¶ Today's Headlines
An affordable housing complex planned for the Travis Heights neighborhood is one step closer to becoming a reality. Neighbors around the proposed site say they aren't opposed to the idea, more so the scale of it. More about the complex and the neighborhood it could be built in. And the Austin Independent School District is looking to save money and exit some contracts or schools that are slated to close.
How much money they're looking to safe and how they could do it, that is coming up on today's show. The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano. Plus, we are gonna hear the story of James Polk. No, not the president, the Austin music legend. And with the Olympics in full swing, we're gonna tell you more about an opportunity to get in on the action yourself. Those stories and more coming up next on Austin Signal. Howdy out there. Thank you for tuning in.
This is Austin Signal here on listener powered public radio KUT News. It is Tuesday, February 10th. I'm going to put my Cupid wings on for a second to remind you to make those Valentine's Day reservations already. You know, it might even be too late. But if not, this is your sign to stop putting it off. That holiday will be here before you know it. I'm your host, Jerry Gihannel. Let's jump into today's show.
Creating more affordable housing has been on the City of Austin's priority list for many years now. One hurdle to that, the neighborhoods where the housing is planned. For a look at one neighborhood pushing back, we are speaking with Asher Price. He is a reporter with Axios Austin. Asher, thanks for talking with us on Austin Signal. Thanks so much for having me.
¶ Affordable housing
First off, tell us which neighborhood are we talking about here? We're talking about Travis Heights, which is a old Austin neighborhood just off South. And where in Travis Heights would this affordable housing complex, is it planned to be built? This is by the corner of Annie and Nickerson. It's just east of where all those shops are on South Congress. It's a one acre lot that's owned by a church that's selling the property. And the project is called Rowan Vale because it's on Annie Street.
And Rowan means redheaded in Gaelic and the developers thought of Little Orphan Annie. And so that's why they called it Rowan Vail. Her redheadedness. And tell us a little bit more about, like I'm imagining it's not a huge size of land, but how many units would this developer like to build on this plot of land? The developer wants to build about 75 units, 75 apartments. The design is in flux, but they also want to have street level parking. And there's a plan pre-K for the building as well.
Okay, well, if you've ever spent any time out there, you know, it's like a really packed area, right? And like a lot of places here in Austin, if want to build, you have to go up. And I guess that's the plan for this affordable housing complex, correct? Yeah, exactly. To paint more of a picture of the neighborhood, it's a lot of single-family homes around there. A lot of them date back to the early 20th century.
The developers proposing a building that could reach as high as five stories, and that's where some of the friction comes in. Yeah, it seems as though the neighbors, they're not against the idea of an affordable housing complex moving into their neighborhood. It's more of the scale of it, correct? Exactly, that's what the neighbors I talk to say, and that's also what they've written city council members about. This is a kind of, I would say, classically liberal Austin neighborhood.
And so that a lot of the people who live there say, we're not against affordable housing, we're for it in principle. Our opposition is about the scale of this project. We don't want this thing looming over us. And they also worry about traffic issues. As you mentioned, this item was before City Council last week, what was being decided there? Preliminary thing. The city has to give its approval for tax credits for the project.
The tax credits actually I think come from the state, but the state requires that the kind of local municipality gives its stamp of approval to this project. So this is just like a preliminary approval for the tax credits for this project And as far as City Council, is this in line? Have they made other moves aimed at increasing affordable housing here in Austin? Yeah, the city council kind of overarching policy right now is to promote affordable housing.
I think there's something like 50,000 affordable sort of income restricted units as they're described around the city of Austin. The city's putting tens of millions of dollars more into more affordable housing projects across the city. And that just goes into the larger conversation about you know whether people who are working in the middle class can live in central parts of the city. As you said, the city council did okay that resolution. Does that make it a done deal?
What sort of happens next? That's a great question. I don't think anything's a done deal till ground is actually broken on these projects. No, the city council member whose district this is, council member Zo, is encouraging the developers to meet with the neighbors to talk more about, you know, coming to some kind of agreements, I guess. But, you, know, I think the wind is at the backs of the developers because, you know, it's kind of... City policy now to encourage affordable housing.
I also think there's a kind of broader thing politically happening here. You know, a decade or so ago, the city council changed from like an at large makeup where you anybody could vote for the council members and now it's by geographic district. And it used to be the neighborhoods like this, Travis Heights had a lot of political clout because this was packed full of voters who would vote in municipal elections.
