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

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

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

The Austin Monitor reported last week on this decision, which came despite a recommendation from the Music Commission last fall to release the data.

The census, released in early February, found local musicians and related professionals are living with a growing affordability crisis, with about a third planning to move out of the city in the next three years. Music commissioners said they want to give the data, collected from more than 2,200 respondents, as much attention as the city’s top-class digital resources can offer.

Gray said the perception of preference for an outside group and the lack of input into data collection would set a problematic precedent if EDD went ahead with providing the full census data.

“When we host things on our website, it puts city officials 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 contribute to the project itself, other than asking people to fill out the census, that doesn’t put our staff in an optimal position to talk to them and answer questions about the survey.”

Gray said city officials are still discussing finding another department, or perhaps a city councilman’s office, that would take over the data and allow it to be published on the city’s portal.

Chairman Nagavalli Medicharla noted that the logo of EDD as a promotional partner for the census, along with more than two dozen regional arts and music organizations, gives the project a lot of credibility and should pave the way for the city to release the information.

“This is something that serves the music community. There was a clear request from the Music Commission asking that this information be made available and reviewed…so I am concerned that it needs a newspaper article and we are putting this on the agenda for EDD to come back with the commission.” , said Medicharla, who also chairs the nonprofit group EQ Austin, which was one of the lead organizers of the census. “What’s not to support here? This is an unprecedented level of engagement that we received from this survey. … We are here to serve the music community and I think the music (office) and EDD are here to serve the music community.”

When asked if the city could commission a follow-up survey, in which it would have control and participation, Gray said staff could begin reviewing the necessary procurement process and said it would likely be completed with an open bidding process.

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

“We all want to know what the next steps are in processing the information from the census,” she said. “We want the data points to highlight some strategic goals to help our city and our musicians, and to provide recommendations that will guide us forward based on the current census information.”

Photo made available under a Creative Commons license.

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