Category Archives: local news

local news

Maybe those prayers have brought the rain

amarillo rain

A few years ago, just as the 2012 presidential campaign was getting under way, then-Texas Gov. Rick Perry called on Texans to pray for rain.

The state’s drought was crippling farmers and ranchers. The prayer request drew some barbs from Perry foes. They thought it was silly and some said they thought Perry offered up a too-simple solution to a complex problem.

Well, churches around the state responded. Clergy offered prayers. Their congregants did as well.

Prayer is a difficult thing to quantify or to analyze in worldly terms. It depends on whether one believes in the power of prayer.

Farmers and ranchers certainly do. Indeed, when you earn your livelihood based on the whims of Mother Nature or the power of Almighty, then prayer is your best defense against the elements working against you.

Did the prayers work?

Well, Amarillo is experiencing one of its wettest months of May in recorded history. Its year-to-date precipitation levels are far greater than normal and even greater than that over what it was a year ago.

People have been photographed kayaking through flash-flood water. Fish have jumped out of playas. Storm drains haven’t been able to move the water quickly enough to avoid flooding along busy thoroughfares.

Are those simple requests for prayer responsible for our good fortune?

How does one prove they had no impact?

local news

Let's guard against drought smugness

The latest downpour that drenched the Texas Panhandle this morning likely means a couple of things.

One: Our year-to-date precipitation total is more than double the normal amount at this time of the year. Normal is around 5 inches; I’m betting our total now exceeds 10 inches of precipitation for the year.

Two: Our total precipitation for this year is now about 10 times the amount of moisture that fell a year ago to date.

OK, here’s a third thing this abundant rain means: Our drought is far from being over.

I trust you understand that.

The drought we’ve endured on the Texas Tundra has been years in the making. It’s going to take years — and I mean several years — of abundant rain and snowfall to abate this drought.

What does it mean? It means we ought to still take care when watering our lawns and washing our vehicles.

I know we city folks cannot control how farmers irrigate their crops. Then again, they know better than we do about the value of the water that runs underground and are likely to ensure they have enough of it to keep irrigating their crops.

The rain is welcome. As always.

Let’s not get too smug, though, about the drought. It’s still with us.

local news

This guy is a 'business mentor'?

You’ve heard of the Peter Principle, yes? It’s the notion that people can be elevated to their “highest level of incompetence.”

Here, then, is a startling example of that principle at work.

David Wallace, the one-time co-owner of a master development firm that galloped into Amarillo making huge promises to re-create the city’s moribund downtown district, has been hired as a “business mentor” for a firm that teaches foreign entrepreneurs how to succeed in business.

Why is this so weird? Wallace’s company — Wallace Bajjali Development Partners — vaporized into thin air earlier this year in a dispute with co-owner Costa Bajjali. He left Amarillo — and Joplin, Mo. — high and dry. Joplin had hired Wallace Bajjali to help the city recover from the destruction caused by a tornado that tore through the city.

I don’t know whether to laugh or scream.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/news/local_news/david-wallace-finds-employment-as-business-mentor/article_5327216f-8a0a-56d2-a9f0-f1a0c7ee6bb4.html

Amarillo is proceeding with its downtown development efforts without David Wallace, the former Sugar Land mayor and self-proclaimed urban development hotshot.

His new employer is International Accelerator of Austin. Its website, according to the Joplin Globe newspaper, touts Wallace as a “key” player in the firm’s organizational chart.

As the Globe notes in its story on Wallace’s hiring, International Accelerator’s website doesn’t mention a key part of Wallace’s recent history.

You see, after he and Bajjali parted company, Wallace filed personal bankruptcy, claiming debts totaling in the millions of dollars and leaving him, according to the Globe, “in financial shambles.”

The Globe reports: “Wallace’s biography listed on the website touts his three-term history as mayor of Sugar Land, Texas, his work with the son of the late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and his experience in public-private partnerships.”

It makes me wonder if his new employers know the rest of the story.

local news

'Getting rid' of good ol' boy system

Someone posted this thought on social media the other day, but it’s worth a brief comment here.

The comment was about the Amarillo City Council election and the calls from several non-incumbents to get rid of what’s called the “good ol’ boy system” of Amarillo politics.

So, what did voters do? They tossed out the two women who serve on the council: Ellen Robertson Green and Lilia Escajeda. They will be replaced by two men: Elisha Demerson and Randy Burkett, respectively.

It’s one of the puzzling aspects of the election.

