Monthly Archives: July 2015

local news

What if Atkinson goes?

atkinson

Let’s play a little game of “What if …?”

Are you ready? Here goes.

What if Amarillo City Manager Jarrett Atkinson decides — against the expressed wishes of one of the city councilmen to whom he reports — that he doesn’t want to resign?

What if, then, the City Council decides to terminate the city manager?

What if the city then launches a national search to find a new chief executive for the city administration? Lord knows they aren’t going to look inward for that one, given that they want “change” at City Hall. Nor should they. The job is a big one and it requires someone with considerable skill and — as seen in recent weeks — someone with a rhino hide.

What if the council dangles a job posting out there, offers to pay the next city manager a lot of money and it gets responses from dozens of qualified candidates?

What if, then, the city manager applicants one by one start looking at the city’s recent history? They note that the council fired the city manager who was up to his eyeballs in planning a downtown revitalization project. They also take note that one of the councilmen who wanted Atkinson to quit had barely taken his oath of office before spouting off.

Then they wonder, do I really want to go work in that environment, for that body of council members who were so quick to dismiss an experienced public servant?

What if the process drags on for months as the city keeps combing the country for the right person who’s willing to come to Amarillo, Texas — which, while it’s a nice city with nice people, isn’t exactly paradise?

Finally, what if the city manager selection process drags on so long that all the hard work that’s gone into redeveloping downtown Amarillo gets flushed down the toilet?

Therein lies the potential predicament that awaits these City Hall change agents.

Good luck, gentlemen.

local news

MPEV or no MPEV

Oh, I really and truly dislike doing this, but I’m going to do something that goes against my grain.

I want to call out my former employer on a key political matter.

The Amarillo Globe-News today published an editorial that was spot-on. It said that a vote — if it comes — that opposes the multipurpose event venue planned for downtown Amarillo would scuttle the city’s progress for years to come.

It’s in the attached right here. Take a look.

http://m.amarillo.com/opinion/editorial/2015-07-04/editorial-vote-against-mpev-vote-against-redevelopment?v#gsc.tab=0

OK, having endorsed the paper’s editorial policy on the city’s downtown redevelopment proposals, I have a question to pose to my former employer.

Shouldn’t you to come to grips publicly with the recommendations you made in the May 9 municipal election that well might have helped elect three new members to the City Council, two of whom you’ve criticized roundly since they took office?

I ask that question with some trepidation. If the role was reversed — and I had survived a company “reorganization” scheme in the summer of 2012 — I might not care a damn bit what a former editor would have to say about the job I’m doing. Now that I’m on the outside looking in, well, I feel compelled to pose the question to my former colleagues.

The paper backed the candidacies of Mark Nair, Randy Burkett and Elisha Demerson in the race for the City Council. It offered no recommendation for mayor, even though the incumbent, Paul Harpole, was far superior to his challenger. The paper backed just one incumbent council member, Dr. Brian Eades.

Two of the three new council members — Demerson and Burkett — have taken serious shots from the paper over what the Globe-News has described as uninformed comments and votes on public policy matters. Nair, meanwhile, has been praised for asking relevant questions about the downtown projects at an informational meeting the other day. Nair also has called for the resignation of City Manager Jarrett Atkinson, who’s been a critical player in the downtown revitalization effort.

So …

The paper backed the three “candidates of change” for the City Council. All three of them made their intentions clear. They want change at City Hall and they want it now. Surely they informed the paper’s editorial board of their positions when they interviewed for the offices they were seeking. Indeed, having sat through many of those over more than three decades in daily print journalism — in Amarillo and elsewhere —  I know how that process works.

The newspaper has taken the correct position with regard to downtown revival efforts.

However, this resident of Amarillo — that would be me — is having trouble squaring the Globe-News’s backing of the three change agents with its view that the MPEV needs building and that it is essential to keep the downtown plan moving forward.

I don’t intend to diagnose anything here, but I am sensing a bit of editorial schizophrenia.

 

 

 

local news

City faces serious fracturing

While we’re on the topic of the newly reconstituted Amarillo City Council, let’s discuss for a moment a serious result of what might transpire over the next couple of years.

We have a serious division of interests among the five members.

Three of the council members — Elisha Demerson, Mark Nair and Randy Burkett — want significant change. They want it now. They aren’t waiting.

The other two members — Mayor Paul Harpole and Councilman Brian Eades — don’t want it. They do not want to see the city manager leave office, which the others apparently want to see happen.

The three-member new-guy majority also is looking skeptically at the downtown plan as it’s been presented. They might want to gut the whole thing.

