Tag Archives: Amarillo College

local news, Sports news

Amarillo’s baseball future might get brighter

Paul Matney pitched hard for approval of a downtown ballpark, reciting his belief that Amarillo is, indeed, a “baseball town.”

The retired Amarillo College president walked the point for approval of the multipurpose event venue in a nonbinding municipal referendum in November 2015. Amarillo voters listened and approved the MPEV by a narrow margin.

Now the real hard part might be coming to a fruitful conclusion for the city. It well might come in the form of a signed agreement to bring a AA baseball franchise to Amarillo — on the provision that the city proceed with construction of the MPEV.

Or … we might be getting ahead of ourselves.

City Councilman Randy Burkett wears another hat as a member of the Local Government Corporation that’s seeking to negotiate a deal to bring a team that currently plays ball in San Antonio. He sent out a message that suggested that a deal might be struck by Feb. 1.

Not so fast, said Jerry Hodge, chairman of the LGC board. The deal won’t be done by then and Hodge — a former Amarillo mayor — said he is “ashamed” of Burkett for speaking prematurely.

I want to embrace the Matney view of Amarillo returning to its baseball roots. Its unaffiliated baseball team has abandoned this city, which used to be home to franchises affiliated with Major League Baseball teams. The AirHogs left because of the rotten condition of Potter County Memorial Stadium, the venue known formerly as the Dilla Villa.

There appears to be a complicated set of negotiations going on. San Antonio is trying to bring a AAA team to replace the AA team that is slated to move out. The AA San Antonio Missions have indicated a desire to move to Amarillo.

Meanwhile, the LGC is seeking to nail that down, at which point the city hopes to begin construction on the MPEV that Matney and others worked so hard to win voter approval more than a year ago.

Before we can see an organization signing up to play hardball in Amarillo, it appears there needs to be some procedural work done. It might have to start with reeling in a city councilman who is getting ahead of himself and the rest of the city’s negotiating team.

I want Amarillo to have minor-league baseball. I want it to land a team that will play ball in a shiny new ballpark downtown. I want Paul Matney’s vision to become a reality.

But first, let’s all get on the same page.

local news, media news

Social media turn ‘friends’ into friends

social-media-people

Social media, particularly Facebook, have this way of turning acquaintances into something more significant than that.

If we’re not actual friends in the manner I prefer to use the term, then at least we are able to communicate on a little higher level than just exchanging banal pleasantries and talking about the weather.

Take for example what happened today.

I ran into someone with whom I’ve been acquainted on Facebook, although we knew each other very casually in an earlier part of our lives. We shook hands.

“I enjoy reading your blogs on Facebook,” he said. “I don’t comment on political things because I know I won’t change anyone’s mind, so what’s the point?” he continued.

“But I guess you’ve found out that our community is full of comedians,” he said. We both chuckled at that.

I told him I don’t write these blogs to change people’s minds. I write because it’s therapy for me.

Some people climb aboard motorcycles for what one biker-friend calls “throttle therapy.” Others go to the gym and pound on punching bags for another form of therapy.

Writing is my bag, man.

I did it for nearly four decades back when I was working for a living. My full-time writing gig ended abruptly — and unhappily, for me at least — nearly four years ago.

I’m still at it. And gladly so.

Which brings me to my actual point.

This blog of mine isn’t intended to change anyone’s mind. I get that everyone’s bias informs their own world view. I also get that the media already are full of talking heads, “contributors” and “political strategists” who fill the air with their opinions.

The only time in recent memory I’ve heard of anyone mind being changed on an issue involved the Amarillo municipal election this past year. Former Amarillo College President Paul Matney came to our Rotary club and made a pitch for the multipurpose event venue. A friend of mine, a hard-nosed Amarillo businesswoman, told me later Matney’s presentation changed her mind from a “no” vote to a “yes” vote on the MPEV.

I wrote about that event:

https://highplainsblogger.com/2015/10/a-mind-has-changed-on-the-mpev/

No one has come to me ever and said, “You know, John, that blog you wrote about what a bozo Donald Trump is really got me thinking. I’m going to vote for anyone now other than that guy based on what you wrote.”

I do not expect that to happen. Ever!

That’s not why I write this stuff. I do it because I like doing it. It comes fairly easily … now that I’ve been writing many times daily since my full-time job ended.

I appreciated my Facebook “friend” saying what he did today. It means a lot that he gets something out of these musings of mine.

