Tag Archives: Paul Harpole

local news, political news

Amarillo mayor’s race produces a fascinating dynamic

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Let’s focus for a moment on two individuals who might run against each other to become mayor of Amarillo.

One of them is Elisha Demerson, a member of the Amarillo City Council who is generating some community chatter about his apparent desire to be mayor. He might have a decision to make, given the announcement that came this week from the other individual I want to discuss.

That would be Ginger Nelson, who has announced her mayoral candidacy. Nelson is quitting her post on the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation to focus entirely on running for mayor.

Nelson also is producing a lot of buzz around the city. The business community appears to be rallying behind her. A banker friend of mine told me today that Nelson is the real deal: “She’s articulate, smart and has the city’s best interests at heart,” my friend said. Others with whom I am acquainted have said the very same thing about her.

Understand this, too. I don’t know Nelson. I haven’t met her. I’d like to visit with her at some point prior to the election. So, I just might do that.

Oh, and what about the current mayor, Paul Harpole? I’m hearing he’s going to call it a public service career and will make room for Nelson.

Where does all this political intrigue leave Demerson?

I believe it forces him to seek to retain his council seat rather than mounting a futile campaign to defeat someone with Nelson’s chops.

You see, much of the support for Nelson comes from those who believe the City Council’s dysfunction is unacceptable. That dysfunction began appearing immediately after three new council members took office after the May 2015 city election. The city manager and the city attorney quit. The assistant city manager retired.

One of the new council members was Elisha Demerson. Coincidence? I think not.

I know Demerson only a little. We’ve been acquainted for a number of years. His years on the Potter County Commissioners Court predate my arrival in Amarillo, but I’ve learned about the rocky time he had as county judge.

His brief tenure on the City Council also coincides with additional rockiness. Is there a pattern here … or what?

So, with the municipal election about six months away, we’re already getting set to view a bit of political drama.

As if we haven’t had enough of it already for the past two years.

business news, local news, medical news

AEDC comes up with lucrative offer for Tech

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Amarillo voters approved an economic development corporation in 1989 for one purpose: to invest sales tax revenue in job-creation opportunities.

There have been a few misfires over the years. There also have been some spectacular successes. I hold up the Bell/Textron aircraft assembly operation as an example of success.

The AEDC has ponied up $15 million for Texas Tech University to build and operate a school of veterinary medicine in Amarillo.

Yes, this is a wise investment of sales tax revenue.

https://www.texastribune.org/2016/09/20/amarillo-chips-15-million-texas-techs-vet-school-p/

As the Texas Tribune reports: “Not only is this a wonderful opportunity for students seeking careers in veterinary medicine, particularly in a region known as the livestock capital of the United States, it’s an investment in our community and economy,” said Mayor Paul Harpole.

Is this a done deal? No. Texas A&M University, which has the state’s only veterinary medicine school, has objected. For the life of me, I don’t understand the objection. The A&M System is going to lobby the Higher Education Coordinating Board to deny Tech’s request for a new school in Amarillo.

The Tribune also reports: “Texas has a severe shortage of rural veterinarians who are crucial to the foundations of our economy, the vibrancy of our communities and the safety of our food supply,” said Tech System Chancellor Robert Duncan. “There is no better place to transform the future of veterinary education and answer this call than in Amarillo.”

AEDC spends money it collects in its half-cent sales revenue stream. It’s a wise use of sales tax. Tech officials estimate the vet school would create about 100 well-paying jobs. It’s a bit difficult to calculate the return on investment that those jobs would bring.

The return could be huge.

The coordinating board reportedly has expressed some concern about whether another vet school for Texas is even necessary.

My question is this: When did increasing educational opportunities for students interested in pursuing a valuable profession become a bad thing?

local news

Still pondering effects of City Hall’s ‘change’

city council

I keep rolling around in my noggin the notion of the “change” that the May 2015 municipal election brought to Amarillo City Hall.

Specifically, I keep thinking about how the governing City Council changed so dramatically with the election of three new members.

