- Coming up on "Austin InSight," what we can expect from Mayor Kirk Watson as he plans for his next term in office after narrowly avoiding a runoff election.

Also, we'll meet a local husband and wife filmmaker team whose work wowed audiences at the Austin Film Festival.

- [Danielle] And as the conflict in Ukraine escalates, we have a poignant story about a Ukrainian immigrant here in Austin who's preserving the cultural traditions of her homeland through baking.

- Plus, could a new WNBA team find a home here in Austin?

We'll speak with WNBA superstar Fran Harris about her efforts to make it happen.

- "Austin InSight" starts right now.

- [Announcer] Support for Austin InSight comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti Restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in central Texas.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hello, and thanks so much for joining us.

I'm Laura Laughead.

- And I'm Danielle Banda.

Well, how can a race with a leader more than 104,000 votes ahead of the nearest challenger be so close?

We're talking about the Austin mayor's race.

And by a tiny margin, less than 15 votes, incumbent Kirk Watson won the race outright against four challengers, avoiding a runoff.

- With that, Watson will become Austin's 59th mayor since the city's founding in 1840.

His third term begins with a swearing in ceremony on January 6th.

We'll talk with the mayor about his top priorities.

But first, a few facts about Austin city government.

The mayor, together with the city council, are responsible for making spending decisions for a $5.9 billion budget that pays for many things, including a city government staff of more than 13,500.

- [Danielle] The budget is divided up as follows.

41% goes to essential services, the city's water and electric utilities.

23% makes up the general fund, which pays for core services like police and fire departments, emergency medical services, and parks and libraries.

The remaining 36% goes to debt, a reserve fund, the convention center, and other items.

- [Laura] That record budget is achieved in part through increases in property taxes and water and electricity and trash collection fees, altogether totaling about $260 more per year for the average homeowner.

- And joining us is Mayor and now Mayor Elect Kirk Watson.

Congratulations on your win and of course welcome to Austin PBS.

- Well, thank you, and I'm happy to be here.

Appreciate you having me.

- Absolutely.

Now, there's a lot to dissect here.

You know, this was yet another very close election.

You won by about 900 votes in a runoff in 2022 and you won this one outright by about 13 or 14 votes, but with a very large lead of, you know, over the other candidates in second place.

So do you think that there are any lessons that you may have learned from this political season?

What stood out to you?

- Well, a couple things.

One is it wasn't that close.

The person that came in second place, we were ahead by over 104,000 votes.

But you have to have over 50% and we always knew that with five candidates in a race, and this was the first time ever in the history of Austin we had an election tied, the mayor's election tied to the presidential election.

So you had a lot of people turning out that hadn't voted in mayor elections before.

So we always knew it was probably unlikely we would win without a runoff when you have that many candidates in a presidential election year.

So we're very pleased that we were able to do that without a runoff and to be able to do it by such a large margin.

So part of what I think is that the public was saying that they appreciate the fact that we've stabilized city government.

We got in there, we shook things up, we've stabilized city government.

So now we're able to look to what we need to do over the next four years to add to that, to build on that stability and get some of the things done that we're gonna need for Austin.

- Alright, well, thank you so much for sharing a little bit about your insight on that procedure.

You know, one of the topics that will be top of mind for folks is affordability.

Perhaps the most important challenge, you know, facing Austin right now at this time, there is new housing density policy that is gonna be ready to be set in place.

So what do you think might be another thing that folks are gonna keep in their heads maybe when it comes to solutions, you know, further addressing affordability and anything else in that nature?

- Well, there are a couple things.

First of all, I think that was one of the messages from the outcome of the election.

Most of the people that I was running against, they were opposed to the efforts we had made to be able to get more housing on the ground.

And I think that there was kind of a mandate by the voters to say, "We want to continue putting affordability first," which was what we had worked very hard on for the past two years.

Key as we go forward with all that is making sure that it works, right?

Now that we've passed these landmark changes, we're now a focal point.