The other two? They’re all in with the plans for the multipurpose event venue, the downtown convention hotel and the parking garage.

One of the more fascinating back stories of all this drama involves the mayor. Paul Harpole, though, represents precisely the same constituency as his four council colleagues. They’re all elected at-large. That gives the mayor little actual political power. He doesn’t have veto authority. He cannot direct other council members to do anything. They all operate independently of each other, or at least have the potential for doing so.

All that unity, oneness of purpose and collegiality that used to be the mantra at City Hall?

It’s gone, at least for the short term.

What we’re likely to get is something quite different. Let us now see if this is the “change” that works for the city’s advancement.

 

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.

 

local news

Keep it in the open, City Council

The Amarillo City Council agenda for Tuesday has been posted.

It’s in this link:

http://amarillo.gov/departments/citymgr/2015/agenda/agenda_07_07_2015_17_30_00.pdf

As you scan it you’ll notice that the council plans to discuss City Manager Jarrett Atkinson’s “status” and requests for his resignation. The item is posted as part of its open session. Not in closed, or executive session, which the Texas Open Meetings Act allows.

Here’s what I think ought to happen.

I believe the council should keep the item out there, to be discussed in full public view — if Atkinson agrees.

Why? Well, the call for his resignation came a few days ago in fairly dramatic fashion — and it was done publicly. The council’s newest member, Mark Nair, had taken his oath that day. Then he said, in public, that Atkinson should resign.

Nair is an agent of change, according to the election results for Place 4. So, by golly, he wants change and he wants it sooner rather than later.

So, why not allow a full public airing of the gripes against the city manager? State law allows it. It doesn’t require governmental bodies to meet in private; it merely allows them to do so. “Personnel” is one of those items that can be discussed in secret.

Nair and fellow new council members Elisha Demerson and Randy Burkett all seem to think a change at the top of the city administration is in order.

Why? Let’s hear it, gentlemen.

You’ve called for “transparency.” Here’s your chance to deliver the goods.

Oh, and be sure to let the city manager answer whatever assertions you intend to make point by point.

 

local news

Hey, new guys! Listen to the good doctor!

Brian Eades may be whistling in the dark with this request.

That doesn’t diminish its value.

Eades is the senior member of the Amarillo City Council and he’s urging his new colleagues on the council — Elisha Demerson, Randy Burkett and Mark Nair — to reconsider their effort to toss out the city’s top-level management.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/29472902/veteran-council-member-urges-colleagues-to-reconsider-resignations#.VZdU7CrjfnU.facebook

As he told NewsChannel 10, the effort to replace City Manager Jarrett Atkinson and the entire Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board is, at best, “premature.”

Do you think?

All of this has taken a stunning turn. Nair took his oath of office this past Tuesday — and later on that very same day he said Atkinson should resign. The voters elected to Place 4 to be an agent of change, he said, and by golly he intends to fulfill that mandate.

Same with Demerson and Burkett.

Eades, a physician who was elected to the council in 2007, said the call is at best premature.

I’ll go a step or three further. It’s reckless.

Eades told NewsChannel 10: “New individuals may want to understand how the city works before you launch into that. It took me almost two years on the council to figure out exactly all the details regarding city government and how it works.”

Yes, there have been stumbles along the way. I concede readily that the city has been embarrassed by some remarkably inept occurrences. The city erred in hiring a traffic engineer; its animal control operation came under intense fire; it stepped on every one of its toes over that ridiculous city logo fiasco. To be sure, the city manager — as the city’s chief executive officer — is responsible ultimately for everything that happens, good and bad.

But Eades issues another cautionary suggestion: “Certainly, ultimately he is responsible, but I think you have to hold middle managers and lower level managers responsible for what they do in the workplace everyday as well.”

Will the new guys heed the good doctor’s advice when the council meets next Tuesday?

Well, I’m not holding my breath for that to occur.

Some municipal government experience, though, does bring more than a hint of wisdom.

International news

Vietnam, yes; Cuba, no?

Those on the right and the far right who keep yammering against efforts to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba — citing Havana’s horrible human rights — ignore the conduct of another actual enemy with whom the United States actually fought a bloody war.

Vietnam’s human rights record is just as atrocious as Cuba’s. Yet we’ve had diplomatic relations with Vietnam for two decades. Moreover, the relationship has grown closer.

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/21656714-vietnams-new-friendship-america-reflects-political-drama-home-power-plays?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/powerplays

This is part of the argument against Cuba that doesn’t make any sense to me.

The Cubans once were part of the Soviet Union’s “evil empire.” So was Vietnam, for that matter.