Not a single one of the candidates I wanted elected to the council made the cut in last year’s election. Two incumbents got tossed out by challengers. A third incumbent was a place-holder and didn’t run for election after the council appointed him to finish out the late Jim Simms’ term.

Councilmen Randy Burkett, Elisha Demerson and Mark Nair all promised to be agents of “change.” They brought it, all right.

To my way of thinking it’s been a mixed blessing — at best!

I’m a bit torn by what has happened at City Hall. On one hand, I don’t mind spirited debate and dissent. I do mind, though, when the debate promotes dysfunction and discord among the governing body.

There’s been a bit of distrust expressed by Mayor Paul Harpole at the conduct of at least two of his colleagues on the council. He stormed recently out of an executive session because he said he didn’t “trust the process” of discussing the selection of someone to succeed his sole ally on the council, Dr. Brian Eades, who’s planning to leave Amarillo this summer to set up a medical practice in Colorado.

From my perch, there appears to be a large divide among council members: the Agents of Change vs. the Status Quo.

I keep asking myself, was the change really necessary?

The city is rocking along. It has the lowest unemployment rate of any metro area in Texas; residential construction has been booming; businesses are expanding; sales tax revenue is up; the city is (or was) functioning well; it was continuing to purchase vast amounts of water for future use and growth.

And oh yes, downtown revitalization was proceeding at a brisk pace.

Most of those who voted this past year, though, said they wanted “change.”

I respect the results of the election, even though I don’t agree with them.

As for the change that has arrived, I am waiting to be persuaded that it’s all for the good of the city. We need a new city manager and a new chief of police. The city is seeking to land a Class Double AA baseball franchise. It needs a blueprint for a new ballpark to be built downtown.

It’s my fervent hope my fears are unfounded that the new guys who are running the City Hall dog-and-pony show know what they’re doing.

However, they’ve got to show me that’s the case.

business news, local news

Mayor creates a scene where none was needed

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I know that politicians hate hypotheticals … at least that’s what they say.

Here’s one anyway.

You’re a business owner looking for a place to relocate your business. You hear that Amarillo is a business-friendly city with an economic development agency that parcels out sales-tax revenue to new businesses looking to expand local payrolls.

You think: Hey, that sounds like a good place to live and work.

Then  you hear about the City Council’s current state of dysfunction. You understand that three new council members joined the panel in the spring of 2015. Two incumbents got ousted; a third council member didn’t run for election. The three new guys have butted heads with the two holdovers publicly.

One of the council holdovers then announces he is leaving the city this summer. The council puts out a call for applicants. They get 14 of them; the council winnows them down to five finalists. Then word hits the street one of the finalists has put out some unflattering and insulting social media commentary. The council is getting pressure to rethink whether to interview this individual.

And on top of all that, the mayor storms out of an executive session, declaring to the public that he doesn’t “trust the process.”

Is this still the place where you want to relocate your business?

Maybe … then again, maybe not.

I mention this because of Mayor Paul Harpole’s demonstration of petulance this week. He knows how much I respect him and that I generally support his agenda for the city. He’s a good man with a solid personal history; I consider him a “brother,” given his Vietnam War experience.

Harpole is a passionate advocate for Amarillo and if you’ve ever listened to his speech about downtown redevelopment efforts, you might be inclined stand and cheer.

I just wish he hadn’t made such a show of the executive session episode, which well might have telegraphed to business owners just like my hypothetical example that Amarillo’s municipal government is in a state of serious dysfunction.

Amarillo doesn’t have a “strong mayor” form of government. The mayor casts one vote that carries precisely the same weight as the other four City Council members. The mayor, though, does preside over meetings of the governing council and is in a position to exert his “bully pulpit” authority over the rest of the body.

I haven’t discussed the events leading up to this spate of pique with the mayor. They did occur in private session, so he’s not obligated to say what happened when the council was meeting in secret.

Perhaps he thought he was making an appropriate political statement by leaving the session in the hands of his colleagues.

He also well might have made another kind of statement about the quality of leadership that exists at City Hall.

