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APD, councilmembers hear from public about ICE enforcement in tense meeting · Austin Signal

0:08
The Austin Police Chief and members
0:10
of the Austin City Council met with
0:12
community members this week to talk
0:13
about local immigration and customs
0:15
enforcement operations and the city
0:17
and police's role in them.
0:19
The meeting was billed as a
0:20
conversation but turned into a
0:22
shouting match that laid bare the
0:23
community tensions around ICE
0:24
enforcements here in the Austin area
0:26
and around the country.
0:28
We're going to talk more about that
0:29
meeting and we'll hear from some of
0:31
the voices who were there.
0:32
That's coming up on today's show.
0:34
The Austin Signal is a production
0:36
of KUT News, hosted by
0:38
Jerry Kehoe.
0:39
Construction is happening on a new
0:41
convention center in downtown
0:42
Austin.
0:43
Even so, a judge could rule any
0:45
day on an effort to stop anything
0:47
new from being built.
0:49
And a new pedestrian bridge is
0:51
opening this weekend on the eastern
0:52
end of Lady Bird Lake.
0:54
Come hear more about it.
0:56
That's today on Austin Signal.
1:07
This is Austin Signal.
1:09
Thank you for tuning in to community
1:10
powered public radio and thank you
1:12
for spending part of your Friday
1:13
here with us.
1:14
I'm your host, Jerry Quijano.
1:16
Let's get into today's show.
1:19
Austinites are demanding that police
1:20
and city leaders do more to resist
1:22
immigration and customs enforcement.
1:25
That's a paraphrase of the headline
1:26
topping kut.org today after
1:28
Thursday's public meeting with city
1:30
leaders and the community went just
1:32
a little beyond a conversation.
1:34
For more about what went down, we
1:35
are joined by Mo's Boucher, who was
1:37
there. He has been covering
1:38
immigration for the Texas Newsroom,
1:40
and he's here with us now in Austin
1:41
Signal. Mo's, thanks for joining us.
1:43
No problem, Jerry.
1:44
So a lot of tension arose because
1:46
a state law, SB4, which was passed
1:48
in 2017, says that
1:50
police departments can't stop
1:51
officers from reporting someone to
1:53
federal immigration agents.
1:55
Austin leaders thought that they
1:56
could get around that, but then
1:57
there was an incident with a woman
1:58
from Honduras.
1:59
Can you remind us about what
2:00
happened there?
2:01
Yes what happened last month and
2:02
uh... It was that uh...
2:04
A woman a woman was uh...
2:05
Had called a a p d on a
2:07
disturbance call uh...
2:09
And officer showed up they ran her
2:10
background they found that she had
2:12
what they call the minister of
2:13
warrants uh...
2:14
They've been put out by ice uh...
2:16
Saying that she was potentially in
2:17
the country uh...
2:18
You know unauthorized uh...
2:20
End up She ended up being deported
2:22
with her daughter.
2:23
That as you said, kind of,
2:26
that showed in a
2:28
very stark way that people
2:30
in Austin can be deported after
2:32
interactions with local law
2:34
enforcement, something that the city
2:35
has always said they did not
2:37
want to happen.
2:38
And so that has really kind of
2:40
started up this big, like you said
2:42
more than a conversation, a huge
2:43
debate over what the city does next.
2:44
Yeah, and your article is at
2:45
kut.org.
2:47
We're gonna have a link in the show
2:48
notes for today's episode of
2:50
Austin Signal. In there, you write
2:51
that records show that Austin
2:52
officers called ICE dozens of times
2:54
last year after encountering
2:56
people flagged with ICE warrants.
2:58
And again, these are administrative
2:59
warrants, not criminal warrants and
3:01
I think that's part of the issue.
3:02
This is obviously a big issue,
3:05
but that's a part of issue with the
3:06
backlash from the community,
3:08
correct?
3:08
Yes, so what happened is after Trump
3:10
comes in in his second term,
3:12
ICE floods police
3:14
databases with these administrative
3:16
warrants. And again, these are not
3:17
criminal warrants, these not
3:18
judicial warrants these are
3:20
basically just an ICE agent saying
3:21
we think maybe this person might be
3:23
able to be deported.
