A $25 million contract between
the City of Austin and the Long
Center is under scrutiny over how
the public money is being spent.
The contracts and the fees inside it
are tied to the city's cultural arts
grants program, raising questions
about transparency and oversight,
the details of the contract,
and Texas Republicans have
revived anti-Muslim messaging
in races across the state as early
voting begins tomorrow.
It's a change in messaging from
elections over the past decade or
so. Why that's the case and what it
could mean for elections coming up
on today's show.
The Austin Signal is a production
of KUT News, hosted by
Jerry Quijano.
Real love means working through the
good, the bad, and the funny.
It's all explored in a mockumentary
from an Austin filmmaker that's
premiering this week.
That conversation, coming up next
on Austin Signal.
Howdy out there, this is Austin
Signal. Thank you for starting the
week off with us.
I'm your host, Jerry Keconnell.
Let's get started with today's
show.
There is new scrutiny on a $25
million contract between the city of
Austin and the Long Center, which
has, for the past three years, been
running the city's cultural arts
grants program.
Now some city staffers are raising
some questions.
For more, we are talking with Andrea
Balshi as the growth and development
reporter for Austin Current, KUT's
collaborator.
On the Austin Signal and a partner
with KUT's newsroom in
covering the city.
Andrea, thank you for coming back on
the show.
Thank you for having me.
So, you put this
contract under some scrutiny, you
reviewed the contract, what stood
out to you?
I think what is great
about this contract in
terms of reading it is that
it breaks down by
hour how
much each task costs.
And that's not something you always
see in contracts.
These types of contracts are,
according to what I have seen,
according the expert I consulted,
they're unusual.
They're not unheard of.
They're like absolutely dinosaurs
here. That's not what it is.
They are usually
contracts with cities.
They usually set a flat fee
or a percentage.
That way it says,
okay, contractor, I want these
deliverables.
I want this kind of transparency.
I want kind of
reporting.
However you get there, you get
their, but stay under 10%.
This did not do that.
And that's what struck me.
And when I looked at the
numbers...
As a lay person, I said,
I don't understand why it costs
$54 to pay
an assistant, a customer service
person.
Not that it's wrong, I just don't
under stand.
Why does it cost $250 to
pull information for
the city who owns the
information? So, they were
questions, not judgments.
And did those seem unusually high?
I mean, you said there's not a lot
of examples of this type of
contract, but did those rates seem
exorbitantly high?
And to me they did, but I'm just
talking as a person who
looks at the regular world and says,
that sounds high.
Communicated with the Long Center.
They were very open.
They were
very articulate about
how they explained where
they came up with these rates.
And they continually said to me,
we're abiding by the contract.
The city approved this.
This was intentional.
And the reason we did it, the reason
why it might seem high to you
is because we're not just using
four people who are paid
under this contract to
do this work.
We have dozens of people at
the Long Center who can contribute
to this work as part of their daily
duties.
That's how we keep the overhead low
for the city.
Problematically, with these types of
contracts is that they take a
lot of scrutiny.
And you have a government agency
trying to oversee a contract
with limited people,
sometimes it doesn't
go as tightly, as one would hope.
And through your reporting, what did
you hear about the experience of
running this program through the
Long Center for these last three
years, maybe compared to years
past for artists who were
participating in it?
Yeah, I heard, you
know, there were secret sources
buzzing in the ears, you know,
talking about this and that later.
But I also did hear from
people, hey, we are getting our
checks cut much faster.
It is much more efficient than
it was under the city in terms
of getting our money.
Now, if you're a musician and you
have bills to pay, that's
really important.
They're not messing with contracts.
They don't care about that unless
you are.
Really having questions, and there
were people having questions and
they came to me.
In your story, you mentioned that
this is important, or why does this
matter right now?
Can you tell us about what's coming
up next month?
Yeah.
So in
April, so this is a
contract that has a
five year period of possible
length.
So you have your master contract,
which is, thank you for doing the
work. We will revisit in a year and
we will extend
it.
So it can go up to five
years for $100,000.
I do want to clarify something that
I think some readers might have been
a little bit misled by or whatever.
Long Center does not get $25 million
to pocket.
That's not how it works.
They are distributing like $23
million in contracts and money
to the artists,
the musicians, the dancers,
you know, the people out there
creating the art that
Austin is known for.
They are getting anywhere over
the years between like a million and
a million five to administer
it. They're not running around with
$25 million saying, whoopee, let's
buy some new equipment. That's not
what it is.
And I think that even though we put
it in the story, it's easy
to misunderstand that.
It was also mentioned in the story
that the city had some leftover
money from this grant program
last year that it didn't distribute.
Can you tell us more about that?
So in
2024, there were
some questions and concerns
from the community we could all go
back and read about how the
grants were distributed.