I fear the mayor has inflamed an already inflammatory environment.

business news, local news, Sports news

MPEV remains worth the city’s investment

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This is a bit of a non-surprise to many Amarillo residents.

The price of the proposed downtown multipurpose event venue/ballpark has come in a bit greater than originally thought.

Is it cause to toss the idea into the crapper? Not even close.

I’ll admit that I didn’t quite buy into the notion that the MPEV would cost more than the $32 million price tag attached to the non-binding referendum that voters approved in November 2015. I had some faith that the cost would hold up. It hasn’t, according to consultants who have delivered a $48.4 million price tag to the City Council to consider.

What’s the city going to do to cover the cost?

That is the $48.4 million question that the council has asked the Local Government Corp. to figure out. The LGC has received the directive and plans to deliver a report in April to the council.

The increased cost presumes that the city will hook up with a Double-A minor-league baseball team affiliated with a major league franchise.

Suppose the city does land an affiliated minor-league team for the city. Suppose as well that the city builds the MPEV for $48.4 million. Then let’s suppose what might occur if the baseball team fills up the MPEV with thousands of baseball fans every day or night.

Mayor Paul Harpole believes — and I think he’s correct — that the boost in sales tax revenue likely could more than offset any potential property tax increase that residents would have to bear.

“That regional money that comes into our city through sales tax has helped us keep property tax down,” said Harpole. “It’s important that we keep that growth as long as we can, but it has to make economic sense. It has to be something where it doesn’t put the city in too much debt. So we’ll look at that and see what it is and get an answer back and see what we’re going to do.”

Let’s not look askance at the job growth and economic impact created by the MPEV. The consultant that made the report to the City Council, Brailsford and Dunleavy, projects an estimated 341 permanent jobs associated with the MPEV and about $25 million pumped annually into the Amarillo economy.

Does the city issue certificates of obligation? Does it submit a bond issue to the voters, asking residents to approve it? Are there economic development grant funds available for the city to seek?

LGC officials and City Council members have committed to proceeding with exploring this issue thoroughly.

Count me as one Amarillo resident who maintains an abiding faith that the MPEV — even with its inflated cost — can bring a much greater economic return to the community than what it is likely to spend.

 

local news

Let’s get busy with city manager search

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Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has made it official.

He doesn’t want the permanent job. He doesn’t want to be considered for it. He wants to go home when the city finds a permanent replacement. Mayor Paul Harpole made the announcement Tuesday.

So, let’s get busy, gentlemen of the Amarillo City Council.

The city charter empowers the council to make precisely one hiring decision. This is it.

It hires the city’s chief executive officer and entrusts that individual to manage a payroll of several thousand individuals and oversee a budget of something in the neighborhood of $200 million a year.

Someone mishandled the appointment of Childers. The headhunting firm the council hired, Strategic Government Resources, failed to provide a large pile of documentation supporting its recommendation that the city hire Childers as the interim manager.

The city has decided to retain SGR to look for the permanent manager.

OK. So can the firm get it right this time?

Childers’ rocky start as the interim doesn’t mean he should be pushed out the door quickly. The city has time to consider who it wants to run the government machinery. It should be thorough, but shouldn’t dawdle.

Granted, Amarillo’s city government staff has virtually zero institutional knowledge in conducting a national search for a city manager. The last three managers all came from within the staff. This time it appears that the next manager will be someone who wants to come to Amarillo and oversee a city in transition.

And that transition is huge: downtown is undergoing a major makeover, street and highway construction is disrupting traffic flow, the city is embarking on a plan to revive neighborhoods.

It falls, then, on the council to make the most critical single decision it will make in deciding which individual is the best fit for the city.

This decision is big, fellows. Let’s get it right.

local news

Another blemish surfaces in the city manager saga

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Let’s see, how are we supposed to sort this out?

Amarillo hired a search firm to help locate an interim city manager after Jarrett Atkinson resigned his post this past year. It contracted with the firm, Strategic Government Resources, to provide detailed documentation of all the candidates it would present to City Hall for consideration.

