Category Archives: Uncategorized

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Can city return to semblance of calm?

Now that the knee-jerk faction of the Amarillo City Council has gotten its scolding out of the way, it appears the city can return to conducting business and moving ahead with some ambitious plans intended to improve everyone’s outlook and perhaps even their economic well-being.

The council had intended to take City Manager Jarrett Atkinson to task for things not entirely specified. Instead, it decided to table that talking-to. It’s now going to wait until next January, when Atkinson’s normal job performance review is scheduled.

It also had planned to seek the resignation of the entire Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board, which when you think about it is an even goofier idea. The council took that idea off the table altogether.

So, where do we stand?

I hope we stand on firmer footing than it appeared when the final of the three new council members took his oath and then that same day called for Atkinson’s resignation.

A lot is riding at this moment on Amarillo’s political stability.

We’ve got this downtown project to consider. There’s a number of projects all linked together that need to happen. The multipurpose event venue should be built; the city is negotiating a little more with a hotel developer to build a downtown convention hotel; and we have this parking garage under consideration.

No MPEV, no hotel. Neither of those two things, no parking garage.

The $90-some-million project is worthwhile. It’s concept is sound. It would turn Amarillo’s downtown district into a place worthy of the city residents’ pride.

Assistant City Manager Vicki Covey already has retired; City Attorney Marcus Norris has resigned and is slated now to “pursue other interests.”

To toss out the city manager and the entire AEDC board now would be foolish in the extreme.

I hope it doesn’t happen. I trust now that council members will have told Atkinson what they expect of him and if Atkinson intends to stay on the job, I also expect he has agreed to do what they have requested.

Let’s give this entire process some time and careful study before plowing ahead with the “change” that some folks think was mandated by the May 9 municipal election.

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Give planet status back to Pluto!

pluto

My friend Dan has it right.

Pluto deserves planet status. None of this dwarf planet nonsense.

The picture here is taken from a spacecraft that any day now is going to zoom right past the ninth planet in our solar system.

It’s small. It’s cold — as in, well, beyond frigid! It doesn’t have life, that we know of.

Astronomers demoted Pluto some years back. They called it a dwarf planet.

But it has five moons orbiting it. How many does Earth have? Just one. We’re a planet, though. Pluto is a dwarf.

We’re about to get an up-close-and-personal look at Pluto.

I echo my friend: Return it to planet status! As Dan says: “Don’t listen to those astrologers! Pluto is real!”

 

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To the woodshed … perhaps?

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harpole

Texas open meetings requirements are pretty strict. They allow public bodies to meet in secret only for specific reasons, with personnel discussions being one of them.

And when the body shuts the door, it keeps the public out so that its members can speak freely about the issue at hand.

Tuesday, the Amarillo City Council had a lengthy closed-door meeting. No one outside the room knows what was said when the council shut the door to talk about City Manager Jarrett Atkinson and the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board.

They went into the meeting to talk about the “status” of both — Atkinson and the AEDC board.

When the council came out, Mayor Paul Harpole announced that Atkinson’s resignation and the resignations of the AEDC board members was off the table. The city is moving forward, he said.

OK, so what the heck happened in that room?

Harpole and the rest of the council won’t say specifically. They papered over the discussion, calling it cordial, businesslike … all the things you might expect to hear. Perhaps it was all of that.

Councilman Mark Nair had called for Atkinson’s resignation on the day he took office. Councilman Randy Burkett, another council rookie, called for the AEDC board to quit.

Then they changed their minds.

Hmmm. Interesting, yes?

Since the public is left to speculate on what happened in that City Hall room, I think I’ll do a little speculating right here — about what I think should have occurred.

Harpole should have given the two brand new council members the tongue-lashing of their lives, much in the manner that President Reagan took then-Office of Management and Budget Director David Stockman “to the woodshed” for steering too far off course during the early years of the Reagan administration.

We don’t know what Harpole told his council colleagues. We do know, though, that he scolded Burkett strongly in public over Burkett’s assertion that he demanded Assistant City Manager Vicki Covey’s resignation when Covey’s retirement already had been in the works. Burkett wasn’t present to hear Harpole’s harsh words, although I’m quite certain he heard of them soon afterward.

