Terry Childers speaks like a man with no burdens to bear regarding the city government he is administering.
Karen Welch of Panhandle PBS askedĀ him whether Amarllo is having difficulty finding a permanent city manager to succeed Childers — the interim manager. He provided a spot-on answer during the “Live Here” segment.
The city needs to get past its next City Council election next May, when all five members of the council seats will be contested. It’s a quirk in the city charter, I suppose, that puts all five council members on the ballot at the same time. Who would want to take the city manager’s job knowing that after the next election, the city could have a new council — which then might want to replace the city manager? Childers asked.
Ba-da-boom!
Then he launched into what he called the “caustic” environment that has pervaded City Hall since the latest election, in May 2015.
City Council members have attacked each other’s motives, their political outlook, their integrity, Childers said. Those who run City Hall need to “put Amarillo first,” he said,Ā and dispense with the pettiness and petulance that has too often guided the public discussion.
He also took a clear-and-present shot at the Amarillo Globe-News, which he accused of “assassinating people’s character.” He asked, who would want to be subjected to that?
What he didn’t say in the interview, but which is surely implied, is that city manager candidates do not want to walk into that sausage grinder.
Childers is going to stay on the job for another few months. He told Welch he has “no interest” in becoming the permanent manager. I believe him. He wants to go back home and get on with the rest of his life.
He talks about that environment at about the 20-minute mark of the attached video link.
http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365817588/
City government has been a significantly less harmonious organization for the past 15 months than it has been for, oh, the past several decades. The interim manager, though, was careful to tell Welch that he works with five “wonderful” council members who disagree with each other and with him. He said he’s fine with that.
If the environment is as “caustic” as the city manager believes it is, well, it’s time for the governing council to look inward and decide whether it really is intent on putting the city’s interestsĀ ahead of its members’ own political agendas.
Thanks for your honesty, Mr. Manager.