And they got to have a big say in the direction of the city council on questions like this. Now it's more bifurcated with council members representing different districts. And so one neighborhood or a few neighborhoods don't have as much clout in terms of deciding who is serving on the city counsel. We have been speaking with Asher Price. He is a reporter with Axios Austin. We're gonna have a link to his work at kut.org slash signal. And in today's show notes, Asher, thanks for talking with us.
It was a pleasure. This is Austin Signal. Thanks for being here with us. The Austin Independent School District wants to put a halt to future spending for schools slated for closure by pausing work and ending some construction contracts tied to those campuses. Acacia Coronado is the education reporter for Austin Current. They are KUT's collaborator on the Austin Signal and a partner with KUT newsroom in covering the city of Austin. Thanks for coming by the show. Thanks for having me.
So tell us a little bit about the general gist of this story. How much money is AISD looking to exit out of with these contracts? Yeah, so as of right now, according to their financial documents, the district has spent about $24 million on some of these closing campuses. Okay, that's already been spent. That's already been spent, yes.
And then they are also on the line for 72 million dollars in commitments, which represents work and materials that may not have been bought yet or that may not have done yet. Okay, so they've spent already the 24 million and they're looking to find a way out of this 72 million. I think obviously they would like to save or exit out of all of those 70 million. Is that realistic or does the district kind of have an idea of how much they might end up spending.
So, according to the district, they are able to exit most of these contracts without having to pay any additional money, but they do estimate that their final amount spent on the closing schools will be closer to $41 million because of additional HVAC and security and safety improvements that still have to be done, invoices that have not been received yet or paid yet, and additional.
Elements to keep the sites at Oak Springs Elementary and Martin Middle School safe and secure since those sites were already under construction. Oh, there's already construction happening at those sites. Right, so because those were already open construction sites, in order to leave them safe for the public, they have to do some additional work on those sites. Okay, well, I know these are many millions of dollars that we're talking about, and I'm sure lots of different contracts.
Do you know anything about those contracts? I personally have not seen the contracts yet. The Austin Current did request them, but we have not received them yet. So all that we do know is what district officials have told us, which is that they are able to exit the contracts and they in general don't have to pay additional fees for it. Okay well, if we get an update we will bring that to you here on Austin Signal.
It makes fiscal sense to me why if you've set aside a bit of money for a school that is slated to be closed you might want to put a halt to that, make that stop. What are some, you know, what are some argued benefits for continuing to move forward with this work despite the fact that the schools could be closing soon?
Yeah, so some of the arguments that have been made in favor of continuing with some of these improvements are that there are still students that are housed at these schools and they still have months left of learning there. And that could include having to be in classrooms that might not have a well-functioning HVAC system or a campus that fits all of the security necessities for the students to keep them safe. So the argument is for the benefit of those students that are still housed there.
And I've been talking a lot about closures and we have been talking a lot of closures here at KUT over the last year. But can you just remind us how many schools are slated to close and when is that going to happen? Absolutely. So in November, the school board voted to close 10 campuses and those campuses are slotted to close by the end of this school year. So next school year, students should begin their learning experience at a new campus.
What do we know about the timeline for, for how quickly the district would like to move out of these, some of these contracts? Yeah, so not having seen them, I don't know if there are any deadlines for them. What I do know is that district officials said they do hope to have some sense of what happens next by the end of summer and have a better idea of whether they have exited these contracts. Okay, well like I said earlier, when we get that update, we will bring that to you here on Austin
Signal. We've been speaking with Acacia Coronado. She is the education reporter for Austin Current, KUT's collaborator on Austin signal and a partner with KUT newsroom in covering the city of Austin. Acacia, thank you for your time. Thank you for having me. And peeking out the window here at the KUT studios, clouds are keeping things a bit cooler today than what we've had over the last few.
The National Weather Service forecast says rain chances starting around sundown tonight and increasing overnight to about 40%. More 80s are in the forecast for later this week and then some better rain chances Friday night into Saturday. We're going to have more Austin Signal for you coming up after this break. This is Austin Signal, welcome back.
