Tag Archives: AEDC

business news, local news, medical news

AEDC comes up with lucrative offer for Tech

tech-1_jpg_800x1000_q100

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?

business news, local news

City takes an astonishing turn

downtown

Maybe I’m easily amazed.

Whatever.

My amazement is focused on what I have perceived to be a remarkable about-face at Amarillo City Hall. It involves the city’s focus on its downtown business and entertainment district. It has gone from a hands-off public policy to a definite hands-on approach.

I am utterly convinced the entire city will reap the benefit.

My wife and I arrived in Amarillo in early 1995 to start a new life — and to continue a life we started when we arrived in Texas 11 years earlier.

We saw a downtown district that was, to put it charitably, in a state of suspended animation. Downtown was in shabby condition. In addition to the Barfield Building and Herring Hotel — two significant structures that have been rotting ever since — the city had the vacant Santa Fe Building with which to contend.

Then the light bulb flickered on at the Potter County Courthouse. County Judge Arthur Ware finagled a deal to purchase the Santa Fe Building for $400,000. He then secured a state historic preservation grant to pay for a renovation of the magnificent 12-story structure. The project was completed — and the county moved some of its offices into the Santa Fe Building.

That might be considered the start of downtown Amarillo’s revival.

City Hall’s outlook, though, remained standoffish. Mayors Kel Seliger and Trent Sisemore seemed uninterested in getting involved directly with downtown revival. They preferred to let private business take the lead. The city might lend support — if it felt a project merited it.

Little happened over nearly a decade.

The pace has accelerated tremendously in the past decade. How did it come about? I believe it has been the result of a more activist City Hall approach.

The city launched a Strategic Action Plan, which produced a vision for the downtown district. It created Downtown Amarillo Inc. Center City became even more of a player. The city created the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. The Amarillo Economic Development Corp. invested sale tax funds to help some of these projects along.

Meanwhile, private businesses — apparently sensing the energy coming from City Hall — began a series of tangible improvement projects. New bank branches went up. A convenience store was built. The old Fisk Building was turned into a business hotel.

The momentum was building.

Then came the Embassy Suites hotel project. Plans took root to build a parking garage. And, oh yes, we have that multipurpose event venue/ballpark.

Along the way, some folks started expressing anger. They didn’t like the way the city was proceeding with some of these projects. They alleged “secrecy,” which I believe was a dubious accusation.

Sure, we had some serious misfires. Wallace Bajjali — the master development firm hired to oversee downtown’s resurrection — went kaput overnight. That, too, fueled the anger. Well, WB is long gone.

But the movement is continuing.

The City Council has gone through a serious makeover. There have been some more hiccups, mostly created by tensions among some of the council members.

Is all this amazing? Yes it is.

I do not want the city to turn away from its new course.

The city is going to ask voters to approve more than $300 million in infrastructure improvements, just as it asked voters to approve a referendum to build that MPEV downtown.

There are times when local government can step in — and step up — when it perceives a need.

Amarillo saw the need to boost its downtown district. Believe this: When this project is done — as every U.S. community that has taken this kind of proactive approach has learned — the entire city will reap the reward.

local news

Welcome to the arena, Lisa Blake

blake

Well, that didn’t take long.

Amarillo City Council members interviewed five finalists today for the vacancy on the body that will occur when Dr. Brian Eades hits the road.

Then the council chose the head of Leadership Amarillo, Lisa Blake, to fill the seat that Dr. Eades will vacate.

It wasn’t a unanimous vote. Councilman Randy Burkett voted “no” to appoint Blake.

Whatever the case, I guess we’re getting used to split votes on the governing body, which saw its makeup changed dramatically after the May 2015 municipal election.

This council member selection process was an interesting and enlightening exercise. The five individuals spoke to the council in full public view. They all answered the same set of 10 questions. I wasn’t there today, so I cannot comment on the quality of everyone’s answers.

I did visit today, though, with a community leader who did listen to the interviews and he came away quite impressed with Blake’s presentation, her background and her potential as a city leader.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/32430303/blake-appointed-to-place-2-seat

What happens now? How will Councilwoman-designate Blake work with this new council?

