Tag Archives: Amarillo City Council

local news

Manager gets strong statement of support

So, the Jared Miller era at Amarillo City Hall is off to a rousing start.

The City Council has voted unanimously to hire Miller as the next city manager. I am heartened by this news. I do not harbor concerns that the new manager has nowhere to go but down after this.

It’s been a rocky time at City Hall. Two city managers have quit under duress. The first one to go, Jarrett Atkinson, couldn’t work with the new council majority; the second one to split, interim manager Terry Childers, couldn’t control his big mouth and resigned after cursing at a constituent.

I’m going to hope now for a smooth transition — which is kind of in the news these days, you know — as Miller gets set to grasp the reins of municipal government.

City Hall is in dire need of some stability.

Not only did Atkinson quit, but a number of key senior staffers bailed about the same time. The city attorney resigned and an assistant city manager retired. A new council member called for the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board to quit. The interim city manager realigned downtown development operations and moved many of the AEDC functions into City Hall departments.

I guess the concern Miller needs to address is how he’s going to calm the occasionally stormy waters at City Hall. I take heart in the unanimous vote by the council, which hasn’t always spoken with a single voice since this council bunch took office in the spring of 2015. The manager needs to know he has council support for the big job that awaits him as he moves from San Marcos to Amarillo.

One more point about the council vote: I am glad that this council acted quickly, rather than waiting — as some have advocated — for the next election. The Amarillo Globe-News editorialized in favor of the council waiting until after the May 6 council election, apparently thinking that a potential wholesale turnover among council members could produce a set of councilors with vastly different priorities.

Nuts! The city charter empowers the current council to act. It chose to move forward. Besides, with just a two-year gap between elections, there’s never a perfect time for an Amarillo City Council to make such a critical hiring decision.

Here we go. The new city manager has unanimous support among the folks who hired him. Let’s get busy, Mr. Manager.

local news, political news

Dismal voter turnout is no sign of satisfaction

I’ve written about this before, but I cannot say it enough.

Amarillo’s history of dismal voter turnouts is no endorsement of how well the city is being run. It’s more basic than that. It just pure apathy. We don’t care.

The city is tracking toward another municipal election. Filing for the five City Council seats has begun. It will end on Feb. 17. My trick knee tells me the ballot will be full, that all five council seats will have multiple candidates vying for election to the governing board that pays its occupants a whopping $10 per public meeting.

I’ve been watching Amarillo’s municipal elections for 22 years. Most of that time was spent as a working journalist, as editorial page editor of the Amarillo Globe-News. I have lamented, scolded and cajoled Amarillo residents to turn out to vote for these races.

Most years residents have ignored my entreaties. I don’t take the rejection personally.

They’ve registered often in the mid to high single-digit percentages. When we put ballot measures up for decision from time to time, the turnout spikes dramatically. My favorite example was the 1996 vote to sell the publicly owned Northwest Texas Hospital to a private health care provider; 22 percent of voters turned out for that one and you’d have thought — listening to city officials — that they’d just discovered a cure for the common cold.

I chose at the time to look a good bit more dimly at the turnout, noting that four out of five voters stayed away from the polls.

My question always has been: Do these dismal turnouts reflect some sort of endorsement of the way City Hall is being run? I don’t believe that’s necessarily the case. I do, though, believe in the human trait to respond more vigorously to negativity than to positivity.

My initial hope for this next election is that, given what I expect to be a ballot full of candidates, the turnout far exceeds what’s become a sad norm in Amarillo. My other hope, of course, is that the election produces victories for the right candidates. I’ll have more to say later on who I think should win.

Today, though, my target is that turnout matter. Historically in this city, it stinks. I want residents to wipe away the odor by voting in large numbers.

Representative democracy works better when more people — not fewer of them — take part.

I’ve noted this, too, before: Why would anyone want to leave the choices for the people who set their property tax rates to someone else? We all have a stake in these local elections and it is incumbent on all of us  to have our voices heard.

local news

Well done, Mr. Mayor … and thank you

Paul Harpole took his share of incoming rounds during his three terms as Amarillo mayor.