But, no, I don’t expect to convert anyone.

I call myself an idealist on a lot of issues.

On this one? I’m a hard-bitten realist.

I won’t stop offering my view of the world. You can take it or leave it.

See you next time.

 

legal news, local news

College needs to own its policies

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Some issues just aren’t adding up regarding the matter of Amarillo College’s hiring policies, which now have become the subject of community discussion.

Who’s in charge of administering and enforcing those policies? Aren’t there some others at AC who should be held accountable for this embarrassing development?

Ellen Robertson Green quit her job as AC vice president for marketing and communication after it was revealed that she allegedly violated AC nepotism rules by hiring her daughter to work as a content producer for Panhandle PBS, the college’s public TV station.

Green supervised Panhandle PBS. Her daughter, thus, reported directly to her mother.

That violated the school’s rules against nepotism.

I’ve already declared my own stake in this matter, given that until recently I worked as a freelance blogger for Panhandle PBS and that I consider Green to be a friend.

I now am an outsider looking at this situation from some distance.

However, I do know that everyone works for someone else.

Green didn’t operate in a hermetically sealed environment at AC. I’m going to take a bit of a leap here and presume that the college has qualified and competent legal counsel advising senior administrators of matters that might cause problems.

Thus, I am unclear as to why Green is taking the fall by herself by resigning her post at AC, particularly after the college terminated her daughter’s employment when reports of this policy violation became known.

The way I see it, if the school fired her daughter, that ends the nepotism problem right off the top.

Green was one of several VPs at the school who report directly to AC President Russell Lowery-Hart. Was the president unaware of the hire? Did he let it go? If he was unaware, why was he kept in the dark?

I fear the questions will linger for a time longer and cast a growing shadow over a public institution that — until just recently — had enjoyed a stellar reputation throughout the community it serves.

It’s time to clear the air.

Fully.

 

local news

AC faces hiring controversy

Amarillo_College_sign

Let’s get the full disclosure out of the way right off the top.

I once worked on a freelance basis for Ellen Robertson Green, the newly former head of communications and marketing at Amarillo College. I wrote a blog for Panhandle PBS, the AC-affiliated public television station. I consider her a friend.

There. That’s out of the way.

The news today that Green has resigned her position at AC — effective immediately — because of hiring violations is disturbing to me in the extreme.

http://amarillo.com/news/latest-news/2016-05-06/amarillo-college-vp-resigns-daughter-fired-amidst-nepotism-allegations?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_Amarillo_Globe-News

She quit and her daughter was fired from the college. Green’s daughter had worked as a content producer for Panhandle PBS’s website and, thus, reported directly to her mother — in violation of the school’s anti-nepotism policy.

Here’s what troubles me: How did Green actually make that hire without her superiors not knowing about it? She didn’t run the college. She didn’t operate in a vacuum. Moreover, the college hires legal counsel to protect the institution from getting entangled in precisely these kinds of issues.

Here’s the policy. It looks quite clear to me.

https://www.actx.edu/president/pagesmith/80

Green is a high-profile individual in Amarillo and the Texas Panhandle. She served on the Amarillo City Council until this past May, when she was defeated for re-election. I considered her to be a highly effective elected official and I wanted her to keep her council seat.

How this matter got past the individuals who are in charge at Amarillo College escapes me.

 

national news, political news

Popular culture overwhelms public policy

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A friend and I were visiting at Amarillo College earlier this week.

I was there to talk to a journalism class about trends in modern journalism and politics. My friend broached the subject of Donald J. Trump’s astounding success in the Republican Party presidential primary.

He calls himself a “conservative,” and then offered this piece of wisdom: It is that we are now witnessing a campaign in which popular culture is determining which candidate might become the nominee of a major political party.

It’s celebrity worship, my friend said. Voters have become smitten with the idea that a pop culture icon actually can become president, he said.

Does this explain the allure that Trump has cast over a Republican primary electorate? I believe my pal is onto something.

Other friends of mine who actually support Trump keep harping on his willingness to “tell it like it is.” They are swept away by his tossing aside what they call “political correctness.” They just love how he is able to say what he wants, when he wants and to whom he wants.

Is this what where we’ve arrived? Are some Americans actually willing to throw their support behind a candidate who demonstrates zero understanding of how government actually works? They’re willing to line up behind someone who believes insulting his opponents passes for legitimate political debate? They are actually going to vote for an individual who sounds very much like someone who believes he is bigger and more important than the office he seeks to occupy?

