Latest / Austin Signal / How many Austin city council votes happen in secret?

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How many Austin city council votes happen in secret? · Austin Signal

0:08
The Austin City Council approved
0:09
last month a plan to build new
0:11
natural gas power generators.
0:13
One thing that's still unknown, the
0:15
price of this new project, it's
0:17
estimated to cost more than a
0:18
billion dollars, but the vote
0:19
approving the plan took place in
0:21
executive session behind closed
0:23
doors.
0:24
The KUT newsroom wanted to know how
0:25
many such votes have happened away
0:27
from public view.
0:28
Their analysis, coming up on today's
0:30
show.
0:31
The Austin Signal is a production
0:33
of KUT News, hosted by
0:35
Jerry Quijano.
0:36
And for kids, summer should
0:38
be a magical time, catching
0:39
fireflies, belly flopping into
0:41
the pool, and maybe a little too
0:43
much TV.
0:44
But life can be tough, even for some
0:46
kids. Luckily, there's a place in
0:48
the whole country that wants to help
0:49
those kids experience some
0:51
summertime magic too.
0:52
We've got that story and a whole lot
0:54
more. It's up next, right here
0:56
on Austin Signal.
1:07
Howdy out there, this is Austin
1:09
Signal. I'm your host, Jerry
1:11
Guijano. Happy Friday, it is
1:13
June 26th.
1:14
Thank you for tuning in to
1:16
listener-supported public radio.
1:19
The Austin City Council approved in
1:21
May a plan to build new natural
1:23
gas power generators.
1:24
We don't yet know the exact price
1:26
of that plan, but it's estimated to
1:28
be at more than a billion dollars.
1:30
A remarkable number on its own,
1:32
but what struck many as unusual is
1:35
that the vote took place in
1:36
executive session behind closed
1:38
doors. City Council observers
1:40
said they'd never seen something
1:41
like this before.
1:43
But when KUT's Mo's Bouchelle
1:45
and Nathan Bernier asked the city
1:46
about it, they heard that this was
1:48
business as usual.
1:50
Mo's and Nathan are here now to tell
1:51
us more. Thank you for being on the
1:52
show.
1:53
Thanks, Jerry.
1:54
So Mose, I'm going to start with
1:55
you. When you heard that this power
1:56
plant vote was done secretly in
1:58
executive session, did that surprise
1:59
you?
1:59
Absolutely, it surprised me and it
2:01
surprised everyone I talked to about
2:02
it.
2:04
Typically, when council goes into
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these secret meetings, they might
2:06
deliberate on some of these hot
2:08
button issues to do with Austin
2:09
Energy, but they come out and vote
2:11
in public. This time,
2:13
people didn't even know what was
2:14
happening. People were confused when
2:16
they heard later on that this new
2:17
power plant had been approved
2:18
because the entire thing had been
2:20
done secretly.
2:21
So when you reached out to the city,
2:22
what did they have to say? You know,
2:24
my first question was...
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If this happens, has
2:28
it happened before?
2:30
People said they didn't remember
2:31
ever seeing anything like this
2:32
happen before. So how do we find out
2:33
how frequently these secret votes
2:34
take place?
2:35
City spokesperson said, well, we
2:38
don't track that, but you can go
2:40
back through council minutes,
2:43
painstakingly, you know, session by
2:45
session to try to
2:47
tease out how frequently executive
2:49
session votes happen, secret votes
2:50
happen. And so that's what we did.
2:52
Yeah, Nathan-
2:53
That's where I want to bring you in
2:54
you went through some of this data.
2:55
What is what stood out to you?
2:57
What stood out to us was the lack of
2:59
any mention of any vote
3:01
taking in, having been taken
3:03
in executive session.
3:04
There've been more than a thousand
3:05
council meetings since 1999
3:07
when this provision of the Open
3:09
Meetings Act took effect that
3:11
allowed under a very narrow
3:12
exception for the council to vote
3:14
in secret when dealing with Austin
3:16
Energy competitive matters.
3:18
And so we wrote a Python
3:20
script with the help of AI to
3:21
download all of these meeting
3:23
minutes. And manually
3:25
search them using search tools like
3:26
Adobe Acrobat for a variety of
3:28
terms. We also had our AI do the
3:30
searching as well to double check
3:32
us. But everything, we
3:34
go with our own verified
3:35
facts before anything that
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AI tells us.
3:39
And all of these documents are
3:40
publicly available online.
