Economic Development staff opts to withhold music census data from city data portal

Staffers in the Economic Development Department have declined to publish data from the most recent census of the Austin music ecosystem on the city’s open data portal, despite a request to do so from the Music Commission and the support of City Council members.

Emails obtained by the Austin Monitor via an open records request show EDD staff don’t feel it is appropriate to publish the data that was compiled by an outside consultant – Sound Music Cities – because the city was not closely involved in creating the study, which the city helped to promote to increase participation.

The census analyzed responses from more than 2,200 people and looked at economic, cultural and programmatic issues for Austin musicians and related industry professionals. It found 38 percent of respondents are struggling to afford housing, with nearly a third planning to leave the area in the next three years.

The data also show most ZIP codes in the city’s core lost “music people” since the last census nearly 10 years ago, with areas to the north, east and south absorbing most of that population.

After a briefing in the fall about the census process, the Music Commission recommended that the city make all of the numerical data searchable on the data portal to encourage research and possible policy moves that could benefit the local creative economy. Following that request, staff from the Music and Entertainment Division gave initial updates about the logistics of hosting the data after discussions with city information technology staff.

The census findings were released in early February, and at the end of February an email from Michael McGill, a staffer in Council Member Ryan Alter’s office, encouraged city staff to continue working on making the data available. “I think there is still a consistent support from the Council for addressing the needs of Austin Musicians, and specifically for hosting the data from the recent Survey,” wrote McGill.

A resulting email thread between strategic planning manager Casey Smith, assistant EDD Director David Gray, EDD Deputy Director Susana Carbajal, and Music and Entertainment Division manager Erica Shamaly highlights the viewpoint that data and studies not commissioned or overseen by the city shouldn’t be published on the city website.

In an email, Smith notes, “I would expect there is no standard, though personally, I do recommend only publishing reports we’ve had close involvement with, i.e. contracted/paid for. My reason is a concern on misinformation, demonstrating favoritism, and promoting private activities (which I believe there is a policy on that).”

In response, Shamaly wrote, “I’m with Casey on this request from Michael. We would prefer NOT to share this info on the City website – we had no part in prepping the questions or report and did not contract with or pay this vendor (we were a promotional partner only that shared their call to action like many other groups). Promoting this group’s work without providing the same opportunity to others just doesn’t sit well with me – want to be as transparent as possible.”

A final email on the matter from city programmer and analyst Brad McCarty written on March 23 closed the matter: “Without someone taking ownership of the data at the City of Austin, it doesn’t feel suitable to publish data that is not owned by the City.”

In response, McGill asked, “What does ‘taking ownership’ entail? This data was produced by a third party and presented to the City of Austin for our continued use and historical record. As long as that is noted in the description, I don’t see any issue with hosting it on the City’s data portal.”

Music Commission members had not received any recent updates on the decision over the data. Commissioner Anne-Charlotte Patterson told the Austin Monitor that she still believes the data is valuable and should be available through the city’s digital resources.

“We definitely feel like it’s important to the assessment of the music industry to have the information be easily accessible and it helps the city in their planning and programming that’s music-related,” she said. “That said, I’m not an attorney, so I can’t say whether or not that’s allowable. I think city Legal understandably tends to err on the side of caution.”

Patterson added that she hopes Sound Music Cities will pursue as many avenues to publish and publicize the census findings as possible. She also noted that the city “can still use (and) study that data whether it’s on our website or not. I would hope that if it’s legal for it to be on the website, and I don’t know what determines that, then city staff can work through the issues and go ahead and get it posted.”

Alter, who joined Council after the census was conducted, said there is likely a way for the city to make the census data more widely available.

“Ultimately, I think we can find a way to do this. I can understand wanting to make sure the data are of quality since it’s not our own, and you have to do some level of diligence,” Alter said. “I also think that once that has been done … that this is something that the public clearly had interest in, and so we should figure out a way to make this work. It’s obviously been a little more challenging than it should be, but that doesn’t mean we won’t do it in the end.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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