February is Black History Month and all month long our friends over at KUTX have been highlighting musicians who've made their mark on the Austin music scene. Today, host Myles Bloxson has a look at a musician who created one of the first integrated bands in Austin and shared the stage with Ray Charles. Dr. James Polk was born on September 10, 1940, in the Texas town of Yocum, but his musically inclined family decided to settle in Corpus Christi.
At an early age, James took formal violin lessons, then changed over to saxophone and once he discovered his middle school band director needed trombone players, he switched his attention to mastering the trombon. With his dad's approval at the age of 13, he started playing in a local band. In 1958, Polk moved to Austin where he attended the historically black college, Houston Tillerson University. He graduated in 1962 with a degree in music and education.
At this point, he was already a professional musician and decided to take up the family tradition and play the piano. He created James Polk and the Brothers, one of the first integrated bands in Austin, with trombonist Larry Collins, and with transcribed sheet music for his band members W.C. Clark, Angela Stray Lee, Martin Banks, and Matthew Robinson.
They toured together for over a decade, and because they were integrated, they were able to perform at venues that would have otherwise been close to them. Just because you're near The cold nights grow warm In 1978, the one and only Ray Charles called and offered Polk a gig playing the piano in his orchestra. Over the next 10 years that he worked with Charles, his role evolved into being the orchestra's organist, writer, arranger, and
composer. Two of the songs he wrote for Ray Charles were nominated for Grammy Awards. After his success with Ray, he received an honorary doctorate from Houston Tillerson University. He was named the Professor Emeritus of Jazz Studies in the School of Music in 2007 at Texas State. Polk was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Austin Jazz Society Hall of fame in 2016. He currently plays with the Jazz Ensembles, Centerpiece, and Church
on Monday. Dr. James Polk continues to serve and inspire and mentor in his community through his workshop and it's Dr. James Polk Academy of Arts and Technology. For more information on Dr. James polk visit KETX.org. For KETx, I'm Myles Bloxson. The 2026 Winter Olympics are in full swing across the world in Italy, and the Olympic fever is running strong all the way back here in 70-something degree Austin, Texas.
This weekend, the team behind the KUT KUTX podcast, This Is My Thing, is hosting an opportunity for you to learn a little more about an Olympic sport, and here to tell us more about the event is Mike Lee. He is the host of This Is my Thing. Mike, welcome back to Austin Signal. Thank you so much. It's always fun to be on here with you. We're glad to have you on and we want to know which Olympic sport are we going to be learning a little bit more about this weekend.
This is we're going to be learning about curling. OK. Many people's favorite winter sport. But yeah, I feel like, at least on the surface, it seems like the one that you should most easily be able to grasp, right? You're throwing a big stone, and then you're using these brushes to kind of clean up. It seems simple enough. You know, one thing that I learned and that you will learn if you listen to the podcast is that curling is harder than it looks.
I discovered that, you know, the hard way on the ice. And tell us a little bit about the person who taught you more about curling. That guy's name is Dave Dannenfelser, he is, he lives here in Austin. He is not from Austin, he grew up in, oh, I believe Wisconsin. Yeah, he says the other end of I-35, right? That's right, yeah. To get to his hometown. Very easy, get on 35 and just drive north. Keep going until you reach the end. Until you reach end, there you go.
And he grew with his grandfather, who was a great curler back in like the 70s and 80s, learning the sport, moved to Texas. He said he moved here for love. And assumed that he was done with curling, but he was not because curling was not done with him. We do it here. And yeah, he is a member of the Lone Star Curling Club, who are going to be hosting the open house this weekend that we're going to go to and be there for.
And yeah. You can come by, you can learn more about the sport, see a little bit of it, get out on the ice yourself a bit. It's not, they also have a thing called a learn, called a Learn to Curl. This is not that you won't get an actual lesson, But you've got a little flavor for it. A little introduction, a little like, see how it looks, see if it looks like fun to you, talk to some folks, learn a little bit more about it. Yeah, should be fun. Should be fun. Okay, very cool.
Well, yeah, as I said, when you first see curling, the first time I saw curling two decades ago or whatever, I thought, hey, that looks like a lot of fun, it looks pretty easy, you're kinda like gliding across the ice, you're using these brushes, but I'm gonna play a little clip here from, again, this is Dave Dannenfelser, this a clip, him talking a little bit about the work that is required to be a proper curler. Alright.