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It's just very, very difficult to
3:43
search them all without some kind of
3:46
a script to programmatically
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download them. And essentially what
3:49
we found was there was no
3:50
evidence of this ever having
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taken place.
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Before, despite what Moe's was told,
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that when these votes happen, that
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it's recorded in the minutes.
3:59
Okay, so now you had the findings,
4:01
you went back to the city, what did
4:02
they have to say?
4:03
What they, it's strange.
4:04
At first, what we were told by
4:06
Austin Energy
4:08
was that here's
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16 examples again of when this
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happened. And it's capital A-R-E.
4:14
These are, these votes are indicated
4:16
in the council minutes.
4:17
And we, then we sent, okay,
4:20
look, here are the links to the 16
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meetings you're talking about.
4:23
Please tell us where there is an
4:25
indication of a vote.
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Because we see none.
4:26
One of the meetings has been, was a
4:28
canceled meeting.
4:28
And what then, what they came back
4:30
with us the very next day was
4:32
We don't have to disclose
4:35
that there was a vote because this
4:36
section of the Texas Open Meetings
4:37
Act allows us to have a vote without
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telling anyone.
4:40
What does the law say exactly can
4:41
happen in these sessions when it
4:42
comes to power plants?
4:43
Right, so the carve-out
4:45
in the Open Meetings law says
4:47
essentially that anything to do
4:49
with competitive matters can
4:51
be discussed in secret.
4:52
This is a law that started when
4:54
the Texas electric market was
4:56
deregulated in 1999,
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and the idea is that there are still
4:59
some public power companies, Austin
5:01
Energy is one of them.
5:02
These are electric utilities that
5:04
are run by city governments.
5:05
And when they deregulate the
5:07
electric market, they wanted those
5:09
public power company to operate on
5:11
a kind of an even playing field with
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private companies.
5:13
Private companies can be more
5:15
secret. So the argument was let
5:17
the city councils take some of these
5:18
competitive matters behind closed
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doors so that they don't
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divulge any competitive secrets
5:24
to anybody in the competitive
5:26
market. Right.
5:27
That that's the idea.
5:29
This carve out allows for votes
5:31
to take place as well, which is
5:32
really the thing that we were trying
5:33
to hone in on here.
5:35
It also says that the
5:37
entity that basically can decide
5:38
what's competitive is city
5:40
council itself.
5:41
So you have to trust your council
5:43
members to do the right thing
5:45
when they start going behind these
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closed doors, start deliberating and
5:48
taking votes in secret.
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There's no way of looking into it
5:51
and what we found in our analysis of
5:53
the records is that there is zero
5:54
indication when it
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happens.
5:58
We don't know, the public cannot
6:00
know how many such
6:02
secret votes have taken place since
6:03
1999.
6:04
They cannot know what they were
6:06
about and they cannot know how their
6:08
elected officials voted on
6:10
these matters. And this is what,
6:12
there are a lot of different reasons
6:13
that this is a big news story.
6:15
But one of them, I think, is that
6:17
you vote for city council members
6:19
to make policy decisions.
6:20
In these cases.
6:22
What the city is telling you is that
6:24
you cannot know how your elected
6:25
official voted,
6:28
how your election official decided.
6:30
Here's Joe Larson, he's on the board
6:32
of the Texas Freedom of Information
6:33
Foundation.
6:34
It's an invisible government.
6:36
It's a black box.
6:38
You don't know what anybody's doing.
6:39
You don't know who to hold
6:40
accountable, much less for
6:42
the public to have any input on
6:44
an ongoing basis.
6:46
It completely undermines the idea
6:47
of the Open Meetings Act.
6:49
And this carve-out, Jerry, in
6:51
the Open Meetings Act,
6:53
we went back and
6:55
reviewed the transcripts of the
6:57
Senate committee meetings when these
6:59
changes were happening to state law,
7:01
including in the Texas Open
7:02
Meetnings Act. And there was a lot
7:03
of discussion about why public
7:05
utilities should be able to keep
7:07
certain information secret,
7:09
confidential, because it's in the
7:10
rate payer's interest.
7:11
There was no mention that we could
7:13
find of why the vote
7:15
itself needs to be kept
7:16
secret. You can, and in the past...
7:18
And most has reported on this
7:20
extensively there have been numerous
7:21
instances where the city council has
7:23
taken big votes on on austin
7:25
energy matters and they
7:27
meet in private and they come out
7:29
and vote in public in this
7:31
case there's been the little
7:33
explanation little to no explanation
7:35
of why we cannot know
7:37
how is it how it is a competitive
7:39
matter of how your council
7:41
member voted even though there's
7:43
there's no that there's any law
7:45
breaking going on here.
