Tag Archives: Amarillo City Hall

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Will the city ever finish its bike-trail network?

Amarillo parks officials some years ago drafted a plan to create a citywide network of bicycle paths.

The network’s aim was to connect every corner of the city, enabling residents to get from any point in Amarillo aboard a bicycle. The city Parks and Recreation Department set aside some bike lanes. I’ve seen a few of them near my neighborhood. The trouble is, though, is that they don’t seem to go anywhere.

The then-parks director, Larry Offerdahl, retired. Rod Tweet succeeded him. I spoke once with Tweet while on assignment for KFDA-NewsChannel 10, talked to him about the future of the bike paths and the network. I recall him assuring me that it would get finished — eventually.

I don’t know when “eventually” will arrive, but I feel as though it’s time to offer this hope for the City Council campaign that is drawing to a close. The hope is that the candidates for all five council seats will pledge to make the bike network a greater priority than it has been for the past several years.

City voters rejected a parks improvement referendum in 2016, telling the city they didn’t want to spend money to improve the park and recreation offerings.

I consider the bike trails a seriously valuable asset to the city’s quality of life. My wish for years has been that the city could lure people out of the cars and allow them to ride non-motorist transport vehicles — such as bicycles — to wherever they need to go.

I recognize our love affair with motor vehicles. My wife and I own two of them: one of them — a hybrid — primarily for city use, the other primarily for use as a vehicle to tow our fifth wheel RV.

Amarillo started work on this bicycle network. Tweet and Offerdahl both made its aim crystal clear: They intended to provide a safe and enjoyable way for bicyclists get anywhere in Amarillo.

As near as I can tell, the network isn’t finished. It’s far from finished. I believe there needs to be a serious push from the City Council to get the job done.

local news, political news

Hoping, as always, for a big voter turnout

I spent most of my nearly 37 years in daily journalism as an opinion writer and editor and as such, I spent a lot of energy exhorting residents of the communities where I worked to vote in local elections.

I implored them. I pleaded with them. I thought of different ways to say the same thing — which was to “get out and vote.”

Each of those efforts produced mixed results. In Oregon City, Ore., in Beaumont, Texas, and in Amarillo, Texas, the calls essentially were the same: The local level is where government makes the greatest impact on your daily lives. Don’t cede the responsibility of picking who you want to sit on your city council, your school board, your county commissioners court to someone else.

Well, we’re on the verge of another municipal election in Amarillo.

This one is guaranteed to produce a significant change in the makeup of the governing council. Three incumbents aren’t seeking new terms. That means the next City Council will comprise a new majority. Mayor Paul Harpole is bowing out; Place 2 Councilwoman Lisa Blake decided against seeking election to the seat to which she was appointed in 2016; Place 3 Councilman Randy Burkett is forgoing a re-election bid for a second term.

A new majority is going to take office after the May 6 election. Not only that, we’ve got a new city manager, Jared Miller, who’s already seized the administrative reins of power. He’s making his own mark on City Hall.

Will this be the year when a healthy percentage of eligible voters actually cast ballots? Oh, I do hope so.

After all, this is where government makes the decisions that affect us. It’s where we pay to pave our streets, provide cops on the beat, firefighters to keep us safe, to ensure clean drinking water, to provide safe and clean parks, to pick up our garbage.

These are important matters, folks.

How about making your voice heard on Election Day? It’s less than one month away. Do not let your neighbors — or total strangers, for that matter — make this decision for you.

local news

Streets becoming major municipal campaign issue

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If I could take aim at a single issue for our municipal candidates to ponder, it would our streets.

Getting from Point A to Point B has become a bit of a struggle at times, even in Amarillo, the city I used to joke had its “rush minute” daily at 8 a.m. and again at 5 p.m. It’s not so funny these days.

I am hearing from one of the candidates for City Council speaking in general terms about street maintenance and — in a related matter — traffic control.

Ginger Nelson is running for mayor along with two other candidates. I’ve already commented on her pledge to work with state transportation officials to negotiate a maintenance agreement to improve and maintain the appearance of the public rights-of-way along Interstate 40 and 27. I’m all for it!

She is speaking also about “considering all transit options like buses and bicycles to meet the needs of citizens.” Good deal. She can start that effort by talking to Parks and Recreation officials about how they can complete a citywide bicycle network that is supposed to enable residents to get anywhere in the city on a bicycle.

