What’s the deal between KUT and the Texas Union over the future of the Cactus Cafe? With a little less than three months until the radio station takes over managing the venue, details are still sketchy. More surprisingly, the University of Texas-Austin is attempting to block the release of documents about how and why the administration decided to hand the cultural institution over to the local NPR affiliate.
When the deal to split management of the cafe between the Texas Union and KUT was announced May 19, station general manager Stewart Vanderwilt told the press, “We’re all family.” Yet it seems every family has its secrets. On May 17 the Chronicle submitted an open records request for e-mails between KUT staff and Juan González, vice president for student affairs; Soncia Reagins-Lilly, dean of students; and the University Unions from Dec. 1, 2009, onward. On June 1, the university administration sent a letter informing the Chronicle that it would need extra time to produce the information, estimating that it could deliver by June 11. However, instead of providing the files, on June 7 the administration sent another letter saying that it was seeking a ruling from Attorney General Greg Abbott as to whether the documents are protected from disclosure.
The attorney general must issue an opinion within 45 working days, so even if he orders the e-mails to be released, they may not become available until September – after KUT’s August takeover of the venue.
So what’s the current state of negotiations? According to Vanderwilt, “Our plan is to be open at the normal time this fall.” However, he added, “There are a lot of operational details we need to get together on, which we won’t be able to do until some folks get back from vacation at the end of the month.” The first concrete step will be advertising the position of venue manager, but Vanderwilt said there will also be discussions “identifying what are the core attributes that must be preserved, and where are the opportunities to expand or broaden the experience.”
The question now is who will be involved in those conversations. Student Friends of the Cactus Cafe co-founder Hayley Gillespie said neither she nor her group had been contacted since the May 19 press conference. And she wasn’t surprised that the university is contesting the Chronicle‘s open records requests, because they’re doing the same thing to her. “It seems like another chapter in what they’ve been doing all semester,” she said, “which is shirking responsibility from one UT entity to another and floundering with it at every stage.”
This article appears in June 18 • 2010.
