Latest / Austin Signal / Austin school district is closing another school

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Austin school district is closing another school · Austin Signal

0:08
The Austin Independent School
0:09
District plans to close another
0:11
school.
0:12
The move comes as the district faces
0:14
the possibility of further state
0:15
intervention.
0:16
We'll tell you which school and have
0:18
reaction.
0:19
And Austin City Council has been
0:20
voting in secret on certain matters
0:22
related to Austin energy,
0:24
and it's been happening longer than
0:25
you might think.
0:27
The revelation is tied back to this
0:28
summer's purchase of a billion
0:29
dollar natural gas power plant.
0:31
We've got more about that reporting.
0:33
It's coming up on today's show.
0:35
The Austin Signal is a production
0:37
of KUT News, hosted by
0:39
Jerry Kehanel.
0:40
Plus, have you ever wondered what
0:42
happens to our pets when they die?
0:44
Not in like some metaphysical trippy
0:46
way, but like literally, what
0:47
happens?
0:48
The story of an Austin pet cemetery.
0:51
Those stories and a whole lot more.
0:53
That is coming up next.
0:54
It's right here on Austin
0:56
Signal.
1:01
Thank you.
1:07
Howdy out there, this is Austin
1:09
Signal. I'm your host, Jerry
1:11
Keconnell.
1:11
It's Thursday, July 23rd.
1:13
Thank you for tuning in.
1:15
We are still under a heat advisory
1:17
until 8 p.m.
1:18
This evening here in the Austin
1:20
area, so stay cool, take some breaks
1:22
in the shade, stay hydrated,
1:24
and go to kut.org for
1:26
resources here in Austin area where
1:27
you can take some respite.
1:30
Austin ISD is planning to close
1:32
another school as it faces a
1:33
potential state takeover.
1:35
On Wednesday, the district said in a
1:37
statement to parents that it would
1:38
be moving to close Barredes Middle
1:40
School in South Austin, citing
1:41
academic progress.
1:43
Education Austin, the labor union
1:45
for AISD teachers and staff, said
1:47
it was told that the school district
1:48
expected Barrede's to receive its
1:50
fourth consecutive failing state
1:52
accountability rating.
1:53
The board of trustees will hold
1:55
special sessions for community
1:56
input. If the proposal is
1:58
approved, Barreira students would be
2:00
moved to Bailey.
2:01
Or Mendez Middle Schools.
2:03
We have more at KUT.org.
2:11
The Austin City Council has been
2:13
voting in secret for years on
2:15
certain matters related to Austin
2:17
Energy.
2:18
That might surprise you, but it
2:20
would be really hard to know it was
2:21
happening because the City Council
2:23
does not even acknowledge when they
2:24
do it.
2:25
That revelation came to light this
2:27
summer after reporting by KUT News
2:29
on a rather unusual sequence
2:31
of events, and it all tied back
2:33
to the purchase of a billion-dollar
2:34
natural gas power plant.
2:37
KUT's Moe's Boo Show and Nathan
2:38
Bernier started looking into it.
2:40
And filed this report on what they
2:42
found.
2:44
Take a listen to this tape of
2:46
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson.
2:48
The city council will now go into
2:49
a closed session pursuant to section
2:51
five five one zero seven one of
2:53
the government code This is at the
2:54
city council meeting where they vote
2:56
on that power plant he just heard
2:57
about.
2:57
Which is to consider competitive
2:59
matters related to Austin energy
3:01
generation, operation, and
3:02
resources.
3:02
If you're a normal person, you
3:04
probably have no idea what he's
3:05
talking about, except maybe it has
3:07
something to do with Austin Energy.
3:09
355, we're going into the closed
3:10
executive session.
3:14
An executive session is when
3:16
they go in private to talk about
3:18
sensitive city matters.
3:20
And if you follow Castle, you know
3:21
they do this kind of thing all the
3:22
time. But this plan was
3:24
really controversial.
3:25
For one, Austin's promised to get
3:27
off fossil fuels.
3:28
And even apart from those
3:30
environmental goals, there
3:32
were a lot of people who said, we
3:33
just don't need these generators.