Popular culture has its place. I grew up during a turbulent time in this country where we all witnessed massive changes in the country’s popular culture. Remember when dead-pan comedian Pat Paulson ran for president — as a joke?

Well, these days we have a bombastic carnival barker seeking to become the head of state of the greatest nation in world history. Forget the crap about how he wants to “make America great again.” We’re still the greatest nation on Earth and his assertion we are not denigrates all the public servants — military and civilian — who pledge to defend us.

Several of the candidates for president keep saying how frightened they have become since Barack Obama became president more than seven years ago.

They’ve persuaded many Americans to join them in that fear.

Other Americans — such as myself — worry what might happen if this election produces the worst result possible.

That would be the election of Donald J. Trump.

I will maintain my hope that reason and rational thinking will overtake this infatuation with popular culture.

 

local news, national news, political news

Obama fails to channel LBJ

claire

Claire McCaskill calls herself a “friend and supporter” of Barack Obama.

But the Democratic U.S. senator from Missouri has issued a candid assessment of the job her fellow Democrat has done as president of the United States.

The president’s major failing, according to McCaskill? He did not learn how to work with Congress.

The Hill reports on McCaskill’s remarks about Obama: “But one of the president’s shortcomings is that sometimes he sees the world through his eyes and doesn’t do, I think, enough work on being empathetic about how other people view things.”

McCaskill blisters president

In truth, McCaskill might be a bit behind the curve when critiquing the job the president has done.

I don’t think he’d mind my saying this, but a now-retired college administrator told me much the same thing during the president’s first term in office.

Former Amarillo College President Paul Matney and I were having lunch one day when Matney lamented the president’s testy relationship with congressional leaders. Matney wished that the president would employ the skill that the late President Lyndon Johnson used to great effect.

Johnson, of course, rose from the Senate to the executive branch of government, as Obama has done. LBJ served as vice president from 1961 until Nov. 22, 1963. Then he became president in the wake of tragedy.

When LBJ moved into the Oval Office, he harnessed all his legislative skill to shepherd landmark legislation through Congress. He was a master of working not just with fellow Democrats, but with Republicans.

Matney bemoaned that President Obama had not developed that kind of bipartisan rapport and it cost him dearly.

McCaskill now — near the end of Barack Obama’s presidency — echoes much of what Paul Matney said years ago. LBJ’s legacy, which was tainted for many years after he left office in 1969 by the Vietnam War, is beginning to look better all the time.

He understood that he needed the legislative branch to make government work, that he couldn’t do it all alone.

As Sen. McCaskill has noted, Barack Obama hasn’t seemed to have learned that lesson.

 

local news, medical news

Tech makes bigger footprint in Amarillo

duncan

Texas Tech University officials appear intent on increasing the school’s presence in Amarillo.

It’s obvious of the school’s plan with the announcement that Texas Tech plans to build and develop a college of veterinary medicine way up yonder … in the Texas Panhandle.

We all ought to welcome the addition.

Texas Tech already runs a pharmacy school here, courtesy of a lengthy and intense local fundraising campaign in the mid-1990s; and that school came after Tech had established a medical school campus here.

When you think about, Amarillo’s higher education footprint is growing on a number of levels.

West Texas A&M University is in the process of turning a one-time downtown Amarillo office building into an urban campus, which no doubt will expand the Canyon-based university’s presence in the Panhandle’s largest city.

Let us not forget that Amarillo College’s presence here for decades has been significant. AC runs three campuses just in Amarillo. It also has branch campuses in Dumas and Hereford, making it a regional junior college.

The buzz today, though, belongs to Texas Tech University.

Tech Chancellor Bob Duncan led a large university delegation of officials today to announce plans for the veterinary school. Duncan said today the school’s aim is to ensure that students learn their profession here — and then stay here to practice it.

So, the footprint is set to expand and the community figures to reap the benefit.

 

local news, Sports news, Uncategorized

Hey, maybe Amarillo really is a baseball town

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Paul Matney seems to be a serious expert on baseball and its potential interest in his hometown.

The retired Amarillo College president hit the stump this fall to campaign for approval of a multipurpose event venue in downtown Amarillo. Part of Matney’s pitch was that Amarillo “is a baseball town.”

The MPEV received voters’ endorsement on Nov. 3 in a non-binding municipal referendum. The Amarillo City Council then ratified the results and voted unanimously to proceed with development of the MPEV.

Then, what do you think was revealed just this week?