7:46
You have reached out to every
7:48
council member to ask about.
7:49
Their vote. What did you hear from
7:50
them? So, yeah, we contacted
7:52
the office of every council member
7:53
and the mayor.
7:55
Every single one of them, I should
7:56
say everyone that was present for
7:57
this vote, two weren't there that
7:59
day, every single
8:01
of them got back to us with some
8:03
version of, we can't tell you
8:05
how we voted.
8:07
Some of them said we can do it
8:08
because executive sessions are
8:10
confidential.
8:11
One council member, Zoe Caudry's
8:13
office said that they had been
8:14
advised by City Legal that they
8:16
could not disclose how they voted,
8:18
how that council member voted.
8:20
We talked to another staffer at a
8:22
different council member's office who
8:23
said, Even staffers at the
8:25
office, this is Mark Duchin's
8:26
office, even his policy director
8:28
doesn't know how he voted.
8:29
The secrecy was that
8:31
tight.
8:32
But the fact of the matter is,
8:34
they can say how they voted.
8:36
There is nothing in the law that
8:38
says that they cannot disclose their
8:39
vote in this executive session.
8:41
Here's David Escamilla.
8:42
He was the Travis County
8:44
attorney for about 18
8:46
years. He advised elected officials
8:48
on the Open Meetings Act.
8:49
Here he is on whether
8:51
they can disclose their vote.
8:53
They do have
8:53
some freedom to be able to discuss
8:55
what happened.
8:56
But he says, a lot of the times,
8:58
elected officials may use
9:00
the law as an excuse if they
9:02
don't want to talk about what was
9:03
said.
9:04
My experience is that
9:06
in many cases, not all
9:08
certainly, an elected official
9:10
who might not have wanted to
9:12
speak about those things would
9:14
fall back on just a general
9:16
recounting that my attorney says not
9:18
to say anything.
9:19
Okay, well, if the city is saying
9:21
that this secret voting is business
9:23
as usual, why is it a big deal?
9:26
So Austin Energy is a big power
9:28
company, has an annual budget of $2
9:29
billion, and it is our public
9:32
utility, okay?
9:33
We as the voters, ostensibly,
9:37
we own this company, we're not
9:38
just the customers,
9:41
it's our city public company.
9:44
And the argument in favor of
9:46
maintaining public ownership of
9:47
these utilities, public control of
9:49
utilities, is that they are
9:51
accountable to the public, right?
9:53
That there's some element of
9:55
democratic control over this.
9:56
Clearly, the people that run Austin
9:58
Energy and our city council members
10:01
think that the secrecy is a way
10:02
of protecting the utility,
10:04
but it also clearly is.
10:07
Disrupting the public trust in
10:09
that utility.
10:10
I mean, there are questions about
10:12
the money involved,
10:14
the millions of dollars that
10:15
transfer to the city general fund
10:16
every year, the way that this
10:18
public money is spent by
10:20
city council, all of these
10:22
big questions to do with the use
10:24
of public funds.
10:25
But for me, it also just goes
10:27
back down to that democratic
10:28
question, the question of
10:29
transparency.
10:30
Maybe you have executive
10:32
session deliberations, maybe there
10:33
are
10:37
should elected officials not share
10:38
how they vote.
10:39
On issues of grave public
10:41
importance.
10:42
Alright, we have been speaking with
10:44
KUT's Nathan Bernier and Mo's
10:45
Bouchelle. Gentlemen, thank you for
10:46
your reporting.
10:47
Thank you.
10:54
Okay, the World Cup drama
10:56
is heating up this weekend as the
10:57
final teams qualify ahead of the
10:59
knockout stage of the tournament.
11:01
Jimmy Moss from the Vamos Verde
11:02
podcast is following all the action.
11:05
Here he is with his latest update.
11:07
A heavyweight matchup at the World
11:09
Cup today, I'm Jimmy Moss.
11:11
France and Norway are tied on
11:12
points. A win means first
11:14
in the group.
11:15
This is a battle between two of the
11:17
tournament's top strikers, Kylian
11:19
Mbappe and Erling Haaland.
11:21
Both with four goals, it's a
11:23
loaded France team against a Norway
11:25
side looking to make a statement.
