Complaints against Austin police
could be worked out through a new
city program focused on mediation.
We'll hear more about what these
types of guided conversations to
address community concerns could
look and sound like.
And there is a downtown fixture
close to Rainy Street that has
somehow avoided becoming yet another
Austin sky rise.
Of course, we're talking about the
IHOP on Cesar Chavez.
We'll here about the real estate
drama behind its longevity and
what the future could hold for the
building and the land that it's
built on. That's coming up on
today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
Plus, a conversation with the
director of a new documentary on
podcasting and the age of
audio that's premiering in town
at Austin Film Society this weekend,
all of that and more, coming up
right here on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, this is
Austin Signal, you're listening on
community powered public radio KUT
News, we're glad you're making us
part of your Friday, I'm
your host Jerry Kijonol.
We will get today's show started by
talking about a new city program
that aims to address complaints
about Austin police through
conversation.
As KUT's Andrew Weber reports,
the city's police oversight office
hopes the mediation program bridges
gaps between officers and
the community.
Police complaints run the gamut.
They could include anything from
excessive force to speeding to
slow response times.
But a good chunk of the time, Austin
Police Oversight fields complaints
in which people allege officers
were just plain rude to them.
And that isn't against the law.
Gail McCant is the director of
Austin Police oversight.
That's absolutely correct.
But for officers, it is a policy
violation.
There is an expectation that
you engage with community members
very respectfully.
So, the office is starting a new
program, one where people who
complain and the police officers
they file complaints against sit
down and talk it out with a
third-party mediator.
McCant hopes this program will
change how people think about cops
and how cops engage
with Austinites on a day-to-day
basis.
We really want officers to think
through this process, be reflective
in this process.
Be able to accept some
constructive feedback from community
members related to their
engagement and really just be open
to the process.
The idea for the program stretches
back as far as 2018,
McCants says, but it's the direct
result of the Austin Police
Oversight Act, the voter approved
ballot measure from 2023 that
aims to increase civilian input
and police oversight.
Kathy Mitchell helped get that
measure passed.
She's happy to see the mediation
program get off the ground, but she
says it took too long to get here.
Mitchell sued the city over what she
says was an unnecessary delay, a
common stumbling block for reforms
tied to the Austin Police Oversight
Act.
There's no other thing than
foot dragging to blame for
that. The city could have been
much further along much sooner.
But Mitchell says progress,
slow as it may seem to her, is
progress and opening a line
of dialog between cops and the
community.
Sometimes all you need
is an open and honest
conversation, and creating a
place to have that open and honest
conversation is
a good thing.
Both Mitchell and McCant say the
program has the opportunity to break
down some barriers and mend fences
between Austin police and the
people they protect and serve.
I'm Andrew Weber in Austin.
Austin's skyline has had quite
a few alterations over the
last decade-plus, but one
facade has not faded and has somehow
remained strong in the face of so
much change right around it.
I'm talking of course about the IHOP
on Cesar Chavez's ride off of
I-35, but there is
a kerfuffle bubbling under the
breakfast eatery about the very land
that the building is situated on it.
For more about that story, we're
speaking with Cody Baird.
He covers commercial real estate for
the Austin Business Journal.
Cody, thanks for coming on the show
today. Thanks for having me.
So in case our listeners aren't
super familiar, what sort of
redevelopment has been happening in
the area around that IHOP?
So that IHOP, they...
The area around it specifically has
gotten sky-high pretty
much.
The IHOP itself is almost
right next door to what is
already the tallest tower in the
entire state.
It makes for like a pretty comical
scene when you're driving along and
you get close to 35 There's
this tiny little building and then
huge buildings everywhere around it
Oh, yeah, a decade ago, it didn't
stand out that much.
But today, when there's been so
much development along Rainy Street,
you know, you look at it and it's
just like, wow, why, why hasn't.
That been redeveloped?
Yeah, well, I'm going to ask you
that question, but since so
much has been going up these big
buildings, I am assuming expensive
buildings, the land that the IHOP
is on, how valuable is
that land?
I can't remember the...
Exact figure.
But for tax purposes, it was most
recently appraised at about
$26.7 million,
I believe.
And just for reference,
market value for properties like
that often
way exceeds the
value okay okay
so again you you
asked the question yourself right
there how has it remained an
IHOP in the face of all this change
around it so the the property
owner has
said exactly why it
hasn't been redeveloped.
But what we do know is that they're
in default on a loan since
2020.
And that can trigger a bunch of
things like not being able to get
refinancing or new construction
loans for any kind of development,
which would definitely impact any
kind or development there.
