Austin InSight

- Coming up on "Austin InSight," early voting is underway in the midterm elections, and the polls in the top Texas races are closer than ever.

And ahead of a very busy F1 weekend, we're looking at all the changes at the Austin airport and what travelers need to know.

Then, we're talking to the new owners of an old Austin landmark: Lammes Candies, and why they wanted to keep the Lammes tradition alive.

"Austin InSight" starts now.

- [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from: Sally & James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

(intriguing bright techno upbeat music) (intriguing bright techno upbeat music continues) - Hi there, and thanks for joining us, I'm Laura Laughead.

Campaigns for the midterm elections are hitting the home stretch with early voting already underway.

And some of the races at the top of the ticket here in Texas are not just close, but historically close.

That's according to a poll conducted by UT and The Texas Politics Project, which found that Democratic politicians are edging closer to winning a statewide office for the first time in decades.

Here to break down the results is Dr.

Jim Henson, Director of The Texas Politics Project.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

- Great to be with you.

- So when you published these poll results, you said there were historic levels of competition in this election.

What about the findings are historic?

- Well, if you look at our polling and other polling in the race right now, this election is the most competitive election that we've seen in Texas- - Yeah.

- Literally in decades, you could even say generations, if you wanted to get dramatic.

- Yeah.

- So we've not had a Democrat win a US Senate race or even be really competitive since 1988.

Democrats haven't won a statewide office since 1994.

So the level of competition that we're seeing in polling and just out there in the world, really unprecedented, at least in the modern period of Texas politics.

- Indeed.

And it adds perspective to some voters have never seen a Democrat hold a statewide seat in their lifetimes thus far.

And one of the races you looked at, obviously, was the Senate race between James Talarico and Ken Paxton.

What did you find there?

- Well, in our poll, which is in the field end of September, early October, we found Talarico leading by three points, 50 to 47.

What I would note is that there's so much polling going on in Texas because the national stakes of this race are so high.

We've seen another literally half dozen polls in the field since we were in there; the pattern has been James Talarico leading in that race, usually between about one and three points, which is within the margin of error of all of this polling.

So ultimately, you have to look at all that polling, ours, the rest of it, and say you can't really, you know, predict who is winning this right now based on the polling, it's essentially a tie; maybe leaning a little towards Talarico, but not enough to call the race in any way.

- Wow, indeed, very neck and neck.

You also asked respondents about the Governor's race too between Greg Abbott and Gina Hinojosa; what does polling tell you about that race?

- Well, that race also, you know, perhaps even closer, but in the way that the Senate race seems to be leaning towards Talarico, just a smidge, the governor's race is probably leaning towards Abbott a little bit.

Now our poll, we had Gina Hinojosa up by a single point, 49 to 48.

Again, in the polling that we've seen since our poll, we've seen that moving a bit more, more margins in favor of Abbott by, again, one to three, maybe one poll with four points; also, within the margin of error, too close to call.

So what we have are the two top of the ballot races just stunningly in Texas- - Wow.

- Essentially tied right now based on the polling as we go into the last days of the election.

- And these results are just a snapshot, but you've been polling these races for months.

So can you talk about some of the big evolutions as this campaign has worn on?

Is it trending one way or another?

Like, what are the major influences here, too?

- Well, I think, you know, there's a couple of different things there.

One, we've been seeing the race trending again at the Senate race pretty consistently with Talarico holding these narrow but not statistically significant polling leads.

And we've seen the Governor's race growing more competitive as Gina Hinojosa has kind of ramped up her campaign and become more well known.

I think, you know, in terms of the important trend, what's really driving this election is a set of both domestic Texas-level factors and national factors.

- Yeah.

- The Texas-level factors are people are just really focused on the economy, and they're very focused on the degree to which one party has been in power for a long time.

And particularly among Democrats and independents, there's a general dissatisfaction with incumbents that aligns both at the state and the national level, which brings us to the national conditions.

Your viewers will have heard all over the place- - Yeah.

- This is a midterm election, it always favors the party that is not in the White House.

As a national dynamic, that's helping Democrats in Texas.