3:24
And so when an officer
3:26
finds that in a background check,
3:27
they may then contact ICE,
3:29
give ICE the person's updated
3:31
information or in the case like we
3:32
just talked about, even perhaps stay
3:34
with the person and hand them over
3:36
to ICE when ICE appears.
3:37
This is what's been happening for
3:38
the last year since these warrants
3:40
have come on the scene.
3:41
And this is what the city is now
3:42
trying to create new policy around.
3:44
How do we react to this new
3:46
development in integration
3:47
enforcement?
3:48
And part of that reaction is
3:50
trying to connect with community
3:51
members and that's why they had that
3:53
meeting last night. It was at Go
3:54
Valley Elementary School.
3:55
How did it go?
3:56
It was tense.
3:58
It was really tense.
3:59
What's happened since this whole
4:01
thing has kind of gained the
4:02
spotlight is that you have a growing
4:04
divide in Austin between,
4:06
you know, progressive Austin,
4:08
between some people who want an
4:10
aggressive resistance to
4:12
the Trump deportation policy
4:14
and to state leaders who
4:16
back it, and then you have
4:19
more moderate voices, I guess you
4:20
could say, in Austin city government
4:22
saying, we are restrained
4:24
and constrained by some state laws.
4:26
Uh... And so there are laws in
4:28
texas that say we cannot
4:29
tell police that they cannot contact
4:31
ice for example and so
4:33
what we do within the confines of
4:35
those laws that still allowed
4:36
uh... But that is not uh...
4:38
I guess you could say you know a
4:40
direct confrontation
4:41
Okay, you used the word tense, let's
4:42
hear a little bit from that.
4:44
There is a rule of law that I have
4:45
to follow as the Chief of Police
4:47
here in the state of Texas.
4:48
But what we can do is
4:51
create policies that assist
4:53
with that.
4:56
That was the voice of Austin Police
4:57
Chief Lisa Davis kind of
4:59
getting booed out there from some of
5:01
the members there What were the
5:03
concerns of the people who showed up
5:04
there to speak with city officials?
5:05
Yeah, what we just heard was the
5:07
first of many increasingly
5:09
loud, I would say,
5:11
eruptions of discontent
5:13
from the crowd.
5:16
And like I said,
5:18
basically, many of them were just
5:19
demanding that city leaders flat
5:21
out resist and
5:23
ignore state law.
5:24
The message from some of
5:26
these folks was we are going to
5:28
not, we're not going to follow the
5:30
law. We're going to resist it.
5:31
And if that means that you lose your
5:33
job, which is one of the outcomes
5:35
potentially from this SB4
5:37
law that we talk about, then so be
5:38
it.
5:39
And if the city is fine, then be it,
5:41
we will go to court over this
5:42
essentially and perhaps maybe find
5:45
some satisfaction
5:47
through the court system saying that
5:48
parts of this law might be
5:50
unconstitutional.
5:51
There's a lot of speculation about
5:52
that.
5:52
And I know there was a woman there,
5:54
Carmen, I believe was her name, what
5:55
did she have to say?
5:56
So she was
5:58
talking about actually like
6:00
trust in the police.
6:01
I think that maybe we have a
6:03
soundbite from her we could listen
6:04
to. Let's throw to them.
6:07
First, I don't trust the police.
6:09
Second,
6:12
Second,
6:15
You are going to leave us in the
6:17
hands of the feelings of
6:19
a police officer.
6:22
And not under the law.
6:25
Because there is no law that
6:27
protects us.
6:31
What she says there is that she
6:33
doesn't have trust in the police,
6:34
which is of course what we hear from
6:35
city council members all the time.
6:36
We want people to feel
6:38
safe calling the police.
6:40
She says, I don't, and she's
6:41
speaking as an immigrant and an
6:42
activist for the immigrant community
6:44
there. And then she said,
6:46
you're leaving our fate essentially
6:48
to the whims of a police
6:49
officer
6:52
because there's no law essentially
6:53
to protect us.
6:55
And that's the kind of reality that
6:56
a lot of these people that were
6:58
protesting were pointing to.
6:59
The city might be able to kind of
7:01
tinker around the edges of what's
7:02
legally permissible in Texas,
7:04
but the reality, they point out,
7:06
is that if you do follow
7:08
SB4, an officer is
7:11
allowed to contact ICE.
