Tag Archives: Amarillo

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City needs careful animal monitoring

Human beings are suckers when it comes to certain forms four-legged creatures.

I’m talking about domestic cats and dogs. Many of them end up at the city-run and publicly financed animal shelter where, sadly, they are euthanized. They need to leave this world as painlessly as possible. When they suffer needlessly, humans get their dander up.

Two key administrators have been put on leave because of allegations of mistreatment of animals at the city’s animal shelter. The Randall County Criminal District Attorney’s Office is deciding whether to recommend indicting them for breaking the law. Meanwhile, the city has taken steps to end what it acknowledges has been shabby — and potentially cruel — treatment of animals.

I don’t know where this case will end up, but the city has been caught in another large dose of bad publicity over the way it handles the public’s business.

What gives at City Hall?

The City Council has approved measures designed to euthanize unclaimed animals humanely. The city had been doing the deed without weighing the animals to determine the right dosage of drugs to put animals down. The result reportedly has been some animals have died in agonizing fashion. A veterinarian will be present during all euthanasia procedures.

What will happen to Animal Control Director Mike McGee and his chief assistant, Shannon Barlow, who’ve been placed on administrative leave? Well, if it were up to me, I don’t believe they should return to their jobs. The Animal Control Shelter has been exposed for incompetence under their watch and it would appear that it’s time for the city to clean out the top of the shelter’s chain of command.

The city has been the subject of some snickering in recent times. It went through that silly logo kerfuffle in which the city adopted a logo that was a virtual copy of a logo in use by another entity; it had hired a traffic engineer, only to learn he had been in trouble at a previous post.

Now comes news of difficulty at the Animal Control Shelter. Amarillo Humane Society acting president Carry Baker expressed “outrage” at the treatment of the animals and said the organization might seek an injunction to prevent euthanizing animals. Tom Riney, a lawyer representing the local Humane Society, called for top-level management changes to ensure the cruelty ends at the shelter.

This mess needs cleaning up in a major hurry.

I’m beginning to sense a major public-relations campaign aimed at educating Amarillo’s human population on how to care for its pets is in order.

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Text ban is no intrusion

If the 2015 Texas Legislature goes through with reports that it will consider a statewide ban on texting, we’re bound to hear from the righteous among us about the state’s intrusion into motorists’ personal liberties.

Let’s ponder that one for a moment.

* The state requires everyone in a motor vehicle to wear safety belts. That means passengers in the front seat and the rear seat. You have to buckle up, or else.

* Texas also requires children of a certain age or younger to be strapped into an approved motor vehicle safety restraint carrier. That, of course, is the responsibility of the parent or the adult who’s driving the motor vehicle to ensure that the child is strapped in properly. Again, do it or else.

* The state has banned the carrying open containers of alcoholic beverages in your motor vehicle. No more tossing those empty beer cans into the back of your truck, Bubba. You got that?

Does anyone gripe about intrusion regarding those particular laws? If so, they do it under their breath.

But we’ll hear from those who believe — wrongly, in my view — that these texting bans or prohibitions on the use of handheld communications devices will take away one more right of motorists to communicate with loved ones.

Gov. Rick Perry vetoed a texting ban bill passed by the 2011 Legislature, saying that it was too, um, intrusive. The good news is that he’ll be out of office when the next Legislature convenes. I hope the new governor has better sense than the soon-to-be former one.

Cities have enacted the bans. Amarillo is one of them. Enforcing it has been problematic, to say the least, given what many of us have noticed already — which is that motorists can still be seen texting and driving at the same time.

Still, the legislation is worth considering and enacting.

Do it, legislators!

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Still waiting for some breaking of ground

Downtown Amarillo’s renovation is proceeding at a snail’s pace.

A couple of things have happened in recent days that give me hope that something might be about to move the city forward.

The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation signed off on the relocation of the Coca-Cola distributing plant from downtown to the business park near Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport. That move had been stymied when it was learned that the place where the Coca-Cola center would relocate was structurally deficient. The repairs have been made and the deal is done.

Then came news this week that West Texas A&M University’s downtown “campus” is moving from the Chase Tower to the Commerce Building two blocks south on Tyler Street. WT will vacate two floors in the 31-story tower, which I’m sure will be gobbled up by someone seeking some prime office space downtown.

I don’t mean to sound impatient, though. I keep wondering when the big stuff is going to start taking shape. I’m talking about the planned parking garage, construction of a new downtown hotel and the building of that sports/activities venue, aka the baseball park.

Friends and acquaintances closely associated with the project tell me the city is being extra-careful, ensuring that all the hoops are cleared adequately and that no legal hurdles will stand in the way of the projects getting done.