Now we hear that the SGR didn’t do that with the man selected as the interim manager, Terry Childers.

We have learned that the city doesn’t even have a resume for Childers on file.

The city apparently relied on an oral report from the headhunter.

So, based on that report, it hired Childers, who — it turned out — managed to flub a 911 call to the Amarillo emergency call center when he misplaced a briefcase at a local hotel. He called the dispatch center and bullied the dispatcher while she followed the protocol she was instructed to follow.

Now the city has embarked on a search for a permanent city manager. Is it going to retain SGR to scour the nation for the right person?

According to City Councilman Brian Eades — who’s leaving the council this summer — his confidence in SGR has been “undermined in a way.”

Do you think?

The way I see it, when the city signs a contract with a headhunter that requires it to provide the requisite documentation on candidates who want to become the city’s chief executive officer — the individual who oversees a $200 million annual budget — the search had damn well better do what it pledges to do.

It seems that SGR dropped the ball in the city’s search for an interim manager.

Mayor Paul Harpole said the search for the permanent city manager will be different.

It had better.

 

local news

City begins search for new manager … good!

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Amarillo is about to commence its search for a permanent city manager to take the reins of a government that has been beset with a few hiccups and headaches of late.

We’ve got an interim manager on the job. Terry Childers came aboard a few months after Jarrett Atkinson quit. The initial word about Childers was that he is a take-charge guy, a thorough administrator and a hands-on sort of chief executive.

Then he made that fateful 911 call after misplacing his briefcase, threw the emergency call center into an uproar and became the object of considerable, um, discussion — and perhaps some derision — throughout the community.

OK. What now?

Mayor Paul Harpole said the search will be national.

Allow me a brief hand-clap here. That’s a good call.

“We think it’s time and I think Mr. Childers thinks it’s time too.” said Harpole. Yes, it certainly is, Mr. Mayor.

The governing body doesn’t have much institutional knowledge in conducting that kind of search. John Stiff served as city manager from 1963 until 1983. Then came John Ward, Alan Taylor and Atkinson, all of whom were promoted from within. The city limited its search.

A wide-ranging national search will serve the city well — if it’s done thoroughly and with proper vetting of all the applicants who want to relocate to the Texas Tundra.

The council — which has the sole authority in making this hiring decision — is going to get a lot of unsolicited advice from its bosses. That would be you and me. The folks who pay the bills with our tax money.

Here’s a suggestion: Consider following a model adopted by the Texas A&M University System and Amarillo College when selecting campus presidents.

West Texas A&M University, for example, has done a good job of introducing campus president candidates to the community before they are hired. The A&M regents have selected finalists and then trotted them out one at a time to meet with campus faculty, student body officers and then the public. All interested parties are given the chance to size up the finalists before the regents make the call.

City Hall can go through the same process with the finalists selected by the council.

It’s not a radical approach. It merely infuses the process with the kind of transparency the public was told had been missing in earlier critical policy discussions. You’ll recall the campaign pledges by some of the newest members of the council, yes? We’re going to make city government more “open,” more “accountable,” more “transparent.”

Well, gentlemen, here’s your chance.

Now that the interim city manager has issued his apology for the clumsy manner he handled that 911 call in February and has pledged to behave himself for the rest of the time he’s on the job, the council can proceed with all deliberate speed in finding a permanent chief administrator.

It’s going to take a few months. Be careful, council members. Be diligent, too. Be open and be sure you keep us — your employers — in the loop.

 

local news

Eades to quit … and toss the city into a tizzy

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Brian Eades has dropped a bombshell.

The good doctor and senior member of the Amarillo City Council is quitting his post this summer and will continue his medical practice in rural western Colorado.

What are the potential consequences of this event? Well, to borrow a phrase: They’re yuuuuuuge, man.

Think of it as a microcosm of the current battle within the national Republican Party: insurgents vs. the establishment.