7:12
Okay, tell us a little bit about
7:14
what city leaders had to say.
7:16
I know that you spoke with Chito
7:17
Vela, a council member.
7:18
Absolutely.
7:19
The plan from the city, like I said,
7:21
is to try to mitigate this.
7:23
Their idea is to create a
7:25
system where an officer calls their
7:27
commanding officer if they're
7:29
going to call ICE.
7:31
And so then the commanding officers
7:32
may redirect that
7:35
officer on the beat to
7:37
say, well, listen, you can call ICE,
7:38
we can't tell you not to, but
7:42
maybe you should also go somewhere
7:43
else. Maybe you essentially
7:44
shouldn't wait to hand this person
7:45
over to ICE.
7:46
Uh... They think that will probably
7:47
lower these interactions uh...
7:50
But you know i like you said i
7:51
caught up with uh... With councilmember
7:52
bella after this event
7:54
and he knows that there's a lot of
7:56
disappointment with that kind of
7:57
work around policy
8:00
with the current political
8:01
environment in Texas, and with
8:02
President Trump in the White House,
8:04
I cannot say that
8:06
everything is gonna be fine.
8:08
APD has limitations.
8:11
We're trying to work within those
8:13
limitations to maximize people's
8:15
safety, but
8:17
there are very real limitations
8:19
and very real risks.
8:22
Okay, Mose, before you got into the
8:24
station, we were talking a little
8:25
bit about the night and
8:27
how it played out.
8:28
It started around six o'clock.
8:29
Because it was so raucous there,
8:32
how did the event end up ending?
8:33
So what we saw at the end after all
8:35
of that shouting and all that
8:36
tension was actually the police
8:38
chief and many council members
8:40
stayed beyond the deadline
8:42
there, along with a lot of the same
8:44
people that had been shouting and
8:47
making their voices heard.
8:48
And there were a lot of one-on-one
8:50
conversations between some
8:52
of those folks in the audience, the
8:53
police Chief, I know council member
8:55
Vela was there and others.
8:57
And so it did kind of eventually...
9:00
Dissipate into a more kind of
9:02
personal conversation,
9:04
but certainly tensions and emotions
9:06
were high and will probably
9:08
remain so as, not just as
9:10
this happens in Austin, but as we
9:11
see these images across the country
9:12
of these ICE actions all
9:14
over the place.
9:15
We've been speaking with KUT's Mo's
9:17
Bouchelle. He has been covering
9:18
immigration for the Texas newsroom.
9:20
We'll have a link to his story at
9:22
kut.org slash signal.
9:24
And in today's podcast show notes,
9:26
Mo's thanks for your reporting.
9:27
Thank you, Jerry.
9:29
Construction is already going on a
9:31
new convention center in downtown
9:32
Austin, but a judge could rule any
9:34
day on an effort to stop anything
9:36
new from being built.
9:38
KUT's Luz Moreno Lozano reports
9:40
on the case, which could determine
9:42
whether Austin has a convention
9:43
center at all.
9:46
The decision before Travis County
9:47
District Judge Jessica Mangrum is if
9:49
a citizen-initiated petition that
9:51
was denied by the City of Austin in
9:53
the fall can move forward.
9:55
The Austin City Clerk said the
9:56
petition, which seeks to stop the
9:58
project, did not have enough valid
10:00
signatures.
10:02
Last week, the Austin United
10:03
Political Action Committee argued
10:04
their case before Mangrum as they
10:06
fought to get their petition
10:07
validated.
10:08
The group hopes that if they get
10:09
their proposition on the ballot, the
10:11
people would vote against a new
10:13
convention center.
10:14
Bobby Lewinsky, an attorney
10:16
representing the PAC, says instead
10:17
of that, they'd like to see more
10:18
support from museums and other
10:20
cultural draws, including using the
10:22
money for green spaces, public
10:23
pools, and art.
10:24
There's also some really great land
10:27
downtown that's already been,
10:28
you know, basically the
10:31
site's been prepared for potential
10:33
uses.
10:34
And so you could use that space for
10:36
other things than just the
10:37
convention center.