Yes, the city has seen progress. The Potter County Courthouse complex is done, and the square looks fabulous. The city has rebuilt some pedestrian crossings, making them a lot more attractive. Some new businesses have opened up downtown. The district has a business hotel in the historic Fisk Building. All of that is positive news. However, the Barfield Building continues to rot, as does the location across the street from the Santa Fe Building, not to mention the Herring Hotel site.

The development firm the city hired to ramrod the project says private investment money will foot the entire bill of the first phase. No tax money is involved, which should please the anti-tax activists who had said they opposed any public funds being spent on what they consider to be a boondoggle.

Some of the rest of us, though, are waiting for something significant to start happening now that the fanfare has subsided.

Patience is important. It’s also a finite resource.

Well?

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Is it me or is the air getting dirtier?

My memory is pretty good on a number of levels. I remember phone numbers, physical addresses, people’s names (most of the time) and usually trivial numbers, such as family members’ Social Security numbers, my wife’s driver’s license number and, of course, my U.S. Army service ID number issued to me in August 1968.

I also am able to remember weather conditions over the long term.

Today’s latest wind/dirt storm that blew in over Amarillo reminded me of something: I do not remember in my more than 19 years living in the Texas Panhandle a spring that was so windy, dusty and downright unpleasant.

Am I imagining this or is it for real?

I’ll plead for help on this one.

Today was the third significant wind/dirt storm in the past three or four weeks. I was having lunch today on the 31st floor of the Chase Tower in downtown Amarillo when I looked out the window and saw the brown cloud rolling in. I looked away and then peeked back out the window a moment or two later; the view of the city was hidden by the dirt cloud.

My memory isn’t of the steel-trap variety, but it seems to be reliable almost all the time. I just don’t remember springs quite like this one. We’ve lived here since early 1995 and we’ve seen all kinds of weather: 20-inch snow deposit in a 24-hour span, 111-degree heat in the summer, frog-strangling downpours, sleet, heavy wind … you name it.

Is the climate changing on the High Plains, as it is reportedly doing in so many other parts of the world? OK, I won’t get into the cause of it here. Suffice to say that, to my eyes, it seems as if we’re windier than usual. We’re darn sure dustier than usual, which no doubt is the result of that crippling drought from which we have yet to emerge. A lot more moisture would dampen the dirt enough to prevent it from flying in the wind.

The local TV weather folks are telling us the precipitation forecast for the weekend is looking more promising all the time. I’ll believe it when I see it. When I do, I’m likely to strip off my shirt and stand out there, arms spread, a la Tim Robbins in “Shawshank Redemption.”

Enough of the wind … and the dirt. OK?

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Visit the Panhandle? Not on this tour, Leticia

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http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/files/2014/03/VDP-bus-tour.jpg

OK, kids. Take a good look at the picture attached here.

It lines out Democratic Texas lieutenant governor nominee Leticia Van de Putte’s upcoming tour of Texas.

I noticed a major Texas city is missing from that itinerary. It’s Amarillo.

But in a message to supporters, Van de Putte, a Democratic state senator from San Antonio, said this: “It’s a big responsibility in a big state, and I know I’m up to the challenge. I’ll travel more than 2,500 miles – from the vibrant Rio Grande Valley and border region to the vast high plains of the Panhandle to the Gulf Coast before ending up in the shadow of our state capitol dome – to see, hear, and experience firsthand all the things that make Texas so exceptional.”

“To the vast high plains of the Panhandle,” she writes.

Well, as I look at the itinerary posted on the picture, the closest city to the Panhandle is Lubbock, which is 120 miles south of Amarillo in what’s called the “South Plains” region.

http://blog.mysanantonio.com/texas-politics/2014/03/van-de-putte-announces-statewide-bus-tour/

The blog posted on mysanantonio.com notes that Van de Putte is going to see virtually the entire state on her bus tour. “Virtually” is the key word here. She ain’t coming to the Panhandle.

I do hope the Democratic lieutenant governor nominee can find her way here … eventually.

For now, she needs to re-learn to locate region that comprises the “vast high plains of the Panhandle.”

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Houston leads way … in recycling

Recycling hasn’t yet reached way-of-life status in Texas.

Too bad. It should, given all the material we waste every hour each day. It costs lots of money to make containers from scratch; it costs a lot of trees to make all that paper that ends up in the trash bin.

Enter, Texas’s largest city, Houston, which is considering a plan to increase dramatically its recycling program.

Houston, we may have a solution.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/03/21/houstons-bold-controversial-recycling-plan/

Houston might start doing away with the program that requires residents and business owners to separate their recyclable material. The idea is to just toss all the recyclable stuff into a single bin and let the city pick it up and sort it out. The plan is going to cost millions of dollars to implement, according to the Texas Tribune. It also carries some risk to the employees hired to sort the material, some of which might contain hazardous material, such as chemical-based liquids.