As something that you do because you love it and not because you're getting paid for it. What does curling do for your brain and for your heart? One, it is a lot more physical sport than a lot of people give it. The sweeping, when you have to sweep, is, I call it a sprinter's sport in the sense that you have be able to get on the ice. You have to basically run a sprint, but sweep a sprint and your heart rate gets way up there.
My heart tracker does a good job of showing that I'm getting a workout and being able to go from super intensity to then complete relaxation. It is good, and it actually feels good. In a way, it's kind of like yoga or like meditation. You kind of can, being able to focus on your body and relax it when you need to, it a great feeling. I was actually asking like metaphorically, what does it do for your heart? But oh Literally, they're literally there are cardio
benefits. Yeah Yeah, literally, there's a cardio benefit. Yeah, I mean, just step-wise, you can walk 10,000 steps in a game. So if you're looking for your 10,00 steps, it's a great way to do it. Metaphysically, though, I think it's like with anything, if you can get and attain that zone where you can make a great shot, there is just an amazing elation. You get, you know, the dopamine, all those little drugs they say your brain produces and makes you happy. Curling does that for me.
It both relaxes me and excites me at the same time. Yeah, there's obviously a lot of work there and a lot of practice. You just brought up a really good point, Mike. Can you tell all the people out there what you told me? Well, as I as I learned, and you'll hear this in the podcast version, curling, especially to those of us in the warmer states, looks really easy because we've mostly only ever seen really good curlers. Like you've probably done it
yourself. You've certainly seen people be bad at football and baseball. I've seen people throw a baseball terribly, swing a bat terribly, but I guess I've only seen the top level of top level curlers do their thing. And they make it look real. What else about curling did you not anticipate before, you know, learning a little bit more with Dave? I didn't realize just how much strength you need in in your like quads and the lower half of your body.
It was you need more than I bothered to bring with me on the day that I went out to the pond, which is it's It's really kind of an oxymoron, because at least when you see it on the ice, it looks... Like they're just floating, like they're gliding across the ice. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, you'll get there, I imagine, if you if you if you'd practice, but the first time stepping out, you've got a gripper on one foot, so you can kind of grip to the ice and a slider. I'm probably using the wrong
terms. But one of your one of her feet is meant to slide on the ice where the other is meant to grip the ice. It's hard to get used to. Yeah, I think you're using the Texas terms for curling there, the gripper. I learned all of these. But this is like, this is a This is My Thing classic.
It has been a couple of years since I recorded I did want to ask you have there been many other things that you have learned about through other people that have Required this much physical toll as curling in your years of learning things throughout people. Oh, gosh, you know, I mean, I've, I have talked to a lot of people who do physical things.
And something that I found really interesting is that for a lot of people, it's just that there is a particular type of exercise that is fun for them and feels good. And for a lots of folks, they just don't like anything else. You know, I remember talking to someone who is a sword fighter. And she said for her, it is like, Regularly going to the gym is torture. She hates running, you know, just the what we might think of as a more standard exercise, not fun, sword fighting is fun.
And for curlers, that motion just really, like Dave said, it gives you some dopamine, you know? It's really interesting how different things just kind of work for different people. And if you can find the thing that's your thing. Well, remind us again that people have an opportunity this Sunday maybe to learn a little bit more about curling. Maybe you're not gonna walk away as the best curler in central Texas, but you're gonna walk away learning a little bit more.
Remind us of what you have going on. So it'll be at The Pond in North Austin, and it'll from 9.30 to 11 on Sunday, the 15th. They're calling it an open house. Basically, there'll be some curling demonstrations. You can talk to some curlers, learn a little bit about it, step on the ice a little, just kind of get a vibe for it, and if it feels like fun. And we will be there hanging out. We're gonna have stickers and probably some buttons. KUT paid for the stickers, I gotta make the buttons myself.
So no guarantees, but probably I'll find time between now and then. All right, well if there's a button maker out there who can help us out between now and Sunday, give us a holler, kut.org slash Signal. We have been speaking with Mike Lee. He is the host of the KUT KUTX podcast. This is my thing and we're going to have a link to that event happening this Sunday in our show notes. Mike, thank you for coming on as always. Thanks for having me.
And thank you out there for spending part of your Tuesday here with Austin Signal. We are listener powered public radio. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer and Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. I'm your host, Jerry Quijano. We will be back with you tomorrow. Have a great day.