The rest of the country is looking at Austin and saying, "They seem to be doing it the right way."

We're going to have to make sure that we implement these things and do it well.

The second thing that's very important when it comes to affordability is something that we started in the past two years, which is the Austin Infrastructure Academy.

One of the ways you make things affordable is you give people opportunities for career paths where they can afford to live in Austin.

We have about $25 billion worth of infrastructure projects that are in play, everything from the airport to Project Connect to I-35 and even more, that we need to make sure we have people being able to get into those jobs.

So we've created the Infrastructure Academy and you'll see us pushing that forward as well.

So it's implementation, making sure we do that right, make sure there's not unintended consequences, but focus on other things like making sure people can afford to live here because they've got family sustaining careers.

- Extremely important.

Thank you so much for expanding on that.

Another thing that I know folks are gonna be thinking about is public safety.

So let's talk about that.

You know, there have been some major accomplishments recently in regard to the new police chief being hired and the new police contract agreed upon and ratified.

How do you think that this is gonna help just kind of close the gap when it comes to hiring overall at the police department?

- Well, when I came into office, I inherited a police department that it was severely understaffed.

And one of the things that we knew needed to be one of our highest priorities was getting a long-term police contract so that our police officers know what they can face over time.

And when you're recruiting and trying to retain police officers, they know what they can expect.

We did some good things to make sure they knew we had their backs, but that contract was a priority.

We now have a new five-year contract and I think that's gonna make a world of difference.

As you mentioned, we also have a new chief of police.

Our interim police chief, Robin Henderson, did a great job, but I feel like it was really good for us to get somebody from outside of Austin with a new set of eyes to be in a position to bring new ideas also to policing.

And Chief Davis has hit the ground running and is doing those kinds of things.

So I think that'll make a difference.

We have a new assistant city manager who's a former chief of police from Dallas, well recognized chief of police.

He will also help with that, including one of the hires that our new chief has just recently made of one of her assistants.

Again, a former chief from Boulder and worked with the Justice Department, the United States Department of Justice, to also help with innovation.

So I'm looking forward to a lot of changes that will help us with regard to public safety.

The final thing I'll say is some of those changes we've already seen coming to fruition.

911 calls, for example.

We were badly behind when I first came into office on 911, on how long it took to answer the phone.

We're now meeting the national standards in that regard and we will continue to meet those.

So you're gonna see what I think are very positive changes because of some of the things, as I indicated in the beginning of this conversation, that we stabilized at City Hall.

- Absolutely, and the city is expanding, so these changes are important.

With the growth in the city, what do you think may be a good thing or a bad thing in your view?

What can you tell us about that?

- Well, look, Austin has been growing forever, right?

The question is, how do we do it so that everybody benefits?

How do we make sure that everybody is key among the growth and gets to be part of the joy of what can happen with that?

There's a couple of things that I'd say about that.

One I've already mentioned.

We need to make sure that our economic development paradigm includes everybody.

And that's why I've said we need to shift that paradigm.

It can't be just about how we recruit new jobs.

It has to be how do we get people that are here so that they're part of those jobs.

That's the kind of thing with the Infrastructure Academy.

In addition to that, I created in the past two years the Mayor's Task Force on Austin Women Entrepreneurs because we knew we have a lot of women that are ready to start businesses, to be in their businesses, to grow their businesses.

And they need to be able to also take advantage of what's going on in our economy.

We have some great recommendations out of that, that we'll spend the next four years also implementing.

- Many plans that we're looking forward to seeing them all come to fruition.

Thank you so much for joining us here today.

We appreciate your time.

- It's my pleasure.

Thanks for what you do.

(upbeat music) - The stars at night are big and bright in Texas in more ways than one.

The film scene is growing rapidly here in the Lone Star State with Austin leading the charge.

Now, a local husband and wife filmmaking duo is proving firsthand that these days you can make it in Hollywood without leaving Austin.

(upbeat music) Most people seeking fame and fortune in film make the proverbial pilgrimage to LA or New York City.

