Category Archives: local news

local news

‘Numbers don’t lie’

I’ve known Walter Riggs for a number of years. We served in the same service club together. He’s a banker and a smart fellow devoted to Amarillo.

He’s been on a tear lately, bemoaning the negativity surrounding the campaign relating to downtown redevelopment efforts in Amarillo. He posted this item the other day on Facebook:

“These metrics demonstrate why your city achieved a Triple A Bond Rating, one of only two municipalities in Texas to boast this. And what’s more amazing is it happened in 2009, in the depths of the 2nd worst recession in the history of the U.S. So to those that spread chicken little, sky is falling propaganda our city is poorly run, including political candidates trying to scare voters into voting for them, numbers don’t lie.”

He seeks to make a critical point about Amarillo’s current standing and its future.

Riggs notes that the city has acquired a AAA bond rating, which is about as good as it gets. I remember former City Manager Alan Taylor telling me with great pride that the city had achieved that rating. Taylor took a lot of credit for it, and deservedly so.

Yet we keep hearing from a faction — and I don’t think it’s much greater than that — that gripes about the city being “poorly run.” How can that be?

I ran into lame-duck City Councilman Ron Boyd today and railed to him about the complainers. Obviously, I was “preaching to the choir,” as the saying goes. The city can boast of its excellent bond rating; it can be proud of its low tax rate; it can take pride in the huge new infrastructure improvements planned for the western corridor of Loop 335.

The city, moreover, has laid the groundwork for a downtown renovation strategy that, to my way of thinking, makes sense. It is doable. It can be done without burdening property taxpayers. It will rely on revenue generated by people visiting here from elsewhere who pay hotel-motel taxes.

And yet there are those who contend the city is run poorly?

What in the name of civic pride is going on here?

 

local news

Welcome back, High Noon on Square

Downtown Amarillo’s future is getting a bit cloudier as we start looking a little farther out.

Back to the present day, though. High Noon on the Square begins Wednesday in front of the Potter County Courthouse. It’s a fine event, bringing folks out of their offices during lunch time to get something to eat and listen to some entertainment for an hour before heading back to whatever grind awaits them.

My friend Beth Duke, who runs the Center City program, is proud of it and I am proud of her for the work she’s done to make this a bustling event over the course of several weeks.

It’s fair to ask, however: Is this the best we can do?

I do intend to disparage High Noon. I do, though, intend to express the hope out loud that downtown Amarillo’s future includes far more than just a brief weekly interlude on the courthouse lawn.

I’m referring to that proposed multipurpose event venue that’s becoming part of the city dialogue relating to downtown’s revival. There might be an election in our future to determine whether to proceed with its construction. Money to pay for it will come from individuals who visit here from far away: I refer to hotel-motel tax revenue. The plan is to welcome them downtown as they attend conventions and other events.

The MPEV well might be a venue that could play host to a number of outdoor events.

Planners envision a minor-league baseball playing games at the MPEV. They also envision other events occurring at the place. A baseball club could have a modern park in which to play ball, rather than at that rat hole that serves as a ballpark at the Tri-State Fairgrounds east of the downtown district.

I try to envision more for downtown. The proposed MPEV, plus a convention hotel can be serve as twin catalysts for whatever future awaits the central business district.

That is, of course, unless the newly constituted City Council — and its three new members — decide to torpedo the whole thing. The election result suggests that’s a definite possibility — but I believe it would be a tragic mistake.

Meantime, we’ve got High Noon on the Square.

That’s it.

Hey, go out there and enjoy yourself. Then ask yourself: Is this the best it’s ever going to get in Amarillo?

 

local news

Downtown momentum facing serious trouble

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Amarillo’s downtown revival might be heading for the cliff.

Here’s what I’ve heard just in recent days.

The city is going to fill the final spot on the City Council when it conducts a runoff election for Place 4 between Mark Nair and Steve Rogers. Nair, who finished first in the May 9 election, is considered the favorite. He’s a bright young man, who happens to believe voters should decide whether to build the multipurpose event venue planned for construction on a now-vacant lot just south of City Hall.

Two other brand new council members, Elisha Demerson and Randy Burkett, have taken office. They are sounding as if they, too, want to put the issue to a vote.

