Tag Archives: Terry Childers

local news

City manager speaks to ‘caustic’ political environment

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Terry Childers speaks like a man with no burdens to bear regarding the city government he is administering.

Karen Welch of Panhandle PBS asked him whether Amarllo is having difficulty finding a permanent city manager to succeed Childers — the interim manager. He provided a spot-on answer during the “Live Here” segment.

The city needs to get past its next City Council election next May, when all five members of the council seats will be contested. It’s a quirk in the city charter, I suppose, that puts all five council members on the ballot at the same time. Who would want to take the city manager’s job knowing that after the next election, the city could have a new council — which then might want to replace the city manager? Childers asked.

Ba-da-boom!

Then he launched into what he called the “caustic” environment that has pervaded City Hall since the latest election, in May 2015.

City Council members have attacked each other’s motives, their political outlook, their integrity, Childers said. Those who run City Hall need to “put Amarillo first,” he said,  and dispense with the pettiness and petulance that has too often guided the public discussion.

He also took a clear-and-present shot at the Amarillo Globe-News, which he accused of “assassinating people’s character.” He asked, who would want to be subjected to that?

What he didn’t say in the interview, but which is surely implied, is that city manager candidates do not want to walk into that sausage grinder.

Childers is going to stay on the job for another few months. He told Welch he has “no interest” in becoming the permanent manager. I believe him. He wants to go back home and get on with the rest of his life.

He talks about that environment at about the 20-minute mark of the attached video link.

http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365817588/

City government has been a significantly less harmonious organization for the past 15 months than it has been for, oh, the past several decades. The interim manager, though, was careful to tell Welch that he works with five “wonderful” council members who disagree with each other and with him. He said he’s fine with that.

If the environment is as “caustic” as the city manager believes it is, well, it’s time for the governing council to look inward and decide whether it really is intent on putting the city’s interests ahead of its members’ own political agendas.

Thanks for your honesty, Mr. Manager.

local news, political news

City is getting its infrastructure act together

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I’ve been yapping and yammering for a year about all the “change” that arrived at Amarillo City Hall with the election of three new City Council members.

Some of it has been good. Some, well, not so good.

I want to address one of the “good” changes that is developing as I write this brief blog post.

Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has laid out the case for the city to ask its residents — the bosses, if you will — this question: How much are you willing to pay for some critical infrastructure needs?

He spoke to Panhandle PBS on Thursday night in a “Live Here” segment that, to my ears, illustrates a fundamental shift in the city’s approach to applying good government.

Here’s the interview:

http://video.kacvtv.org/video/2365817588/

Amarillo has long boasted about its low municipal property tax rate. It’s the lowest of any city “of significance” in Texas, Childers said. The issue, though, is that it’s not enough to take care of those capital needs and “maintenance and operation” the city must meet.

Childers talked about the need to repair and replace roads, sewer lines and to modernize the Civic Center. How is the city going to do that? It has to ask the residents to pony up the dough.

There might be a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-cent increase in the municipal property tax rate. Each penny of increase in the amount per $100 assessed property valuation will enable the city to borrow funds to pay for the improvements.

Given that the city is virtually debt free, Childers seems to suggest that the time has come to ask for residents for some help in paying for these needs.

Amarillo already is undergoing a serious makeover of its downtown district. There’s already been some public commitment, but the bulk of the money is coming from private investors. Very soon, the city will start knocking down the old Coca-Cola distribution center to make room for that multipurpose event venue. I remain delighted to see the changes that have occurred already downtown — and await eagerly the changes that are about to come.

But the city needs to do a lot of work to fix its streets, sewer lines and other infrastructure amenities that we all need.

Childers is making a strong case for those needs.

legal news, local news, national news, political news, Uncategorized

Seeing some symmetry between SCOTUS and APD chief picks

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Am I hallucinating, or do I see a certain symmetry between two appointments: one at the highest level of government, the other right here at home on the High Plains of Texas?

One of them deserves the opportunity to do his duties as an elected public official. The other one also has earned the right to perform his duty as an appointed one.

Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has selected Ed Drain to be the city’s interim chief of police; Drain is set to succeed retiring Police Chief Robert Taylor on July 1.

There might be a point of contention, though. You see, Childers won’t be city manager for very long. The City Council already has begun looking for a permanent city manager and Childers has declared his intention to retire completely from public life.

The council, though, has given Childers all the authority that the city manager’s position holds. Childers can hire — and fire — senior city administrators. He also is able to enact municipal policy changes when and where he sees fit. What the heck? He was able to bring changes to the city’s emergency communications center because he misplaced his briefcase at an Amarillo hotel, right?

Now, for the other example.

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President Barack Obama has named Merrick Garland to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia. The voters delivered the president all the power he needs to do his duty when they re-elected him to his second and final term in 2012.

Republicans in the U.S. Senate, though, have said: Hold on a minute! The president’s a lame duck. We don’t want him appointing the next justice. We want the next president to do it. They, of course, are hoping that Donald J. Trump takes the oath next January. Good luck with that.

Here’s the question: Should the city manager be allowed to appoint the permanent chief of police, or should the council demand that the decision be left to the permanent city manager?

My own take is this: I’ve railed heavily against the GOP’s obstructing Obama’s ability to do his job. Republicans are wrong to play politics with this process and they are exhibiting a shameless disregard for the authority the president is able to exercise. The president is in the office until next Jan. 20 and he deserves the opportunity to fulfill all of his presidential responsibilities.