- As soon as somebody gets out of a car with a camera, you have like six cops like flee to you and just like, "You guys got a permit?

We're gonna call Film LA and also here's my resume and my headshot."

- [Laura] But for Austin couple Lindsey Robertson and Joey LePage, sometimes to make a movie, you have to make a trip home.

- Austin has been the most lovely place to make something.

It has only felt recently possible or it feels more possible in the past five or seven years than it did 20 years ago.

- I think that's really heartening to see that you can be a working professional in the industry and still live in a place as comfortable and welcoming and unique as Austin.

- [Laura] And Austin is the star of their film debut, "Party People," a love letter to their hometown, including iconic locations like P Terry's, the Capitol, and dive bar The Cloak Room.

The coming of age comedy happens all in one night as 15 college freshmen try to get to their first big party.

- Get excited.

Our first real college party.

Gonna set the tone for the rest of the year.

- [Speaker] I'm going to that party tonight.

- [Laura] Robertson and LePage wanted to channel fellow Austinite Richard Linklater's "Dazed and Confused."

- I hope they get the waves of nostalgia of like, I hope they see themselves in one of these characters.

They see, oh man, I really relate to that.

- [Laura] While giving audiences a contemporary essence of Austin.

- I do hope that people leave with a little bit more empathy for their younger selves.

- [Laura] Fittingly, the husband and wife met when they were both students at UT doing a play.

- And I was like, this guy seems kind of full of himself.

- (laughs) Probably was, probably was.

- So I was just like, okay.

- [Laura] And they may have drawn inspiration from some real life college parties.

- I remember getting drug out of several bushes on Halloween nights.

- [Laura] But it wasn't until a few years after graduating and working in New York that they reconnected, romantically and professionally.

On "Party People," LePage directed while Robertson wrote the script.

- And so it's kind of nice to have that united front on set as well, where you just have a team member who you know has your back.

Now, to be sure, we still bicker all the time.

- [Laura] They always planned on coming back once they felt they'd made it.

But after years in New York and later LA, they quit their jobs and came home to Austin anyway, not a defeat but an adaptation of their dream.

- There was always a drawback to Austin but we thought we had to hit some sort of point before that happened.

We had to achieve something and then you could, you know, if you were Sandra Bullock or Matthew McConaughey, you could come back here and, sure, LA will keep calling you.

- [Laura] The couple says it's thanks to their family, friends, local businesses, and Austin's local talent that their film was possible.

And in October, their venture paid off.

(upbeat music) - [Speaker] You're a freshman.

This week is important.

- [Laura] "Party People" premiered at the 31st annual Austin Film Festival as part of an Austin-centric lineup.

- It's a homecoming, honestly.

I mean, I used to work as a camp counselor at the state theater.

Because this is a movie about Austin, it makes sense that like an Austin audience should see it first.

- [Laura] A full circle final stop on a hometown victory lap.

- There should be more filming here and like it bugs all of us when it goes away to those other states when it's right here.

There's so much good crew and good talent.

- The couple also hopes this inspires the next generation of Austin filmmakers that they don't need to leave town anymore to make their movies.

Well, if you're a sports fan, this next one's for you.

Could Austin be the home for a new WNBA team?

If a true Austin sports icon gets her way, the answer will be yes.

We are of course talking about Fran Harris, passionate advocate for women's sports and a trailblazer when it comes to sports, business, and broadcasting.

She earned acclaim as a University of Texas basketball star who helped lead the Longhorns to an undefeated season in 1986 and the team's first national championship.

She's currently helping lead the effort to bring a WNBA franchise here to Austin.

And she's joining us now to talk more about our chances for winning that team.

Fran, thanks so much for talking with us today.

- Good to see you.

- Well, first I wanna ask you is how do you think we stack up against the other cities competing for the WNBA expansion team?

What advantages or maybe disadvantages does Austin have to offer?

- Austin right now, in this part of the WNBA's history and evolution, is that Austin has a great built-in women's basketball community.

So people are already supporting the women's and men's basketball team at the University of Texas.