Donald Trump has historically low job approval ratings, people have, you know, pretty close to historically negative ratings and expectations of the economy; all of that is converging in Texas right now.

- Hmm.

Well, so much more to play out, so many interesting findings here.

Dr.

Jim Henson, thank you so much for breaking this down for us.

We will have to see how things play out on election day.

- You're welcome, I'm happy to be here.

Thanks.

(bright techno upbeat music) - Now, aside from the big statewide races, voters in Austin will decide five seats on Austin City Council.

Austin PBS teamed up with KUT and Austin Current to bring you candidate forums in each of those races.

A couple weeks ago, you heard from candidates in Districts 1 and 3 here on "Austin InSight."

Now we're hearing from the District 5, 8, and 9 candidates.

In District 5, incumbent Ryan Alter is facing three challengers; only one, David Weinberg, was able to make the candidate forum at KUT.

- I'm running for the Austin City Council 'cause we have a big problem in town, and that is we have a council which is paying much more attention to big special interest groups that do a lot of business at the City and not the people back home.

- In the next four years, I'm ready to do more.

I think we need to continue to lower what is people's greatest costs, which is housing.

And I think, I know, that the one thing we really can't afford as a city is to go backwards.

- In District 8, there are two candidates going head to head, small business owner Jeffery Bowen, and Austin EMS Commander Selena Xie.

- As union president, I realized how much EMS really has a perspective on so many of the issues that ended up being very, very important to our community, including homelessness, substance use disorder, mental health issues.

So all of these issues have been such big issues for our community.

- I show up to all my different functions for neighborhoods, for whatever, speaking at City Council for District 8, constantly been involved for over the last 15 years, have my own small business, self-employed, retired military guy.

- And in District 9, incumbent councilman Zo Qadri is fending off a field of challengers.

Two of them, Rich Heyman and Katie Kam, made it to our forum.

- I'm running because Austin needs change.

Our city has been captured by real estate and development interests, and our Council takes a lot of money from those interests into their campaign funds and votes with them all the time.

- I want Austin to get on a different track, one that's about making the city of Austin safe, affordable, environmentally sustainable, financially sustainable, and culturally vibrant.

- While we've seen, you know, the cost of living go down, there's still far too many folks who are living on our streets and who are facing the threat of eviction.

While we've pushed to expand for better transit options, there's still transit deserts unfortunately in the city.

- You can watch all these forums in their entirety on the Austin PBS YouTube channel.

Parents from two Austin ISD middle schools are weighing in on the threat of a state takeover of the district.

A petition from parents at Burnet and Webb middle schools asks the TEA commissioner to close the campuses instead of taking over the entire school district.

But some parents have concerns about the process.

Webb's PTA president wrote in a Facebook post, quote, "The petition was not initiated by Webb parents; instead, outside individuals promoted this initiative within our community," end-quote.

They're calling for an investigation of the petition process.

While the petitions have been turned in, the school district still has to verify the signatures and make sure they represent more than half of parents at each school.

If they meet that mark, the district would submit the results to the TEA.

Both Burnet and Webb earned a fifth consecutive failing rating from the TEA last school year, that triggers a mandatory intervention under state law.

(bright techno upbeat music) Meanwhile, it's one of the busiest times of the year at the Austin airport.

Formula 1 rolls into town this weekend right on the heels of the two weekends of the ACL Music Festival earlier this month.

Austin-Bergstrom is one of the fastest growing airports in the country, and to better meet that increasing demand, they have several big expansion projects underway.

Here to tell us more about them and what travelers need to know is Kimmie Hey from the airport's PR and Marketing division.

Kimmie, thank you so much for being with us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- So I know every time I go to the airport, it seems like things are a little different here and there, there's another Under Construction sign, but let's run through some of the changes starting with everyone's favorite topic in Austin: parking.

(Kimmie chuckles) What are people seeing outside before they even set foot in the airport?

- Parking is changing at the airport.

Right now, the Yellow Garage is currently in construction; so if you've been on campus in the last six months, you've probably seen some cranes up around the Blue Garage, and that will deliver 7,000 new spaces.