I have been patient for many years now as I have sought to navigate my way through the city. Streets get repaved regularly. Crews tear up asphalt on major thoroughfares and put fresh surfaces down. They remain in pristine condition far too briefly before patching crews show up.

Nelson wants to spend “street improvement bond money wisely.” I hope she articulates her definition of “wisely.” I’m all ears.

Finally, she hopes to develop “a plan for long-term maintenance of our streets.”  Good. I’ll await that plan, too.

Street repair and maintenance — along with developing routes for alternative transportation modes — is important at many levels.

We remain tied to automobiles in Amarillo. There’s little emphasis placed on using mass transit methods, such as the buses run by Amarillo City Transit. Maybe we can get more residents into our buses and out of their own motor vehicles. The fewer cars and pickups tooling down our streets, the less wear and tear on the pavement. Isn’t that a sensible outcome?

This election, I need to stipulate once again, is going to be a major event in the history of Amarillo. We’re getting a new City Council majority.

I want all the candidates to talk openly to residents about what they intend to do about our streets, upon which we depend to get from place to place.

One candidate for mayor at least is starting the conversation. For that I am grateful. Let’s develop it further.

local news, political news

Potentially monumental municipal election on tap

Amarillo is less than one month away from what looks like a potentially landmark municipal election.

Think of this for a moment.

Three members of the five-member City Council are not seeking new terms: Mayor Paul Harpole is retiring from public life; Place 2 Councilwoman Lisa Blake won’t seek election for the seat to which she was appointed in 2016; Place 3 Councilman Randy Burkett is forgoing a shot at a second term.

That leaves two council members, Elisha Demerson in Place 1 and Mark Nair in Place 4 seeking re-election to second terms. But get this: They both are facing serious challenges from serious challengers.

That means the entire council could flip on May 6.

Oh, and then there’s another element. The city has a new manager, a new chief administrator, Jared Miller, who was hired by the current council, but who might find himself working for five brand new council members with entirely different priorities.

Don’t get me wrong. The current City Council needed to act when it hired Miller and I applaud council members for moving with relative speed after dawdling for more than a year to find a permanent city manager after Jarrett Atkinson resigned shortly after the 2015 municipal election. They brought in an interim manager, Terry Childers, who right away seemed to be a poor fit, given some temperament issues that surfaced with that silly “Briefcasegate” matter involving his misplaced briefcase and that ridiculous 9-1-1 call in which he berated an emergency dispatcher. Oh, and then he called an Amarillo constituent a “stupid son of a b****”.

B’bye, Mr. Childers.

I’ve got my choices for the City Council. I frankly think a wholesale change in the council’s makeup is in order.

This election would seem to demand a huge turnout at the polls. It should compel a rigorous examination of the candidates and the platforms on which they are running. It should require voters to pay careful attention to each candidate’s views on the direction they want to lead the city.

Amarillo is in the midst of a massive makeover in its downtown district. We still have to get that baseball franchise relocated to Amarillo and to secure a major tenant for that ballpark officials hope to build across the street from City Hall.

I remain optimistic it will occur. The next City Council must ensure the city keeps moving forward.

At minimum we are guaranteed to elect a new majority on our council. A better outcome would be to start with a fresh approach across the board. My choices? Ginger Nelson for mayor; Elaine Hays for Place 1; Freda Powell for Place 2; Eddy Sauer for Place 3; Howard Smith for Place 4.

Are we ready?

local news

Fix the interstate ‘curb appeal’ … please!

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Ginger Nelson’s campaign for Amarillo mayor sent us an item we received in the mail today.

It was a mailer containing a list of some of her top priorities if she wins the mayor’s race on May 6. One of them jumped right off the page; it stuck out like an orange “Road Work Ahead” sign — if you get my drift and I am sure you do.

Nelson pledges to “negotiate an enforceable maintenance agreement with the Texas Department of Transportation to clean up and improve curb appeal along I-40 andI-27.”

Can I hear an “Amen!”?

Interstate right-of-way curb appeal has been a recurring theme of this blog.