3:35
So this is a big decision.
3:38
And usually, when these types
3:40
of things happen at City Hall,
3:42
council members come out and
3:44
vote publicly in
3:46
front of everyone.
3:47
And that's why what you're about to
3:48
hear is something
3:50
kind of historic.
3:51
Yeah, check this out.
3:52
It's 5 19 p.m.
3:54
We're out of closed session the
3:56
resolution considered by the council
3:58
passed
4:01
What Mayor Watson just said
4:03
was that the City Council voted
4:05
on this billion dollar decision
4:08
behind closed doors.
4:10
None of the council members will say
4:11
how they voted.
4:12
They made this huge decision
4:14
in private and people
4:16
did not take it well.
4:19
I was genuinely
4:21
blown away.
4:22
I have never seen
4:24
this city government do anything
4:26
this secretive.
4:27
It's simply outrageous.
4:29
But what it is, it's an agreement,
4:31
it is a conspiracy of silence.
4:37
So what is going on here?
4:39
How is a secret vote even legal?
4:41
For answers, we headed to
4:43
Cisco's Restaurant on East 6th
4:45
Street for lunch with
4:47
David Escamilla.
4:48
Former Travis County attorney from
4:50
2003 to
4:52
2020.
4:53
So he knows all about state
4:54
transparency laws.
4:55
Part of his job was to train elected
4:57
officials on them and to
4:59
prosecute them if they broke it.
5:01
There's always some new
5:03
way that...
5:04
People are trying to figure out to
5:06
avoid transparency.
5:08
The law that's supposed to ensure
5:10
that the public's business is done
5:12
in full public view
5:13
is called the Texas Open Meetings
5:16
Act. It was passed in the 1960s,
5:18
but through the years, lawmakers
5:19
have... Chipped away at those
5:21
transparency requirements.
5:22
There's an exception that lets them
5:24
talk about real estate deals
5:25
in those secret executive sessions.
5:28
There's exceptions for talking about
5:29
lawsuits and legal strategies,
5:31
sensitive security issues, private
5:32
personnel matters.
5:33
But all of these exceptions
5:35
have one thing in common.
5:38
You cannot take any
5:40
action in executive session.
5:42
You have to come back out
5:44
of executive session, and if you're
5:46
going to take any actions, that's
5:48
where you take a vote.
5:49
In full public view, as
5:51
you would expect.
5:52
Except for this one
5:54
way elected leaders can
5:57
hide their votes.
5:58
This one weird
6:00
trick. This is the only one I
6:02
know that allows
6:05
a governmental body under the
6:07
Open Meetings Act to vote in
6:09
executive session.
6:10
It's a carve-out.
6:11
It was created by state lawmakers in
6:13
1999 as
6:15
part of the deregulation of
6:17
the Texas electricity market.
6:19
Part of that deregulated meant
6:21
that traditional city-run
6:23
electric utilities, like Austin
6:25
Energy, were suddenly competing
6:27
against giant corporations.
6:30
Right, and these companies, they
6:31
don't have the same obligations to
6:33
share their business with the
6:34
public. You know, sharing your plans
6:36
is sometimes a bad idea.
6:37
How much you're paying.
6:39
What you're buying, the competition
6:41
could take any kind of information
6:43
like that and use it to their
6:45
advantage and to your disadvantage.
6:47
So when the state deregulated,
6:49
Texas cities that had their own
6:50
power utilities, like Austin Energy,
6:52
asked for this special exception
6:54
to the Texas Open Meetings Act.
6:56
That exception allows elected
6:58
officials who manage those utilities
7:00
to vote in
7:02
secret.
7:03
Which seems to mean they
7:05
can keep how they voted.
7:07
From the public.
7:08
One of the people who was in favor
7:09
of it back in 1999 was someone
7:11
we heard from earlier in this story.
7:13
My name's Kirk Watson and I'm
7:15
the mayor of the city of Austin,
7:16
Texas.
7:16
Yeah, he was mayor back then, and
7:18
he's mayor today.