- Wow.

- And that will be coming in January.

So passengers can look forward to parking in our brand new Yellow Garage very soon.

It's taking the place of our Red Garage that will be removed late next year.

- Probably one of the biggest surprises for out-of-towners at the Austin airport is how far though the ride-share pickup location is from the main terminal.

Are there any ride-share changes planned as part of these renovations?

- That's probably the biggest question that I get- - Yeah.

(chuckles) - When I'm speaking in the public- - Glad to ask!

Yeah.

- Yes.

Is "Why is the ride-share so far away?"

We actually moved the ride-share out to that location preemptively, because we knew we would be taking down our Red Garage and building our new arrivals in Departures hall on that footprint.

And so, the the plan is for the new Arrivals and Departures hall to be built, and that people can just go out the front door in the early 2030s- - Oh.

- And get their ride-share, so they're able to like- - Right around the corner.

- Yes, yes.

It'll take a little while, obviously we need to close that Red Garage, we need to build the new Arrivals and Departures hall, but it was always the plan, that once those facilities were built, that people would be able to get that ride-share pickup right at the front door.

- Hmm.

And another topic, one of the biggest bottlenecks often seems to be the security lines, and those checkpoints have been revamped over the years.

Are there more changes coming to security?

- Yes.

So TSA checkpoints have, as you said, shifted throughout the years.

And in fact, we just opened our brand new Checkpoint 4 earlier this year, and so we now have four different checkpoints that travelers can use.

And all the checkpoints go to all the gates, and so, you don't have to choose one of the checkpoints to get to a certain gate.

And then when we do build our Arrivals and Departures hall that I was talking about, TSA will be centralized into one location, and so, they will no longer have four different checkpoints, but one specifically in the middle.

- Hmm, gotcha.

And all of this work is building toward a new concourse, nearly doubling the number of gates.

How far away is that work on the second terminal, and how big of a difference do you think it'll make?

- Yeah, so that's a big one for us, obviously, it'll double basically our size.

So right now, our terminal can comfortably fit about 15 million passengers, but as I'm sure many are aware, we're seeing over 21 million passengers every year.

And so, that's why it seems so crowded in the airport, because it is, our infrastructure just cannot house the amount of people that we have coming through.

And so, in order to make sure that we're giving that better experience to our passengers, we are opening our Concourse B and Tunnel in the early 2030s.

And so, that will bring us up to being able to comfortably serve 30 million passengers a year.

- You know, and speaking of passengers, with all this work going on, do you anticipate an impact to travelers?

Is this a case of, "Okay, let's, you know, tell people it's gonna be a little bit worse before it gets better?"

- When the Red Garage comes down, late next year, that's when passengers are really going to feel the impact of construction.

The way that you get to our current Arrivals and Departures hall will shift, it'll be via a temporary bridge off to the west side of the campus.

And so, that's when passengers, that's when staff, that's when anyone that comes to our campus will really feel the impact of construction.

And I'm not gonna lie, it will be impactful, the walk will be longer from your rental car drop off, from your parking, whichever one that you choose.

And so, that will be impactful to passengers.

Other than that, most of the building that we're doing across campus, we have 15 active construction projects, most of them are either behind-the-scenes or away from, you know, passengers' peripherals or impacts.

- Hmm.

All of this is great to know.

Kimmie Hey, thank you so much for joining us, and we are excited to see all of the upcoming improvement projects at the airport.

- Thank you.

(bright techno upbeat music) - Austinites hoping to save Muny may finally have what they've been fighting for for decades.

Muny is Lions Municipal Golf Course, the first public golf course in the south to integrate.

And now, the City of Austin and University of Texas are nearing a deal to preserve it for years to come.

Here to tell us more about that is Shannon Provost, Executive Director of The Muny Conservancy, the group fighting for Muny's future.

Thank you Shannon so much for being with us.

- Thank you for having us.

- So Muny has this incredible historical significance.

Can you remind us, please, the origin story of why this golf course is so special?

- Indeed.

