I’ve been yapping and yammering for a year about all the “change” that arrived at Amarillo City Hall with the election of three new City Council members.

Some of it has been good. Some, well, not so good.

I want to address one of the “good” changes that is developing as I write this brief blog post.

Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has laid out the case for the city to ask its residents — the bosses, if you will — this question: How much are you willing to pay for some critical infrastructure needs?

He spoke to Panhandle PBS on Thursday night in a “Live Here” segment that, to my ears, illustrates a fundamental shift in the city’s approach to applying good government.

Here’s the interview:

http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365817588/

Amarillo has long boasted about its low municipal property tax rate. It’s the lowest of any city “of significance” in Texas, Childers said. The issue, though, is that it’s not enough to take care of those capital needs and “maintenance and operation” the city must meet.

Childers talked about the need to repair and replace roads, sewer lines and to modernize the Civic Center. How is the city going to do that? It has to ask the residents to pony up the dough.

There might be a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-cent increase in the municipal property tax rate. Each penny of increase in the amount per $100 assessed property valuation will enable the city to borrow funds to pay for the improvements.

Given that the city is virtually debt free, Childers seems to suggest that the time has come to ask for residents for some help in paying for these needs.

Amarillo already is undergoing a serious makeover of its downtown district. There’s already been some public commitment, but the bulk of the money is coming from private investors. Very soon, the city will start knocking down the old Coca-Cola distribution center to make room for that multipurpose event venue. I remain delighted to see the changes that have occurred already downtown — and await eagerly the changes that are about to come.

But the city needs to do a lot of work to fix its streets, sewer lines and other infrastructure amenities that we all need.

Childers is making a strong case for those needs.