They were looking for transparency.
We also had a lot of different
departments, not just the
economic development department,
but a lot different people all over
the place kind of had their fingers
in this. And so what the city
decided to do was to create this
one group called ACME, and
they're in charge of
cultural arts.
And so when they
came in as a new department,
they said, okay, as
a New Department, hearing concerns,
we're not gonna give out most
of the grants this year.
We're gonna go to musicians.
We're going to go to
venues. We're go to promoters.
We're to talk to other folks and
determine if we are doing this
the best way.
Do we need to change our
applications?
Do we to change the way we oversee
things? So, you have
a bunch of money, let's just say for
the live music fund,
which is supposed to come out next,
the winners are supposed to be
announced next month.
When you have money that
musicians were really hoping for
to keep them afloat,
that's hard.
And so that's why those
grants were not distributed at
that time. So, people are
really looking forward to seeing
how they do and if they get.
That money.
So, last year they
would have distributed $4.5
million, but since the
tax money from the hotel tax, which
is what funds this, accumulated
over last year, they're going to
give out more money this year to
try and compensate for what was
not given.
Yeah, and this story is in line with
one we had last week about
affordable housing for musicians on
the east side of Austin as well.
And we'll have a link to that story
and Andrea's story as well at
kut.org slash signal
and in the show notes for today's
podcast.
We've been speaking with Andrea
Ball. She is the growth and
development reporter for Austin
Current, KUT's collaborator
on the Austin Signal and a partner
with KUT newsroom in covering
the city.
Andrea, thank you for talking with
us. Thank you so much for having me.
The Islamic faith has become a
talking point among Texas
politicians, especially as we've
neared tomorrow's start to early
voting in the primaries.
Forrest Wilder of Texas Monthly
wrote about how Republican
candidates are attacking their
opponents by calling them soft
on Islam and pushing their own
hard-line stance.
Texas Standard's David Brown spoke
with Wilder and starts by
underscoring the headline and
subhead to his story.
Inside the Texas GOP's
anti-Muslim campaigning,
with national prospects looking
bleak for Republicans heading into
the midterms, the party has dusted
off an old boogeyman.
Say more about that.
Republicans concerned about what
might happen here in the mid-terms?
Yeah, that's right.
You know, the midterms are never
great for the party
that's the president's,
and also Trump's approval ratings
are dropping, and some of the issues
that were really salient for
bringing Trump back to power
are waning a bit.
You know the border is quiet,
that's thanks to Donald Trump, but
the salience of that issue has
decreased a bit And
some of the panic around
transgender issues has waned.
And so I think it's not a
coincidence that you're seeing
some of these fears about
the so-called Islamification come
back to the fore as a campaign
issue, a flash point
for Republican candidates.
I want to underscore something
because I can remember—this gets to
the boogeyman comment that's
in your story—I can remember when
anti-Islamic rhetoric was a
political talking point in the wake
of 9-11 and for many years
after.
But you know, we're talking about
20 years or more ago.
Why do some politicians in Texas
think Islam has political salience
now in 2026?
Yeah, it is a little strange, right,
because after 9-11, I mean, it's not
hard to figure out why there
would be a panic around
radical Islam in
the wake of 9-Eleven terrorist
attacks.
Now it seems a little stranger,
but I think it has to do, it ties
in with broader fears about
immigration.
The fact of the matter is Muslims in
Texas remain a small
minority group, about 2% of the
state. However,
the percentage is growing,
particularly in certain areas of
North Texas, Dallas, Fort Worth,
Houston, and also in Travis County.
And some of the visibility has
increased. For example, there's
Ismaili Center,
this 150,000 square foot
facility for the Ismailie
Faith that opened in Houston.
Some schools in, for example, Collin
County have, or neighborhoods
have large populations of
South Asian immigrants, many of whom
are Muslim.
And so I think.
For some people, that's scary.
And so you see politicians
capitalizing on that and trying to
get these lots of the polls.
Is there any evidence that this is
messaging that's being orchestrated
in some way by Texas Republicans
or are we talking about
individual candidates seizing on
something that they think could
benefit them?
Well, I don't think it's like
everyone gets in a room and decides
on this. I think it really,
the dynamic is that they
do polling, they figure out where
Republican base voters are.
Cause keep in mind, we have a
Republican primary coming up.
So a lot of this is about the
Republican primary, not necessarily
the general.
And then, you know, everyone gets
the memo, not in a literal sense,
but they all kind of figure out this
is what we're running on this
season. Now, to be fair, some people
have been on the Muslim bashing
kick for a long time.
They're not Johnny Come Lately's
other candidates.
They're a little late to the game,
right? They're just kind of jumping
on the bandwagon now because it's
the thing that might help get them
elected.