The course has been a part of the center of Austin, a recreational opportunity since 1924, when the first nine holes were built by the Austin Lions Club, who sensed a need for recreational options for Austinites and Central Austin having the Country Club, Austin Country Club, the only other place where people could play golf at the time.

So in 1925, the course was completed, the back nine; and then in 1936, the operations became such that the Lions Club transferred the lease with the University of Texas to the City of Austin, and the city has operated the course since then.

- And you bring this up, the arrangement here is a bit complicated- - That's right.

- This is land owned by UT, the City has had a lease to operate the golf course on it for decades, but it has faced an uncertain future through the years.

- That's right.

Well, Colonel Brackenridge, who deeded the land to the university, requested that it remain for the value and educational purposes of the university's attendees.

So we have the opportunity with these donors who have emerged to help the City buy the course and transfer all 140 acres to remain a golf course.

So these donors have made possible these different interests that over the past decades have been quite complicated.

But throughout these years, the space has remained a gathering place, not just for golfers, but for Austinites of all walks of life.

- UT, for its part, has had this land right along Lady Bird Lake, and they want to maximize the value of that land; the university has proposed redeveloping the site in the past.

Is it possible, we wanna know, to preserve Muny while also allowing for some new development in this area?

- Indeed.

Well, the original Brackenridge track was 503 acres, now it's closer to 387.

Lions is only 141 acres of that.

So there is an opportunity for the university alongside collaboration with the city to develop parts of that land.

And some aspects of the deals conveying Muny to the City of Austin are addressed there in terms of the Brackenridge Development Agreement, the amendment which will be reviewed by the City Council in the weeks to come.

- What is your understanding though of the agreement in the works, and has the Conservancy had a seat at the table in these conversations?

- The Conservancy has since 2019 been an official front for the various stakeholders from different parts and groups of interest in Austin who have over the years added effort to save the course.

The Muny Conservancy, along with our board of directors, has tried to be the face of that, and has been involved with negotiations along the way.

We were not directly involved with negotiations involving the recent anonymous donors.

- Hmm.

If this all comes to fruition, and the City is able to take ownership of Muny, what plans does The Conservancy have for its future?

- Well, The Conservancy has the opportunity, if Muny's future is secured, to do some serious fundraising.

There are many foundations and individuals in Austin and around the state who would be interested in supporting Muny and helping the course to realize its true potential.

But when it's on a month-to-month lease, it's hard to raise that level of funding.

But we have, over the past five years, put at least half a million dollars into improvements in the course alongside the City with their financial support as well, including a badly needed practice green, expanding the teaching base at the range, putting new sod on the number 1 fairway, we're hoping to do similarly on number 18 this year, and the City also has led development of a new driving range.

So it's been a lot of improvements in the course along the way, even though the future has been, until recently, quite uncertain.

- Yeah.

Well, Shannon Provost, Executive Director of The Muny Conservancy, thank you so much for sharing this and being with us today.

- Thank you so much for the opportunity.

(bright techno upbeat music) - Earlier this year, it was a bitter goodbye for generations of Austinites when Lammes Candies announced it was closing after 141 years.

People waited in lines to get their last batch of chocolate covered strawberries, Longhorns, pralines, and more.

But now, there's a sweet twist.

The historic candy company is making a comeback thanks to a new partnership with a hospitality company.

Kayla Kinne and Craig Cavileer are the co-founders of Delightful Development Company based in Fort Worth.

Kayla and Craig, thanks so much for being with us today.

- We're so excited to be here, thank you.

- Absolutely, and I love like all the alliteration; we got Kayla, we got Craig, Delightful Development, Laura Laughead, the story is clearly meant to be.

You know, a lot of Austinites are really excited about this news.

And I know when I've been driving by the old store on airport, and it was closed, it always made me sad.

So how did you guys get involved?

Craig, I hear you grew up going to Lammes, is that right?

- I did, I happened to grow up right down the street, I grew up in Austin, went to school there.

But as a young child, I mean, how could you not be excited every time you drove up to that candy cane and that red and white building, and it's like you knew it was gonna be all in when you went inside of there.

