Tag Archives: Amarillo City Manager

local news

Manager’s 911 tempest might not be quite over

New-Image

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.

local news

Expression of ‘regret’ is good enough, Mr. Manager

childers

Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole said it quite well last night.

Interim City Manager Terry Childers’ expression of “regret” over the way he handled a 911 call is sufficient. It’s time to “move on,” Harpole said.

Public weighs in

For those who might not know what happened, here it is:

Childers called the Amarillo emergency call center to report a “stolen” briefcase. He became agitated when the dispatcher — acting in accordance with established protocol — began asking a series of questions. Childers wanted the cops to arrive at the hotel. He threatened to “shut down” the hotel and search for the briefcase.

He also bullied the dispatcher, telling her she didn’t know who she was “dealing with.” Actually, she knew that Childers is the city manager, as he told her so when he placed the call.

Well, Childers ended up misplacing the briefcase. It was recovered. Childers said the tone he used with the dispatcher “was not consistent” with the standards he sets for himself and those who work at City Hall.

The recording of at least three phone calls, though, went viral through the city, prompting a lot of questions about the way Childers treats other public employees.

This has been an embarrassment for the city.

I have commented on this matter in this forum, but I am more than willing now to move on, as the mayor has suggested.

The city made some changes effective immediately at the call center as a result of the call. I am not going to comment on whether the changes are justified. I only wish that the city emergency services hierarchy had let it be known before now about alleged problems with the call center operation.

As for the interim manager and his relationship with the folks who hired him — the five men who serve on the City Council — let’s hope they work this out among themselves. They do, after all, work for the rest of us.

Let us also hope that the city proceeds with all deliberate speed in finding a permanent manager.

Now, Mr. Manager, get back to work.

 

local news

City poised to become a joke target

911-emergency-service

I’m beginning to see the first hint of a ridicule campaign developing as it relates to Amarillo’s interim city manager.

It’s showing up in social media gags about ridiculously trivial “emergencies” becoming reasons to call 911.

Lost your car keys? Quick! Call the emergency response center.

A neighbor’s dog pooped on your yard? Hey, call 911 and demand the cops to get there in a hurry to arrest Rover.

This one actually was posted on a Facebook news feed. Someone lost his “phone voice” twice in one day. The person considered calling 911 “the second time. But we’re back in business now.”

Terry Childers’ call to the Amarillo 911 center over a misplaced briefcase is the stuff of ridicule. It might take some time — if ever, given the plethora of social media outlets — for this mini-tempest to wither away. He got the dispatcher on the phone and demanded multiple police officers arrive at the hotel where stayed; he demanded to speak to a supervisor; he wanted the hotel shut down and searched; he told the dispatcher she didn’t “know who she is dealing with.”

Why the hyperventilating? Over a briefcase!

Yeah, I can hear the joke machine getting cranked up at this moment.

Here’s how the interim city manager can put this thing to rest for as long as on the job at City Hall: Issue a public mea culpa, say he overreacted to what turned out to be the clumsy misplacement of an item.

It likely won’t happen. I don’t know Childers, but my strong hunch is that he’s a proud man, a strong executive — whose pride and administrative strength probably don’t allow him to say he’s sorry.

I’d bet real American money, though, that the jokes around town are going to mount.

 

local news

City manager steps in it

2 Comments

7cc82baf-9b40-478f-ad1b-4bb3c4fdb38e-9112

My trick knee is throbbing once again.

It’s not the weather that’s causing the throb. It’s this nagging sense that Amarillo’s interim city manager has stepped into a proverbial pile of … well, something unpleasant.

Terry Childers placed more than one phone call to the city’s 911 call center to report — get ready! — a lost briefcase. He became agitated at the way the dispatcher handled his call. She wasn’t prompt enough, I guess, or didn’t see the urgency that Childers apparently saw.

He wanted cops sent “immediately” to the hotel from where he reported the missing item. He said he wanted the place “shut down.” He told the dispatcher she “didn’t know” with whom she was dealing.

All in all, it sounds to my ears — and I listened to one of the calls — that Childers overreacted badly.

The brief case, by the way, was recovered. No harm no foul.

But wait. The interim manager got some changes at the call center. Cops and firefighters are now on duty at the site to work alongside the personnel already on duty. Police Chief Robert Taylor said the changes will improve the operation and that he had heard complaints from residents about the call center’s operation. Well, that’s news to me … and perhaps to many others.

This all sounds like the activity that begins with the word “cluster.”

So, what now?

The city is supposed to be looking for a permanent city manager. Childers will return to Oklahoma City when the new person signs on the dotted line.

My trick knee is telling me as well that the City Council — which makes precisely one hiring decision, according to the city charter — ought to fast-track its search for a permanent manager.

 

local news

Changes come to 911 call center

5 Comments

12596555

Amarillo put a lot of effort — and money — into modernizing and streamlining its emergency services response center.

City officials touted it as more efficient and customer-friendly. The city remodeled and outfitted an existing downtown office complex and then launched the center that combines police, fire and medical services calls.