7:19
So I talked to Watson about
7:21
the power plant vote before it
7:23
happened, and even then, even then
7:25
people were complaining about all
7:27
the secrecy around this deal.
7:29
The city would not share
7:31
who the seller was.
7:32
They wouldn't say how much it would
7:33
cost, even though experts say it's
7:35
probably over a billion dollars.
7:37
But in our conversation, Watson said
7:39
all that secrecy
7:41
was necessary for
7:43
the good of the city.
7:44
We're an electric company that
7:46
operates in a very competitive
7:49
market.
7:50
And if we're not careful,
7:52
we will do damage to
7:54
our customers.
7:55
It's like playing poker and
7:57
I have to show you all of
7:59
my cards while playing the game.
8:01
I pushed back a little.
8:02
I said hiding all these facts sure
8:04
is frustrating for journalists.
8:06
And if that journalist is buying
8:08
power from Austin Energy,
8:10
I'm doing that journalist a favor.
8:12
Kind of sounds like he wants to
8:13
thank you for me most.
8:14
Yeah, I did and this was
8:16
before The vote
8:18
is before basically anyone thought
8:20
that the vote itself would be
8:22
kept from the public Now, Mo, you've
8:24
been covering Austin Energy for a
8:25
long time.
8:27
Have there not been
8:29
a bunch of big controversial
8:31
votes like this done before
8:33
in public?
8:34
Absolutely.
8:35
From the year 2000 to now,
8:37
I can think of at least five
8:39
big votes about
8:41
Austin Energy that council
8:43
approved in public.
8:44
They might have talked about them in
8:46
private, but they voted in public,
8:48
that's one reason people
8:50
freaked out when this secret vote
8:51
happened last May.
8:52
It seemed like it was the first time
8:54
there had ever been a vote like
8:56
this. So we wanted to find out if
8:57
that was true.
9:01
When we asked the city if this had
9:03
happened before, they said, there's
9:05
basically nothing to see here.
9:06
They said that these secret votes on
9:08
Austin Energy Matters are routine.
9:11
And that was surprising.
9:12
We were like.
9:14
Really? And they were like, yeah,
9:15
Austin Energy sent us a list of
9:17
16 city council meetings.
9:19
But when we took a closer look,
9:21
none of those 16 meetings
9:23
showed any vote taking place behind
9:25
closed doors. And so then they were,
9:26
like, actually, you're going to have
9:28
to go through all the meeting
9:30
minutes manually.
9:31
Then you'll definitely find
9:33
evidence. But the thing is, that's
9:34
over a thousand city
9:37
council meeting, going back to 1999
9:39
when this law took effect.
9:40
That's a lot of PDF files.
9:41
It is a lot PDF files!
9:43
But we did it. And again,
9:46
we found no record of
9:48
any such vote.
9:51
So we brought all of this to Austin
9:53
Energy, told them what we found,
9:55
and they completely changed their
9:57
explanation.
10:00
The new response included this
10:02
sentence.
10:04
The fact that minutes do
10:06
not reflect that a vote was
10:08
taken does not
10:09
mean that a boat was
10:11
not taken.
10:13
That is a very confusing sentence,
10:15
like a triple negative in there.
10:16
So just to break it down, they're
10:17
saying, even if there's no record of
10:19
a vote, council could have voted and
10:20
there would just be no record it.
10:22
Yeah, so it's pretty much impossible
10:24
to know how many secret votes
10:26
have happened in the history
10:28
of city council.
10:31
I was genuinely shocked
10:34
and appalled to find that
10:36
it was not a new thing that our
10:38
city council was voting in
10:40
secret, but in fact, it
10:42
was worse than we thought, and
10:43
they're routinely voting in
10:45
secrets. I was just blown away by
10:47
that fact.
10:47
That's Kaiba White.
10:49
She works on climate change with a
10:50
group called Public Citizen.
10:52
All of this made her wonder
10:54
about how this system
10:56
works.
10:56
The fact that they're doing
10:58
that at all really
11:01
just makes me question the integrity
11:03
of the Austin
11:05
government.
11:06
You know, as somebody who
11:08
believes in government, I believe in
11:10
democracy.
