Category Archives: local news

local news

Is the city working well? I say ‘yes!’

The debate over the future of Amarillo’s downtown redevelopment effort has been underway for some time now.

I think I understand the divide in our city over whether the project that’s on the table is a good or bad thing for our city.

It runs between those who think the city is going to hell because of poor management and those who believe the city is functioning quite well.

Count me as one of the latter. I had faith in the city’s governing leadership prior to the May election. That faith was shaken when two incumbents got beat and a third one, Mayor Paul Harpole, was re-elected by a relatively narrow margin.

The city has proposed building the multipurpose event venue that’s been referred to the voters for their decision in a November election. The city also has agreed on a deal to build a convention hotel and a parking garage. If the MPEV goes down, does that mean the hotel goes away, too? Developers have pledged to finance the deal themselves. City officials pledge no increase in property taxes to pay for it.

Throughout much of this debate we’ve heard chatter about mismanagement, incompetence and the general overall well-being of the city. What about that?

Has the city been mismanaged? Are our leaders grossly incompetent? I do not believe either is the case.

Yes, there have been mistakes. The city has stumbled a bit on occasion. It also has corrected the mistakes that created the missteps.

Competence? I stand by my belief that the previous City Council comprised individuals who knew what they were doing as they were crafting — with considerable input and comment from the public — its downtown revival blueprint.

Mistakes? Sure. Wallace Bajjali — the one-time master developer that went belly-up without warning — is a big one. But was the city left holding the bag for money pledged for work that was undone? No. Wallace Bajjali had done what it had promised to do for the city before the two principal owners had their falling out and disbanded the company.

The downtown revival project remains sound in my mind and can work well for a community that continues to rock along economically.

Which brings me to the final point. As near as I can tell, Amarillo remains a city in good financial shape. Our tax rate is low; our bond rating is as good as it gets; our infrastructure is being improved constantly.

Can we do better? Sure. No city anywhere on the planet is being run to absolute perfection.

Someone on social media has declared that I have a “vendetta” against the three new council members — and maybe that individual is speaking for others who might share that view. My concern simply is that I didn’t harbor the ill will toward the former City Council that seems to have developed among quite a few of our city’s residents.

And yet at least one of the new council members has taken office with an apparent chip on his shoulder and he plans to bring immediate “change” to a city government that was being run to my satisfaction.

I will be waiting along with the rest of my fellow Amarillo residents to see the results of the change that has arrived at City Hall.

I’ll just say that my confidence in the new regime isn’t as solid as it was in the old one.

 

local news

Amarillo City Council gets its own gadfly

When you mention the word “gadfly,” you ought to think of someone who annoys the daylights out of you.

I’m beginning to see a trend developing among the five members of the Amarillo City Council. It is that a gadfly has sprouted wings among them.

Randy Burkett got blood pumping apparently at a city budget meeting this week when he challenged a 3.5-percent budget increase for the Downtown Amarillo Inc., the non-profit organization with which the city contracts to promote our downtown district.

Burkett is one of the three new guys elected to the council in May. I guess he dislikes DAI Inc. He told fellow council members DAI should get a decrease in its budget or perhaps be eliminated.

That got Mayor Paul Harpole excited and the two men exchanged tense words, with Harpole accusing Burkett of “electioneering.”

OK, folks. Change has arrived at the City Council.

That ol’ trick knee of mine is throbbing once again and it’s telling me that we’re going to hear a good more from this new fellow as he seeks to get under the skin of his fellow council members.

I guess at this point I ought to mention the Facebook exchange he had with a member of a group called Amarillo Millennial Movement, a group of young residents who want the city to proceed with its downtown revitalization plans, which include the multipurpose event venue that the council voted 3-1 this week to refer to the voters for their decision on whether to build the MPEV.

I’ve lived in Amarillo for more than 20 years. I’ve spent most of that time commenting on policy decisions from City Hall, attending city government meetings, interacting with municipal officials. I’ve seen my share of contrarians holding elective office at City Hall. The late commissioners Dianne Bosch and Jim Simms come to mind.

But something is beginning to gnaw at me about the chemistry — or the lack thereof — that’s developing among the five men who set municipal policy. It’s palpably different than what we’ve been accustomed to seeing.

If this budget meeting exchange between Harpole and Burkett is an indicator of what’s to come over the course of the next two years, you are welcome to count me as someone who dislikes the change that has plopped itself down at City Hall.

And it’s fair to ask: Is this really and truly what Amarillo voters wanted when they elected this new majority, which includes an individual who seeks to become the City Council’s chief gadfly?

local news

Young people rally behind MPEV

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My path crossed those of two women today. Both are friends. One is a retired businesswoman, the other is an elected Potter County official.

I spoke to them separately, but the subject of our conversations was the same: the multipurpose event venue that’s been in the news lately.