Then the city’s interim city manager, Terry Childers, placed a call to the center the other day to report a stolen brief case from the hotel where he was staying after returning to Amarillo on a flight from Dallas. The dispatcher responded according to a set protocol that requires her to ask a set of questions. Childers became agitated and told the dispatcher that she didn’t “know who she is dealing with”; he made that assertion even after introducing himself to the dispatcher as the city manager, which the dispatcher seemed to understand clearly.

The city has initiated some changes in the dispatch center operations. It now assigns police officers and firefighters to help oversee phone center operations. It’s no longer a civilian-only operation.

This is all fine.

But I’m wondering: Was there a serious concern among the community about response times? Has the problem — if one existed — been festering since the call center opened? Or are these changes the result of a single phone call by one highly placed individual?

I’ve listened to the audio recording of Childers’ phone call. To my ears, it sounded as though the dispatcher acted with cool professionalism. I understand that the police did arrive in a timely fashion, although I’m not sure that the cops “shut down” the hotel to search for Childers’ missing brief case, as Childers had demanded.

I hope for all the world that we aren’t witnessing an abuse of authority.

Perhaps the city should conduct a thorough public airing of the complaints and concerns that allegedly have arisen from the new dispatch center. Is there a record of gripes from citizens? If there is, do those complaints rise to a level that compels a change in the way the city responds to these emergencies?

Let’s hear it. All of it.

 

local news

Honeymoon might be over

childers

Amarillo’s honeymoon with its interim city manager might have hit a rocky stretch of road.

City Manager Terry Childers placed a call to the city’s central dispatch center to report an alleged theft of his briefcase. The dispatcher who took the call sought to follow a protocol that all dispatchers are required to follow. She asked Childers a series of questions: phone number, location, etc. The city manager, though, became agitated at having to answer those questions and demanded that the city send several police officers immediately to the hotel from where he was calling.

https://soundcloud.com/johnstevens-99466989/terry-childers-911

The recorded conversation is contained in the link attached to this blog post.

Perhaps the most troubling element of the conversation that Childers had with the dispatcher was when he told her “I don’t think you’re aware of who you’re dealing with.” The inference clearly was, “I am the city manager and you will do what I demand … or else.”

The dispatcher told Childers she would send someone as soon as possible. Childers said that wasn’t good enough and he said he intended to “shut down” the hotel and search it from top to bottom until he found his briefcase.

I guess my question is this: Would any “ordinary citizen” be allowed to make such demands on public emergency services personnel?

I think not.

As I listened to the recording, the dispatcher appeared to be doing her job by the book.

I am willing to give both sides the benefit of the doubt, but I do believe some explanation is in order.

 

local news

Welcome aboard, Mr. Manager

childers

Let’s call it the “u-word.”

It stands for “unanimity,” and it symbolizes — one can hope — that Amarillo’s sometimes-fractious City Council has come to the collective conclusion that it’s time to speak with one voice.

The council voted unanimously Tuesday to appoint former Oklahoma City Manager Terry Childers as the interim chief executive for Amarillo.

Oklahoma City’s website sings the gentleman’s praises, which is no surprise. It does contain an interesting feature in describing Childers’ tenure as Oklahoma City manager: It speaks to his reorganizational skills and his push — get ready for this — to “beautify and strengthen” the city.

Childers succeeds Jarrett Atkinson as Amarillo city manager; I’ll have more on Atkinson in a moment. He comes to a city that in recent months has become politically frayed. A once-harmonious governing body has been punching itself in the face since the May municipal election over disagreements regarding its own downtown revival — and beautification — efforts, its senior administration and, that’s right, the performance of the city manager.

Is Childers — who grew up in Abilene — the man who can restore unity to City Hall? Is he capable of working some of the magic he brought to his job in that big ol’ city to our east? The OKC website notes: “From the moment he stepped into office, Childers stressed the importance of beautifying Oklahoma City, not only improve quality of life for residents, but to increase citizens’ respect for their hometown.”

Well, all five councilmen have bought into Terry Childers’ credentials. They are unanimous in their decision. My hope in our city’s future has been restored … at least for the time being.

***

Childers’ emphasis on beautification and government efficiency is noted on the OKC website. It doesn’t mention “water management,” which is one of the strengths that Jarrett Atkinson brought to the job when he became Amarillo city manager five years ago.

There can be no more precious resource than water. Under Atkinson’s tenure at City Hall, the city has helped secure its future through the purchase of water rights that will quench our municipal thirst well into the next century, and perhaps for the one after that.

He served the city well, first as an assistant city manager under Alan Taylor’s wing and then as the head man.

I’m sorry to see him leave public service.

The city has continued to function well and it has continued to meet the needs of those of whose tax money finances this $200 million-a-year operation.

As for Childers, time will tell if he’s the right man for the permanent job, should he choose to seek it.

On this first day of his new job, though, the city manager at least enjoys the unanimity of support from the folks who have hired him that his predecessor didn’t enjoy.

 

local news

Let’s not pussyfoot around: Atkinson was forced out

atkinson

Every single time I add 2 + 2, I get the same answer.

Thus, every time I try to figure out what’s been happening at Amarillo City Hall — and the destructive relationship between the city manager and most of the members of the City Council — I keep drawing the same conclusion.