My take on it? The freeway interchange stinks! It looks like hell. TxDOT did a lousy job of landscaping it and there’s been next to zero  upkeep on it since the highway department rebuilt the interchange more than a decade ago. I-40 in either direction from the interchange looks shabby as well, as does I-27 southbound toward Loop 335/Hollywood Road.

Thousands of motorists pass through the interchange daily and many of them are passing through, perhaps never to see Amarillo ever again. I’ve long believed that it is important to at least present something of an attractive appearance to those passing through.

That’s not what pass-through motorists are getting when they zip through our city.

How does the mayor “negotiate an enforceable maintenance agreement” with TxDOT? Surely the mayor can find some common ground that somehow splits the cost between the city and the state agency. How about placing a phone call to our neighbors in, say, Albuquerque and Oklahoma City? Have you seen the interchanges in those cities?

I get that improved curb appeal doesn’t necessarily provide for better service to our city. We still have to pay for cops, firefighters, water and sewer service and trash pickup; we still need street lights that work properly and we need parks where we and our children and grandchildren can relax safely.

Interstate highway appearance, though, does matter at some level.

It matters to me, at least. I’d bet real money it matters to other Amarillo residents, too.

The rest of Nelson’s campaign mailer today contained routine boiler plate stuff: creating jobs and cutting red tape. Who doesn’t support all of that?

Improving the looks of this city to those who blast through ought to take a little higher place on the city’s political pecking order.

To that end, I wish Ginger Nelson well in that effort if she becomes our next mayor.

local news

Amarillo Matters hits the streets for its City Council slate

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The doorbell rang this evening.

I went to the door and greeted a young woman who was handing out single-page campaign sheets.

It came from Amarillo Matters, a political action group formed to promote a pro-growth agenda for Amarillo. I’ve written about this group a couple of time already. What’s interesting is the slate of City Council candidates that Amarillo Matters has endorsed and is recommending for election on May 6.

It’s an interesting and impressive slate of candidates.

Two things stand out about this slate: First: Amarillo Matters is recommending a female-majority City Council. Second: The group is recommending the election of an entirely new slate of council members to take office when all the ballots are counted.

You want “change,” Amarillo voters? Consider this slate of candidates. Not a single one of them has served on the City Council or on its earlier incarnation, the City Commission.

Amarillo Matters is recommending Ginger Nelson for mayor, who the group calls a “renowned lawyer and successful small business owner.” Interestingly, it doesn’t mention Nelson’s stint on the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. That’s fine; I’ll mention it here.

It is recommending Elaine Hays for Place 1 instead of incumbent Elisha Demerson. It cites Hays’ work as a financial planner and calls her “one of the community’s best authorities on fiscal responsibility and smart budgeting.

Freda Powell gets the nod for Place 2 from Amarillo Matters, which cites her “balanced approach to problem solving.”

The PAC endorses Eddy Sauer for Place 3, recommending him as a “voice for positivity and real solutions to the challenges we face.”

Howard Smith gets Amarillo Matters’ endorsement for Place 4 over incumbent Mark Nair. The group cites Smith’s “kind, charitable spirit” and his desire for “helping countless Amarillo families find their home.”

Three incumbents are not running for new terms: Mayor Paul Harpole, Place 2 Councilwoman Lisa Blake and Place 3 Councilman Randy Burkett.

In my 22 years as an Amarillo resident, this is the first time anyone has ever rang my doorbell and handed me a piece of local campaign stationery stating an organization’s preferences for candidates seeking local government office.

You want change yet again at City Hall? Consider that Amarillo Matters wants to wipe the slate clean; it wants voters to fill all five council seats with newbies. Imagine that, will you?

I also am intrigued by the idea of a slate of candidates comprising mostly women. Big deal, you might say. What’s so special about that? Only this: Amarillo for many years has been run by various network of good ol’ boys. I am not demeaning the gender of the city’s political leadership, per se. I merely am noting that an influential political action group has decided to buck what I perceive to be the norm in Amarillo, Texas.

Demerson, Nair and Burkett joined the council in 2015. They all pledged “change” would come to city government. Of the three new guys, Burkett emerged as the loudest, most obnoxious agent of change. Demerson and Burkett knocked off incumbents who were seeking re-election; Nair won a seat that was vacated by an incumbent who was appointed to fill a seat upon the death of an incumbent, but who chose not to seek election.