The retired business owner seems to be quite against the MPEV. She calls it “a ballpark.” Yes, it is that. It’s also — as the name suggests — potentially much more. Indeed, its very name — “multipurpose event venue” — connotes a place where much more than baseball can be played.

The MPEV is going to a vote of the people this November. My retired businesswoman friend thinks it’ll go down in flames, that voters will reject it because they see no future for a ballpark in downtown Amarillo. The Amarillo City Council is under no legal obligation to follow the dictates of the voters, but it certainly faces a serious political obligation if it goes against the voters’ will. Thus, the referendum becomes a de facto binding event.

It’ll fail at the polls this November if those who support it do not start a major sales campaign to educate Amarillo residents about the possibilities that this event can bring to the downtown district.

Which brings me to the other friend with whom I spoke this afternoon.

She told me she supports the MPEV. She also thinks it’s likely to lose at the ballot box this November, but said the election results could be close.

But she offered a glimmer of hope. It rests with the involvement of the city’s young residents, specifically those who belong to a group called the Amarillo Millennial Movement.

AMM has formed specifically to be champions for the city’s comprehensive downtown revival effort. It puts its message out on social media — Facebook, Twitter and maybe other outlets.

My elected official friend is quite thrilled — as I am — that young residents are becoming engaged in this process. “They usually sit these things out,” she told me, adding that the involvement of this group — and perhaps other young people — might be decisive at the polls in November.

I hope she’s right.

They’ve spoken out to the Amarillo City Council, making the case that downtown Amarillo needs to be a place that attracts young people to it and keeps young residents from moving away.

Time will tell if they can organize their enthusiasm into a meaningful political force of nature.

My hope there as well is that they can.

entertainment news, local news

How to sell the event venue …

Amarillo downtown

My friend and I had a brief, but animated, discussion early this afternoon about the upcoming vote on Amarillo’s proposed multipurpose event venue.

We are on the same page. We both support what the city has proposed. We both think it will work wonders for the city’s economic well-being.

Three of the five members of our City Council disagree with us. They seem to want it to fail. They decided this week to put the issue to a citywide vote.

But as we visited today at her place of employment, I found myself getting worked up.

My fear is this: The voters are going to say “no” to the MPEV because they don’t understand what it can do; they are “afraid,” I told my friend, of trying something new, of thinking beyond their comfort zone, of looking at the immense possibilities that lie ahead.

My hope is this: Those who support the MPEV and believe in the city’s project — as I do — will organize a grassroots effort designed to lay out in detail how to market a sports and entertainment venue that can become the draw its supporters claim it will become.

The MPEV can be far more than a “ballpark.” Yes, we have this independent minor-league baseball team — now called the Thunderheads — playing in a rat hole of a stadium at the Tri-State Fairgrounds. MPEV critics keep reminding us that the Thunderheads cannot fill that place up, even with the generous ticket giveaways they offer.

Gosh, I wonder why. Oh yeah. The place stinks. It’s been patched up with the construction equivalent of Band-Aids. It really and truly needs to be torn down. With a gleaming new baseball venue in the heart of downtown Amarillo, I hope the razing of the dump formerly known as the “Dilla Villa” can — and will — reduce it to so much trash.

As for the MPEV, there needs to be some seriously creative marketing brought into play.

Can we not find some creativity in this community that is capable of putting together a 21st-century promotional campaign designed to attract events to a venue that its supporters hope will help reshape the downtown district?

I remain squarely committed to this venue. I’m not a marketing guy. I merely believe in thinking big. It’s time we thought bigger than we have in this city.

What’s more, let’s not be coy about what a defeat of the MPEV will mean to the rest of the downtown revival project. The downtown convention hotel won’t be built and without the hotel, there goes the need for the proposed parking garage.

Sure, Xcel Energy has begun work on its new office tower. The rest of it, the work that’s supposed to attract more people in search of something to do after hours? It’ll be gone.

And do we really and truly want to start over after we’ve gone so far already?

local news

Keep hoping for best in upcoming city MPEV vote debate

A young woman stood before the Amarillo City Council the other evening and began to challenge one of the newly elected council members.

The video of that exchange is attached here:

http://agntv.amarillo.com/news/downtown-debate-heats-vote

It appears quite possible that we might have been seen a precursor to what we can expect as the debate over whether to build a multipurpose event venue downtown gets underway.

The councilman, Randy Burkett, ended up telling the young woman that he didn’t intend to get into a “shouting match with a teenager.” He was more than a tad condescending to the individual, one of his “bosses,” if you will.

It might be that the most curious response to something the young woman asked was that Burkett said it isn’t his job to come up with ideas regarding the planned renovation of downtown Amarillo. He doesn’t like the MPEV and I’d bet real American money he’ll vote “no” on the project when it comes to a vote in November.