11:12
I think that it can
11:14
work for people, but it can't work
11:16
for people if it's just being
11:18
done in secret.
11:19
And then you have attorneys who
11:21
specialize in open meetings laws and
11:22
transparency.
11:23
And they were kind of shocked by
11:24
this, too. Joe Larson is one of
11:26
them. He's a lawyer in Houston.
11:28
He's on the board of the Texas
11:29
Freedom of Information Foundation.
11:30
He thinks the city might even
11:32
be breaking its own rules by doing
11:34
this.
11:35
It's an invisible government.
11:36
It's a black box.
11:38
You don't know what anybody's doing.
11:39
You don't know who to hold
11:40
accountable, much less for
11:42
the public to have any input on
11:44
an ongoing basis.
11:46
It completely undermines the idea
11:48
of the Open Meetings Act.
11:50
And then there's Bill Ailshire, he's
11:51
an attorney focused on the Open
11:52
Meetings Act and a former Travis
11:53
County judge.
11:55
You really think information needs
11:57
to be withheld.
11:59
You ought to be willing to explain
12:00
to the public what harm
12:02
would come to them if
12:05
it was revealed.
12:06
Who voted for it and who didn't?
12:09
So we asked.
12:12
Councilmember Ryan Alter said he
12:14
couldn't tell us how he voted.
12:15
That's right, the idea of executive
12:17
session is for those discussions
12:19
to be confidential and once you
12:21
start chipping away saying,
12:23
well, this little piece is not
12:25
confidential, well then maybe that
12:27
other little piece isn't
12:28
confidential. Next thing you know,
12:29
you've opened yourself up to having
12:31
to disclose everything.
12:33
And so Kadri's office said they were
12:35
told by city attorneys not to say
12:36
how he voted.
12:37
Staffer at Mark Duchin's office said
12:39
even they, even the staffers, don't
12:41
know how their boss voted on this
12:43
billion-dollar decision.
12:44
We asked every council
12:46
member who voted on this deal.
12:49
None of them would talk.
12:52
But back at Cisco's
12:55
former county attorney David
12:56
Escamilla says any
12:58
one of them, any one of
13:00
these council members can say
13:02
how they voted at any time.
13:04
There's no law against
13:06
it. Of course, there might be a
13:08
reason they don't want to.
13:09
Something that might hurt them
13:10
politically in the next election,
13:12
they would like to
13:14
avoid having to make that public.
13:17
And there is an election
13:19
coming up in November.
13:20
Four city council members are
13:22
trying to keep their seats.
13:24
I'm Mo's Buchel in Austin.
13:25
And I'm Nathan Bernier in Austin
13:28
Also something to keep on your radar
13:29
today, the Austin City Council is
13:31
set to sign off on an agreement that
13:32
would allow Amazon to move forward
13:34
with building on a vacant piece of
13:36
land along the Colorado River.
13:38
Earlier this week, the city revealed
13:40
that Amazon is the Fortune 100
13:42
company behind the Dog's Head
13:43
development project in southeast
13:45
Austin.
13:46
KUT City Hall reporter Luz Moreno
13:48
Lozano is following the story.
13:50
We'll have more about that tomorrow
13:52
on Austin Signal.
13:53
And we have more show coming up
13:55
after this break.
14:00
This is Austin Signal, welcome
14:02
back.
14:03
All right, say with me, have you
14:05
ever wondered what happens to our
14:07
pets when they die?
14:08
And I mean this in a literal sense,
14:10
many are cremated and there
14:12
are some that are buried in the
14:13
backyard, but some pets are
14:15
given a burial in a proper cemetery.
14:18
We got a question about a pet
14:20
cemetery for our AT Explained
14:22
project.
14:23
KUT's Stephanie Federico has
14:25
that story.
14:26
A while back I went over to Liz
14:28
Henry's house in northwest Austin.
14:30
We stood in her kitchen looking at
14:32
photos of her childhood pets.
14:34
A photo of her when she was three,
14:36
beaming as she held her dog Jigger.
14:37
That's jigger, me holding jigger way
14:39
down there in the corner.