Then the Soviet Union disappeared. Cuba continues to languish in poverty. Yes, it’s human rights record is abysmal. However, does Cuba pose a threat to the United States of America, the behemoth nation that sits less than 100 miles off the island’s coast? Uh, no.

Vietnam and the United States went to war in the 1960s. We sent millions of fighting men to that country to stop North Vietnam from taking over South Vietnam. The communists killed more than 50,000 Americans; we killed far more of them in the process.

The shooting stopped on April 30, 1975 when the communists rolled into Saigon, renamed the city after Ho Chi Minh and began sending South Vietnamese who were loyal to the Americans to what they called “re-education camps.”

Did that get in the way of the two former enemies becoming friends, establishing full relations? No.

Nor should it stop the United States from doing the same with Cuba.

The embassies are about to open in Washington and Havana.

Let’s stop the whining about the so-called “threat” that Cuba poses to the world’s greatest military and economic power. If we can make nice with Vietnam, then surely our extending a hand to Cuba is the right thing to do.

 

International news

Once-vital nation set to cast itself aside

Greece has become a joke. And a decidedly unfunny one at that.

The country is about to conduct a referendum on Sunday. The outcome may determine whether the nation remains part of the European Union and a partner in one of the world’s pre-eminent international consortiums.

How did it come to this?

http://www.macropolis.gr/?i=portal.en.the-agora.2686

It sickens me.

I’ve had the pleasure and the privilege of visiting my ancestral homeland three times. I know of the country’s rich history. I am acutely aware of the pride the Greek diaspora around the world have of this place. It’s magic is beyond belief.

Now it’s about to be reduced to a bit player, an outlier on the world stage.

The nation cannot pay its debt. Other European nations have grown weary of bailing out the Greeks. Frankly, who can blame them?

What’s more, the Greeks are letting their own pride take them down the road perhaps to further ruin.

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras opposes further austerity measures designed to enable Greece to pay its debts. He is urging a “no” vote on the referendum, suggesting that it will strengthen the country’s hand and enable Greece to reopen negotiations with the EU.

All the while, the country — this cradle of western civilization — is being relegated to some peanut-gallery place on the world stage.

Those of us around the world who are proud of our ethnic inheritance are saddened beyond words by what’s happening there.

My own hope is that the majority of Greeks let some common sense rule by voting “yes” on the referendum.

As the essay attached to this post notes, the Greeks are left with two options. One of them is bad; the other is worse.

 

national news

Two memories: distinct yet related come to mind

Once in the bluest of moons strange thoughts cross my mind, involving distinctly different memories but which somehow — oddly — are tied together in my heart and mind.

My late grandmother and my hometown newspaper have come to my mind this evening.

I got word today that The Oregonian is going to shut down its presses, darkening the production operation in downtown Portland, the city of my birth and where I came of age. It makes me sad.

And on July 4, tomorrow, I will mark the 37th year since my beloved grandmother, Diamontoula Filipu, passed away. She died on the Fourth of July. I think of her almost daily. I think of her on Independence Day because Yiayia, as we called her, was a great American, a loving matriarch, the best cook who ever lived and was a proud American. She chose to live in the United States and never took for granted — not for an instant — the blessings she accrued when she moved here from Turkey not long after the turn of the 20th century.

My wife told me that Yiayia likely timed her passing just to be sure that we’d remember it. Boy, do we ever.

OK, so how are these two things related?

Here goes.

My wife and I hadn’t been married all that long. She was working in the circulation department on the ground floor of The Oregonian building. We had produced one son already; he was about a year old. Then we learned we were pregnant again.

With this news fresh in our minds — and with little time to inform anyone of it — my wife went to work one morning and told a colleague of hers about our big news. Well, it turns out that her friend’s grandmother was a good friend of Yiayia’s. This friend, apparently, told his grandmother later that morning in a phone call. Her colleague’s grandmother than reportedly called Yiayia to congratulate her on becoming a great-grandmother again.

One issue, though, arose: Yiayia didn’t know about it until her friend told her.

Later that evening, my wife and I walked into our little rental house. The phone rang. It was Yiayia.

She was “mad” that we didn’t tell her first about our big news. She proceeded to “scold” me, telling that she had to be kept informed before anyone else when the news involves something so huge as the impending birth of a new family member.

She then laughed and told me she loved me.

That was Yiayia. Was she a busy-body? Sure. But old-country women are entitled

It might be a stretch to combine these two memories, but they’re in my heart tonight as I think of a longstanding tradition in my hometown going away — and of one of the many happy remembrances I have of my beloved Yiayia.

I miss her every day.

Uncategorized

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.