Accordingly, the Amarillo city manager will be on the job until the City Council hires someone else and that permanent manager takes over.

Thus, Terry Childers ought to be able to make the call — if the right person emerges quickly — on who should lead the police department … even if he won’t be around to supervise the new chief.

local news

Interim police chief gets a leg up

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Amarillo has a new interim police chief, who’ll assume his new post on July 1, when Police Chief Robert Taylor retires, climbs aboard his Harley and hits the road.

I join many others in wishing Chief Taylor well and thank him for his 36 years of law enforcement service to the community.

Back to the interim chief selection. The new top cop is Ed Drain, currently on the staff of the Plano Police Department. He got the job after being appointed by the city’s interim city manager, Terry Childers.

The city manager made an interesting statement after he chose Drain to take over as police chief. The question dealt with why Childers went outside the department to find an interim chief. He thought it would be best if he leveled the playing field for all Amarillo PD applicants who might want to seek the police chief’s job.

That’s fine. It levels the field for all the in-house applicants. Ed Drain, though, has a leg up on getting the permanent job if he seeks it, too.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/32265897/interim-police-chief-named-for-apd

I’m a bit curious as to why the need to go outside the department in the first place.

The last time Amarillo brought in an outsider to run its police department was in the early 1980s, when the late City Manager John Stiff hired Oklahoman Jerry Neal to lead APD.

I wasn’t here in 1981 when Neal got the police chief job, but I’ve heard all about the circumstance he inherited when he came aboard. He took command of a dysfunctional police agency. It wasn’t working.

The police department needed a progressive leader and Stiff found one in Jerry Neal.

Is the Amarillo Police Department in a similar state of disarray now? Hardly. It is working well. Hey, the city witnessed a police department handle a potentially explosive hostage situation just a few days ago with supreme professionalism.

I’m going to presume that the interim chief understands the dynamics that drive a police department such as the one that serves Amarillo. As Drain told NewsChannel 10: “My goal here is to analyze the things that are going on in the department and any areas where I think there needs to be improvement,”  Drain said. “Some of those obviously I’m not going to get done as an interim, but you heard the city manager say incremental improvement, so I want to do that.”

I don’t intend to get ahead of the game here. The new chief is an interim pick, after all. However, his hiring is beginning to look like a done deal.

It makes me wonder: Do we really need a fresh approach to the police department, which I believe is running pretty well?

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

Childers finally says he’s sorry for 911 misstep

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Amarillo interim City Manager Terry Childers has re-thought what he said earlier this week.

He said initially in public that he regrets the manner in which a 911 call turned out.

Now he says he’s “sorry.” He’s issued an apology. In public. Out loud. To the city he administers.

There. Now, can we put this matter to rest?

This story needs to quiet down.

Amarillo has been through too much turmoil in the past year.

A new City Council majority promised “change.” It brought it. City Manager Jarrett Atkinson quit, as did other senior city staff.

The council brought in Childers, the former Oklahoma City manager, to steady the city’s administrative ship.

Then came the 911 call to the Amarillo Emergency Communication Center. He got agitated over the way the dispatcher responded to his report of a missing briefcase.

There’s been plenty of criticism being tossed around the city at the interim manager. I’ve heard rumblings that some of it has been quite ugly, although I have not seen or read any of it with my own eyes.

OK. He’s now said he’s sorry, which I guess lies near the heart of what concerned some residents.

Let’s hope this matter can be put to rest, that the interim manager can continue his work running the city and that the council can proceed with its search for a permanent chief administrator.

 

local news

Issue of race creeps into 911 discussion

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An ugly element might be seeping into the Amarillo community discussion over the interim city manager’s handling of a 911 telephone call.

I pray it doesn’t go any further. I also hope the community is prepared to deal with it head-on if it reaches a full boil.

The element is race.

Terry Childers’ phone call on Feb. 14 to the city’s 911 dispatch center has become the source of plenty of talk around town. He didn’t handle himself well when he called the center after misplacing his briefcase at a local hotel. He became agitated with the dispatcher. He wanted to shut down the hotel to search for the missing item.

In short, Childers seemed to blow a fuse. Over a briefcase!

He has apologized to the call center staff. He’s expressed “regret” in a public statement at a City Council meeting. He has vowed it won’t happen again.

Some of the social media chatter — and criticism — about the incident has included some derogatory language.

Childers is African-American.

The potentially troubling element might have revealed itself this week when two city councilmen — one white and one black — offered differing perspectives on whether race has become a talking point.

Councilman Elisha Demerson told Panhandle PBS’s Karen Welch that some of the comments have been racial in nature. Demerson is African-American. He said he’s heard of critics using the “n-word” when referring to Childers.

Watch the “Live Here” segment here.

http://www.panhandlepbs.org/panhandle-local/live-here/

Councilman Brian Eades, who’s white, said he hasn’t heard it. He hasn’t heard about it, either.

Who’s hearing it correctly?

It’s quite clear that people of different racial backgrounds hear things differently. I am not going to presume to know whether one man is correct and the other is wrong.

I’ll offer this personal note: I had heard about the alleged racist remarks, although I personally haven’t heard them directly with my own ears or read them with my own eyes.

Does that mean the racially tinged comments are not out there? Hardly.

The community discussion about the interim city manager’s conduct regarding a botched telephone exchange with emergency dispatchers is worthwhile and should be constructive.

But oh, man, it must not become poisoned by what one elected city official has said he has heard.

However, if it does …

 

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.