I am not going to lob any more of them here. I intend instead to say a word or two of praise for the man who today announced he’s calling it quits. It’s perhaps the least surprising development of this ever-changing city political season.

Harpole’s decision seemed certain the day Ginger Nelson announced her mayoral candidacy, considering Nelson’s chops as an Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board member — a board that has Harpole’s strong support.

Harpole’s tenure as mayor ends as the city’s downtown rebirth continues at a quickening pace. He has been at the forefront of what I consider to be a bold new initiative in reshaping the city’s image and bringing its downtown district back to life.

Have there been hiccups? Oh, yes. Wallace Bajjali, the Houston area-based master developer hired by the city to manage the downtown rebirth went belly-up a couple of years ago. The city, though, survived the tumult that befell other cities that had been tied to the development firm.

But all in all, the city’s effort at downtown rebirth has been a net positive. A new downtown hotel is going up, along with a parking garage; West Texas A&M University is working on a new downtown campus; other developments have come to fruition as well.

Harpole recognized what other city officials in many other successful cities have known: Cities flourish when their downtown districts flourish.

The mayor’s dominant — some say domineering — personality at times has helped result in some testiness with other City Council members. For instance, he has feuded openly at times with Councilman Randy Burkett, one of three new councilors elected in May 2015. The impact has produced negative images for the city and cast doubt among some observers over the council’s ability to govern effectively.

The mayor has overseen the city’s administrative makeover as well. A city manager resigned, the council hired an interim administrator, who then quit and now the council has brought aboard a new permanent manager to run the City Hall machinery.

He was at the helm as the city purchased water rights to secure a stable growth future.

All in all, Paul Harpole’s tenure as mayor has produced many more successes than disappointments, and thus, Amarillo has moved many steps forward in its evolution during Harpole’s time at the municipal helm.

For that, I want to say: Well done, Mr. Mayor.

local news

Quality and quantity of council candidates are improving

The pace is picking up in this election contest for the Amarillo City Council.

Freda Powell has announced her candidacy for the council. She’s a known civic leader, who’s been engaged in matters of public policy for many years.

Mayor Paul Harpole is expected to announce today whether he’ll seek another term. My bet? He’s bowing out. We’re also expected to hear from Place 2 Councilwoman Lisa Blake about whether she plans to run for election to the seat to which she was appointed in 2016 to succeed Brian Eades, who resigned and moved out of town.

This is all quite exciting and it bodes well for the city’s experiment in representative democracy.

I’ve said for years that our system of government — especially at the local level — works best when more, rather than fewer, people get involved. It works best when many candidates step up and voters then get a chance to assess their qualities, their message and their intent.

An even better result is when more, rather than fewer, voters actually go to the polls on Election Day.

As I noted many times while I wrote editorials and columns for newspapers in Texas and Oregon, city hall and the county courthouse is where government’s proverbial rubber hits the road. I’ll make the point again here.

Pundits and political scientists all gauge the level of interest in presidential elections by the turnout. The 2016 contest between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton featured a so-so percentage turnout of eligible voters who actually cast ballots. Why? It’s likely because of the high negative poll ratings both candidates had to bear.

We measure turnout success quite differently at the local level. A turnout of 20 to 30 percent for municipal races in Amarillo is considered a smashing success. I consider it a dismal failure of voters to engage in the policies that have a direct impact on their lives.

We are choosing individuals who will set tax rates and will determine how many cops and firefighters will protect us; they decide on whether our streets should be well-maintained; they determine the cost of our water and sewer service; they vote on whether to improve our parks.

This stuff matters, folks, in a very real, tangible and demonstrable way to all of us.

So … The candidates are lining up to run for City Council. The deadline for filing is Feb. 17. The election occurs on May 6.

We’ve had profoundly important elections before. They have produced dramatic turnover, such as what occurred in the May 2015 election.

My hope now is that as the quality of the field continues to improve along with the quantity that voters, too, will step up and do their civic duty and participate.

local news, political news

Amarillo council ballot is filling up … good deal!

Amarillo voters won’t lack choices when they troop to the polls in May to elect their five-member City Council.

This, I submit, is an early victory for the cause of representative democracy.