The City Council has been a contentious group at times. Indeed, it took power amid some fairly shrill rhetoric, which included calls for then-City Manager Jarrett Atkinson to quit and for the dismissal of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board.

It’s been a bit of a bumpy ride — at times — for the past year.

So now, we have a fourth new member of the council about to take office.

I am heartened to know that the new council member has a strong record of civic involvement. Leadership Amarillo has been a stellar organization for a long time and Lisa Blake represents the good work that the organization has done to promote a new generation of civic leaders.

Let’s see now what she can do on behalf of her new constituents.

She’s got 200,000 of them out here who need steady, strong and civil leadership at City Hall.

local news

Time flies at Amarillo City Hall

city council

Where does the time go?

A year has passed since the Amarillo municipal election occurred that seated three new City Council members.

It’s worth noting this month as the first anniversary, given that the final new guy — Mark Nair — had to win his seat in a runoff that occurred more than a month after the initial balloting.

I’ve tried to give the city the benefit of the doubt as the new folks have settled in.

I am left, though, to give them a mixed rating — at best.

I’ll stipulate up front that I am acquainted with just two of the new councilmen — Elisha Demerson, who I have known from a distance for many years, and Nair, who I only met recently and with whom I had an informative and cordial conversation. I have not yet met Randy Burkett, although I’ve been quite aware of his presence on the council.

What continues to trouble me is the discord that seems to have infected the council. There once was a time when the council sang in nearly perfect harmony on the big issues.

Granted, it wasn’t always pitch-perfect. The late Jim Simms was known to be a contrarian on occasion, as was the late Dianne Bosch in the late 1990s. They would make their objections known and then would back whatever decision the majority of their colleagues made.

That doesn’t seem to be the case these days.

The new guys took office and immediately began damning the performance of then-City Manager Jarrett Atkinson. One of them called for the termination of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board. Then came a temporary truce.

The truce came undone when Atkinson resigned. The council brought in Terry Childers to serve as interim city manager.

AEDC executive director Buzz David quit, as did City Attorney Marcus Norris. Assistant City Manager Vicki Covey retired. Other senior staffers bailed.

The council seated new members on the Local Government Corporation. One of the founders of the LGC, Richard Brown, walked away, taking with him a trove of experience at business development and promotion.

The director of Downtown Amarillo Inc., Melissa Dailey, also walked away from a job that had produced some stunning progress in the evolution of the downtown district.

What’s left? Who’s running the show?

Terry Childers will be gone eventually. He might get to hire a new police chief to replace Robert Taylor, who is retiring in just a few days.

Meantime, the City Council must choose a new council member to replace Dr. Brian Eades, who’s leaving town to set up a medical practice in rural Colorado. That selection process has been something of a cluster hump, too, with the council deciding how to handle some pithy and crass social media posts delivered by one of the finalists for the council appointment; there appears to be disagreement among them over the significance of those comments and whether they should be considered as the council ponders this decision.

Yes, we’ve seen considerable progress in the city.

Construction is proceeding on the Embassy Suites Hotel and the parking garage. Xcel Energy’s new office complex is well underway. The council has instructed the LGC to negotiate a deal to lure a Class Double A baseball franchise to Amarillo, where it will play ball in the ballpark to be built across the street from City Hall.

The fate of the MPEV, though, might be in doubt if the council cannot learn to at leat pretend it is working together.

Not long ago, Mayor Paul Harpole stormed out of an executive session to protest what he said was a lack of “trust in the process” of selecting a new council member. Although I generally support the mayor on most policy matters, I am dismayed at the public pique he exhibited — and the message it might send beyond the city’s borders.

The three new council members vowed to bring “change” to City Hall. They brought it all right.

I won’t give up on them just yet.

However, my own patience is wearing a bit thin.

Let’s step it up, shall we?

business news, local news

Mayor creates a scene where none was needed

mayor and nair

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

Downtown mechanism needs attention

downtown

A former colleague and dear friend, the late journalist Claude Duncan, used to say, “There are about as many original ideas as there are original sins.”