14:40
In another photo, Jigar is lapping
14:42
Kool-Aid from a cup.
14:42
There she is dressed up, she's got a
14:44
bonnet on.
14:45
As a child, Liz would dress up
14:47
the chihuahua-terrier mix and push
14:49
her around in a stroller.
14:51
Jigger would eventually jump out and
14:52
run away, but she was pretty cool
14:54
about it.
14:56
Liz's cat, Shanghai, shows up in
14:57
later years.
14:59
In one photo, he's hanging out while
15:01
stockings are emptied on Christmas
15:02
morning.
15:03
In another, he is chilling outside
15:04
by a sliding glass door.
15:06
A typical Siamese,
15:08
Shang had his quirks.
15:09
They loved playing the piano in
15:11
the middle of the night and wake us
15:13
all up.
15:14
Liz turns the page and there are
15:15
more photos of Jigger.
15:17
This time, she's lying in a
15:18
three-foot long box with the lid
15:20
propped open.
15:21
A spray of white flowers sits on the
15:23
ground in front.
15:25
Jigger was buried in 1974
15:27
in the Pet Rest Cemetery in
15:29
Pflugerville.
15:30
Shang would join her almost 10 years
15:32
later.
15:33
Liz's parents bought side-by-side
15:34
plots and tombstones made of Texas
15:36
granite.
15:37
They weren't fans of cremation.
15:39
They wanted to be buried themselves
15:40
and thought it only proper to bury
15:42
their pets.
15:43
Back then, the cemetery was called
15:44
Pet Rest Memorial Park.
15:46
Liz visited a few times throughout
15:48
the years, but it had been decades
15:50
when she returned in 2021.
15:52
It didn't look like they were taking
15:53
new animals or doing anything.
15:55
It looked like they pretty well shut
15:56
up their doors and.
16:00
Dan Seligman drove by the cemetery
16:02
from time to time.
16:03
He noticed the same thing.
16:06
So we're just thinking, well, there
16:07
it is.
16:07
Then bulldozers showed up.
16:09
Now it's not.
16:10
So Dan asked, ET explained,
16:12
what happened to the animals?
16:14
He doesn't think anything nefarious
16:16
went down. Maybe they were just dug
16:18
up during the construction process.
16:20
But he couldn't find anything online
16:21
or in the paper about it.
16:23
He says it would have been great if
16:25
the animals were removed, but if so,
16:27
where to?
16:28
If his pet were buried there, he
16:30
would want to know what happened to
16:31
the body.
16:32
Probably wouldn't be anything to dig
16:33
up and take home.
16:35
I'm sure plenty were buried in
16:36
cardboard boxes, as were our
16:38
pets.
16:39
And kind of a ashes to ashes,
16:41
dust to dust sort of thing.
16:43
Texas law says you can't build on
16:45
top of a cemetery for humans.
16:46
Any sort of construction requires
16:48
the graves to be relocated,
16:50
and that requires the next of kin to
16:51
be notified, or court approval if
16:53
those folks can't be found.
16:54
But maybe because
16:56
they aren't people, there's
16:58
no rules about it.
16:59
He's right, pets are considered
17:01
property in Texas.
17:03
They aren't afforded the same
17:04
dignity as humans when they die.
17:07
So what happened to the bodies?
17:09
To answer Dan's question, I reached
17:11
out to the last owners of the
17:12
cemetery.
17:13
I left several messages, but they
17:15
didn't respond to my request for an
17:16
interview.
17:17
Pet rest had been around since the
17:19
60s.
17:20
There was a two-story house on the
17:21
property. The owners actually lived
17:23
there.
17:24
There was also a crematorium and two
17:26
smokestacks.
17:27
Meg Mayo's dog Taffy was
17:29
buried.
17:30
She said it was like walking around
17:32
someone's front yard when she
17:33
visited a few years ago.
17:34
Well, it's like the Stephen King
17:36
book.
17:36
Can't help but think
17:39
about their spirits,
17:41
whatever is there and
17:44
right there next to you.
17:45
Most of the markers were flat on the
17:47
ground, but there were also
17:48
headstones and other memorials.