If Nair defeats Steve Rogers in the runoff, that means the council will have three members who want voters to decide this issue; the council comprises five members, so … there’s your majority.

The city says the MPEV will be paid with hotel-motel tax revenue. Why that revenue stream? Because the city also is planning to construct a convention hotel, which also will be paid with private investment money — and which will generate more tax revenue, and a parking garage, also financed with private investors.

The so-called “catalyst” project is the MPEV, according to City Hall officials. If the MPEV isn’t built, then nothing else happens. The developer who wants to build the Embassy Suites hotel complex will back out; the parking garage doesn’t get built.

The city is then left with, well, nothing!

Years of planning, cajoling, discussion, debate and negotiation will be flushed down the proverbial drain.

Amarillo, then, as a leading City Hall official told me this morning, will become as the cantankerous oilman T. Boone Pickens once described it: A glorified truck stop.

I happen to remain committed to the concept that’s been developed by planners, city leaders and local businessmen and women. The MPEV, or “ballpark,” will tie itself to the hotel, which will be linked with the parking garage.

But some folks somehow think the MPEV is a lemon. They believe the city needs to invest first in improvements to the Civic Center.

Do they actually understand that Civic Center improvements — which would cost more than the three-pronged construction project already on the table — is going to require more public money, meaning more tax revenue, meaning more money out of their pocket?

City officials have told me they plan to improve the Civic Center eventually. They remain confident in the results that will come from the rest of the projects that already have been set in motion.

Let’s also understand one final point.

A citywide referendum would be a non-binding vote. The city isn’t required by law to abide by the results of such an election, any more than it was bound by the 1996 vote to sell Northwest Texas Hospital to a private health care provider. The city did the right thing, though, in ratifying the results of that hospital sale vote. To do otherwise would been to commit political suicide.

Such would be the case if an MPEV referendum went badly for the city and the council ignored the voters’ wishes.

There had better be some serious soul-searching as the city prepares to take the next big steps.

Either it revives downtown, or it doesn’t.

If it’s the latter, well, let us just kiss the future goodbye.

 

local news

Conspiracy theories are for the birds

Conspiracy theories drive me nuts.

I mean it. I think I’m going crazy listening to any and all of them.

The latest spate of conspiracy theories centers around downtown Amarillo. There’s a segment of our city population — and I’m not convinced it comprises even a significant minority of residents — who keep concocting nefarious schemes dealing with business relationships within (a) city government (b) the business community or (c) between them both.

These theories are coming from individuals — or perhaps small groups of individuals — who don’t believe the city’s master plan for reviving downtown is going to work. They won’t give it a chance. They are willing to toss it out at the front end because, by golly, they just know something underhanded is going on.

I forged a fairly decent career in daily journalism over the span of 37 years. I am wired to be skeptical of matters at a lot of levels. However, I am not such a cynic as to believe out of hand that a high-dollar business deal is simply a bad thing because it involves a fair amount of money.

And yet, that’s what I keep hearing.

Conspiracy theories have this way of growing legs and even wings. They feed on themselves. They produce conspiracy spawns, that themselves grow into full-fledged conspiracies.

Here’s one that came to me today — second-hand to be sure, but I trust the source who mentioned this tidbit to me: A young member of my family told another member of my family that “it has been proven” that a Secret Service agent killed President Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963. It wasn’t Lee Harvey Oswald. It wasn’t any of the other so-called conspiracy theories: the mob; the Cubans; hell, it wasn’t even Lyndon Johnson. The killer was a member of the Secret Service, the agency charged with protecting the life of the president of the United States. And it’s been proven that the Secret Service did it.

I’m glad I didn’t hear my young family member make that idiotic assertion. I would have stroked out.

That’s the kind of thing that has infected much of the discussion surrounding the downtown Amarillo story.

How about we just keep our eyes peeled and our ears open and actually witness and listen carefully to the things being discussed?

 

local news

More water than I thought

You can make a discovery on occasion just by reading the material that comes with your water bill.

For example:

I did not know that there exists not one aquifer underground, but two of them.