11:27
Senegal play Iraq, neither
11:29
has yet to win or tie a
11:31
match so far, but somehow
11:33
Senegal could sneak into a third
11:34
place spot with a win and
11:36
some help.
11:37
Group H, very unsettled.
11:39
Spain would take the top seed with
11:41
a win or draw.
11:42
Uruguay need a win to take
11:44
the group, but even that might not
11:46
be enough if Cape Verde,
11:49
everyone's newest favorite island
11:50
nation, beats Saudi Arabia by
11:52
a larger margin.
11:53
Tonight, Belgium try to keep their
11:55
World Cup alive against New Zealand,
11:57
and Iran look to sneak past group
11:59
leader Egypt.
12:00
Last night, the U.S.
12:02
Fell to Turkey 3-2 on
12:04
a 98th minute goal
12:06
in Los Angeles.
12:07
The result barely mattered in the
12:08
standings, but Austin Trusty and
12:10
Sebastian Berhalter scored their
12:12
first World Cup goals in
12:14
a starting lineup with nine changes
12:16
from their second game.
12:17
Turkey got their first win of the
12:19
cup.
12:20
The United States will now play
12:21
Bosnia Herzegovina in the first
12:23
round of the playoff on Wednesday.
12:26
Australia and Paduaig drew the
12:27
result enough to see both sides
12:29
advance to the knockout stage.
12:30
Ecuador surprised Germany to
12:33
elevate themselves into a
12:34
third-place qualifier.
12:35
Ivory Coast advances to the
12:37
knockouts along with the group
12:38
winning Germans.
12:40
I'm Jimmy Moss.
12:48
Get podcasts.
12:51
We've got more Austin Signal coming
12:53
your way right after this break.
12:57
This is Austin Signal.
12:58
Welcome back.
12:58
Checking in on a few of today's
13:00
headlines, a new medical facility
13:02
focused on women's health care is
13:04
set to open Monday in central
13:05
Austin.
13:06
Ascension Seton Women's Hospital is
13:08
on Ascention Seton's main campus
13:10
that's on West 38th Street.
13:11
It's equipped to handle complex and
13:13
high-risk pregnancies with 26
13:15
labor and delivery rooms.
13:17
A giraffe on the lam in the Hill
13:19
Country has been found safe this
13:20
morning after a days-long search.
13:23
Rial County Sheriff Nathan Johnson
13:24
said the three-year-old giraffe
13:25
named Gracie was found about four
13:27
miles south of the ranch from which
13:29
she escaped nearly two weeks ago.
13:32
And the summer pattern of hot and
13:33
humid weather continues today.
13:35
The National Weather Service is
13:36
forecasting a high of around
13:38
97 degrees, but with that
13:40
humidity could feel as hot as
13:42
105.
13:52
Though Austin may be called the
13:54
live music capital of the world, its
13:55
neighboring cities have made their
13:57
own contributions to the city's
13:59
musical landscape.
14:01
Jason Mellard from the Center for
14:02
Texas Music History at Texas State
14:04
tells us about one local musician
14:06
and storyteller who became a
14:08
Tejano trailblazer.
14:15
This week in Texas Music History,
14:17
we meet a master of corrido in
14:19
Central Texas.
14:20
On June 21st, 1917,
14:23
songwriter and guitarist Lonnie
14:24
Guerrero was born in Maynard, Texas.
14:26
As a young man, Guerrera made the
14:27
move to Austin and began to travel
14:29
throughout Central Texas as a
14:30
self-taught musician.
14:32
Guerrere was particularly interested
14:33
in the corrido tradition of epic
14:35
narratives and folk ballads composed
14:36
of reaction to community events.
14:38
A living Newspaper and song of sorts
14:41
And these ballads were not only
14:42
passed on as part of an anonymous
14:44
folk tradition like the Corrido de
14:45
Kansas on the classic 1800s
14:47
cattle drives or Corrida of Gorgorio
14:49
Cortes about the legendary
14:50
turn-of-the-century fugitive.
14:52
They continued to interpret current
14:54
events a way of processing the
14:55
flow of history in the moment.
14:57
In this vein, one of Guerrero's most
14:59
poignant compositions was La
15:01
Tarjadilla del Presidente Kennedy on
15:03
the 1963 assassination of JFK
15:05
in Dallas.
15:06
A figure whose stature in Texas
15:07
Mexican circles is symbolized by
15:09
the Viva Kennedy campaigns that had
15:11
mobilized Latino voters in the
15:12
Southwest.