The other side of it is that
the IHOP still has a lease there.
I think the IHOP extends through
June, 2029 right now.
Okay yeah, I will follow up with
some questions about that, but I
want to go back to that default
loan.
Your story kind of brings in
the default loan, it says the
property is intriguing enough
itself, but it also brings
in these three characters, these
three players in your story.
I was wondering, hopefully you can
talk a little bit about them.
Maybe you start with Nate Paul, I
think his name might be most
familiar to some of our listeners.
Yeah, yeah.
Pretty much everyone involved in
this has some kind of
criminal investigation history
behind them.
Nate Paul, for example,
during the 2010s,
he was a really high-flying,
young real estate investor in
Austin, making a lot of ways for
getting a lot of really valuable
properties in prime locations like
the IHOP.
In 2019, the FBI
rated his office and
The ensuing investigation saw
him plead guilty last year
to a charge of
lying to financial institutions.
Okay, so that's a little bit about
Nate Paul.
Maybe you tell us about Justin Bain.
I believe he's from Austin as well.
Correct, yeah.
Austin Bain is the sole manager
of the creditor that's trying
to foreclose on the property right
now. Okay, okay.
He's a commercial real estate pro
in Austin, but he was
recently arrested on
charges of playing a
key role in a high-end cocaine
distribution enterprise.
And you said he's the creditor
currently, I guess,
trying to foreclose on
the IHOP? That's correct.
He's the manager of the creditors.
And then prior to that, it was
another company? Is that where Brian
Hardeman comes in?
No, no. So, uh, Brian,
The creditor is
an investment entity that's led
by Brian Hardeman and
Justin Bain is listed on Property
Records as the manager of it.
They purchased a
loan from Amplify Credit Union
after Nate Paul had defaulted
on the loan there.
Okay, so this stems
from a recent, or maybe
not stems, but the most recent
thing is a Chapter 11 bankruptcy
case, so there's been a lot of
fighting prior to this recent
move. Can you just tell us a little
bit of that backstory?
Yeah, yeah.
World-class, Nate Paul's
firm that owns the IHOP,
they defaulted on a loan in
2020.
And that loan was through Amplify
Credit Union.
After they default it on the loan,
the new creditor led by
Brian Hardiman and Justin Bain
purchased that
debt. So now they're
the creditor.
And they've been trying to foreclose
on this property since 2020.
The entire time, each time
they've... Tried to foreclose on
it.
World class and Nepal have tried
through the courts to prevent the
foreclosure.
Their attempts keep getting denied
by the courts, but for
some reason the property just
hasn't made it to the fore closure
auction yet.
Most recently, it was set to get
sold on December 2nd last
year.
It was set to go to foreclosure
auction. I was at the
courthouse steps waiting to see what
happened. And when it never
got sold, I went home
and I checked the
bankruptcy courts.
And that morning,
world class, the entity that
they have owning it declared chapter
11 bankruptcy.
And what that does is that
bankruptcy will kind of
stall or it'll halt any
foreclosures proceedings.
From going forward, yeah.
From going forward until they
kind of go through that bankruptcy
process.
Okay, well we have about
a minute left, a little more than
that. You mentioned the
IHOP having the lease.
Can you tell us a little bit about
like the future and how secure
is their future at that location.
So they're secure, at least until
2029.
They were originally on a 20 year
lease that expired in, I think,
2024.
And they have a five
year extension options.
And 2029 is when that
next extension option would kick in.
And it's not clear yet if
the whoever owns the property can
say, no, we're not gonna let you
exercise that.
But they're at least there till 2029
Cause I learned about a triple net
lease in your story.
Can you just explain really quickly
what that is?
Yeah, yeah, so that means the
IHOP is, they're really handling all
the maintenance, all the
taxes for the property, they are
paying rent, so it's,
I mean it's a really good tenant to
have there. It's just kind of, just
an IHop instead of having maybe
a full office tower
or hotel or something there.
OK, well, again, this
is the latest story from Cody
Baird. He covers commercial real
estate for the Austin Business
Journal. That's where you can find
this story and more of his
reporting. We'll have more in our
show notes for today's show.
Cody, thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
And thank you out there for tuning
in to Austin Signal.
We will be back in just a
moment.
This is Austin Signal, welcome
back.
A pioneer for women in country
music has her birthday this
week. For more about her legacy,
we of course go to Jason Mellard
from the Center for Texas Music
History out at Texas State
University.
She's a fine singer and a nice
girl. Let's make her feel real
welcome here.
Miss Goldie Hill.