Our water bill arrived this weekend. I opened it up and started reading the “2015 Water Quality Report” issued by the City of Amarillo. In the very first paragraph, it informed me that we have (a) the Ogallala Aquifer and (b) the Santa Rosa Aquifer coursing under our feet.

Santa Rosa? I didn’t even know such a thing exists. Or, if I knew about it already, I must have forgotten about it.

http://magissues.farmprogress.com/WFS/WS11Nov10/wfs068.pdf

The Santa Rosa consists of “brackish” water, or water than is a good bit saltier than potable drinking water. Tulia — a town just south of Amarillo — has access to it.

It runs under the Ogallala, which is spread under seven or eight states. The Santa Rosa is a good bit smaller in size, but it’s there.

I take some heart in learning about the Santa Rosa. The city already has secured significant water resources that officials say will last for a couple of centuries. Beyond that, well after we’re all gone, it’s anyone’s guess.

None of the water rights secured, I’m pretty sure, involve the Santa Rosa.

It’s going to be expensive to pull this water out of the ground and make it suitable for drinking. Desalination projects clearly must be developed here for humans to consume the water.

According to a website I accessed: “Though not nearly as large as the Ogallala, it (the Santa Rosa) provides a virtually  untapped source of drinking water for West Texas communities. Only a handful of communities, such as Tulia, Texas, has accessed it. Salt concentrations are about 5,000 parts per million, well in the range of purification efforts.”

You can learn things from unexpected sources, yes?

I’m glad I took a minute to read the water bill handout. Maybe I ought to read more of this stuff.

 

business news, local news

Downtown hotel design gets ‘certified’

This is one of the more fascinating steps so far in the quest to rebuild downtown Amarillo.

The proposed convention hotel has received something called a “certificate of appropriateness.”

The downtown design committee has signed off on the concept for the looks of the proposed Embassy Suites hotel that will be built near the Civic Center, the proposed multipurpose event venue — aka MPEV — and a multi-story parking garage.

It’s all coming together, the city and its design consultants say.

The design panel needed to ensure that the hotel fit the city’s aesthetic standards.

I’ve seen the renderings of what the complex is going to look like. They are impressive, to say the least.

The funding of the project remains as stated: hotel-motel tax revenue will fund it, along with tax breaks granted by the city and, presumably, by Potter County, given that the district lies inside the county line.

Some skeptics remain out there, thinking nefarious thoughts about who did what to and for whom and whether it’s all on the up-and-up. I’m not one of them.

I continue to embrace the concept as it has been presented. I will continue to hold onto my faith that the city’s funding formula will hold up and I will continue to hope for the very best that the city — along with the developers and investors it is trying to recruit — will deliver the goods as promised.

Just make sure, folks, that it’s all, um, appropriate.

local news, State news

Texas can use federal assistance

TX-flooding-2015

Hey, no kidding. Texas actually can use some help from the federal government.

As I understand it, Gov. Greg Abbott has to ask for a federal emergency declaration. The pictures I’m seeing from around the state, particularly in Houston and in the Hill Country, suggests the governor needs to get on the stick and ask for it.

President Obama talked to the governor by phone the other day and offered federal help. I’m guessing Gov. Abbott said, “Thank you, Mr. President. I’ll get back to you on that.”

Has he done so? I haven’t heard that he has.

Abbott calls the floods the worst in Texas history. As I’m writing this short blog, another storm is blasting overhead along the Texas Panhandle. It’s dumping more rain on our saturated ground — which isn’t nearly as soaked as the ground is in Houston, the Golden Triangle, the Coastal Bend and the Hill Country.

But it’s wet enough here.

My son, who’s visiting us from Allen — just north of Dallas — informed us of playas that appeared where there’s “never any water.” Well, he can’t say “never” now.

Ask for the feds’ help, governor.

And whatever you do, don’t let your political differences with the White House stand in the way.

 

local news

‘Underrated cities’ have something in common

You can find a list for almost anything, it seems.

A friend of mine posted this list to social media, so I thought I’d share it here.

It’s a list of the “most underrated small cities” in America.

They appear to have something in common.