Three residents are running for mayor. I’ve got my favorite picked already, but I’m just one voter.

All five council seats are up, as they are every odd-numbered year. This year’s election could produce a unique set of issues for voters to consider.

You’ll recall that two years ago, the prevailing issue appeared to be some grumbling among voters about the performance of the council and the city’s top administrative staff. The anger, to my mind, seemed misplaced. Municipal property taxes remain low, the city is growing, downtown is improving, projects are getting done. But there was anger out there.

Two incumbents got bounced out of office; a third incumbent, who was appointed to fill a seat vacated by the death of Jim Simms, decided not to run for election. So the city welcomed three new guys to the council.

Then the trouble got serious. City Manager Jarrett Atkinson quit; the council picked a combative interim manager, Terry Childers, who quit near the end of 2016; and some of the new guys squabbled openly with Mayor Paul Harpole.

Ugghh!

Now the new guys’ seats are on the ballot. Another incumbent who was re-elected in 2015 resigned his seat. The council chose Lisa Blake to succeed Brian Eades. Blake says she’s undecided about running for election. I hope she runs.

As for Harpole, he says he’ll announce soon his intention. I quite sure he’s going to pack it in to pave the way for someone else.

I’m anticipating a full municipal ballot for voters to consider on May 6. That’s how it should be.

As for the issues that voters might have to ponder, they likely will include the occasional flare-ups that occur among certain council members. Is it good for the city for its elected council members to bicker as they have done from time to time? What about the most recent dust-up involving the mayor and someone on the council who allegedly “leaked” information from an executive session to the media?

This kind of open sparring has been rare, indeed, on Amarillo’s governing board.

Municipal governance has become a contact sport at times. I’m going to bet that harmony vs. conflict is going to become one of the issues that candidates will get to discuss among themselves.

Ah, yes. Choices. Won’t this election be fun?

local news

Memo to council: let the city manager … manage!

Jared Miller is walking into either the job of his dreams or … of his worst nightmare.

Amarillo’s newly named city manager is inheriting a big job. I wish him all the very best as he takes administrative command of a $300 million annual budget and a payroll of more than 2,000 public servants.

They all work for us — you and me. So, in fact, do the five individuals who hired Miller to become the next city manager.

But here’s the deal: The City Council has been thought by some around the city to be a meddlesome bunch at times.

I spoke the other day to a former city staffer who left recently to take another job. The staffer and I were talking about the five finalists who were competing for the manager’s job. I got the question: “What do you think of them?” I responded I thought they all were fine candidates and that any one of them would do a good job as city manager.

“If they’ll let him manage,” came the response from my friend.

I have no personal knowledge of this, but I have heard the whispers, gripes and some chatter around Amarillo about alleged meddling by council members in staffers’ activities. If it’s true, it cannot continue.

Amarillo’s strong-manager form of government entrusts the city manager with tremendous administrative authority. He hires all the department heads: police and fire chiefs, assistant city managers, city attorneys and so on. His job is to oversee every single aspect of the city’s governing mechanism.

The manager also is obligated to follow policy set by the City Council. Setting policy is where council members’ involvement ends, except to field concerns from constituents they encounter at the grocery store, PTA meetings, in houses of worship and perhaps across the back fence.

Then the proper reaction to those concerns would be to refer the complainer to the appropriate department head or perhaps to the city manager.

The new city manager is stepping into a post that has been the subject of considerable controversy since the May 2015 municipal election that brought us three new council members.

City Manager Jarrett Atkinson quit more than a year ago. The council hired an interim manager, Terry Childers, who promptly got entangled in a public relations nightmare of his own involving the emergency communications center; then he quit in late 2016 after calling a constituent a profane name.

City Hall hasn’t exactly been a peaceful and tranquil place.

This is the environment that awaits Jared Miller.

I am confident the new city manager will succeed … if the City Council lets him do his job.

business news, local news

Downtown dining district taking shape

Some interesting news is coming forth about downtown Amarillo’s future … which coincides nicely with the City Council’s decision to hire a new city manager.

The two things aren’t necessarily related directly, but City Hall’s new top hand — Jared Miller — is going to oversee a development that holds tremendous potential for the city he is about to manage.