Houston was awarded a $1 million grant from a foundation created by former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. That was the prize for the city’s bold new recycling plan. Some environmentalists are concerned, according to the Tribune, that a non-sorting program might discourage residents from considering what they’re tossing aside.

Houston’s population of more than 2.2 million residents hasn’t yet gotten the recycling bug. Only a small percentage of residents recycle there. The idea under consideration is intended to boost that number significantly. Austin — one of the few hotbeds of environmental awareness in Texas — only registers a 24 percent recycling rate among its 800,000 residents, the Tribune reports.

What about Amarillo? Pardon me for laughing, but we aren’t in the game. The city used to have Dumpsters stationed around town for folks to toss paper. The city gave up on that program because officials had grown tired of people tossing non-recyclable trash into the containers. It wasn’t worth their time or trouble to maintain the program. So, the Dumpsters were removed.

Beaumont, where I used to live, had a pretty good curbside recycling program years ago. Residents would put plastic and aluminum containers into a bin, along with newsprint. The recycling truck would pick it up outside of your home and send it off to be recycled. The program didn’t last, but it was worth the proverbial college try.

I’m hopeful Houston can pull this new no-sort program off.

It might be quite an irony that a city with no zoning laws and some of the worst air quality in the Western Hemisphere could develop a solid waste recycling program that saves energy, trees and creates a little bit of efficiency in an otherwise wasteful world.

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'Potty water' on tap next?

Eternal gratitude is what I am feeling at the moment that Amarillo isn’t in Wichita Falls’s straits regarding the availability of potable water.

However, as I read the story attached to this blog post, I am wondering if the day will arrive when Amarillo must do what Wichita Falls is about to attempt: treat sewage into drinkable water.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/03/14/5650516/dry-wichita-falls-to-try-drinking.html?rh=1

The thought is repugnant at so many levels. Wichita Falls, though, finds itself with few options but to recycle effluent into potable water.

The city of 104,000 residents has conserved water to keep from entering this next phase. Those conservation efforts, while they have helped tremendously, still aren’t enough. The city plans now to recapture 5 million gallons of wastewater it now is discharging each day into the Red River. It will treat it and reuse it.

The city will treat the wastewater and blend it with reservoir water. Big Spring is doing something similar, producing a blend of water that contains a 20-percent wastewater content. Wichita Falls will do a 50-50 blend of wastewater and reservoir water.

How has Wichita Falls’s population reacted to this idea? Not so great at first, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, which reported: “Residents of the city … about 100 miles northwest of Fort Worth, were initially hesitant about drinking ‘potty water or toilet water,’ but they’ve realized it is one of the few alternatives left until the drought breaks, said city spokesman Barry Levy.

Until the drought breaks.

Therein lies some hope for all of us caught in this miserable weather cycle. There remains the promise that eventually — hopefully while we’re still alive to see it — the weather patterns will return to something approaching historically normal patterns. That means heavy downpours in the spring and early summer that should refill surface water reservoirs, replenish our aquifer and remove the incentive to use groundwater to irrigate our property.

I normally would be all for full disclosure of what my government is doing on our behalf. I’m not so sure that I would want to know if I’m drinking water that’s been flushed down my toilet.

As many wise men and women have said over many centuries: You gotta do what you gotta do.

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Whatever became of graffiti war?

Paul Harpole became Amarillo’s mayor in 2011 pledging, among other things, to rid the city of graffiti.

He made something of a splash early in his first term as mayor, taking inventories of buildings that had been “tagged” by individuals and/or groups. There was some public discussion about a local lawyer’s property being used — with his permission — as a place where young people could spray-paint their symbols.

Then? I believe the public discussion has fallen mostly silent.

I’ve heard nary a sound from the mayor, from City Hall administrators, from other members of the City Council, from the cops, prosecutors, property owners, nothing.

Is the graffiti problem as bad as it was when Harpole became mayor? Is it worse? Has it gotten so much better that Harpole has declared victory?

Beats me.

The mayor took me on a tour of problem areas around the city. One area is right next to the Plemon-Eakle Historic Neighborhood, which isn’t too far from the tony Wolflin area where many of the city’s old-money elite residents live. He talked about how the city deals with this form of vandalism, how it must get the property owner to clean the mess. He mentioned how complex this process can get at times.

I’ll acknowledge that I don’t frequent very often some of the tougher neighborhoods in town where this kind of activity goes on. Thus, I’m no expert on graffiti. I did attend a day-long seminar recently at Amarillo College’s West Campus that dealt with gang issues in Amarillo. The police officer who led the discussion, Cpl. Steve Powers, displayed plenty of graffiti to those in the audience showing the various identifying marks of gangs that operate around town.