A vibrant urban life. Meaning, a thriving downtown district.

http://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/underrated-us-cities-small-markets-like-cincinnati-mobile-and-Chattanooga

It’s worth mentioning here because of the talk about Amarillo’s future seems to be turning once again on whether the city is making the right decisions while concentrating so much effort in restoring its downtown district.

All the cities noted in this survey are roughly the size of Amarillo. Our population stands a shade more than 197,000 residents. We aren’t some Podunk, one-horse burg — although some of us seem to think we are and are strangely anxious to keep it that way. Of course, no one admits to it, but the concept being discussed to breathe life into downtown Amarillo is getting resistance.

I’m not going to suggest the resistance is all that significant, that it represents a majority view of our city’s residents. Yes, we have three new members serving on our City Council (with the third new guy to be determined by the June 13 runoff election).

However, if this list of “underrated small cities” serves as a guide to anyone, then it’s important that the downtown restoration effort not be derailed by those who believe the city has misdirected its energy toward a loser.

Take a peek at the list, read the summaries of why these cities deserve more attention and you’ll likely appreciate what a little vision and imagination can bring to little ol’ Amarillo, Texas.

 

local news

Pumping water saves water? Sure it does

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Allow me this admission.

Sometimes — maybe more often than I care to admit — I’m a bit slow on the uptake when it involves certain elements of science.

I’m not a scientist. Or a mathematician. Or an accountant. Numbers and scientific theories boggle me.

So it is with that caveat that I suggest that I am beginning to accept the notion that pumping water out of Lake Meredith to 11 cities throughout the Panhandle actually saves surface water that collects in the lake.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/29161212/pumping-lake-meredith-2015-outlook

The Canadian River Municipal Water Authority is starting to pump water out of the lake in the wake of recent rainfall that has continued to restore the lake levels to something far greater than puddle designation.

Kent Satterwhite, general manager of CRMWA, said: “Everything we pump out of the lake is one gallon less than we pump out of the (Ogallala) aquifer.” He said it is “really important. The aquifer as you use it, it’s gone. It recharges to some slight degree … So it’s really important to try to preserve it and that’s why the lake is here to take some of the heat off the aquifer.”

Who knew?

Pumping water also maximizes the quality of the water, Satterwhite said. The Canadian River contains salt that evaporates more easily during dry periods.

Lake Meredith’s levels have risen fairly dramatically in recent days. It’s nearly at 50 feet, which is far greater than the 26 feet it measured in 2013. OK, so the lake is now about halfway toward its historic high of 100-plus feet set back in the early 1970s.

I guess I’m trying to express some appreciation of the knowledge that water managers must have to monitor this priceless resource.

The region depends on it at almost every level imaginable. There must be some faith placed in the individuals charged with ensuring we keep it as close to forever as we can.

local news, State news

Red-light cameras to stay in operation

Let’s put the effort to ban cities from deploying red-light cameras on ice for another two years.

And then let us hope the Texas Legislature fails again to impose its will on cities who are seeking ways to prevent motorists from running through stop lights and endangering other motorists and pedestrians.

http://www.texastribune.org/2015/05/01/amid-investigation-activists-critical-red-light-ca/

The 2015 Legislature won’t enact a statewide ban on the cameras. It fell short of efforts to take that authority away from cities, where officials — including in Amarillo — have deployed the cameras.

I happen to be glad that Amarillo will be able to maintain the cameras.

What’s more, I am hopeful the next Legislature will decide in the state’s best interest to let cities control their own traffic destiny.

Of all the arguments I keep hearing in opposition to the cameras, the one that angers and amuses me the most is that the cameras “violate the rights” of motorists. What rights? Privacy? The right to “face an accuser”? The right of “due process”?

If we’re going to accept the rights violation argument, then let’s just tell cities to disband their police departments. Let’s take down speed limit signs. While we’re at it, let’s take security cameras out of stores that protect businesses against theft; those cameras, after all, violate our “rights,” too, by watching our every move while we’re shopping.

Amarillo should be hailed for its insistence that the red-light cameras are helping deter motorists from endangering others, not to mention themselves, when they run through stoplights. Other cities haven’t demonstrated that kind of backbone.

So, for now, thanks also belong to the Texas Legislature for leaving cities alone and letting them determine what’s best for the motor vehicle-driving public.