It’s also instructive that Burkett left the Tuesday meeting quickly and fended off media attempt to question him as he exited the building.

So, all the principals say they’re happy with the way the direction the city is headed. Councilman Nair spoke of the need to pull together.

Good for all of you — and especially to Mayor Harpole, if he did what I hope he did behind closed doors.

local news, Uncategorized

Well, I’ll be; cooler heads win out … at least for now

My dear ol’ dad had a number of favorite sayings.

Dad would use one of them when something surprised him pleasantly.

“Well,” Dad would say, “I’ll be dipped in sesame seeds.”

Pass the seeds, will ya? I’ve just been surprised — along with quite a few other folks around Amarillo — by the actions today of the Amarillo City Council.

Council members voted 5-0 to take two items off their agenda; they dealt with the “status” of City Manager Jarrett Atkinson and the potential fate of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board of directors.

As I write this post, I don’t know what Atkinson has decided to do. Does he stay or does he go? City Councilman Mark Nair wants him to go. At least two of his colleagues, Mayor Paul Harpole and Councilman Brian Eades, want him to stay.

The tumult, tempest and turmoil all have contributed to considerable unrest at City Hall.

The city’s downtown revival effort has begun. Atkinson has been helping steer it forward. Councilman Nair, the newest of the five men who serve on the body, wants to replace him.

As for the AEDC board, they’ve drawn fire from another new council member, Randy Burkett.

This entire exercise over the course of the past few weeks has been unsettling in the extreme.

My sincere hope now is that all the principals can reflect on the changes they want and whether the man who’s running City Hall is the one to implement them.

At least for now, it’s good to know that the City Council isn’t populated by men with itchy trigger fingers.

 

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Cosby likely will need all that money he’s earned

2011_Bill_Cosby

There you have it, or so it now appears.

A comedic icon known for his good-guy image, his upstanding moral character and his distaste for the way some contemporary comedians lace their acts with four-letter words has been revealed as the sexual predator his victims have accused him of being.

So long, Bill Cosby.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lawyers-cosbys-drugs-sex-admission-could-help-womens-suit/ar-AAcErQw

The Associated Press has obtained heretofore sealed documents that contain admissions from Cosby that he drugged women and then had sex with them. The documents appear to bolster the contentions leveled by several women that he did some terrible things to them over the course of many years.

This story is heartbreaking in the extreme for those of us who have laughed until we hurt at Cosby’s comedic genius. Now we hear that he quite likely betrayed his own image.

I recall sitting at West Texas A&M University’s event center not too many years ago in a packed house roaring at Cosby’s jokes. My wife and I watched him needle students in the audience, poke fun at then-WT President Russell Long and finish his two-hour routine with his classic routine about having to function with his mouth shot full of Novocain.

Now, after seeing this report from the AP, it was all a lie.

Not once did Cosby ever say while the allegations piled up that he didn’t do those things. He hasn’t ever denied it. That was a clue to some of us who were waiting for the magic words: I didn’t do it.

Well, the man has acquired significant wealth over the years.

My bet now is that he’s going to need most — if not all — of it to settle with the women he has defamed (allegedly) by accusing them of lying.

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My wife: bird whisperer

I am married to an extraordinary woman.

She’s smart, intuitive, loving, pretty — and she’s got this way with birds.

I saw evidence of it once again this weekend.

There have been three distinct encounters with birds that tell me she’s got this interesting gift with our feathered friends.

* The first time occurred many years ago, in Portland, Ore. I wasn’t there to see it. She told me about it. I believe her account. It involved a large crow that ended up in our dining room. It was making that loud sound that crows make. She managed to talk the crow out of the dining room, into the living room and out the front door.

* The second time occurred in Amarillo. It was about 2003 or 2004. Our kitties were still young and spry. Our little female, Mittens, stalked a cluster of sparrows that were scarfing up some dropped bird seed among my wife’s day lilies. Mittens crept forward, then sprinted and leaped into the flowers. The birds scattered. All but one, which ended up in Mittens’ jaws. Our cat looked at me wide-eyed and then sprinted into the house, bird in mouth. She dropped the bird, which then flew into our bedroom. My wife talked the bird into a corner, where she picked it up, inspected it for injury. Seeing none, she let the bird go and it flew away to join up with its pals.