But the woman asked him if he had any alternatives to the MPEV. He said, essentially, “It’s not my job.”

Uh, councilman? Yes it is, sir.

Burkett’s job isn’t quite as simple as he seemed to portray it Tuesday evening in that rather peculiar exchange.

***

You’ve heard the saying, I’m sure, that it’s good to “Hope for the best but expect the worst” when important events are about to occur. Amarillo is going to engage in an important community debate in the next few weeks involving the future of its downtown revitalization effort.

A group of young people, calling themselves the Amarillo Millennial Movement, has formed to become engaged in that debate. These young individuals say they support the downtown project and want their voices to be heard. With all the grousing and grumbling we hear from old folks about their concern that younger individuals don’t care about their community, it’s refreshing to watch a group of young Amarillo residents care enough to form a political wing dedicated to improving their city.

So, let’s have that debate.

While we’re at it, let’s respect everyone willing to engage in that debate. Or, as the Millennial Movement said on its Facebook page: “We want to be able to go to City Council meetings without being insulted. We want people to recognize that we are a serious force in Amarillo.”

local news

Quite an evening at City Hall … wouldn’t you agree?

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Amarillo City Council — the formerly unified governing board — has voted 3-2 to put a multipurpose event venue project up for a vote this November.

The three newest members of the council — Elisha Demerson, Randy Burkett and Mark Nair — cast the majority votes. Councilman Brian Eades and Mayor Paul Harpole, the two veterans, said “no” to the vote.

I do not believe Harpole and Eades are going to climb aboard the “Vote on MPEV” bandwagon.

The MPEV is a critical part of the city’s effort to remake its downtown district. If it fails at the ballot box, well, we can likely kiss the downtown project package goodbye for at least the foreseeable future.

What’s my takeaway from the events of Tuesday night?

  • For starters, Bill Gilliland and Laura Street — two players in the fundraising effort to pay for the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts, are taking some hits on social media because they fell a bit short in their fundraising effort. They raised about $30 million from private funds to build the center; the city kicked in about $1.8 million to finish the job. Gilliland and Street sought to delay the vote to give more time to raise money for the MPEV; their request failed.

I’m wondering about the criticism. I look at their prior fundraising effort this way: The city ended up paying a tiny fraction of a $30-plus million entertainment complex. The city’s contribution was minimal and it got a first-class venue in the process for virtually nothing.

  • Second, the City Council once prided itself on its unity. Yes, such single-mindedness has its pluses and minuses. The plus side is evident, in that the council speaks with one voice on important matters. This downtown deal is quite important. But the council now speaks with two competing voices. One side wants the project — the MPEV, downtown hotel and parking garage — to proceed as planned. The other side opposes the MPEV and possibly the hotel and garage.

I’m smelling a serious community conflict brewing.

  • Third, given the opposition that the two sides are planning to mount against each other, it’s fair to caution them about what state law allows and prohibits about how far they can go in stating their case. The law does not allow folks associated with the city to argue for or against a ballot measure using city resources. They are not even allowed to argue their points on city time.

Be verrry careful, gentlemen, about how you state your case.

I will continue to use this forum to state my case that the MPEV is a worthy project and it shouldn’t be defeated by the voters this fall.

I’m looking at this upcoming vote with a bit of cautious optimism. If nothing else, a citywide vote on a major project designed to boost our city’s economic health well could jar the city’s voting public out of its chronic lethargy.

local news

Council puts MPEV to a vote; let’s get ready to rumble

Amarillo MPEV

This just in: The Amarillo City Council has voted to send a multipurpose event venue proposal to the ballot this November.

It’s going to let the city’s voters decide whether to proceed with a project that has become the central issue in the city’s grand plan to renovate and revive its downtown district.

OK. I now will say right up front: I believe this was the wrong decision.

The council voted 3-2 to send the issue to the voters in a non-binding referendum. The “yes” votes came from the Three Amigos, the new guys: Councilman Mark Nair, Randy Burkett and Elisha Demerson. The experienced hands, Mayor Paul Harpole and Councilman Brian Eades, voted “no.”

Does this surprise anyone? Not me.

Harpole and Eades have been working on the nuts and bolts of this project since the beginning. They have a stake in its success. They want it to move forward. Do not expect Harpole and Eades to roll over on this issue.

The new councilmen? Well, they came into office professing to push for change. Well, they’ve made good initially on their pledge. The change they’ve just approved now puts in jeopardy a major element in the city’s effort to move forward with its downtown future.

They believe, I’m going to surmise, that voters don’t want to build the MPEV. They’re hoping the MPEV dies at the hands of voters, whose decision will be allowed to stand because the council wouldn’t dare refuse to ratify whatever result comes from the election. The referendum isn’t legally binding, but it certainly is binding politically.