10:38
So why is a city building a new
10:39
convention center?
10:40
Let's look at both sides of the
10:42
argument.
10:43
Convention centers can cause a mix
10:44
of emotions for residents.
10:46
Often the facility is being used by
10:47
out of towners and the funding
10:48
mechanisms can be complicated.
10:50
So why have a massive concrete
10:52
box in the middle of downtown if
10:54
it doesn't benefit the people who
10:56
live here?
10:57
Well, in a way it does.
10:59
Alan Shearer is an urban planning
11:01
professor at UT.
11:02
He said conventions bring people to
11:04
the city, and those people stay at
11:06
hotels and spend money at
11:07
restaurants, local businesses, and
11:09
other places of entertainment.
11:10
We think about how much of
11:12
the Austin economy is tied to
11:14
entertainment, to the music
11:16
scene, to the restaurants.
11:18
But what conventioneers bring in is
11:20
traffic,
11:22
customers during the middle of the
11:24
week.
11:25
And so what it does is it provides a
11:27
more stable basis for those
11:29
kinds of businesses to operate
11:31
week long, month long, year
11:33
round.
11:34
For example, the South by Southwest
11:35
Festival brings in people from all
11:37
over the world.
11:38
In 2025, more than 200,000
11:41
people came to Austin, generating
11:42
millions of dollars for the city.
11:45
Some of that money funds city
11:46
services like park improvements and
11:47
public safety needs.
11:49
Beyond South by South West, Katie
11:51
Zemeznik, Deputy Director at the
11:52
Austin Convention Center, says the
11:54
facility welcomes all kinds of
11:56
conferences from medical, tech, and
11:57
corporate companies.
11:58
It even transforms for junior and
12:00
collegiate volleyball tournaments.
12:03
With the expansion, Zmeznik said the
12:05
convention center could host larger
12:06
events like the Dell Technologies
12:07
World Conference, which moved to Las
12:09
Vegas after it outgrew Austin.
12:12
She said the facility could also
12:13
host multiple events at the same
12:15
time, reducing dark days or days
12:17
that can't be sold because of events
12:18
moving in and out.
12:19
We were turning away nearly 50%
12:21
of the business leads that we were
12:23
getting either because we were too
12:25
small or we didn't have the space.
12:27
But others argue large-scale
12:28
conventions and conferences are a
12:30
thing of the past.
12:31
Many companies have started to cut
12:32
back on travel and some conferences
12:34
have transitioned virtually making
12:36
convention centers moot.
12:38
The attorney for the group trying to
12:39
stop the convention center, Bobby
12:41
Lewinsky, says Austin can still host
12:43
major events at hotel conference
12:44
rooms, UT, and the new hotel
12:46
and convention center being added at
12:48
the Circuit of the Americas.
12:50
But without a convention center in
12:51
downtown Austin, shares says that
12:53
could mean tourism and businesses
12:55
downtown suffer.
12:56
Again, it's the question
12:58
of what could you put there
13:02
that would still provide the kind
13:04
of midweek.
13:06
Of people coming in to support
13:08
our restaurants and
13:10
clubs.
13:13
Some downtown Austin businesses are
13:15
already feeling the pinch as
13:16
construction on the convention
13:17
center and work on I-35 continues.
13:20
I'm here at the corner of Trinity
13:21
and 4th Street and folks, there is
13:23
a giant empty hole where the
13:25
Austin Convention Center used to
13:26
sit.
13:27
No new building means no convention
13:29
center at all.
13:30
And foot traffic and restaurant
13:32
business has already started to
13:33
drop.
13:34
In December, the Downtown Austin
13:35
Alliance offered subsidized Uber
13:37
rides just to get people downtown.
13:40
So let's get back to the courtroom.
13:41
If the judge rules the petition
13:43
should move forward and voters deny
13:45
an expansion, the project would
13:46
pause.
13:47
I'm Luz Moreno Lozano in Austin.
13:52
A little sports news today on
13:54
this Friday. We're five months out
13:55
from the 2026 World Cup and
13:57
it was announced this week that the
13:59
Saudi Arabian soccer team will use
14:00
Austin as their home base for
14:02
the duration of the tournament.
14:04
The Saudi team faced the U.S.