* The third time occurred just this weekend. A blue jay had come down through the chimney and ended up atop our kitchen counters high above the floor. We managed to coax the bird into the dining room. My wife grabbed a broom and nudged it under the jay’s feet. It then flew to a ledge over our front door. I opened the screen. My wife nudged the broom under the jay’s feet once again. It climbed onto the business end of the broom as my wife spoke soothingly to it. She lowered the broom — and the blue jay flew off to points unknown.

Hmmm. I’m now wondering: Is there a market for a bird whisperer?

local news, Uncategorized

City may become latest to join discordant chorus

Amarillo’s governing council long has prided itself on speaking with one voice, moving in unison toward common goals.

It’s been rather, um, boring at times to watch the city endorse this program or that with nary a negative voice being heard. Oh, I’ve heard some dissent, from the likes of the late commissioners Dianne Bosch and Jim Simms. But generally when the city voted, it marched off in unison.

That era may have ended, if only temporarily, with the election in May of three newcomers. They have vowed to enact serious change in the way things get done. How that change manifests itself fully remains a bit of a mystery.

It all reminds a bit of how Randall and Potter counties’ commissioners courts have run at times over the years.

Randall County elected Ted Wood as its county judge in 1994 and he proceeded to open the floor up to residents who could gripe until they went hoarse. Wood’s philosophy was that the county was there to serve them, and the Commissioners Court was obligated to listen to every word that residents had to say.

This incessant complaining from residents led to frayed tempers at times as commissioners occasionally lost patience with residents’ long-winded tirades.

After Wood left office, the new county judge, Ernie Houdashell, restored some order in the court and it’s been relatively smooth sailing ever since.

Across the 29th Avenue county line, in Potter County, there was another dynamic taking place. The late Commissioner Manny Perez was fond of gumming things up with occasionally intemperate remarks about individuals or projects. Then came fellow Commissioner Joe Kirkwood, who’d chime in with dissent that at times didn’t make much sense.

Then-County Judge Arthur Ware tried his best to keep the peace. He had limited success.

The Potter County Commissioners Court has a new county judge. It’s running smoothly these days … so far.

What’s in store for the Amarillo City Council as it moves forward?

I’ve never been shy about dissent. I prefer healthy debate and discussion over one-note sambas being played out.

My main concern as the new City Council starts to get its legs under it is the seeming headlong rush to make critical changes at the top of the administrative chain of command. It began with that startling announcement from newly minted Councilman Mark Nair’s request that City Manager Jarrett Atkinson resign; Nair’s comment came on the very same day he took the oath of office.

Does the young man really and truly want to toss out the city’s top administrator now, just as the city is beginning to implement a remarkably creative and forward-thinking strategy for reshaping its downtown business district? And the other two new councilmen — Elisha Demerson and Randy Burkett — are on the hunt as well for the city manager’s resignation?

Dissent and constructive criticism are good things to embrace.

Bulldozing a well-established government infrastructure right off the top? Let’s take a breath and talk this through.

 

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A landmark about to vanish in the old hometown

This news hits me like a haymaker to the chops.

The Oregonian newspaper — once the hands-down media leader in Oregon — is shutting down its press operation.

The operation at 1320 S.W. Broadway Ave. in downtown Portland is emptying out. The paper is going to farm out its printing to another vendor. The Oregonian needs to save money, I guess to stay viable. They’ll lay off 100, maybe 200, pressroom and production employees.

Man, oh man. This news hits me hard. It ought to hit every person who grew up reading The Oregonian, wanting to be like the reporters who wrote for the paper. It ought to sicken them.

http://www.wweek.com/portland/blog-33412-permalink.html

I am sick tonight. I used to work part-time in The Oregonian’s mail room, back in the early 1970s. I was newly married and attending college. I got my start there, understanding a little bit about the miracle that occurs every night when the paper goes to press, gets bundled up, put on trucks and then delivered to hundreds of thousands of homes every morning.