17:51
The price to bury a pet varied
17:52
depending on an animal's size and
17:54
what it was buried in, if anything.
17:57
A cardboard box, a styrofoam
17:59
container, an actual coffin.
18:02
Liz's dog may have been buried in
18:03
the liner of a child's casket.
18:06
Nothing in the papers Liz showed me
18:08
promised the animals would be there
18:09
forever.
18:10
The property was sold in 2021.
18:13
The owners were both about 70 then.
18:15
A good time to call it quits.
18:19
I went out to the site just before
18:20
Christmas.
18:21
It hugs a busy intersection across
18:23
the street from a U-Haul rental
18:25
place.
18:26
In the distance, you can see the
18:27
Welcome to Pflugerville Water Tower.
18:29
There definitely aren't any
18:31
smokestacks.
18:32
I stopped by the construction
18:34
company next door to the property to
18:35
see if anyone knew what happened.
18:38
One guy just smirked and said the
18:39
animals were all respectfully
18:41
removed and relocated.
18:42
Another employee said the
18:44
company had bought the property
18:46
about a year ago to expand.
18:48
He showed me where the cemetery used
18:50
to be.
18:51
Now there's just a square, one-story
18:52
building on green grass behind a
18:54
black fence.
18:55
He estimated there were around a
18:57
thousand animals buried there.
18:59
His company has all the tombstones
19:00
out back.
19:02
They put out a notice saying
19:03
families could come by and pick them
19:04
up, as well as any remains.
19:07
So Liz went out to collect her pet's
19:09
headstones.
19:10
We were glad we found them, and we
19:12
just put them in our flower bed out
19:13
back. So there they are.
19:15
Yeah, and I think my parents would
19:16
be glad we.
19:17
That too.
19:18
She has no hard feelings.
19:19
Progress is progress, she says.
19:22
Back at the construction company, I
19:23
asked a worker if I could take a
19:25
look at the tombstones.
19:26
He suddenly decided I needed to talk
19:28
to his boss.
19:30
But it was clear during a phone call
19:31
later that the boss didn't want to
19:33
talk to me.
19:34
And neither did the boss's boss.
19:36
All they would say is that they
19:37
hired a
19:42
store to a cemetery.
19:44
So nobody wanted to tell me what
19:46
happened to the bodies.
19:48
The former owners of PetRest didn't
19:50
want to speak to me.
19:51
The construction company bosses
19:52
wouldn't tell me.
19:54
I decided to bring in DeeDeeHawk.
19:56
I'm a medium and.
19:57
Animal communicator.
19:58
Maybe the animals would speak to
19:59
her.
20:00
There's still animals here.
20:03
I'm picking up that.
20:08
Someone did come across this
20:11
property and
20:12
purposely pulled up all the
20:14
gravestones and just left
20:16
the animals here.
20:20
Anything about what I'd learned so
20:22
far.
20:24
On that day, she sensed the outline
20:25
of what had been the cemetery and
20:27
a little girl looking for a dog
20:29
named Charlie, but not much
20:31
else.
20:31
No animals spoke to her.
20:35
Didi believes when animals die they
20:36
level up and go to another plane.
20:39
Sometimes they come back to check in
20:41
on their people, just like if you
20:42
were to talk to people out loud,
20:44
you know, past family members out
20:46
loud. Same thing with pets.
20:48
If you speak to them out loud
20:49
they'll kind of chime in and be
20:50
like, yes, you ring?
20:53
And hang out with you.
20:56
She understands wanting to bury a
20:57
pet in a cemetery.
20:59
It's a way to tell complete
21:00
strangers this animal existed.
21:02
This animal meant everything.
21:04
This animal... Loved.
21:06
Also for me it's
21:08
respect for the animal and for the
21:10
life so I feel like
21:12
burying them, returning them back to
21:13
the earth is where they would want
21:15
to be.
21:18
This story got me thinking about my
21:20
own two cats.
21:22
They're getting old and every time
21:23
one of them throws up, I'm like, is
21:25
this the end?
21:26
People with this, what's called
21:28
anticipatory grief, often seek
21:30
the support of Nicole Vickacall.