This week in Texas music history,
a Karnes City country singer strikes
gold in Nashville.
On January 11, 1933,
country singer Goldie Hill was born
outside of Karnes City, Texas.
Goldie began playing music as a
teenager with her two older
brothers, Kinney and Tommy Hill,
securing gigs in nearby San Antonio
as the Texas Hillbillies, and
backing singing cowboy acts like Red
River Dave and Big Bill Lister.
They gained traction by the early
1950s, catching the ear of
honky-tonker Webb Pierce.
Pierce invited Goldie and Tommy to
join his band on Shreveport's famed
Louisiana Hayride radio show.
Riding this wave at just 19 years
old, Hill auditioned as a solo
singer at Deca Records in Nashville,
who had also recently signed Kitty
Wells.
And in 1952, she released her
first single, Why Talk to My
Heart.
To talk to
my
The following year, her second
record, I Let the Stars Get in My
Eyes, an answer song to Slim
Willett's Don't Let the stars get in
your eyes, became a country number
one hit.
Hill was dubbed the Golden
Hillbilly, performing on programs
such as Ozark Jubilee, the Grand
Ole Opry, and the Country Tune
Parade with Ernest Tubb.
She married country singer Carl
Smith in 1957 and toured
with him in the Philip Morris
Country Music Show for a few years
before largely retiring from the
music industry.
Although she recorded sporadically
in the decades to follow.
Her disillusionment with
opportunities for women singers led
her to find fulfillment away from
the spotlight.
Hill lived out the remainder of her
years on her family ranch before
passing away in 2005.
Often overlooked for her role in
Texas music, Goldie Hill set
a precedent for women in country
music for years to come.
You've been gone so long,
I couldn't stay.
You can hear music from the Lone
Star State 24-7 on the
Texas Music Experience at TMX.fm
Support for This Week in Texas Music
History comes from Brain Audio,
maker of a compact portable speaker
featuring an internal subwoofer that
produces deep bass sound.
Engineered in the live music capital
of the world, more at
BrainAudio.com.
That's B-R-A-N-E audio
dot com.
This is Austin Signal, thank you for
tuning in.
What's the first podcast that was
ever recommended by a friend to
you? Was it something from the
public radio universe or maybe
something from one of your favorite
comedians that you still listen to
this very day?
Well, the story of how podcasts came
to be and even the very origin
of the word podcast is part of the
story in the film Age of Audio
directed by Shaun Michael Colon.
The movie is screening this Sunday
at the Austin Film Society.
He's going to be at the theater for
a Q&A following the show.
And we've got him here now for a
few questions on Austin Signal.
Shaun, thank you for your time.
Oh, thanks for having me. I really
appreciate it, Jer.
So I know you didn't set out
to make this movie about podcasting.
Can you tell us what project were
you working on and how did that end
up connecting you with some
podcasting royalty?
I was working on a documentary
with this punk rock band
and we ended up playing a show and
through a series of events I
ended up hanging out with Ira Glass
at a punk rock show.
Which is a weird
conflation of two parts of my
world I never thought would collide.
That's a very public radio sentence,
you know, hanging out with Ira Glass
at a punk rock show.
I feel like that's something you can
only hear on the public radio
airwaves.
I think certain people know
how weird those
two things coming together can be.
The movie is kind of a mix of
the story of podcasts, where the
words came from, how things sort
of happened. But it also is kind
running concurrently with a
modern-day podcaster, somebody who's
trying to get their show exposure,
and a little bit more listenership.
How did that come about?
Did you anticipate that you were
going to work, that the host's
name is Ronald Young Jr.?
Did you anticipated working with him
from the beginning, or did that
happen as you were making the
film?
No, the film evolved over about
seven years.
And I always knew I wanted to do
some of the history of podcasting
and kind of where it came from and
talk about the industry.
But I also knew that unless you
were someone that was really deep
into podcasting, that stuff can get,
you know, a little boring.
Yeah, and the weeds for sure.
And my first film didn't really
have a primary
subject that I followed.
And it's really great for the people
who, like I said, that are inside
baseball and they really love it.
But I really wanted to make a film
that you could follow
along with, whether or not you cared
about podcasting or not.
And I think the only way to do that
is to tell a human story.
And I thing, you know, besides
podcasting,
which has a very DIY kind
of spirit to it, I think since the
beginning.
I wanted to highlight what it's
like to be an independent creator as
one myself.
I don't think you ever make a movie
that's not about yourself.
But I'm in that independent
creator world and I think it's
important for some people to see the
highs and lows of what it can mean
to be a successful independent
creator.