15:20
Most of Guerrero's working life
15:21
involved day jobs with the Austin
15:22
Independent School District, the
15:24
Internal Revenue Service, and the
15:25
East Austin Chicano Economic
15:26
Development Corporation.
15:28
All the while, he continued as a
15:29
performing guitarist and songwriter,
15:31
with his compositions recorded by
15:32
the likes of Isidro Lopez, Little
15:34
Joe, and Guerreros nephew pioneering
15:36
singer and guitarist Manuel Cowboy
15:38
Donley of East Austin.
15:40
Donley recorded a range of Guerreros
15:41
compositions, including Dos
15:43
Corazones, Bateniebla,
15:45
Sombras Until the Noche and many
15:47
more.
15:55
Further, music was a family
15:57
tradition beyond Lani Guerrero
15:59
and nephew Cowboy Donnelly, as
16:00
Lani's son and bandmate Louis
16:02
Guerrera also composed the Latin
16:04
standard La Cacahuata or Peanuts,
16:06
made famous as a crossover hit by
16:07
Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass.
16:09
Tejano roots run deep in Austin as
16:11
a family affair, and Lani and
16:13
Louis Guerreiro were the first
16:15
father and son to be inducted into
16:16
the Austin Music Memorial in 2009
16:19
and 2010.
16:28
You can hear music from the Lone
16:29
Star State 24-7 on the
16:31
Texas Music Experience at TMX.fm.
16:39
For kids, summer should be
16:41
a magical time, right?
16:43
No school, no responsibilities,
16:45
just catching fireflies, trips to
16:47
the pool, and maybe a little too
16:49
much TV.
16:50
But life isn't always easy
16:52
or simple, even for kids.
16:54
Sometimes loss happens.
16:56
They lose a grandparent, maybe even
16:58
a parent or a friend.
16:59
And though nothing feels normal,
17:02
summer comes around anyway.
17:03
Well, there's a place in the whole
17:04
country that wants to help those
17:06
kids experience some summertime
17:08
magic, too.
17:09
It's called Camp Braveheart.
17:11
KUT's Olivia Aldrich spent
17:13
a morning there.
17:14
Y'all start grabbing gear
17:16
On a Friday in mid-June, middle
17:18
school aged kids are lined up for
17:20
their shot at a summer camp rite
17:22
of passage.
17:23
The infamous high ropes course at
17:25
John Knox Ranch in Fisher, Texas,
17:27
the host of Camp Braveheart.
17:29
13-Year-old Alyssa bravely steps
17:31
up to the challenge first.
17:33
Soon enough, she's strapped into a
17:34
harness, inching along ropes hung 30
17:36
feet in the air.
17:38
Hey, take a second, you want to look
17:40
at the view?
17:41
Oh, Jesus Christ!
17:43
True to Camp Braveheart's name, the
17:45
camp's leaders say plucking up the
17:47
courage to do something scary can be
17:49
a really important experience for
17:50
these kids.
17:51
They have to learn how to trust
17:52
themselves.
17:53
That's Esmeralda Huerta.
17:55
She's a program manager for Hospice
17:57
Austin, the nonprofit that sponsors
17:59
the free summer camp.
18:00
Life throws things at you,
18:02
but you got to learn how to trust
18:04
yourself that you can do it and you
18:05
can hard things and this is one of
18:07
those things that we start teaching
18:08
them.
18:08
Down on the ground, Alyssa's friend
18:10
Deshauna is watching her navigate
18:12
the ropes.
18:13
She's ready for her turn.
18:14
I'm really interested in it
18:16
because it's something new, I've
18:18
never done it before.
18:20
I'm down to try.
18:21
Just coming to Camp Braveheart was
18:23
already a leap of faith for
18:24
13-year-old Deshauna.
18:26
To be completely honest, I was
18:27
really scared to come because I
18:29
didn't know if I was going to be the
18:30
older kids or younger kids.
18:32
And like I'm fine with being the
18:33
younger kids, but older kids...
18:34
Kids are kind of scary." Campers
18:35
range from rising second graders to
18:37
rising tenth graders, but kids
18:39
mostly get to spend time with their
18:40
peers.
18:42
Dashauna started bonding with a
18:43
group of kids around her age at a
18:44
big pool party the first night when
18:47
campers from each cabin put together
18:48
silly synchronized swimming
18:50
routines.
18:51
Now, less than three days later,
18:53
they're fast friends.
18:54
So, Alyssa, I call her
18:56
Love Bug, and she's the one that's
18:58
going up the high ropes
19:00
right now.