They’ve broken ground on a new restaurant at the corner of Seventh Avenue and Polk Street. An established eatery, Crush, is moving across the street.

What does this mean? From what I understand, it moves forward the development of what’s been called in recent days a new “dining district” for the city’s downtown area.

We’ve got that brew pub being developed nearby. We’ll see another new structure going in with a couple of other dining establishments also in the immediate area. Napoli’s does business at the corner of Seventh and Taylor.

All the while, work on the Embassy Suites hotel is ongoing next to the parking garage.

What appears to be taking shape, as I see it, is a fundamental remaking of Amarillo’s downtown personality.

My wife and I arrived here in early 1995. To be candid, the downtown district didn’t have any kind of identity that either of us could recognize. Polk Street was in a moribund state. The Santa Fe Building sat empty at the corner of Ninth and Polk; that structure’s fortunes changed dramatically later that year when Potter County purchased it for a song and rehabbed it into a first-class office complex.

Now, though, the city is going through an extreme makeover.

Think of it: Embassy Suites will open soon; Xcel Energy is finishing work on its new office complex; that parking garage will open as well; West Texas A&M University is tearing the daylights out of the old Commerce Building to transform it into a new downtown Amarillo campus; this new dining district is now beginning to take some form.

Oh, and we’ve also cleared out the former Coca-Cola distribution center to make room for a ballpark that many of us want to see built eventually.

It’s not all entirely peachy. Many floors in the 31-story Chase Tower are going dark when Xcel and WT vacate the skyscraper. But I understand that the leasing agents working to re-fill those floors remain highly optimistic that the building will get new life.

The pace of change is a bit mind-boggling. I am prepared to keep watching — and waiting — for it all to bear fruit for the city.

local news

City close to a new manager era

Amarillo appears poised to have a new city manager, perhaps not long after the sun rises Thursday.

It’s going to be one of five men who have answered the call by the Amarillo City Council for someone to become the city’s chief administrator, the go-to guy who will run a city government that answers to 200,000 residents. The council reportedly has tendered an offer to one of the men.

I’ve been thinking a bit about who the city should choose. I’ve come to a conclusion that involves one of the applicants: If the council doesn’t choose current interim City Manager Bob Cowell, then it’s my hope that Cowell remains part of the city’s top municipal management team.

I don’t know Bob Cowell, who came on board after I resigned my job at the Amarillo Globe-News.

All five of the candidates appear to have solid experience and backgrounds in municipal and county government. Any one of them — from what I’ve read about them through the media — would be good picks.

Why focus on Cowell? As someone with intimate knowledge of city government told me Monday night at the meet-and-greet session with the five candidates at the Civic Center, City Hall has a number of key positions to fill. A lot of top hands have left the city as a result of the tumult that has occurred at Seventh and Buchanan.

If the council has chosen Cowell to be the top man, then he would step in with a substantial bit of what’s commonly called “institutional knowledge.” He knows the lay of the land, the principal players and the direction of the political winds.

If the council goes with someone else, then perhaps Cowell could be persuaded to stay on as deputy manager, a post he held until assuming the interim job … again, according to my friend with all the knowledge of city government and politics. Cowell’s knowledge of the local landscape would be a valuable asset to whomever takes over as City Hall’s top hand.

So, with that … we shall see who the council picks. It’s a major decision that will have tremendous impact on those of us who live here and depend on the city serving our needs.

local news

City Council gets an ‘A’ for effort

I’m going to assign the Amarillo City Council a letter grade for its attempt to present five qualified city manager candidates seeking to become the individual chosen to manage City Hall’s complex government machinery.

That would be an “A.” For effort. The council brought the five individuals out tonight to a meet-and-greet reception at the Civic Center’s Heritage Room. My best guess on the number of folks who attended? About 120.

As for the community’s response to the council’s outreach effort, let’s lower our sights. I’ll give the rest of Amarillo a “C+.”

You see, I didn’t notice a lot of, oh, “regular folks” at tonight’s reception. I didn’t recognize any auto mechanics, grocery store clerks, shoe salespeople, fast-food restaurant managers, beef processing plant employees … well, you get the idea.