14:06
At Q2 Stadium last June and
14:09
they'll have their hands full in
14:10
Group H competition going against
14:12
Spain, Uruguay and Cape Verde.
14:14
Austin Signal will be back after
14:16
a break. Thanks for making us part
14:18
of your Friday.
14:30
This is Austin Signal, welcome back.
14:32
There are some classic musicals
14:34
that seem to be timeless.
14:36
At the Austin Opera House, one actor
14:38
spoke with Texas Standard about his
14:40
role and a performance happening
14:42
this weekend.
14:44
My name is Stephen Skybell,
14:46
I'm playing Tevye in Fiddler on the
14:47
Roof at Austin Opera.
14:53
Fiddler on the Roof, it has such
14:55
universal appeal.
14:57
And the thing that I think appeals
14:59
to an audience about it is that it's
15:01
essentially about a family, a
15:02
husband and a wife, and their five
15:04
daughters.
15:05
And the three elder daughters
15:07
are all of marriageable
15:09
age. And there's complications
15:12
and confusion
15:14
about how to get these daughters
15:16
married.
15:17
So I think a lot of people just
15:19
can relate to the idea of
15:21
a family.
15:21
But what happens in Fiddler,
15:23
which becomes meaningful, even
15:25
more meaningful today than maybe it
15:27
was in 1966,
15:29
is that the lens opens up to
15:31
show this village, this
15:33
village of Jewish people
15:35
that are ultimately,
15:38
spoiler alert, forced out of their
15:39
town.
15:40
And so, it's a musical about
15:42
family, it's musical about
15:44
community, and it's the
15:46
musical about love and faith
15:48
and about the...
15:50
Intolerance that sometimes can
15:52
happen in the world and force
15:54
people to have
15:56
to pick up and move somewhere
15:58
else.
15:59
Oh, all that we can leave this
16:01
pot. No, we can't.
16:03
All right, we'll take it.
16:07
I was born in Amarillo.
16:09
I grew up in Lubbock,
16:11
a little Jewish actor boy
16:13
growing up in Lubeck, Texas.
16:14
There were a hundred Jewish families
16:16
there.
16:16
There was a children's theater in
16:18
Lubbeck, Texas and my brother
16:20
was part of it.
16:21
And I said to my mother, I want to
16:23
do that. And I was 10 years old
16:25
and I started doing plays when I
16:27
was ten and I have
16:29
really never looked back.
16:34
The first time I played Tevye I was
16:35
17 and I was at
16:37
the national music camp in
16:38
Interlochen, Michigan which was a
16:40
summer arts camp that I went to for
16:42
five summers.
16:43
I played him when I was 21,
16:45
undergrad, Yale University.
16:48
Then I had
16:50
a big hiatus,
16:51
was looking for Tevya to play him
16:53
and I never played him.
16:55
Finally I got the opportunity to
16:57
play Tevyes as an age-appropriate
16:59
adult. In the
17:01
Yiddish version of Fiddler on the
17:03
Roof that the National Yiddhish
17:05
Theater of Falksbyna did in New York
17:07
City directed by Joel Gray.
17:12
The thing I've learned about Tevye
17:14
as I've grown older is that
17:16
he actually is quite
17:18
optimistic and hopeful in a
17:20
world that around him is
17:22
less than that.
17:24
So as I have gotten older
17:26
I respond more and more
17:28
positively to the
17:30
optimism that Tevya holds
17:32
even in the face of all this
17:34
tragic developments that are
17:36
happening around him.
17:38
We have to catch a train and
17:40
a bus, you understand?
17:41
Prince, put your bundles on the
17:43
wagon.
17:45
Fiddler on the Roof has music that
17:47
everyone is going to recognize
17:49
and sing.
17:51
I do think, ultimately,
17:53
it is a cautionary tale
17:55
about what can happen when
17:58
the powers that be
18:00
exert their force and
18:02
force citizens and people
18:04
to have to leave their homes.
18:06
And so it's ultimately a message
18:07
about peace and
18:09
tolerance in a time then
18:12
that was less than that.
18:13
And I hope that it'll just get
18:15
people's.
18:16
Hearts feeling hopeful
18:18
for mending
18:20
fences between people.