I feel like, especially nowadays
more than ever, someone either
is a independent creator or
a family member or a friend is
someone that's trying to do
something like this. So.
Just hoping I can tell a story that
could connect with the most amount
of people.
You mentioned the DIY spirit that
runs through all of podcasting.
Your story weaves through the
origins, the heyday, and gets
to the current financially tougher
environment that podcasts exist in.
Besides that DIY nature, what do you
see as some of the connections
that link all three of those phases
together?
I think it's one of the
things about podcasting I think
that's no matter if people are
making money off of it or,
you know, the early days,
I think the thing that runs
thread that runs through all of it
is that this is a medium
that's not controlled by any
company.
There are companies that can put
money into it, but because of
the nature of a
technical term RSS,
it really is one of the first broad
mediums that could be broadcast to
so many people that know
one company or one country or
any One thing
that controls it and I think
that even though it's harder
I think these days to make money in
podcasting for a newcomer
and independent The
opportunity is still there to reach
lots of people without any
gatekeepers and that's for better
for worse But I think it's in
a very unique position
Unlike almost any other medium
that's existed.
Maybe early pirate radio before
it all got regulated and such,
but...
Let me ask you, I have one last
question.
Your film was made with support
from an Austin Film Society grant.
I wanted to know how impactful that
was to helping make this project
become a reality.
Uh, I might get emotional here,
but please, please, uh,
like, uh, the film, you said this
was a seven year project, correct?
Yes. And remember in the middle
of that was COVID.
So we had a lot of, yeah, that's
right.
We had a ton of momentum.
We did about 35 interviews in,
uh.
2019 and we really had a little
momentum and then COVID happened and
really kind of everything kind of,
you know, uh just, you can't do
in-person interviews really anymore
at that point.
And it really kind of, the film
in 2023, early 2023,
I felt like had a real possibility
of dying on the vine
through a host of different
financial reasons and
just momentum and all those
kinds of things.
And I had it in me
to, one of my editors
had worked with grants
before and they helped me
write up something.
And basically they
told me, you need to support you
know, apply to this awesome film
society grant.
And when they said that, I think
I had seven,
no, eight days.
I think eight days to get it all
together.
Wow
And to be honest with you, I really
at that point just forgot about it.
I put it out of my brain and didn't
even think about it, I was thinking
about some crowdfunding and some
other kind of things with the next
step to try and revive the
film and get it into a place.
And I think it's in early September,
I came home,
wasn't even thinking about it at all
and just saw an email and just,
you know, you see those emails and
it's so often as a filmmaker and
a creative, those emails are.
You know, we regret to inform
you.
Yeah, rejection letters, yeah.
And, you know, and it's
usually in the first line.
So I remember, I don't even remember
opening the email, but the first
time was we were excited and
I literally fell to my knees and
started sobbing.
I think I might cry now.
It was really,
you now, the money is definitely
helpful.
You know, in the size of a film,
it's not enough to complete a film
but it's enough to
keep things moving and it really...
Invigorated the film and I think it
was the you know I went to some
podcast conferences afterwards had
some funds to be able to fly out as
able to upgrade my computer I was
able to have some a little bit of
a cash flow to be about to kind of
get things up and moving again and
that's where I ended up finding I
Went to a podcast conference called
resonate and met
Ronald Young Jr And really
that's what made the movie come back
to life. So it was really from that
that spark of that
Confidence in the project and also
a little bit of financial support
that really the
film exists now And it just I don't
know if it would have if I
hadn't gotten that from the Austin
Film Society
Well, congratulations on completing
the film. We've been speaking with
Shaun Michael Cologne.
He is the director of the film,
Age of Audio.
Its Austin premiere is happening
this Sunday at the Austin Film
Society.
The screening starts at 4.15,
and Shaun is gonna stick around
after the movie for a Q&A that
I'm gonna be moderating.
So come on out and join us again
this Sunday afternoon, 4.
15.
Shaun, I look forward to seeing you
there, and thank you for joining us
today on Austin Signal.
Man, thank you so much, man.
I'm looking forward to Sunday.
And that's it for this week of
Austin Signal.
And there has been a lot happening
these past few days.
So in case you missed something,
reminder, you can find our episodes
at kut.org slash
signal.
And subscribe to the show wherever
you listen to your podcast.
We would really appreciate it.
Rayna Sevilla is our technical
director.
Kristin Cabrera is our managing
producer.
And Jimmy Mass is Austin Signal's
show runner. I'm Jerry Quijano.
We will talk to you on Monday.
Have a great weekend!