I realize that “good ol’ boy” doesn’t necessarily describe the gender of those who are part of the system. It’s meant to characterize the back-slapping and the implied agreement that all have with each other any issue that comes before them.

But an all-male City Council is going to include a dynamic that the body hasn’t had in quite a number of years. It will lack a female perspective.

I think the city will become lesser because of it.

local news, political news

Don't presume anything, Mr. Rogers

“Dear John,” the form letter that arrived today started.

“Thank you for your support during the recent general election. Judy and I can’t express to you enough how much your encouragement and prayers kept us moving forward. We are proud of our positive campaign and thankful for every vote that came our way.”

The writer went on some more … blah, blah, blah.

He signed it “Steve,” as in Steve Rogers, candidate for Amarillo City Council, Place 4.

I wonder why I got the letter. I didn’t vote for him in the May 9 municipal election. I don’t know if I’ll vote for him in the June 13 runoff between him and Mark Nair, who finished at the top of a crowded field of candidates running for the fourth place on the City Council. Just so you know, my vote went to one of the other candidates.

I’m inclined to vote against him just because he seems to presume so much about the “encouragement and prayers” I allegedly sent his way.

This note reminds me of another note I got some years ago. A member of my family got married. He’s the son of one of my first cousins. I met him once — I think — when he was a very young boy. So, he married this girl on the East Coast and several weeks later, my wife and I receive a note thanking us for the “very special gift” we sent them.

We didn’t send them a gift. My wife and I laugh about it to this day.

So, candidates, please take to avoid presuming too much about the constituents you seek to serve.

Some of us might tattle on you.

local news, State news

Red-light cameras 'unconstitutional'? Guess again

James Watson has filed a lawsuit against cities in Texas that deploy red-light cameras to catch those who run through intersections against signals that tell them they should stop.

Amarillo is one of them.

He got popped by a red-light camera in Southlake. So, to make his point, he’s going after other cities that use the devices as well.

This lawsuit needs to be thrown out on the plaintiff’s ear.

Watson contends that the cities’ ordinance violates the Texas Constitution and state law by depriving motorists of the “presumption of innocence, the right to trial by an impartial jury, the right to cross-examine witnesses and the right against self-incrimination.”

Oh, my.

What, then, do we do about police officers who catch motorists running through red lights? Do the cops who write the tickets also deny motorists the presumption of innocence and all those other rights that Watson lays out in his suit?

Amarillo City Attorney Marcus Norris said he believes the court will reduce the issues once it reviews the lawsuit. My own hunch is that the court might reduce them to zero, as in tossing the case out.

The lawsuit is as specious as they come.

If he hadn’t run the red light in the first place in Southlake, he wouldn’t be in a jam.

Count me as one who still strongly supports the red-light cameras in Amarillo. I do not want the Legislature to eliminate the law that allows cities to use them. Nor do I want the city to back down on its use because of complaints coming from a vocal minority of residents.

local news

Anger finds its way to Amarillo

5 Comments

Anger is not my thing.

Those who know me — I’m quite certain — would say I’m not an angry person. I see life as an adventure. The glass is half full. All that positive stuff.

I’m a bit dismayed, though, at the apparent anger among residents of the city my wife and I have called home for more than 20 years.

It manifested itself in the election this past weekend in which two incumbents were tossed off the City Council and the mayor was re-elected by a much smaller margin than he has in the past; some observers have told me that had Paul Harpole faced a serious opponent, he’d have been beaten, too.

Why the anger?

* Our municipal tax rate is among the lowest in the state, so we aren’t pay “too much” for city services.

* City officials are moving forward with a plan to rejuvenate its downtown district. Show me a lively city and I’ll show you one with a downtown district that’s bustling.

* We have an economic development corporation that is using sales tax revenue to lure business to the city. People gripe about the EDC using “our tax money” to bring in those “out of towners.” They fail to recognize that 60 percent of all sales tax revenue comes from folks who don’t live here.

* One City Council candidate said it’s time to “run the city like a business.” Successful local governments and successful businesses are mutually exclusive concepts. The most successful businesses are run, more or less, by tyrants. Is that what we want at City Hall? I don’t think so.

The anger is palpable. Who feeds it? Has it splashed against us from the hysteria we hear in places like Washington, D.C., and Austin?

This new City Council is going to take office soon. It will have three new guys on board — with the third one being chosen from a runoff that’s occurring next month to fill a seat occupied by an appointment incumbent who didn’t seek election.

Let’s all settle down, fellas, and get to work for the common good.