The Oregonian has undergone massive change already. Its circulation has plummeted. It stopped delivering the paper daily to homes throughout the metro area. It went to a tabloid format.

It’s not the same. Then again, no print medium is the same these days.

***

It’s fair to ask, then: What does the future hold for the craft that attracted so many of us back in the day? It’s cloudy, uncertain, perhaps even murky.

Look across the country and you see change is afoot everywhere.

Here in Amarillo, the Globe-News soon — I reckon — will be printed in Lubbock, 120 miles south on Interstate 27. They presses in Amarillo will be shut down, taken apart and sold. Maybe even scrapped. What happens, then, to the office buildings that occupy a city block?

What does it mean for the news being reported by the paper? Well, despite what the newspaper publisher, Lester Simpson, said in announcing the pending shutdown of the Amarillo presses, it’s going to diminish the paper’s relevance as it regards late-breaking local news.

Simpson said the company remains committed to the printed newspaper. But when you’re having to push deadlines back two hours to accommodate the travel time it takes to get the papers loaded onto trucks and brought back to Amarillo for distribution, there won’t be late-breaking local news.

But the Globe-News execs promise to deliver the paper every morning by 6.

Suppose a fire breaks out in a major structure at, say, 11 p.m. Will it be in the paper? Nope. The newsroom staff — or what’s left of it — will put it online and tell readers of the paper to get the news at the paper’s website.

There’s your commitment to the printed newspaper.

It’s happening all across the country. The media landscape is rumbling under our feet.

The Internet has changed everything.

For the better? Well, that story has yet to be played out.

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Is it time to put up … or then shut up?

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Accusations have been flying all over Amarillo of late.

They have involved the sale of the Commerce Building downtown and whether the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation overpaid for the site. They also have involved allegations of secret meetings, back-room insider deals, back-scratching among ultra-rich friends.

The downtown Amarillo redevelopment effort has begun moving forward. There’s now some talk of it all being stalled — or perhaps blown apart — if the top level of city management is forced out. There might be some kind of vote to decide if residents really want to build multipurpose event venue planned for a vacant piece of property just south of City Hall. The vote might occur against the backdrop of the allegations that have been leveled.

I haven’t yet seen any evidence of something improper, let alone illegal, going on here.

We’ve had a well-publicized public forum at the Civic Center. We’ve had public hearing after public hearing on the three-pronged project — MPEV, downtown hotel and parking garage. We’ve seen detailed analyses of how the city believes the MPEV can work for the city, how the hotel proposal is tied to the MPEV’s construction and how economic developers intend to convert Polk Street into an entertainment district that could be an inducement to keep young people from leaving their hometown for places that boast of a little more pizzazz.

The doubters persist. They continue to cast aspersions not just on the project, but on the motives of those who support it.

I’m just a guy who lives in Amarillo with my wife. We pay our taxes regularly every year. We enjoy living here. We also want to see our city develop, evolve and become something more than just a place along Interstate 40 where people stop overnight en route to points east and west.

These allegations are troubling to me only in this regard: They come with zero evidence, just assertions.

I welcome healthy debate, as we all should welcome it. I do not welcome the ugliness that crept into it long ago and which persists to the detriment of what many of us want for our city.

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Thanks, Supremes, for the blog traffic

Thanks go this morning to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The justices have helped High Plains Blogger set yet another monthly record for page views and visitors.

The nature of this blog — which focuses on public policy, with a smattering of life experience stuff thrown in — relies on the news cycle. The Supremes kicked that cycle in the backside this past week with two key rulings: on Obamacare and then on gay marriage.

The month started out quite strong, as the blog set a single-day record for page views and unique visitors. Then traffic kind of tailed off — but only a little.

It’s back up again, thanks to the grist handed to folks such as me on which to comment.

I’ve done so of late and readers of this blog have responded nicely.

I’m gratified for that response. Keep reading and sharing what you read … please.

As for the court, it’s now in recess until October.

Thanks, justices, for going out with a serious bang.