The Warm Up: Forecasting the Austin Music Commission, Nov. 4 2019
Seems like once a quarter the Austin Music Commission decides to load up its agenda with EVERYTHING of consequence that has been on its radar in recent months. There is good and bad in this: obviously issues like the health of the Red River district and how to spend $12 million in bond money for creative spaces deserve attention, but this is also a group where attention spans and focus can run thin in a hurry.
The agenda for Monday’s meeting is basically flashing in bright neon: “This will go more than two hours!” which means some items are likely to get short shrift or wind up being punted to the December meeting.
In order:
Discussion and Possible Action on Joint Arts and Music Commissions’ Creative Space Acquisition and Improvements plan
Welcome to one of the commission’s slowest-moving initiatives in recent memory, with the Music and Arts commissions working jointly to create a process for deciding how to evaluate and select winners from forthcoming proposals for possible use of $12 million in bond funding approved by voters one year ago. The root goal here is to direct bond money toward either creation or preservation of spaces for arts and music communities, which are struggling to stay open as local property values and property taxes increase.
In recent months equity has been a major topic of discussion around how to allocate the money, with a spring survey by the city showing respondents want a variety of existing spaces in East Austin to get heaviest consideration. That goes against some desires to use the whole shot as the kickoff funding for a “creative hub” that would almost certainly require additional fundraising (and many years) to complete.
The slow-moving nature of this process (which was at one point expected to conclude in September) comes as owners and managers of some venues around town have pushed for the money to become available as soon as possible, to provide assistance for down payments, capital improvements or moves to more friendly locations with better long-term prospects. Meanwhile, the bond money sits on the sidelines waiting for the two commissions, which are advisory in nature and can’t create actual policy themselves, to make a recommendation to staff and City Council on how it might best be allocated.
The upshot: At this point, if there’s a process in place by March that will allow groups to submit proposals for possible funding, that would constitute blazing speed.
Discussion and Possible Action following further discussion regarding the Red River Cultural District.
This is an ongoing item that catalyzed over the summer with the combination of a series of three shootings in the area around the stretch of music venues in the Red River Cultural District, and the ongoing frustrations of club owners near an alley that has long been a hotspot for criminal activity and (blink, blink… holds breath) “human bio-material.”
A quickly organized change in patrolling by Austin Police Department appears to have remedied the problem with shootings, and there is evidence of work happening to block off and generally improve the alley, which runs between two currently closed clubs (though not for long).
The upshot: Probably an update accompanied by some pats on the back and “attaboy”s, and not much else.
Discussion and Possible Action on arranging a tour of various city facilities (parks, community centers) to see how existing creative spaces are being administered.
This one is a smart outgrowth of the heavy thinking that’s gone on around the $12 million in bond money. Commissioner Oren Rosenthal started the push earlier this year for some kind of a comprehensive look at city parks facilities that could be used for festivals, concerts, arts expos and other creative uses (if they can get a little budgetary TLC from the city to address nagging maintenance and infrastructure issues).
The intent here is not to direct any of the bond money toward parks sites, but rather reduce the chances of redundancy that could happen by opening or expanding an existing venue to create event capacity that could (in theory) be provided at a nearby park site.
Again, parks sites in East Austin are likely to receive the most attention since multiple groups in recent years have ID’d those parks as ripe for improvements, because of equity issues and representing low-hanging fruit in terms of adding community benefits easily.
The upshot: Hopefully info on when a tour of relevant parks sites will conducted, with the data folded into the decision-making process for the creative spaces bond money.
Discussion and Possible Action following update from C3 Presents on what to expect from ACL including: equity, diversity, and inclusion opportunities for Austin musicians, benefits to local commercial music industry, and philosophy of booking.
This is kind of a weird one, in that it’s a lingering agenda item originated as a suggestion of former commission member Trina Barlow, with a focus more on the overall impact (economically and to the surrounding area’s quality of life) of ACL Fest. In the time since Barlow’s departure the issue of equity has become a recurring priority for the commission (note: correlation does not equal causation) and public commenters in recent months have included a return of the common refrain that festival promoters C3 Presents fall short in booking local and/or ethnic acts. That means the item has a whole lot more curves and nuance, and opportunities for both sides to stub their toes from a public relations or policy perspective.
The hope of the commission is that a representative from C3 will be in attendance to answer questions on a variety of fronts about ACL Fest’s presence in the city. And while it’s certainly possible someone under the aegis of the Live Nation subsidiary will make a showing, I’d put the chances of a meaningful and satisfying conversation in the low single-digit percentages. There’s really nothing to be gained for the company to show its cards or veer in any significant way from its successful model, unless someone manages to stir up the will to levy a more hefty use fee for C3 essentially taking over Zilker Park for a solid month each fall.
The upshot: Could be nothing but theater and pats on the head, unless someone on the commission gets a bee in their bonnet and decides to push for hard data and promises for booking or rental fee changes.
Discussion and Possible Action regarding Task Force for possible Hotel Occupancy Tax funding.
Monday’s meeting comes on the eve of an election that one way or another is going to impact how the city uses its hotel tax revenue for many years to come. The change agent is whatever happens with Proposal B, the ballot question pushed by the Unconventional Austin PAC that wants the public to be able to decide whether the city moves forward with an ambitious and expensive expansion of the Austin Convention Center.
Without getting into the byzantine details of state laws governing use of the hotel tax — it’s complicated and only makes sense if you squint really hard — the significance for the music community is there’s almost certainly going to be a stream of hotel tax revenue coming into play to advance and grow the local commercial music industry. If Prop B passes, an undetermined amount of money would (in theory) come available in the form of tourism marketing campaigns directed at live music. If Prop B fails, the money (about $3.5 million per year to start) would come from a reallocation in how the city will spend extra money for “cultural arts” generated by a recent 2 percentage point increase in the hotel tax levy.
Got all that? Don’t worry, I barely do and I actually get paid to care about this stuff.
City Council directed the Music Commission to come up with ideas for how to use the new windfall, but city staff have said they want to also gather wide input from the community. Last month the Music Commission voted to form a task force dedicated to the hotel tax usage, so this item will probably revolve (and revolve and revolve and…) around the myriad “what if?” scenarios related to the results of Tuesday’s election.
The upshot: Hard to tell unless anyone’s got a crystal ball and intel on what voters will say the following day.
Staff briefing on Creative Space Assistance Program (CSAP) by Kim McCarson, Economic and Business Liaison, Music & Entertainment Division.
This staff briefing will go over the already publicized recommended recipients of money from the recently expanded (and renamed) program. No real controversy here, though members of the Arts Commission weren’t exactly fans of making some of the $750,000 in total funding available to for-profit businesses.