I do not want to see the MPEV defeated. I want it built. I believe it is going to produce benefit for the downtown district, which will ripple throughout the city. I believe creative marketing strategies can make the MPEV an attractive venue for entertainment and sports activities. I believe the hotel-motel tax revenue is a viable money stream. I believe the city has negotiated this project in good faith.

And I believe the naysayers — led by the three new council members — are making a huge mistake in trying to blow this project up.

Now, let’s debate this project openly, intelligently — and without demagoguery.

local news

Are cameras spying on us … everywhere?

This is one of the weirder stories I’ve heard in more than 20 years living in Amarillo.

The police department has discovered a camera hidden in an aerosol spray dispenser in a business’s restroom.

What the … ?

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/29699788/camera-found-in-public-restroom-causing-concern

Police are investigating to determine who put the camera in the restroom, whether it was an inside job or done by someone who, just for giggles and grins, decided to take pictures of people doing whatever it is folks do in restrooms.

Amarillo Police Sgt. Brent Barbee said the camera apparently didn’t have remote control capability. He said that the contents of whatever — or whoever — was photographed by the device remain in police custody.

I surely hope this doesn’t introduce a whole new realm of spying in our culture. Cell phones with cameras are bad enough, given the ubiquitous nature of the devices and their ever-present prying eyes.

Now this? Oh, brother … as in Big Brother.

local news

City Hall set for a big day

Amarillo City Council is going to have a lot of eyes on it.

Some of those eyes will belong to those who want the council to send a multipurpose event venue to a vote of the residents.

Other sets of eyes will belong to individuals who think the council needs to take a breath and not act rashly.

The MPEV is going to be on the council’s agenda Tuesday. At issue is whether it should be referred to voters in a non-binding referendum. It’s non-binding because the city has no legal obligation to do the voters’ bidding — but it surely has a political obligation.

A number of Amarillo residents dislike the idea of an MPEV. They think the city’s downtown revival strategy should include expansion of the Civic Center. They do not believe the MPEV will bring the kind of activity that will breathe new life into the downtown district.

I am one who believes in the MPEV. I also hope the council decides against sending this matter to the voters.

It’s going to be paid with private investment money. City planners call it part of a “catalyst” project that will spur construction of a downtown convention hotel nearby.

I hope that’s the case. I believe it is doable.

I have it on good authority that Mayor Paul Harpole will oppose any motion to put the issue to a vote. He’s already invested a lot of energy and sweat equity into the MPEV and related projects. My sense is that Councilman Brian Eades will join the mayor in opposing a send-it-to-voters motion. That leaves the three new guys — councilmen Elisha Demerson, Randy Burkett and Mark Nair — to decide how they’ll vote. Will they vote as a bloc? Or will one, maybe two of them, rethink this idea.

If it goes to a vote and residents say “no” to the MPEV, well, the deal is dead. Downtown revival momentum will be ditched.

Is that what we want to happen? I do not.

Yes, Tuesday is going to be a big day at City Hall.

local news

‘Change’ set to present itself at City Hall

Amarillo downtown

Amarillo residents are likely to get a pretty good look at the “change” that arrived at City Hall with the election of three new City Council members this past spring.

It’ll occur Tuesday when the council discusses in public the fate of a proposed outdoor entertainment venue.

Will the council take the issue to a vote? Will it decide the fate of the venue by itself? Will it put the whole off for another day?

The change we’re about to see — as it relates specifically to downtown revival plans — is a divided council. Imagine that. We’ve seen a council — and before that a “city commission” — that spoke with a single voice on most issues large and small. Oh, occasionally we’d get a contrary vote from the late Councilman Jim Simms on, say, whether to ban texting while driving. But generally, the council voted as a bloc.

That’s not likely to happen with this multipurpose event venue matter.

The three new men — Elisha Demerson, Randy Burkett and Mark Nair — are speaking with a single voice among themselves. They were the agents of change in this year’s campaign. They could decide to send this matter to the voters in a November referendum: up or down on the MPEV. The other two council members, Mayor Paul Harpole and Councilman Brian Eades, are likely to vote “no” on a motion to send this matter to the voters.

There seems to be a good chance we’ll see more of these 3-2 splits on the council as it regards a whole array of tax-and-spend issues. Perhaps we’ll see it when the issue involves the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, which fairly regularly presents economic incentive issues to the council for its approval.

Suppose we get a tax abatement request from a business seeking to expand its operations. Will the council split on that as well.

There’s always been an unwritten rule at City Hall — and at the Amarillo Independent School District board — that when the governing board approves an issue, all members line up behind it.

“Change,” as presented by the winning candidates for this year’s City Council race, very well might not allow council members to abide by that rule.

City Hall once prided itself on its unanimity, unity and cohesiveness.

I’m betting something quite different is going to unfold this coming week.