We're a hoop community, we love basketball.

That's one thing.

The other thing is that we have a great facility, we have a great arena that we'd have the opportunity to play in, in the Moody Center.

So it's an exciting time for women's basketball and Austin has kind of grown up as a sports town, so it's a perfect, perfect time for us to be playing in Austin.

- Absolutely, and you've been raising capital, helping prepare Austin's bid for the league's 16th franchise aiming for launch in 2028.

So can you catch us up on that process?

Where do we stand and what are the next steps?

- Next steps are just submitting the bid, you know?

So I've told folks for the last two or three weeks, like you can't bid if you don't have money.

So people are like, "So who are the investors?"

And I'm like, listen, you don't have a bid if you don't have the money.

So we're in the process of basically just organizing our bid package and submitting that to the WNBA.

And then ideally, this is all me speculating, I hope that we hear by early Q1 next spring whether we've gotten the 16th team or not.

- Oh, and we certainly hope so too and are waiting for that.

And that being said, why are you confident that Austin could deliver the level of fan support that a professional team needs to be successful?

- What you need for professional sports are diehard fans.

And Austin has been a city that has supported the University of Texas.

We only have one other professional sports league here in Austin FC.

They've done tremendously well and we believe that all the pieces have come together for Austin to really support a WNBA team.

The W has grown in its fandom, it's become one of those must see TV leagues.

And then Austin has grown in terms of its population, in terms of people who have moved here who may not have an affinity for the University of Texas, but who love women's hoops.

And so we're counting on those folks to come out and maybe a mixture of the University of Texas fans as well.

- And you bring up a great point, even fair weather sports fans have been going all out for Austin FC, so that bodes well.

And though a potential obstacle that I did wanna ask you about, do you think that women's health policy in Texas will be a consideration for the WNBA?

The league and the players union, they have expressed support for reproductive rights.

For example, the union placed a full page ad in "The New York Times" back in 2021.

- Yeah, so I think there will always be challenges for women's sports.

We're just getting the WNBA, it's only been around 30 years, where the the NBA's been around for a much longer time.

And so that comes with some challenges.

The city of Austin will have to step up as a leadership.

We are going to lead efforts for women's reproductive rights, for racial equality, for, you know, lack of education in some parts of the city.

So there will be things that we will be definitely taking the lead on and reproductive rights are certainly one of those.

- And you brought this up, but women's basketball just as a whole seems to be not just having a moment but definitely something more enduring, finally getting the respect they deserve.

So what are your thoughts?

Like why do you think that it's finally happening now and what are your hopes when it comes to the future of women's sports, particularly in the world of basketball?

- So I played basketball at the University of Texas, as you know, during a time when there was great fandom in the city of Austin.

And that was, goodness, 30 something years ago.

So we know that Austin has always been a city that supported and celebrated women, period.

Ann Richards, Barbara Jordan, these were women who watched me play when I played at the University of Texas.

So we know that Austin has been a leader in women's sports for over 40 years.

That's not going to change.

What we have the opportunity to do with the W is to show our ability to celebrate women on the biggest stage.

The W has done its part, fandom is at an all time high, merch sales, hot dog, beer sales are at an all time high.

Austin will definitely need to show up because the competition is extremely tough.

- I have no doubt that it is.

And we're all hoping here too for those dreams to be reality.

So from one Longhorn to another, thank you so much for chatting with us.

It's such an exciting opportunity for Austin with the possibility of a WNBA team.

So Fran, we wanna say thank you so much for joining us.

- Thank you, and hook 'em.

- Hook 'em horns.

Yes, baby!

(upbeat music) - Turning now to international affairs but with a compelling local angle, the war in Ukraine continues with recent news focused on questions about the future of American support.

And we have a story for you about a Ukrainian woman who lives here in Austin and bakes authentic and delicious desserts with two purposes in mind, generating funds to support communities in need in her home country and preserving her cultural heritage.