Melissa Dailey, head of Downtown Amarillo Inc., told the Local Government Corporation that, by golly, she’s had some informal contact with a Class AA minor-league baseball franchise that might be interested in setting up an operation in Amarillo.

Dailey said she is not at liberty — yet! — to disclose the name of the franchise. She said the city is on a “short list” of communities being considered.

Hey, didn’t Paul Matney predict this might happen if voters approved the MPEV?

Yes, I believe he did.

The LGC is moving forward, per the City Council’s advice. It will report to the council regularly as it continues its work toward developing the $32 million MPEV.

And now the conversation might include a minor-league baseball outfit, with major-league connections, that could move into the MPEV once it’s built.

Who knew?

Oh yeah. Paul Matney seemed to be ahead of the curve.

 

local news

Potter County ballpark: not worth any more effort

baseball

So … I’m visiting with a health care professional and the discussion about the topic at hand comes to an end.

The conversation then turns to the city’s effort to build a multipurpose event venue downtown — which includes the ballpark that would be the home field for a minor-league baseball team.

My acquaintance — who favors the downtown MPEV — then mentions the Potter County Memorial Stadium next to the Tri-State Fairgrounds. “I’ve heard the argument that we should pump more money into that ballpark,” he says. I shake my head and tell him, “But it’s a dump!”

He agrees, adding that the Potter County already has pumped too much money into the ballpark as it is and then he broaches a subject that few individuals seem willing to address: It’s in a depressed neighborhood that is unlikely to see any kind of revival any time soon.

What’s the point, he asks, of putting more money into that ballpark when the city hopes to build a new venue downtown?

Bingo! Presto! Enough said! Those are the thoughts that banged around my noggin at that very moment.

The Potter County-owned ballpark, in the words of retired Amarillo College President Paul Matney, “at the end of its life.” The clock should be ticking on that venue. Its best days are long gone. It is held together with the proverbial equivalent of rubber bands, wire, duct tape and perhaps a staple or two.

Matney made the case all over Amarillo as he campaigned successfully on behalf of the non-binding citywide referendum that voters approved on Nov. 3. The MPEV, with its current price tag of around $32 million, will be built eventually — at least that’s my hope.

Let’s no longer discuss the Potter County Memorial Stadium as having any kind of meaningful future for the county, or the city, or any other entity.

The county has put enough money into it already.

It’s time to look to the future.

 

local news, Uncategorized

Positive vs. negative in MPEV debate

8 Comments

amarillo MPEV

Amarillo’s campaign on the multipurpose event venue is heading for the home stretch. Early voting ends Friday.

A week from today, the polls open and those who haven’t voted early will get a chance to vote on whether to build an MPEV that includes a ballpark, a place where a minor league baseball team can play a little ball for about 50 or 60 dates annually.

Have you heard about an alternative to the ballpark if voters nix the notion? Me neither.

Which brings to the point today: The Against Crowd hasn’t delivered an alternative. It has, as near as I can tell, relied on a purely negative message.

That’s expected. An “anti-anything” campaign by definition must be negative. You don’t like something? Say “no.”

On the other side of the divide is the pro-MPEV group. The leading advocates belong to something called Vote FOR Amarillo. The very name implies a positive message.

And that message is?

Well, as its leading spokesman, retired Amarillo College President Paul Matney, has stressed: The MPEV will put Amarillo on baseball’s “radar” by providing a first-rate sports venue; it will create several dozen permanent jobs and hundreds of temporary construction jobs; the bonds to pay for the $32 million construction will be retired using hotel/motel tax revenue; it will become an essential element in downtown Amarillo’s rebirth; and that rebirth will spur further economic expansion throughout the city; the MPEV could play host to a variety of activities throughout the year that have nothing to do with baseball.

That’s a positive message, yes?

Of course it is.

Those who oppose the MPEV say the Civic Center needs renovation first. How do we pay for that? With, um, public money. They contend the city shouldn’t acquire debt to build an MPEV, but don’t seem to mind acquiring such debt on the Civic Center, with a cost that will far exceed the price tag attached to the MPEV.

They keep bringing up things such as secrecy, nefarious motives, the failed master developer (who was nowhere in sight when the MPEV idea was first floated around 2006).

If only we could hear some options from those who oppose the MPEV — for whatever reason.

If there are alternatives on some hidden table, then let’s not talk among yourselves. Share them with the rest of us.

I’m planning on going with the positive message.