19:02
And Country Boy is the one with the
19:03
red hair spotting, and then
19:05
Lady Bug is the
19:06
pink shirt." Camp friendships form
19:08
quickly and Huerta says it's
19:10
an important foundation for some of
19:11
the conversations the kids will have
19:13
during the week about people they've
19:15
lost.
19:15
Some of them are
19:17
parents, siblings,
19:19
maybe a really close friend or
19:21
relative, grandparents,
19:23
from let's say a sudden
19:25
death or a
19:27
long-term illness or
19:29
death by suicide.
19:31
It can be of anything that they're
19:33
coming in with.
19:34
Here because she lost her
19:35
grandmother.
19:36
She was one of my favorite people
19:38
and one of the most amazing people
19:39
that you would ever meet,
19:41
mainly because she understood
19:42
everything.
19:43
She was sweet, she was caring,
19:45
she very loving,
19:47
and her favorite color was red.
19:49
Dashauna says she hasn't talked
19:51
about her grandma too much while
19:52
she's been here, mainly with her
19:54
brother, who's also at camp, and
19:56
Miss Carly, one of her favorite
19:57
counselors.
19:59
The opportunity to talk and open up
20:01
is there.
20:02
Kids meet in small groups with other
20:03
campers who have experienced similar
20:05
losses each morning, and staff
20:07
are trained to help them learn
20:09
healthy ways of navigating grief.
20:11
But Huerta says talking about it
20:13
isn't always what kids need.
20:15
From time to time I can get calls
20:16
that say my kid needs to really come
20:18
talk to somebody and the parent
20:20
is actually projecting how they're
20:22
feeling.
20:23
Their kid actually wants a break
20:24
from that pressure.
20:25
They're like, I'm really doing okay.
20:27
I just really want the grownups to
20:29
like let me navigate this and
20:31
let me figure out my school
20:33
and my friends.
20:34
Like things are already so hard
20:36
and being pushed and pushed to
20:38
try and share or not or they're not
20:40
crying or this.
20:41
Everybody grieves differently and at
20:43
their own time.
20:44
So all of this typical camp stuff,
20:46
high ropes, swimming at Blue Hole,
20:48
archery, arts and crafts, that's
20:50
therapeutic.
20:51
Kids work on two art projects
20:53
throughout their days at camp.
20:55
One is a picture frame that they can
20:56
put a photo of their loved one in.
20:58
The other is a small wooden memory
21:00
box, decorated with
21:02
paint pens, glitter, any creative
21:04
way they want to honor their loved
21:06
ones.
21:07
Inside the arts and craft's cabin,
21:10
boxes rest on a table while paint
21:11
dries.
21:12
One box has an American flag
21:14
and a football painted on it.
21:16
Another has baby brother written on
21:18
the side and silver letters.
21:20
Dashaunas is decorated with red gems
21:22
in honor of her grandmother's
21:24
favorite color.
21:26
Tonight, all the campers will bring
21:27
their boxes to a final.
21:29
Memorial service.
21:30
We give each group a question to
21:32
ask their groups and so
21:34
one of them is you know what are you
21:36
going to put in your memory boxes
21:37
when you get home right kind of
21:39
building these rituals and coping
21:41
mechanisms and skills for them as
21:42
they grow up to be
21:44
able to continue this
21:47
loss and how to carry it.
21:48
When Dashauna leaves Camp
21:50
Braveheart, she'll take a few things
21:51
with her.
21:52
The memory box, sure.
21:54
Some lessons, too.
21:55
I learned that it's okay to be
21:57
sad in that you're not alone in this
21:59
process.
22:00
But also she's taking the phone
22:02
numbers of her new friends.
22:04
They plan to start a group chat and
22:06
send invites to each other's
22:07
birthday parties.
22:08
I'm Olivia Aldridge in Austin.
22:12
And that is it for today's
22:14
show and for this week of shows.
22:16
Thank you for tuning in and
22:18
you can catch up on the show.
22:19
All the stories we shared with you
22:20
in today's show and in this week's
22:22
show, in the podcast, show notes and
22:24
at kut.org
22:26
slash signal.
22:27
I'm your host, Jerry Quijano.
22:29
Our team today is Casey
22:31
Cheek. He's our technical director.
22:33
Alexandra Hart is our producer and
22:36
Kristen Cabrera is our managing
22:37
producer.
22:38
Have a great weekend.
22:39
We will talk to you on Monday.