Music Commission pushes city to analyze, publish latest music census data

The Music Commission wants the city to look for ways to analyze data from the latest census of the Austin music ecosystem and find a way to publish the raw data from that third-party project on the city’s open data portal.

At Monday’s meeting, commissioners received an update from David Gray, assistant director of the Economic Development Department, regarding the department’s decision to not “take ownership” of the census conducted by Sound Music Cities consulting group and to not publish it on the city website since it was not commissioned by EDD directly.

The Austin Monitor reported on that decision last week, which was made despite a Music Commission recommendation in the fall to publish the data.

The census, which was published in early February, found that local musicians and related professionals are living with a growing affordability crisis, with roughly a third of them planning to move out of the city in the next three years. Music commissioners said they want as much attention paid to the data gathered from more than 2,200 respondents as the city’s high-profile digital resources can provide.

Gray said the perception of favoritism toward an outside group and the lack of input on the data collection would set a problematic precedent if EDD pushed ahead with making the complete census data available.

“When we host things on our website, that puts city staff in a position where we essentially become owners of the project, and we need to be able to respond to questions from the public about the project,” he said. “If we don’t have any input into the project itself other than asking people to complete the census, it does not put our staff in an optimal position to where they’re able to talk and answer questions about the survey.”

Gray said city staffers are still having discussions about finding another department or perhaps office of a City Council member that would take ownership of the data and allow it to be posted on the city’s portal.

Chair Nagavalli Medicharla noted that EDD’s logo as a promotional partner on the census, along with more than two dozen area arts and music organizations, lent plenty of credence to the project and should clear the way for the information to be published by the city.

“This is something that serves the music community. There’s been a clear motion from the Music Commission requesting that this information be made available and looked into … so it does concern me that it takes a newspaper article and us putting this on the agenda for EDD to circle back with the commission,” said Medicharla, who also chairs the EQ Austin nonprofit group that was one of the lead organizers of the census. “What is there not to support here? This is an unprecedented level of engagement we have gotten on this survey. … We’re here to serve the music community and I would think the music (office), and EDD, is here to serve the music community.”

Answering a question about whether the city could commission a follow-up survey that it would have control and involvement in, Gray said staff can begin looking at the procurement process needed and said it would likely be completed using an open request for proposals process.

Commissioner Celeste Quesada said the more important next step for the census data is making sure it is used as widely as possible to inform city policy and help arts organizations in their planning and fundraising efforts.

“We all want to know what are the next steps of processing the information from the census,” she said. “We want the data points to come up with some strategic goals to help our city and our musicians, and to make recommendations that will guide us into the future based on the current census information right now.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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