Demerson and Nair have been more circumspect than their new-guy colleague, but their presence on the City Council seemingly hasn’t earned them recommendations from Amarillo Matters for new two-year terms.

Hey, I’m just one voter. My wife is just one more voter. I am impressed that Amarillo Matters’ door-to-door messenger this evening thought enough of us to talk at some length about this important election.

Oh, and make no mistake. This election, um, matters.

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Yes, Amarillo matters to Amarillo Matters

I have gotten a little better idea of what is driving a new political action group in Amarillo.

It’s called Amarillo Matters. Its website still doesn’t reveal too much about the organization, other than it cares greatly about the future of the city. As if that’s a novel concept, right?

Here’s the website. Take a look and see if you can glean more than I’ve been able to do.

http://www.amarillomatters.com/about_us/

Still, I’ve been able to determine that it comprises successful businessmen and women, civic leaders, folks who’ve demonstrated a commitment to improving the city.

I hear rumblings about Amarillo Matters backing certain candidates for the City Council; the city is conducting an election May 6, with all five council places up for grabs, per normal.

I don’t know what the future holds for Amarillo Matters, but my hope is that isn’t a flash in the pan, as the Amarillo Millennial Movement turned out to be.

AMM was formed to promote passage of the multipurpose event venue/downtown ballpark referendum that was on the November 2015 ballot. Voters approved the MPEV measure, which was non-binding; the City Council wasn’t obligated to abide by voters’ wishes, but it did.

AMM, though, has vanished. Not a word has been heard by the group. Oh, well.

Amarillo Matters, though, looks as though it might have more staying power.

We’ll all need to see demonstrated future activity as the new City Council takes office after the May election.

I remain the eternal optimist that the city will keep moving forward, even as it gets a push from Amarillo Matters.

local news

Cumulative voting is here to stay

I had thought initially about using this particular blog post to argue for a drastic change in the Amarillo City Council voting plan … but I won’t argue for it today, although I intend to mention it.

Instead, I’ll discuss briefly a voting plan that will elect members of the Amarillo College Board of Regents and the Amarillo Independent School District Board of Trustees.

It’s called “cumulative voting,” and it has worked well for both governing bodies.

Cumulative voting was enacted some years ago by AISD to settle a lawsuit brought by the League of United Latin American Citizens, which argued that the AISD at-large voting plan made it too difficult for Latinos to get elected to the board. AISD settled with LULAC and came up with this cumulative plan.

It’s an interesting concept.

If a governing board has, say, three seats up for election, voters can opt to bunch up their votes in any combination they choose. They can cast all  three votes for one candidate; they can parcel them out, casting two ballots for one candidate and one for another; or they can cast one vote apiece for each candidate. The number of votes they cast match the number of seats up for election.

Cumulative voting has worked well for AISD and for AC. It has produced a level of diversity among the respective governing boards. It enables voters in a particular neighborhood to rally around one of their own by allowing for one candidate to collect a greater portion of votes.

Amarillo City Council continues to have its at-large voting plan. The council elects candidates to fill individual places. Voters cast ballots for the candidate of their choice for each place. All council members represent the same citywide constituency, the same as the mayor. The city’s at-large plan has the effect of diminishing the power of the mayor, who is the presiding officer of the City Council in name only.

Should the city change its voting plan? I’ve argued already on this blog that my longtime opposition to any change has softened. I wouldn’t object to a change, such as expanding the council from five to seven seats and then electing two council members — along with the mayor — at-large, while electing four others from wards/precincts.

The city’s plan will likely remain intact for the foreseeable future — if not even longer than that.

Amarillo College and Amarillo ISD, though, are continuing on their own paths to electoral reform that I find quite appealing.

They would do well, though, to explain it clearly and completely to their constituents how it works.

local news

Memo to council candidates: hands off red-light cams

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I am going to make a request of the individuals running for Amarillo mayor and the four City Council seats.

It is this: Do not mess with the city’s red-light cameras, presuming the Texas Legislature allows you to make that call.

I looked through mayoral candidate Ginger Nelson’s detailed platform statement this afternoon after the thought occurred to me that I’ve heard nothing from the candidates about what they intend to do with the cameras. I pored through Nelson’s platform and didn’t see a single mention of the cameras.