18:22
Goodbye.
18:27
Our card, Mother.
18:29
Come to us soon.
18:31
I will, man.
18:33
That was Stephen Skybell speaking
18:35
with Texas Standard.
18:36
He's performing in Fiddler on
18:38
the roof this weekend at Austin
18:40
Opera House.
18:43
The Wishbone pedestrian bridge opens
18:45
tomorrow on the eastern end of
18:47
Lady Bird Lake, completing the
18:48
biggest gap in the Ann and Roy
18:50
Butler hike and bike trail.
18:51
For more about that, we're speaking
18:53
with KUT's transportation reporter,
18:55
Nathan Bernier.
18:56
Nathan, thanks for spending part of
18:57
your Friday with us.
18:58
It's good to be with you, Jerry.
18:59
I'm glad you're here, this project
19:00
is a near and dear to my heart,
19:03
because every single weekday on
19:05
my way to KUT News, I drive over
19:07
the Longhorn Dam, and that's
19:09
basically how people have had to
19:11
complete the gap prior to this
19:13
wishbone bridge, correct?
19:14
Yeah, well, I mean,
19:16
since Longhorn Shores was developed
19:18
in the mid-1970s,
19:21
there hasn't really been,
19:23
you know, the trail has detoured.
19:25
I mean it's essentially, and for
19:27
years, I mean, you've probably been
19:28
around long enough to remember when
19:29
it was a four-foot wide sidewalk
19:31
over the Longhorn Dam.
19:33
Now that got expanded, so it's not
19:34
so narrow, but that was
19:36
pretty bad. Now,
19:39
this is the last remaining
19:41
big gap on the trail.
19:44
And tomorrow it's gonna be
19:46
complete. I mean, it's going to be.
19:47
Yeah, I'm very excited.
19:49
You know, this is kind of an
19:50
embarrassing story. But the first
19:51
time I rode my bike on the
19:53
trail there and I got to
19:55
the to the lake, I didn't know where
19:57
to go. And I just I just turned
19:59
around and went back to my house,
20:00
you know, because I didn't know
20:01
where where it was going to go and
20:03
now be able to use the wishbone
20:04
bridge.
20:05
Why is it called that?
20:06
And is it because of what it looks
20:08
like? Yeah. OK.
20:08
Okay, it's like a y-shaped bridge,
20:11
you know, I've heard different
20:13
Metaphors one person on Instagram
20:14
said it was thong shaped But
20:16
basically it has three prongs
20:18
it goes in three different
20:19
directions. It connects Longhorn
20:21
Shores, Canterbury Shores
20:23
and the Peninsula
20:25
there. It's okay the unnamed
20:26
peninsula But the other day someone
20:27
gave it a name told me it had a
20:29
name. Anyway, you there's that was
20:30
it
20:30
Was it thong peninsula?
20:32
No, it was not.
20:32
No, it was not. But that might,
20:33
maybe that's, we should approach the
20:34
city with this idea.
20:36
And it's very, you know, wishbone
20:38
bridges are not very common.
20:40
Most bridges connect one thing to
20:42
another. You don't often see three
20:43
pronged bridges.
20:46
But this solves a very unique
20:48
problem. And one interesting thing
20:50
about it is that it wasn't even a
20:51
city idea. It didn't come from an
20:52
engineer, it didn't from
20:54
transportation, public works.
20:55
They held early in this process,
20:57
They held public meetings and it
20:58
was. About a dozen members of the
21:00
public rode in, hey, how about a
21:01
wishbone bridge?
21:02
And they're like, hmm, and they
21:03
liked the idea enough, they took it
21:05
seriously, they studied it,
21:07
and boom, 2026, now it's
21:09
about to open.
21:10
Well, one thing I really appreciate
21:12
about you, Nathan, is you're a crack
21:14
transportation reporter, right?
21:15
You're really good at what you do,
21:16
but you're also sort of becoming a
21:18
transportation influencer, because
21:19
over on the KUT Instagram
21:21
feed, you have this video where
21:23
you're out on the Wishbone Bridge
21:24
and you're highlighting some of
21:25
what's happening.