Eades is one of two City Council members who come from the city’s so-called “establishment.” The other is Mayor Paul Harpole. The three remaining council members — Elisha Demerson, Randy Burkett and Mark Nair — could be called “insurgents.” They vowed to bring radical change to city government when they campaigned for the council in 2015.

What happens now?

The rest of the council gets to appoint Eades’ successor.

Who gets the job? Will the new person come from the establishment sector or will he or she come from the ranks of the rebels who want to continue the change?

The city charter grants limits the mayor’s actual power, so that means Harpole cannot really orchestrate the selection process. He no doubt wants someone who agrees with Eades’ municipal view.

He has only one vote, though. The other three are in the catbird seat.

Or so one might think.

The mayor does have what Teddy Roosevelt called “the bully pulpit.” Does he use his office as a place from which he can preach the municipal gospel to those with whom he works? Does he reach out to the community to persuade rank-and-file residents — folks like you and me — of the need to find someone who can join him in resisting the occasional impulses of his colleagues who might want to move quickly toward some unknown policy destination.

Is there even a need to make such an effort?

Dr. Eades has served the city well during his time on the council. I wish him well as he prepares to leave the region where he grew up and where he has earned a nice living.

I’m betting that Paul Harpole isn’t too happy to learn of this departure. The other three guys are rubbing their hands together.

 

 

local news

Manager’s 911 tempest might not be quite over

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It turns out that Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers’ expression of “regret” hasn’t quite buttoned up the controversy surrounding his ill-fated phone call to the Amarillo Emergency Communication Center.

Childers offered his “sincere” regrets Tuesday at a City Council meeting over the way he acted during a 911 call he made to report a missing briefcase at a local hotel. He was brusque with a dispatcher who was doing her job. To be candid, he bullied her over the phone while demanding that she send police officers to the hotel to find the briefcase. He said he wanted the hotel “shut down” while the cops looked for the missing item.

The briefcase was recovered shortly after Childers made the call.

His call has prompted a lot of conversation around the city.

So has his expression of “regret,” which technically falls a bit short of an apology.

Panhandle PBS is going to broadcast a “Live Here” segment Thursday to examine the potential fallout from the event. The public TV station is going to visit with Mayor Paul Harpole and councilmen Elisha Demerson and Brian Eades to discuss what happens next.

See the promo here

Oh, but there’s a good bit more to this episode.

Terry Bavousett, the former head of the AECC, has issued a lengthy public statement about his views of what happened. He has announced his retirement effective next week.

But the statement goes into considerable detail about what Bavousett said happened when Childers made the call and how the dispatcher handled it.

It’s not a flattering portrait of Childers, to say the least.

Where does this matter go from here? That depends on the City Council, which hired Childers as the interim manager after Jarrett Atkinson resigned — under apparent pressure from some council members.

If I were on the council, I would be inclined to accept Childers’ mea culpa at face value. He vowed never to do it again. Take the man at his word, OK? But make damn sure he remains faithful to his pledge to treat city staffers with the respect they deserve as professional public servants.

Then I would be inclined to get moving rapidly on finding a permanent replacement. I’m not privy to the expressions of interest the city has received regarding the city manager’s position. Maybe it has a lot of qualified people interested in coming to work here; maybe it has only a few. Whatever the circumstance, the city should accelerate the search.

Childers well might want to return to Oklahoma City to resume the life he had before coming here. He might want to retire and move back home to Abilene. Or, he just might want to go fishin’.

The city is embarking on an ambitious downtown revitalization effort as well as equally ambitious street and highway infrastructure improvements being done by the state; it needs a permanent chief administrator on hand to take charge.

Incidents such as this have this way of taking on lives of their own. That appears to be the case with the city manager’s phone call to a 911 dispatcher who was doing the job she was trained to do.

Maybe we’ll get an idea of what the immediate future holds for Terry Childers when the three council members talk to Panhandle PBS. More importantly, though, is what’s in store for the city as it continues to move forward.

This fallout from this unfortunate event will recede eventually. My hope is that it does so sooner rather than too much later.

It’s your move, City Council.