Texas has a rather
large and growing Muslim population.
I think the Texas Almanac said it
was something like 400,000
one of the largest that would make
it one of largest Muslim communities
in the u.s.
What about people in those
communities is there any sign this
could backfire against Republicans
in November?
Yeah, it's interesting because, you
know, it looks let's not generalize
too much because Islam
is one of the world's great
religions. It's the practice by two
billion people.
It's a extremely diverse community.
Not all Muslims are
immigrants.
So you don't want to overgeneralize.
However, if you if you, if you take
a broad view, it said it's
a mixed community, community,
politically tending to be
social conservative.
There are many Muslims who are sort
of natural Republicans who vote
Republican and you know the
folks that I talked to are as you
can imagine really upset about this
I won't make any predictions about
what it might do politically But
I think that it's at
a personal level, you know, this
is pretty hurtful rhetoric.
These are folks who were
part of communities who are proud
to be Texans, proud to Americans
who are here for a reason
and feel like they're being attacked
for nothing that they've done other
than their identity and their
existence.
That was Texas Monthly's Forrest
Wilder speaking with Texas Standard
host David Brown.
We're going to have a link to
Wilder's story at kut.org
slash signal.
And in today's podcast, show notes.
We have more Austin Signal coming up
after this break.
We will be right back with you.
This is Austin Signal.
Welcome back.
Valentine's Day has come and gone,
but for some, the real love story
happens all the days in
between. The good, the bad,
and most importantly, the funny.
It's that deeper look that
award-winning filmmaker Holly
Charles Pearson of Austin wanted to
explore up on the big screen.
Her new mockumentary rom-com,
Tying Knots, premieres tomorrow at
the Millennium Youth Entertainment
Complex in East Austin.
She spoke with host Myles
Bloxson about the film.
So this film is a mockumentary,
right? And I have to admit,
I've never even thought about what
that means before.
So for people that might not be
familiar, what is a Mockumentary and
why was that the format that
you decided to choose for this
particular project?
That's a great question.
And so when you think about mocking
something, but also a documentary,
it's this mashup of the two worlds
that we love. We love narrative
action, like we love film,
we love cinema, but we also really
have the guilty pleasure of loving
reality TV and being able to
listen to the confessionals and
hear what people were really
thinking in the moment.
And sometimes to me,
it's funnier what's setting in a
confessional when people are being
Honest?
Than it is actually watching the
action. And so I thought, man, this
is a way to add some texture.
That is so true.
I have to say, like, yes, I do get
a little bit of reality here and
there. How did the idea
for this short film come to you?
Like, was this any, like
real life inspiration possibly
behind this?
I owe my husband
a whole lot of money coming
up with a lot of these ideas.
I was a
later bride.
I was the late bloomer in that
department. We got married right
before I turned 40 years old,
and so that means I was very
established. I was set in my ways,
as was he.
And so there's
just, there's some hilarity and
some levity.
And just a whole lot of
good stuff to write about when you
think about folks over the age of
40 trying to, I
guess, merge their lives together.
And so I thought, man, this reminds
me so much of traditional sitcoms,
where there's always, week to week,
there's some sort of situational
drama or comedy.
And what drew you to create a film
that centered
Black love how important
is that?
You know, I think that we've gotten
really, really used to
centering black
trauma.
You know all of this, what some
people will call like this trauma
porn, drama born thing
when it comes to black love and
black life and what social
oppression has actually done to the
black family. We think about
disenfranchisement and all these
things. But studies are showing
that we're getting married, we're
staying married, and we just so
happen to be doing it a little bit
later in life. So I thought it was
super important to show some
positive images.
Love and people working things out
in a way that doesn't have to be
dramatic. It can actually be
hilarious.
That's very true.
And in the film, you also touch on
beauty standards within the black
community. What made that an element
you wanted to explore?
I'll say this, the story is
told, I'm a black woman, so of
course I'm telling it specifically
from my point of view.
Yes, it's about beauty standards,
it's how a
black women has to go out into the
world to be accepted and wanting to
be more accepted at home.
But I think that any person
who's ever been in love can relate
to the fact that.
Once it gets real, once you're
at home, there are these
expectations that we kinda gotta
throw out the window.
And I might need to slide that CPAP
machine on and you're gonna, you
know, sometimes you're going to feel
a few prickly hairs on my legs and
there's just a time for me to say,
hey, this is all of me and I can't
present the fantasy all the time.
And so we just so happen to see that
with this black couple who
starts off their marriage and he is
used to seeing his woman's hair a
certain way, we'll say that without
ruining the full plot.
That's so real, and that's so
important. I've been talking with
filmmaker, director, and creator
of the mockumentary tying knots,
Holly Charles Pearson, about her
upcoming event on February 17th
at the Millennium Youth
Entertainment Complex.