That was his way of saying that it’s all right to capture others’ ideas and use them as your own.

I’ve heard some folks with expertise in civic development say out loud in Amarillo that they are concerned about the push to move the city’s downtown revival efforts forward. Chiefly, they wonder whether the machinery that had been set up to start the process has been dismantled too abruptly.

Here are some cases in point from those with whom I have spoken.

City Manager Jarrett Atkinson quit after determining he couldn’t work with the newly elected Amarillo City Council. City Hall also lost other key senior administrators, such as City Attorney Marcus Norris and Assistant City Manager Vicki Covey. They all played a key part in administering the city’s Strategic Action Plan that laid the foundation for what has transpired to date.

Downtown Amarillo Inc. executive director Melissa Dailey quit as City Hall absorbed many of the economic development activities that had been left to DAI.

Amarillo Economic Development Corporation CEO and president Buzz David has left his post. He, too, has been a key player in moving the downtown processes forward.

The Local Government Corporation has said goodbye to a lot of intellectual firepower, such as Amarillo lawyer Richard Brown, who is widely considered to be the godfather of the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone that has helped breathe new life into the downtown district.

Where do we stand now?

The LGC is moving forward with plans to develop the multipurpose event venue and ballpark. It has decided to pursue an affiliated minor-league baseball franchise and put that team into the downtown ballpark when it is built.

Construction has begun on the Embassy Suites convention hotel and the parking garage across the street from it. There appears to be a legitimate chance for a big announcement soon relating to the future of the long-abandoned Herring Hotel.

The MPEV price tag has escalated from $32 million to something north of $50 million. Yes, voters approved the lesser price  when they endorsed the citywide referendum this past November. The LGC, though, has signed on to the double-A baseball recruitment effort and has accepted that it requires a little more money to finance it.

Against the backdrop, though, of the dismantling of the machinery that set this process up, it is fair to wonder whether the city and its affiliated agencies have the know-how to finish the job that others have started.

The city is looking for a permanent city manager. DAI’s future is cloudy at best. The AEDC’s mission might be reconfigured as the city looks for a new executive director.

Moreover, the City Council itself will have to find someone to succeed Dr. Brian Eades, who’s leaving office this summer. Eades has been a stellar champion of downtown’s revival efforts and has been a staunch supporter of the multi-faceted apparatus that has been so critical in moving those efforts along.

I remain hopeful that the city will be able to take this process to the finish line.

I also am getting mildly nervous about the potential hazards that lie ahead and whether the newly created apparatus will be alert enough to avoid them.

 

local news

Here comes that ‘change’ at City Hall

Mark Nair took his oath of office as the Amarillo City Council’s newest member and then asked for the resignations of City Manager Jarrett Atkinson, Assistant City Manager Vicki Covey and the five Amarillo Economic Development Corporation board members.

Isn’t there a “getting acquainted period” involved here?

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/29447986/city-leaders-asked-to-resign

Nope.

So, here’s the change voters seemingly said they wanted when they elected Nair and two other new guys to the City Council. Randy Burkett joined the newest guy in calling for the resignations.

Haven’t heard yet if the third newbie, Elisha Demerson, feels the same way. I’ll assume for the moment he does.

The $113 million question is this: What would changes at the top of the Amarillo administrative municipal chain of command mean for its downtown redevelopment efforts?

I hope that rumble I’m hearing isn’t the sound of a train wreck about to occur.

 

business news, local news

AEDC turns 25

The year 1989 proved to be a time of tumult and triumph for Amarillo.

Voters rebelled against the City Commission (as it was called then) and tossed most of its members out. Times were tough then. The economy was in the tank, the city was fighting with prominent businessman Boone Pickens, who had gotten angry at the local newspaper over its coverage of certain issues.

City voters, though, did have the good sense to approve the formation of the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, a body tasked with spending a portion of sales tax revenue on job-creation projects for the city and the surrounding region.

Voters said “yes” to AEDC and it came into being.

It’s been collecting a half-cent of sales tax every year since, building a handsome investment fund for the past quarter century.

It has had some notable successes and some stinging defeats over the years.