And so, I remember all of that from the early days, and then saw that they were going out of business just three or four months ago, and shared that with Kayla, and said, "We just can't let this happen, this is terrible.

Let's jump in."

- And we are so glad that you guys did.

And we wanna give a little context here.

Your company has actually helped revive major Texas institutions like the Fort Worth Stockyards, for one.

So how do you approach preserving something with so much history and memories while adapting it for the future?

- I think that's something our time in the Stockyards has really helped us with.

It doesn't matter if it's real estate or a consumable packaged good, the history is so deep there, whether it's the Fort Worth Stockyards, a hundred years of history there and the cattle drives, and really bringing that to life through retailers, restaurateurs, live entertainment that really brings the district and the development kind of into their own view for guests to enjoy, or it's a consumable, like Lammes Candies.

We can go back 141 years of history and storytelling and just tell that through a really great way, a new lens to a different customer, the existing customers.

So it's really just the art of storytelling and the appreciation of history, and just preserving that for the next generation.

- It's kind of hard to wrap your mind around 100 years ago, 141 years ago, because Lammes has been a part of Austin through five generations of one family.

And you guys have said publicly, you don't wanna change what people love about Lammes.

How closely are you working with the family, and what do you think will stay the same, and what might get a little updating?

- I think what makes the partnership strong with us, not just between Kayla and myself and the brand, Lammes Candies, since 1885, but we were insistent and the family was open to staying in a partnership with us.

So while they have a small interest in the company, we have full interest and enthusiasm from the family members that they're really handing it off and trusting us with the brand, and they're working with us side by side to make sure that the famous Longhorn is gonna be exactly the same Longhorn that we came to love and that the chewy praline stretches and pulls with a caramel just like it's supposed to, and that the holiday sugar mints, you know, just melt in your mouth the way that they did for the last 140 years.

We have a treasure trove of recipes and formulations that we got with this acquisition; but, you know, bringing that to life is not just cooking and mixing and going, it really takes some craft and artisanal work with that, and I think we've got that nailed at this point, at least for our first three products, we're in really good shape.

- And, dare I say, the most important question in this whole interview, in the meantime, while y'all are making things happen, where and when can we get our hands on some Lammes Candies, especially before the holidays?

- So we are excited that orders will ship out November 1.

So we've been in this pre-order season from September 29th through October 31st, and we'll be shipping out those first batches on November 1.

So you order it online, it'll be at your door within two business days.

- Okay, okay.

Note to self, note to self.

Okay, if you see like 5,000 orders coming through November 1st, I fear it might be me.

- Perfect.

- Okay.

- We'd love to have that.

- I'll be there whether in person or online, I'm signed up.

Well, Kayla Kinne- - Great.

- And Craig Cavileer, who have like the perfect names to be like in the candy business and Delightful Development, too, thank you so much for joining us; I know a lot of Austinites are really happy to have their favorite candy back.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, see you soon.

- Before we go, a Central Texas city has a new claim to fame.

Buda, just south of Austin, is now home to what they say is the largest wiener dog in Texas.

This 19-foot long, 10-foot tall statue, look at that, sits in City Park.

It's an homage to Buda's well-known tradition, the Annual Wiener Dog Races.

The city's Economic Development Corporation commissioned the statue to mark 25 years of growing the local economy.

I love that, I'm so glad that exists.

And I'm not just saying that because I am actually the proud owner of a wiener dog myself, well, to be fair, half Chihuahua, half wiener dog, and I'm gonna show you some pictures.

That's Wiggles, or Mr.

Wiggles, if we're being professional.

Yep, that's him with his bandana.

(gasps) And that's him.

His eyes are huge, his eyes are huge, they look like they're gonna pop out of his head.

And then in honor of Halloween coming up, that is him in his hotdog costume; a little kitschy, but I think he can pull it off.

Well, that is our show for this week.

You can catch up on all of our stories on the Austin PBS YouTube channel, and you can find all episodes of "Austin InSight" in the PBS app anytime for free.

Thanks again for watching, we'll see you next time.

(intriguing bright techno upbeat music) (intriguing bright techno upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from: Sally & James Gavin, and also from Daniel L. Skret.

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