Amarillo has a City Council member who appears to enjoy thrusting himself into the spotlight.

Randy Burkett, though, finds curious methods of doing so. He uses social media to sound off on this or that issue. Then, when he takes some heat from residents and even from local media, he tends to lash back at the critics.

I’ll stipulate that I do not know Burkett personally. I have ready plenty about him since he ran for the City Council in 2015 and have been following him at times during his occasionally tumultuous tenure on the council.

He has battled with other council members, namely Mayor Paul Harpole. He has been accused of leaking confidential information from executive council sessions. He has popped off in public.

This latest social media incident, though, seems a bit different. He got into a public fight on Facebook by criticizing a Muslim woman who was wearing a red-white-and-blue head band. Now he’s gone quiet and isn’t speaking to the media.

A silly aspect of this latest dust-up is the criticism leveled at Burkett by the Amarillo Globe-News, which endorsed him for election to the council in 2015. I am beginning to think the G-N might regret its decision to back the councilman’s candidacy.

The Globe-News editorialized today about Burkett’s latest social media tempest. It has scolded him for failing to provide proof that “‘law enforcement authorities’ are investigating threats related to the aforementioned social media exchange.”

I just want to offer this admonishment to Councilman Burkett.

Don’t use social media to spout off in this manner. It is unbecoming of an elected municipal official, someone who represents an entire city of nearly 200,000 residents. All five of these council members serve as de facto ambassadors for the city. Thus, the things they post on social media outlets carries a certain imprimatur that other folks — like, say, yours truly — don’t have.

I realize in this peculiar political climate — exemplified by the election of Donald J. Trump as president of the United States — has emboldened politicians at all levels to “tell it like it is” using social media. The president himself has used Twitter with devastating — and sometimes embarrassing — effect.

Just because POTUS can act like a buffoon at times on social media doesn’t give other politicians license to do the same thing.