The big daddy of the successes, of course, was the return of Bell Helicopter to Amarillo. Bell/Textron set up huge aircraft assembly operation next to Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport after AEDC dangled about #45 million in inducements to the company to relocate its assembly operations from Fort Worth to Amarillo. Suffice to say the good folks of Cowtown were none too pleased with what they thought amounted to corporate bribery of a company using public money.

Bell came here, began assembling the V-22 Osprey for the Marine Corps. The site has grown in the years since then, adding hundreds of jobs.

AEDC also lured Hilmar Cheese to Dalhart, another venture that drew criticism from local folks who couldn’t grasp why AEDC was spending sales tax money on something built way up yonder in Dallam County. Well, that project has been a boon to the region as well.

Not all the projects have panned out. But all in all, the AEDC has provided an innovative inducement to companies looking to expand their payrolls or to relocate from other locations to the High Plains of Texas.

Billboards are cropping up around town saluting AEDC. TV spots are airing that do the same.

All in all, the AEDC has helped the city stay afloat while other communities have struggled during tough times.

That’s reason enough to offer a good word.

Uncategorized

Changes coming to AMA

The Wright Amendment expires later this year, meaning that some changes are in store for an air carrier that serves Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.

Southwest Airlines, headquartered at Dallas Love Field, will reduce its daily service at AMA from seven flights to five.

What’s the connection?

Well, the Wright Amendment, enacted in 1974, was meant to protect the then-new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport by restricting travel from Love Field. Southwest Airlines planes couldn’t take off for destinations without having to stop first in close-in locations. The amendment, named after its author, former U.S. Rep. Jim Wright, D-Fort Worth, has been scrapped now that D-FW has grown up and become one of the world’s pre-eminent air terminals.

What’s in store for AMA? Two fewer Southwest flights daily, for starters. Airport officials aren’t signaling any panic. They’ll continue to compete for air service in and out of their shiny new terminal. Southwest will be able to depart Love Field for farther non-stop destinations.

Amarillo, though, isn’t without some economic weapons of its own to toss at carriers looking for a place to land. It’s used one of them with effectiveness in the past. The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation once paid American Airlines more than $1 million annually to retain jet service in and out of AMA. The money came from sales tax revenue it collected, believing that the jet service would attract business to Amarillo by providing more comfortable and speedier air service. Critics scoffed at the idea of paying for jet service, but it worked. American Airlines retained the jet service, then scrapped it for a time, and then returned it to Amarillo — as well as to other regional airports around the country.

I’m not too worried that AMA is going to be left in the cold once the Wright Amendment passes into history.

However, if business falters at AMA, the AEDC has a large pile of money at its disposal to dangle in front of those who are looking for some incentives to do business with Amarillo. The precedent has been set.

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Lawsuit may muck up downtown plan

Just when you thought Amarillo was set to take a major step toward downtown revival, something gets in the way … maybe.

The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation announced plans to file a lawsuit to recover $1.6 million from the company that built the CenterPort Business Park in east Amarillo. Yes, it’s some distance from downtown.

But hold on.

The CenterPort site is now vacant. Another business lured here by AEDC gave up on its wind-turbine construction project and left. The city wants to relocate the Coca-Cola distribution center, which is currently downtown, to the CenterPort site. Except that it’s structurally unsound. The foundation is a mess, according to AEDC. It needs to rebuilt.

The firm that built the place, Commercial Industrial Builders, muffed the job. AEDC wants the company to pay back the money that AEDC says it will have to spend to fix the site.

What does this mean for downtown’s revival? Well, the Coca-Cola site is supposed to become home to a multipurpose entertainment venue to be built, along with a downtown hotel and a huge parking garage. The legal action just might gum up those works if CIB fights hard to keep from paying the money AEDC wants.

AEDC President and CEO Buzz David said the agency sought to resolve the dispute without going to court. The efforts so far have failed. Perhaps the threat of a lawsuit might spur CIB to pony up the cash so that AEDC can fix what it says is wrong with the building.

If the threat doesn’t work, I’m afraid we’re in for a lengthy delay on downtown’s move forward.