City Manager Jarrett Atkinson could no longer work with the controlling bloc of council members. So, he has tendered his resignation.

Atkinson’s upcoming departure doesn’t bode well for what has been happening in Amarillo over the past, oh, half-dozen years or so.

The city has marched forward on some ambitious plans to remake its downtown district. Atkinson has been a key player in that effort.

But then along came the three new council members, two of whom ousted incumbents, and the dynamic has changed.

They called for the manager’s resignation right out of the chute. He didn’t quit. He stayed on — for as long as he could.

And yet we hear from one of the new council members, Elisha Demerson, seeking to put a positive spin on Atkinson’s departure. Demerson told the Amarillo Globe-News: “I disagree with the naysayers who would like to turn this into a political decision. This was a decision by Mr. Atkinson for the betterment of himself and his family and I respect that.”

Please excuse my candor, Councilman Demerson: That is pure crap!

Sure, he sought to better “himself and his family.” Why? Because he likely was sick and tired of being hassled at every turn.

I’m not privy to what went into Atkinson’s decision to quit at this time. But none of it adds up to anything other than maddening frustration and an inability to work constructively with most of those who comprise the City Council. How else does one explain why a city manager would throw in the towel in the midst of all the hard work that still needs doing to improve the city’s future?

The council faces the most important task it ever will undertake. It must hire a new city manager. My hunch is that the council will not find a successor within the ranks of current administrative staff. They’ve been party to what has transpired since the May election and the takeover of the council by its new majority.

The alternative? Conduct a nationwide search. Oh, and be sure you tell every candidate who applies precisely — and in detail — what he or she will face if the council selects them.

That would be a ringside seat from which the new manager will get to witness more turmoil and bickering.

local news

What if Atkinson goes?

atkinson

Let’s play a little game of “What if …?”

Are you ready? Here goes.

What if Amarillo City Manager Jarrett Atkinson decides — against the expressed wishes of one of the city councilmen to whom he reports — that he doesn’t want to resign?

What if, then, the City Council decides to terminate the city manager?

What if the city then launches a national search to find a new chief executive for the city administration? Lord knows they aren’t going to look inward for that one, given that they want “change” at City Hall. Nor should they. The job is a big one and it requires someone with considerable skill and — as seen in recent weeks — someone with a rhino hide.

What if the council dangles a job posting out there, offers to pay the next city manager a lot of money and it gets responses from dozens of qualified candidates?

What if, then, the city manager applicants one by one start looking at the city’s recent history? They note that the council fired the city manager who was up to his eyeballs in planning a downtown revitalization project. They also take note that one of the councilmen who wanted Atkinson to quit had barely taken his oath of office before spouting off.

Then they wonder, do I really want to go work in that environment, for that body of council members who were so quick to dismiss an experienced public servant?

What if the process drags on for months as the city keeps combing the country for the right person who’s willing to come to Amarillo, Texas — which, while it’s a nice city with nice people, isn’t exactly paradise?

Finally, what if the city manager selection process drags on so long that all the hard work that’s gone into redeveloping downtown Amarillo gets flushed down the toilet?

Therein lies the potential predicament that awaits these City Hall change agents.

Good luck, gentlemen.

local news

Hold on for bumpy ride at City Hall

My cell phone rang this morning. I answered it and on the other end was a friend of mine who works at Amarillo City Hall.

We chatted for a few moments about some blogs I’d written about the new City Council makeup, the potential fate of City Manager Jarrett Atkinson and a few other things.

I told my friend, “I don’t feel good about what I’m seeing happening at City Hall.”

My friend answered, “It’s going to get a bit bumpy around here.”

My final response to my friend was to “keep your head down.”

Later in the day, I visited with another friend who recalled when he first came to Amarillo, one of the things he had heard about city government was “how well everyone worked together.” He talked of the espirit de corps that existed among city leaders, the business community and just plain folks.

Is all of that gone now that we have a new City Council comprising three new guys who campaigned for “change”?

Three new council members have taken their oath and two of them have called for the resignation of the city manager, whose status will be the subject of a City Council meeting next Tuesday.

The stakes, though, go far beyond the fate of one man. Jarrett Atkinson might survive this tempest. If he does, then he’ll have a majority of the council — if not all five of them — watching his every move.

If he doesn’t survive, if he quits or is let go, what happens then to the grand plan that’s already begun its forward movement? The effort to revive downtown already has begun.

The Coca-Cola distribution center has been vacated to make room for construction of that multipurpose event venue; Xcel Energy has broken ground on its new office complex; the block that used to house the city jail has been cleared away to accommodate construction of a convention hotel.

Do we really and truly have the stomach to see all of the hard work that went into this proposal tossed aside?

If the need arises and we need to look for a city manager, the process is going to take months — perhaps many months. Is anyone going to rise up from within the ranks to take the job? You can stop laughing. I get it. Of course not.

My friend was trying to be diplomatic with the description of a “bumpy” ride coming up.

We’d all better hold on with both hands.

Oh, and that spirit of cooperation? Well, that’s a goner, too. I do not object to healthy dissent and debate — along with constructive criticism. I fear the potential for a City Hall donnybrook.