with your music, how would you define your sound?
Ricardo [00:18:57] We call it Saifost. It’s like a type of distortion, but very specific one because it’s not distortion but it’s not metal. In between of that, it’s fost, psychedelic fost. I don’t know. It is Gran Moreno to be honest. It’s Gran Morena classic rock, Saiblues. Yeah, sabor, saborcito norteño y de todo.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:38] And I would say the sound, at least for me from El Sol, is kind of like psychedelic rock. It has a lot of moments like that. So how did you end up making the music that you made for El Sol?
Ricardo [00:19:50] The rock and roll is the base of everything. And we start on that to create, to go for somewhere else, you know? But always the base is the rock and role, you now? It’s always on our heart. And I believe it’s, that’s why I sold, it’s mostly psychedelic rock, but there’s a little bit of something else. But the heart of our music is rock and rolled.
Christian [00:20:16] I was thinking about that the other day, when we created El Sol, this album is the combination of the music that we liked. Because we are brothers, but we have many different…
Jerry Quijano [00:20:34] I have a brother and a sister too, you know, we’re very alike and in some ways we are completely different.
Christian [00:20:39] And that’s, and you can feel that in El Sol, honestly, like there’s some songs that they are like heavy, like super heavy, I like heavy stuff. He’s more romantic, for example, but we can mix everything and put it together and create like strong songs or loud songs, but also have like many or like a deep feeling and you find in all of the album.
Ricardo [00:21:03] I think this is good to everyone to know, or part of our rules is there’s no rules. You know, it’s just have fun and create music and I believe most of the bands fighting because they want to do something and someone else don’t want to. And that’s not our case, because we are free to do whatever. And I believe this is part of the people feel like, okay, these guys are true. Just because we don’t have, we don’t want to be part of anything. We just want to do music.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:33] And do you guys feel like you have a pretty good creative process working with each other?
Christian [00:21:37] Now yeah now we are having this moment of our lives that we are like working together like pretty smooth uh it’s not always like that but it’s like the it’s like a humans used to live right but yeah right now we are like we are in this part of our life that we’re trying to create like so much music Oh, man Don’t, don’t go, or I’ll feed you there The long, long road I’ll see you there
Jerry Quijano [00:22:23] Well, I wanted to ask a little bit about El Sol. It features a couple of songs that have lyrics in English and then a couple of tracks have lyrics and Spanish. How often have y’all worked with making music in English? Actually, it’s the first time. Yeah? And what was that?
Ricardo [00:22:37] Experience like? I love it, I love. I mean, I grew up with music in English without knowing that they say, but at the end when I translate, it’s exactly that I’m feeling, you know? And I believe everything is about vibes, everything is the feeling. It’s not necessary to understand what they say. But talking about English is something that I, growing up, you know, I’m growing up watching videos on MTV about Korn, Limpizky, or something like that. So I feel great, it’s my dream to sing in English, so yeah.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:12] Oh man, I would love to hear y’all do like a cover of corn blind, you know, but that’s been, we have been speaking with Cristian and Ricardo Rodriguez. They are the duo behind Gran Moreno. We’re gonna have a link to their Studio 1A performance in today’s podcast show notes. They are KUTX artists of the month for April, 2026. Guys, it’s been great talking with you. Thank you so much for having us. And thank you for starting the week here with us. That is it for today’s show. Rene Chavez directed today’s Show. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. And thank to Alexa Hart, our new producer here on Austin Signal for her help. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. We will be back with you tomorrow, same time. Have a great day.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