21:26
The cool thing about the bridge,
21:28
there's so much to appreciate there,
21:29
but there's also a tunnel
21:31
that's got some cool art featured in
21:33
there. Can you tell us where that
21:35
is? Yes.
21:35
Absolutely, so you know you cross
21:37
over the bridge the tunnel actually
21:38
goes underneath Pleasant Valley Road
21:40
now there used to be a tunnel there
21:41
It was like a six foot wide
21:43
box culvert.
21:44
It was I mean people have
21:46
described it as creepy
21:47
It was not enticing, you know,
21:49
you didn't want to put your bike
21:50
underneath there.
21:51
I was just, I wasn't sure I was
21:51
going to make it out the other side.
21:53
Right, and also it would
21:54
flood, like the drainage in there
21:56
was horrible, the lighting was bad,
21:58
it was weird, and not
21:59
always a safe feeling for
22:01
people.
22:02
So that's gone, that's completely
22:04
filled up, and then just a little
22:05
bit north of there is where they've
22:06
put this new one, it's 30 feet wide,
22:08
it's got recessed lighting, and a
22:10
mural covering the entire thing.
22:12
Part of it is painted, part of it as
22:13
tile work, and along the very
22:15
entrance and exit are going to be
22:17
about more than 200
22:19
handprints that people
22:21
came out and just
22:23
anyone who could have done it, they
22:25
held these workshops, people came
22:26
out and they made their, pressed
22:28
their hands on these tiles.
22:29
So there's gonna be that aspect of
22:31
it. And I think there's one dog
22:32
print on there as well.
22:34
So, but I think, you know,
22:36
the artwork is beautiful.
22:37
Reginald Adams from Houston was the
22:38
artist commissioned to do the
22:40
artwork, but
22:42
the accessibility is gonna be the
22:43
main issue there.
22:44
Now, if you're at Quig Fields or
22:46
you're in Roy G.
22:47
Guerrero Park, it's gonna to be
22:48
super easy just to walk over.
22:49
Also, there's a big parking lot
22:50
there. So say you want to hit the
22:51
trail. You could park by Creek
22:53
fields, go under that, that,
22:55
through that tunnel and boom, you're
22:56
on the Butler trail.
22:57
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I see people do it all
22:58
the time when they're paddle
22:59
boarding things like that.
23:00
You mentioned Reginald the artist
23:02
Can you let's hear a little bit of
23:04
tape from him?
23:05
Which includes a 160
23:07
foot long mosaic that'll go on
23:09
both sides of this tunnel.
23:11
And really excited to bring this
23:12
public art project to completion.
23:15
It's been two years in the making
23:16
and in the next four days we're
23:17
gonna bring it together.
23:19
There will be over 200 hand
23:20
prints that will adorn the outer
23:22
lip of the tunnel.
23:24
And these are all hand prints from
23:26
local Austinites, folks who came to
23:27
our community engagement events and
23:29
that'll kind of be the welcome into
23:31
the tunnel on both the outer
23:33
sides so as people come in
23:35
and out of the tunnel they'll be
23:36
able to see their contribution to
23:37
this public art installation.
23:39
So the Wishbone Bridge is opening
23:41
tomorrow, Nathan, with a little
23:42
ceremony. What's gonna be happening?
23:44
Grand opening 10 a.m.
23:45
Mayor will be there, members of
23:47
Congress, and a whole bunch of
23:48
people are invited.
23:49
I know that lots of folks are
23:50
excited about this. I hear there's
23:51
live music and food trucks too.
23:52
Okay, it should be a good time out
23:54
there. That is KUT's transportation
23:57
reporter, Nathan Bernier.
23:58
We're gonna have a link to his story
23:59
at kut.org slash signal
24:01
and and our podcast show notes
24:03
for today.
24:04
Nathan, thank you for your time.
24:06
Thanks, Jerry.
24:06
And thank you out there for tuning
24:08
in to Austin Signal every
24:10
weekday at one o'clock here on KUT.
24:13
And you can download us wherever you
24:15
listen to your podcast too.
24:16
Thank you to Kristen Cabrera, our
24:18
managing producer and Rayna Sevilla,
24:20
our technical director.
24:22
I'm your host Jerry Quijano and we
24:24
will be back with you on Monday.
24:26
Have a great weekend.