I did see some lawyers, some folks involved with local government in some form or fashion; I noticed one well-heeled residential and commercial developer; I shook the hands of some City Council candidates; I noticed one Potter County commissioner and another former county commissioner; and a retired college administrator.

My wish as I drove downtown tonight to attend this reception was to see a larger representation of the community at-large. Those who didn’t attend missed an interesting and engaging interaction with the five men the council is considering for the city manager’s job.

This is a huge deal, folks. The city manager will be asked — according to a friend who’s fairly familiar with the atmospherics at City Hall — to “fill a lot of holes.” A lot of key personnel have departed City Hall in recent months, given all the turmoil that’s erupted there — with the resignation of City Manager Jarrett Atkinson and several key senior staff associates and then the sudden departure just a few weeks ago of the interim manager, Terry Childers.

The next manager will have to oversee a budget of several hundred million dollars. He will have to manage the progress of downtown’s extreme makeover. He’ll have to figure out how to implement the expenditure of money to repair and rehabilitates streets.

The city manager will become the face and the voice of the city’s administration. He will have tremendous responsibility to serve a city of 200,000 souls who depend on the city to deliver services paid for with taxpayers’ money.

If only more of the community had come out tonight to get an up-close look at the men vying for this critical job.

The City Council is now faced with the kind of “headache” elected governing bodies always seek. It gets to choose from among five competent, experienced and seasoned municipal and county administrators.

A little birdie told me tonight the decision could come quickly.

I encouraged one of the council members tonight only to “choose well.” He smiled.

local news

City did well in casting its manager search net

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Amarillo City Council members will have a difficult choice to make soon.

It’s a difficulty made possible for the correct reasons.

Amarillo council members looked across the nation for someone to become its city manager and has come up with a strong field of finalists. One of them, interim City Manager Bob Cowell, is among the five men the council will consider for the job.

I want to offer a brief analysis on a couple of fronts.

The first is that I’ve long believed that local governments shouldn’t restrict their search options, particularly when the search involves finding someone to do as critical a job as administer the operations of a government that serves 200,000 residents and spends about $300 million annually to serve those constituents.

Back when I worked for the Amarillo Globe-News as editorial page editor, we urged the city to cast a wide net as it looked for a successor to former City Manager John Ward. The city instead looked inward and promoted Alan Taylor to the top job. The paper was critical of the choice … but the paper’s criticism had nothing to do with Taylor’s ability. The G-N merely thought that the city would have served itself better by collecting a large field of qualified candidates and then have Taylor compete against them for the job he would get.

Taylor took the criticism personally and I regret that to this day;  I told him repeatedly that it was never about him or his skill set. He did well in the job.

The city looked inward again when it promoted Jarrett Atkinson to the manager’s post after Taylor retired. The G-N argued again for a national search. You know my feelings already about Atkinson and the job he did. I am sorry he couldn’t work with the new City Council majority, but I also am delighted that he has scored a new gig as Lubbock city manager.

Here we are again. All the finalists have municipal and/or county government experience. Some of them are Texans, which bodes well for someone who must be familiar with our state’s own municipal codes.

If the council chooses Cowell — who knows the city’s unique political landscape — that would be fine, too. He will have been asked to rise to the challenge of competing against four other qualified men for the top job.

The second point is the timing of this appointment. The Globe-News believes the current council should give way to the next one, which will take office after the May 6 election. I disagree with that notion, just as I disagreed with U.S. Senate Republicans’ insistence that President Obama’s pick for the U.S. Supreme Court be denied a hearing and a vote because the president also was a lame duck.

In the case of the city, all five of these individuals stand for election every two years. At what point — given that brief time span — are these council members not facing potential lame-duck status?

The city charter gives the council the authority to act in its own time to deliver the only hiring decision it is empowered to make. If there is a concern that the council could change hands — as it did in May 2015 — then council members need to ask all the finalists how they would handle a potential change of political philosophy on the governing body. That seems like a direct question and it requires candor and honesty from the city manager candidates.

The city has gone too long already without a permanent city manager. Let these individuals make the call.

Good luck, council members. Study hard and be damn certain you get this one right.