(gentle music) - Recipes are cultural artifacts and so if you preserve a recipe, you preserve culinary tradition, you preserve regional traditions.

That's part of how culture stays alive.

(gentle music) (laughs) It's a lot of cream cheese.

The best part.

My name is Olga Koutseridi.

I was born in Mariupol, Ukraine, in Donetsk.

Ukrainians love cheesecake.

We have zapekanka, which is like Ukrainian cheesecake, it's also called syrnyk.

My parents live in Barcelona.

We moved there back in 2001.

So the Burnt Basque cheesecake, like once I had it, I couldn't stop thinking of it.

And then we just emulsify everything until it's the perfect consistency.

And then once my dad decided to kind of make an even bigger move and move to the US, I decided to go to college and study history.

You see.

It's changing.

That's why I moved to Austin, to pursue a PhD in classics.

But I wanted to be an ancient historian.

So I learned a lot, but I sort of decided I really wanted to help people.

In 2014, when the war first broke out in Ukraine, I had this like energy to reconnect with my own ethnic identity and my own culture.

I wanted to eat the things that I missed.

And so I started baking everything I couldn't buy in Austin.

(laughs) My favorite part.

I started bringing it to work.

Then they were like, "Can we buy stuff from you?"

And then once the pandemic hit, people could buy from me online.

It's not like I woke up when I was four and I was like, "I wanna be a baker."

But I got there eventually.

When Russia started the war in Donetsk, Mariupol became under full besiegement.

We still had contact with my grandma and we were still able to like call for the first like four days.

But then after those four days, we lost all communication.

We didn't hear from them for a month, so we didn't know if they were alive.

We, like, we didn't know anything.

I was in a complete state of shock.

I just struggle with the fact that a lot of the physical aspects of that city are gone 'cause a lot of my memories are tied to physical spaces.

You know, memory gets triggered by remembering kind of like the alleys or the streets, the trees.

And to think that like most of that is kind of gone also feels kind of like a heavy toll on the immigrant identity where a part of leaving is always hard 'cause like, you know, you can't be there anymore.

I was like, I need to do something, so I started the cheesecake fundraiser 'cause I was already kind of known for my cheesecake.

I've been very intentional, I guess, with donating and fundraising to really support people who are in the front lines.

So I went into like full production mode and just baked as much as I could.

Let me actually heat this up.

That baking kind of gave me a focus and made me feel useful and also helped me not to think about like what's happening in Mariupol.

I heat it up, then I let it cool a little bit.

I did start thinking about baking more as an act of like resistance or, but as an act of like community support.

(gentle music) Eastern European values are also very community centric.

We always think about other people.

I think a lot of my own fundraising that I did for Ukraine through cheesecake sales, none of that would've been possible without like my loyal customers who were like, "Oh my God, like your country is getting destroyed."

Everyone kind of stepped up because they already cared about the work that I was doing.

It's this beautiful life cycle.

And if we could do that on a national level, then the whole city is better, the whole country is better.

But yeah, the world.

(Olga laughs) Okay.

- Olga's story comes to us from the producers of the award-winning docuseries, "Taco Mafia," an Austin PBS original production highlighting the uniquely caring and collaborative community of some of Austin's most innovative taco creators.

Check out "Taco Mafia" on the PBS app.

And to learn more about Olga and her journey, you can visit localbreadbaker.com.

(upbeat music) Next week on "Austin InSight," a trip down musical memory lane with Austin's legendary Arlyn Studios.

From country to rock to punk and more, they've recorded it all.

Also, we'll hear from the Austin Food Bank.

They need your help year round, not just at the holidays.

- And we'll discuss immigration and the potential local impact of mass deportation.

That's next Thursday at 7:00 PM right here on Austin PBS.

And don't forget, you can stream each episode on the PBS app.

We'll see you then.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Support for "Austin InSight" comes from Sally and James Gavin, and also from Suerte, Este, and Bar Toti Restaurants, bringing Austin together around culinary excellence to celebrate creativity, conservation, and culture in central Texas.

(cheerful music)