 

local news

Change has come to Amarillo City Hall

I’m going to wait before passing any judgment on the new Amarillo City Council lineup.

A couple of obvious changes are worth noting, so I’ll do so here.

Two women were voted off the council: Ellen Robertson Green and Lilia Escajeda. They lost to men. So an all-male council will be making decisions affecting Amarillo taxpayers’ lives.

There’s something a bit unsettling about that prospect.

As a red-blooded American male myself, it’s not that I think the five men set to serve are all bad. But I do trust women’s judgment.

Ellen Green, for example, offered up my favorite retort to those who were yapping their discontent about the red-light cameras the city has deployed at various intersections. Her answer? Don’t run the red lights and you won’t have anything to worry about. Who in the world can argue with that?

The fellow who defeated Green in Place 1, Elisha Demerson, made history by becoming the city’s first African-American council member. He once served on the Potter County Commissioners Court, as a commissioner and later for a single term as county judge. His record as county judge came under scrutiny during the municipal campaign. It didn’t gain any traction with voters who elected him anyway.

It’s worth keeping our eye, though, on his relationship with the guy who won in Place 3, Randy Burkett, who defeated Escajeda. Burkett, it turns out, has some pretty caustic views about issues involving race relations, as was revealed late in the campaign on his Facebook page.

Will these men be able to work together? They appear to have widely differing world views. City policy, though, would seem to require them to set those differences aside. The City Council, after all, is a non-partisan body.

Demerson and Burkett both talked about accountability and transparency. Mayor Paul Harpole was re-elected and he, too, has talked openly about the need for transparency. Returning Place 2 Councilman Brian Eades brings some continuity to the new council. Mark Nair and Steve Rogers are running off against each other for the Place 4 seat.

It’s a new council, all right. Time will tell whether voters have made a good investment or purchased the proverbial pig in a poke.

 

local news

Yes, I am 'living the dream' … honest

This is the latest in an occasional series of blog posts commenting on impending retirement.

You hear it all the time.

“Hey, how ya doin’?”

“Just living the dream, man. Just living the dream.”

You both laugh. It’s kind of a self-deprecating expression — usually — meant to make good-natured fun of one’s lot in life.

I don’t say that to folks because I don’t want anyone to confuse what I mean with what I say. Which is to say that were I to declare I’m “living the dream,” I really and truly mean it.

I’m happy to make the declaration here. Please know that in all sincerity, life is good.

I now am working four — count ’em, four — part-time jobs. They all activities that give me great pleasure.

Three of them involve journalism: blogging for Panhandle PBS (panhandlepbs.org), the Amarillo College-affiliated public TV station; writing news stories for NewsChannel10.com, which is the website for Amarillo’s local CBS-TV affiliate, NewsChannel 10; and helping a friend publish a weekly newspaper, the Quay County Sun, based in Tucumcari, N.M.

My wife reminds me that I am getting paid “to have fun.”

The fourth job is as a concierge for Street Toyota here in Amarillo. My task there? To chat with service customers and to make their experience at Street more enjoyable. That’s what they asked of me when they hired me. I thought, “Heck yeah, I can do that!”

I’ve heard others say as they enter semi-retirement that they “busier’n ever.” I get it. My wife and I are taking time as well to enjoy our life, to travel a bit here and there and to get ready for the day when we can move into full retirement.

My daily grind in print journalism ended more than two years ago. It was a stunning development. I’ve recovered nicely, I’m happy to report.

You won’t hear me say I’m “living the dream.” I don’t want you to think I’m making fun of my lot in life.

The dream is quite real.

 

local news

Here's how views can evolve

A Facebook friend dug up this column I wrote back in 1998.

http://amarillo.com/stories/112998/opi_history.shtml#.VU_p91J0yt-

I offer it here to illustrate the distance my views have traveled on the issue of single-member districts. It speaks to the election in the late 1980s of two African-Americans to countywide offices in Potter County. It also tells how a Latino was elected to a state district judgeship, also in Potter County.

https://highplainsblogger.com/2013/12/22/re-thinking-single-member-districts/

The county’s voting plan was — and is — strictly at-large.

I wrote in favor of that plan.

Perhaps history can repeat itself in a couple of years at the next Amarillo municipal election, or perhaps next year when Potter and Randall counties go to the polls. The city is about to welcome its first African-American city councilman, Elisha Demerson, who was elected Saturday.

If voters are truly ready to judge candidates solely on their ideas, then my political evolution could take another turn.