I’m curious as to whether I’ve missed something about the mayor’s war on graffiti.

Did he win? Has he given up?

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LBJ was the toughest of the tough guys

A friend and I were visiting the other day about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s troubles over the bridge lane-closing fiasco.

Some of Christie’s critics have called him a bully. “I have a three-word answer to that,” my friend said. “Lyndon Baines Johnson.”

Agreed. Ol’ Lyndon was tough, vengeful, mean, coarse, profane … and whatever else you want to say about someone who knows how to exact painful revenge. I think my friend’s point is that LBJ makes Christie look like a piker in the bully department.

Then another friend wandered into my workplace the other day, Rick Crawford, a former Republican state representative who now sells commercial real estate in Amarillo. Crawford’s been around the political pea patch for longer than many folks. He grew up here, knows the lay of the land, knows many big hitters.

As we talked, the conversation turned to Lyndon Johnson. Crawford made a remark about LBJ’s decision to close the Amarillo Air Force Base in the late 1960s. He repeated something I have heard ever since I arrived here in January 1995, that Johnson closed the base because he “hated the Panhandle” and because the region voted for Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential election, which LBJ won in a landslide.

Whoa. Not quite. I reminded my friend of something he admitted not knowing. It was that of the 26 counties comprising the Texas Panhandle, Goldwater won majorities in eight of them. And, I noted, Potter County — which is where the air base was located — voted for Lyndon Johnson.

So the question has lingered for nearly 50 years: Did Lyndon Johnson act out of spite or did he make a strategic decision based on a needs assessment given to him by the Pentagon?

Crawford and I talked about LBJ’s friends here who have insisted the president acted nobly. I have concluded that the LBJ-hates-Amarillo reason for closing the base has evolved into urban legend. It’s one of those things no one can prove, given that I am quite sure no one living in the Panhandle was in the room — the Oval Office, the Situation Room, the White House kitchen, wherever — when Johnson made that fateful decision.

The story, as it’s been told and retold over many decades since — and with embellishments added along the way — does illustrate President Johnson’s toughness.

I don’t doubt he was one mean SOB. I’ve read enough accounts over the years about how he treated those around him. I’ve heard many stories of how he could bully lawmakers into voting the way he wanted them to vote on legislation. I know all that.

However, I’m waiting for someone to prove he nearly destroyed the economy of a region in his home state just because a portion of it voted for the other guy in a presidential election.

Oh, but yes. Lyndon Baines Johnson was a whole lot more of a bully than Chris Christie ever thought of being.

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LBJ could play hardball with the best of ’em

Ezra Klein is too young to remember President Lyndon Johnson, which doesn’t diminish one bit the young man’s brilliance.

His recent in Bloomberg View compares LBJ’s legendary bullying with what’s being alleged against New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who’s still trying to put the “Bridgegate” hoo-ha behind him. Good luck with that, governor.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-22/pining-for-lbj-we-got-christie.html

Klein refers to Robert Caro’s biography of the 36th president:

“In the fourth volume of Caro’s biography, he tells the story of Margaret Mayer, a Dallas Times Herald reporter who was investigating the television station LBJ owned. Johnson had his aides call Mayer’s bosses and let slip that if Mayer kept investigating Johnson’s business, Johnson might sic the Federal Communications Commission on the Dallas Times Herald’s businesses — which included TV and radio stations. Mayer’s bosses got the message. Her investigation was quickly terminated.

“That, however, was an example of LBJ’s lighter touch. According to another story Caro recounts, Johnson had long been irritated by the coverage of Bascom Timmons, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s chief Washington correspondent. So he called the paper’s owner, Amon Carter Jr., and told him that it’d be a shame — just a shame — if the Fort Worth Army Depot ended up getting closed. Even worse, what if the Carswell Air Force Base were shuttered, too? Then there was the Trinity River Navigation Project, which would make the river navigable from its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico all the way to the Dallas-Fort Worth area. All these projects meant jobs, development, and, ultimately, readers and advertisers for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.”

That should remind long-time Amarillo residents of a darker time in the Texas Panhandle, when the Pentagon closed the Amarillo Air Force Base reportedly in retaliation for the political support Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater showed in this part of the state in the 1964 presidential election. Legend has it that LBJ — who allegedly hated the Panhandle — just shut the base down in a fit of pique. His friends here — and he had a few of them — deny any such motivation.

Whatever the president’s motives, he acted decisively. Amarillo took a huge punch in the gut, but has survived and has flourished in the decades since.

Old Lyndon, though, knew how to play tough.