Does that mean she intends to leave ’em alone? Or does she want to pull the plug on them without warning us in advance? I doubt it’s the latter, so I’ll just proceed with my request of her and the others who are running for mayor and council member.

The cameras have been in operation for nearly a decade now, thanks to some foresight shown by a previous city commission/council, led by then-Mayor Debra McCartt. The police department had expressed concern about motorists running red lights, in some cases ignoring them completely while zooming through them from a dead stop when there was no other traffic.

The cameras were installed to photograph the license plates of the offending vehicle, with the citation sent to the vehicle owner’s residence.

I get all the griping from offending owners who would say that someone else was driving their vehicle. Of course, they have recourse; they can take their complaint to the Municipal Court and argue their case before the judge.

The Legislature allowed cities to deploy the cameras a few sessions ago, but placed some restrictions on how to spend the money collected. The city must dedicate the revenue to traffic improvement methods. There can be spending of that revenue on city manager frills, or new drapes for the traffic engineer’s office.

This technology has its foes. Some of them are in Legislature. They have threatened to rescind the cities’ authority to deploy the devices, which I find ironic, given some legislators’ insistence that they — not mayors, city council members or senior city administrators — understand the local concerns better than those on the ground in the affected cities.

If the 2017 Legislature does the right thing and allows cities to make that determination for themselves, then my hopes is that Amarillo decides to keep the cameras on the job.

They are doing what they are supposed to do. They are deterring motorists from breaking … the … law.

local news, political news

Amarillo is poised to regain its leadership footing

I want to make something akin to a campaign endorsement, which isn’t the style of this blog — but I do believe the time is appropriate.

The Amarillo City Council is staging an election on May 6. Under the city charter, all five seats are on the ballot. All council members run at-large; they all represent the entire city. Their jurisdictions are identical, as is their political clout; that includes the mayor, in the strictest of senses.

We’re going to welcome three newbies to the council when all the ballots are counted. They are the mayor and whoever is elected to Places 2 and 3.

My choice for mayor is Ginger Nelson, a bona fide big hitter. She’s a successful lawyer, a downtown building owner and is a former member of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation. She enjoys the support of business and civic leaders throughout the city.

I’ve talked about her at length already on this blog. She will get my vote on May 6.

My favorite for Place 2 is Freda Powell, who won the endorsement of the council member she seeks to succeed. Lisa Blake won’t seek a full term as councilwoman after being appointed to succeed Dr. Brian Eades, who had been re-elected in 2015 but who moved away the following year.

I don’t know Powell well, but I do know her to be a conscientious, civic-minded resident who will bring the kind of steady hand that Blake used during her time on the council.

The third seat worth mentioning here is Place 3. The incumbent, Randy Burkett, isn’t seeking another term, either. Eddy Sauer is the clear choice to succeed the council’s gadfly in chief, except that Sauer — a successful Amarillo dentist — is far from the Burkett mold of rabble-rouser.

I do not know Sauer, but he — like Nelson and Powell — is being touted heavily by many individuals and groups in Amarillo with whom I am quite familiar and for whom I have great respect.

My sense is that Elisha Demerson will return in Place 1 and that Mark Nair will get the nod in Place 4. Those two joined Burkett in comprising the new majority on the City Council after the election two years ago. But unlike Burkett, they have managed to govern with a quieter effectiveness.

Amarillo’s gadfly quotient needs to be reduced and my hope is that it will with Burkett out of the picture.

I see a potential for a return to a saner municipal government, one that doesn’t get all riled up over matters relating to, um, personality conflicts — which was the case on occasion when Burkett would butt heads with lame-duck Mayor Paul Harpole, who is bowing out.

The city has made some tremendous strides in recent years, even pre-dating the election two years of those three aforementioned “change agents,” Burkett, Nair and Demerson. Our city’s economic base continues to grow and our downtown district is in the midst of a major makeover that — when it’s completed — well could trigger a tremendous boost in our city’s quality of life and economic health.

We don’t pay our City Council members much money to serve, not at $10 per meeting. You do this as a labor of love. Nothing more.

Amarillo is poised to restore a brand of good government at City Hall. It can regain its leadership footing. My hope is that the city’s voters will respond the right way.