You have an incredible cast in this
film. I have to say that.
And casting couples, I'm sure that's
not easy, but the couple
you chose has such
a natural chemistry.
So can you tell us about your
casting process?
Yeah!
And let me say this, I
do think that I was just really,
really lucky. We were really, really
blessed I was
having this conversation with a
friend the other day about how
difficult it is when you watch the
pilot of your favorite show.
Typically the first few episodes
are a little wonky and people are
trying to find their place.
And so I was
concerned, as any writer would
be, that how is this couple
not only gonna be hilarious and find
their comedic timing, but are they
gonna look like they're in love?
And so I really have to tip my
hat to Crystal Lester and
Brandon Goss for just being really
amazing.
We also, not only were
they super talented, but we decided
to be intentional about how
we rehearsed and getting them
comfortable with each other's bodies
and all of these different things,
not just because there was
a lot of slapstick comedy and
physical comedy, but also
because I wanted them to look
natural being able to hug each other
and love one another. It was really,
really important that they were
believable. And aspirational so that
we could laugh at ourselves on
screen. And I didn't mention this.
Earlier, but I had the opportunity
to see the film.
That's clearly how I know that there
was chemistry there, right?
A lot of chemistry.
Yeah, and it was perfect.
Perfect editing,
like just comedy timing was
perfect as well.
Yeah. So what challenges did you
face while making this film, if any?
So, I'll say this, there's
the challenge, the
common challenge that independent
filmmakers have, right, just
independent music, you know,
a musician's, I mean, it's funding.
But I'll this, I think there is
a way to be respectful of your
audience and not cut corners that
are going to impact the quality of
what you shoot.
And so, what we had to do was
just, we had do a lot
of really strategic planning to make
sure that.
When folks see it, it doesn't look
low budget, even if what we had
to work with was a smaller budget
than what we would have liked.
And so it really was about inviting
folks in to make sure that we're
blocking, making sure that they're
comfortable. And so a lot of that
was flying in our talent from LA
and it was spending a full
eight hours on a
20 page script.
It was just making sure that by the
time we shot and we're spending
money, that we could get things
done. We did it in over a weekend.
We probably had about 13 hours.
Total in our space,
which is unheard of.
That's impressive.
It's impressive, but it was like
theater and I do have a theater
background, so I've directed several
stage plays, written and directed.
And so I'm so used to rehearsing
over and over and over so that it
becomes a part of your body and
so it feels very fluid and movement.
And so that way, once we get on set,
you're not searching for anything,
except for a new way to maybe
deliver the line that you're already
comfortable with. So a lot of it had
to do with planning and so I would
encourage anyone doing anything
independently.
To rehearse, rehearse rehearse and
have a plan A through Z and
that's exactly what we did.
And so we were able to save money
that way. But that was a challenge
that I think actually forced us into
better planning.
I love that for you.
And you're a planner, so.
That's great.
Planner.
And your event is coming up on
February 17th, but it's not a
typical film screening.
So what can people actually expect
if they attend the event?
Yeah, no, I love having
fully immersive events.
I want you to come and watch
a film and then have something to
chew on, something to talk about.
And so first of all, we're being
hosted. We're co-hosted by the
National Black NBA Association
of Austin, also the National Society
of Black Engineers.
They are joining us as co- hosts.
They're having a VIP opening
reception where they're networking
and having food, and then they're
gonna have a night at the theater.
We're also...
Being supported and partnering with
Water Your Plants, which is
a group of curators of intentional
events and they thought this was
great because ultimately we're going
to watch this film but then have
an opportunity, right, during the
centennial Black History Month
because this year is our 100th
year and right after Valentine's
Day to say, hey, let's talk about
love and very specifically black
love. And so we're gonna play the
newlywed game, we're gotta have some
rom-com, black movie trivia,
we're do all of those things.
And finally, where can people go to
learn more about the film and the
event?
On Instagram at tyingknotsfilm,
where you can learn more about the
screening and where we'll be after
this.
That was award-winning filmmaker
Holly Charles Pearson of
Austin. She was talking with Miles
Bloxson about her new film, a
mockumentary romantic comedy called
Tying Knots.
Again, it premieres tomorrow at
the Millennium Youth Entertainment
Complex in East Austin.
We're going to have a link with more
information at kut.org
slash signal and in
today's podcast, Show Notes.
And that is it for today's.
Show. Thanks for starting the Monday
here with us on Austin Signal.
We will be here with you every
weekday at 1 o'clock.
Thank you to Kristen Cabrera and
Rayna Sevilla for their help with
today's episode.
And I'm your host Jerry Kehannel.
Thank you for spending some time
here with. We'll talk to you
tomorrow.