21:32
She's a licensed social worker in
21:34
Austin who began specializing in pet
21:36
loss after her cat Cecil died.
21:38
People say like, there's no
21:40
road map, like I need a book on how
21:41
to do grief.
21:43
A lot of people get kind of
21:44
blindsided.
21:45
And so I help people
21:47
navigate for themselves how to
21:49
make meaning.
21:51
Of the loss.
21:52
Pets are a chosen family,
21:54
so losing one can be devastating.
21:56
You don't just get another cat.
21:59
Her goal as counselor is often to
22:00
help people connect with their pet
22:02
spiritually.
22:03
How can they transition their
22:04
relationship to still carry
22:06
this pet in their heart?
22:08
When I told friends about this
22:09
story, almost everyone wanted to
22:10
tell me about a pet who had died.
22:12
Each wanted to share how awesome
22:14
their dog or cat or chinchilla was.
22:16
The need to share memories is pretty
22:18
universal.
22:20
There's a line in the movie Pet
22:21
Sematary that really hit me.
22:23
Fred Gwynn's character Judd says
22:25
that in time, the young girl Ellie
22:26
will learn what death really is.
22:28
Which is where the pain stops
22:31
and the good memories begin.
22:32
I asked Nicole why anyone would get
22:34
a pet knowing they're probably going
22:36
to die before us.
22:37
She said our brains may not be able
22:39
to fully grasp that we're going to
22:40
outlive them.
22:41
But also, pets are the reason a lot
22:43
of people get up in the morning.
22:45
As lovely as humans and people are,
22:47
we can hurt each other.
22:49
We hurt each others physically and
22:50
emotionally and pets
22:52
are not like that, you
22:54
know? We can really truly trust them
22:56
and I think we can open up
22:58
and bond and just be ourselves
23:00
and they can comfort us in a way.
23:03
They don't try and give us advice or
23:05
change the way we feel.
23:07
They're just with us.
23:09
So we get a pet, and we love
23:11
that pet, and then the pet dies.
23:14
But after a period of mourning, many
23:15
of us do it all over again.
23:17
And why?
23:19
Maybe the answer is simple.
23:21
Pets are just worth it.
23:24
I'm Stephanie Federico in Austin.
23:30
And before we let you go today,
23:31
here's a quick headline from the
23:33
Austin music scene.
23:34
Empire Control Room is officially
23:36
shut down.
23:37
The Red River venue opened in 2013,
23:40
but recently the owners had come
23:41
under fire by former employees
23:43
over late payments and sudden
23:45
firings.
23:46
The Austin Chronicle reports that
23:47
back in April the venue owners were
23:49
locked out their indoor venue due to
23:51
non-payment, but continued to hold
23:53
shows outdoors.
23:54
An official eviction judgment gave
23:56
them time to appeal, but no one
23:58
representing the venue showed up for
23:59
the appeal and their website is
24:01
no longer working.
24:03
We're gonna have a link to that
24:04
story from The Chronicle in today's
24:06
podcast, Show Notes.
24:08
That is it for us today here
24:10
on Austin Signal.
24:11
Thank you for making us part of your
24:13
Thursday.
24:15
We have more about the stories that
24:16
we shared with you in the podcast
24:18
Show Notes, and you can always find
24:20
more from Austin Signal over
24:21
at KUT.org
24:24
slash Signal.
24:26
We told you earlier in the show that
24:27
KUT City Hall reporter Luz
24:29
Moreno-Gonzalo is following the
24:31
dog's head developments at City
24:33
Council. In case you missed it, we
24:34
spoke with Luz yesterday about
24:37
everything that has led up to this
24:39
decision and we have a little bit
24:40
more background.
24:41
We'll have the latest from her
24:42
reporting on tomorrow's episode.
24:45
The Austin Signal team is Rayna
24:47
Sevilla, Alexandra Hart,
24:49
and Kristen Cabrera.
24:50
I'm your host Jerry Kikano, we're
24:51
gonna be back at the same time
24:53
tomorrow, we'll talk to you then.
24:55
Stay cool out there.