Tag Archives: Amarillo Civic Center

local news, political news

Why not debate … in Amarillo?

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APTOPIX_Presidential_Debate-0bf0c-7089

I’ve noted before in previous election cycles that the major political parties need to think beyond the norm when planning for debates between their presidential nominees.

The norm in the past has been to select cities with large media markets. Sometimes the parties put these debates in cities and states where the race is competitive.

Here’s a revolutionary thought: Why not stage one of these events right here, in little ol’ Amarillo, Texas?

Hey, I know it’s a long shot. A pipe dream. I know it won’t happen. Then again, in this strange, goofy, unpredictable, topsy-turvy primary campaign — which on the Republican side is being driven by Donald J. Trump — well, anything seems possible.

Look at it this way, Amarillo is a significant city in a significant state. One of Amarillo’s state lawmakers, Republican Four Price, said the other day that Texas’s economy all by itself is the 12th largest in the world. That by itself makes us a player.

What might be the theme of a debate held in Amarillo? Energy policy ought to be front and center. I doubt, of course, that debate planners would build a two-hour televised event around energy policy by itself.

But it does tie into the nation’s economy. How about foreign policy, given that we’re weaning ourselves of foreign oil? We’re becoming something of a trend-setter in the development of wind energy, one of those alternatives that gets some of the credit for the plunging oil prices around the world.

We’ve got venues for such an event. The Civic Center is one. The performing arts center across the street is another. Why not look at the West Texas A&M University event center in Canyon?

Is such a thing possible?

Consider this: No one ever thought that Donald Trump would be setting the pace in the race for the Republican Party presidential nomination.

I’m just saying that this election is wild and crazy enough for Amarillo to get a serious look if the political parties here want to put together a formal request.

 

 

business news, local news

Whether to vote on MPEV

It’s now been established that the new majority on the Amarillo City Council believes it brought “change” to the way things are to get done at City Hall.

I guess they believe, therefore, that the city residents need to vote on whether to proceed with the multipurpose event venue planned for a site just south of the City Hall building.

My strong sense is that they also believe voters would reject the MPEV. The reasons why aren’t precise. One thing I keep hearing — based on what I read through all the media outlets available — is that residents weren’t kept sufficiently informed about the project. Well, that reason makes zero sense. The public has been involved from the get-go. There have been public hearings, and question-answer sessions with City Council members and senior city administrators.

Others want the Civic Center improved, expanded and dolled up before proceeding with an MPEV. What’s missing in this argument, though, is the cost of renovating the Civic Center and, more importantly, how much of a burden the public would carry to finance an improvement though a bond issue election. I’ve heard varying cost estimates for expanding the Civic Center, but they all seem to hover around the $130 million mark. That’s a lot of dough and it will cost more than the three-pronged project — MPEV, downtown hotel and parking garage — being proposed for downtown Amarillo.

Oh, and there’s this: The proposal on the table now calls for private money to build it, with hotel-motel tax revenue being used to maintain it.

And who contributes the hotel-motel tax revenue? Those who visit Amarillo.

I want to reiterate once again that the concept being considered is a sound one for the city … in my oh-so-humble view. A move to put this matter to a vote is intended to scuttle the MPEV. If it’s defeated, the hotel and the parking garage don’t get built.

Then we’ve just wasted a lot of time, emotional capital, sweat equity and, oh yes, money.

 

business news, local news

Are we clear now on downtown plans?

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Well, that explains it, correct?

Amarillo officials teamed up with business and civic leaders to go through downtown’s revival plans in minute detail. They explained a lot, answered questions, heard gripes and compliments. Roughly 300 residents gathered at the Civic Center’s Heritage Room to hear it all.

End of debate? Not even close.

Now, for the record, I wasn’t one of the attendees; work commitments kept me from going downtown to hear the pitch and to watch the reaction. I cannot comment specifically on the details of the hearing. Having stipulated all of that, I’ll now tell you that I continue to scratch my head over this notion that the city is somehow conducting all this stuff in secret.

I’ve looked at some of the online comments posted on Amarillo.com; I still am amazed.

The downtown project needs a couple of starters to keep it going. One of them is that multipurpose events venue, aka MPEV and/or “the ballpark.” Without the MPEV, there likely will be no downtown hotel, which would be built and operated by a Dallas-based hotelier. Without the hotel and the MPEV, there’s no parking garage.

The project would be done.

And yet …

Some folks in high places think the MPEV is a bad idea. They’ve dislike the notion of building a convention hotel downtown without first expanding the Civic Center to make it more conducive to conventions they say are going to other cities.

Weaving through all of this is this notion that the city has done things under cover. They’ve kept vital information from the public.

From what I have heard about the daylong public meeting Wednesday at the Civic Center, nothing of the sort can be validated. Yet the cynics out there — as illustrated by some of those online comments — keep insisting the meeting was a put-up job, meant to paper over the “real issues” relating to the downtown development proposals.

The project was estimated originally to cost $113 million — give or take a few hundred thousand bucks. I understand it’s been reduced to around $92 million. It’ll be financed by private investors, who’ve been given tax inducements from city and county governments. The city will put hotel-motel tax revenue to work in helping finance the project.

Oh, and let me add as well that the tax revenue in question comes from people who come here to, uh let me think, attend conventions or other entertainment-related events.

Those tax inducements? They involve tax abatements, contrary to what one leading local — and vocal — businessman, Craig Gualtiere, said recently, do work. They actually do provide incentives for business to come to communities, set up shop, build things, hire people and provide whatever service they are in business to provide. OK, so we exempt those businesses from paying property taxes for a few years. Then they join the tax rolls. Amarillo is not creating a new invention with this device; it’s been tried and proven all across the nation.

Yes, one can overdue tax abatements, but do you really think city and county officials are unaware of that risk?

So here we are. The community has heard from the downtown redevelopment brain trust.

Let’s proceed.

local news

Event venue facing increased scrutiny

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Of all the elements of Amarillo’s effort to revive its downtown district, the one aspect that seems to be drawing the most criticism is the multipurpose event venue … or MPEV.

The scrutiny is making me ask the simplest of questions: Why?

Not “why” on whether we should build the place, but why the concern over it in the first place?

The city is about to launch a three-pronged effort: building a parking garage, development of a convention hotel and construction of the MPEV, which also is known as “the ballpark.”

Officials have said until they’ve run out of breath that the $113 million combined cost of the package will be financed through user fees. Hotel-motel taxes collected by people who pay for lodging in Amarillo’s hotels will finance the projects.

The MPEV? It’ll be paid with the lodging tax.

The hotel? Same thing.

The parking garage? Ditto on that.

No tax money will be spent on these projects. That’s what City Hall has pledged. Is the city’s record on such pledges perfect? No. The Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts was supposed to be paid entirely with private donations. It fell a million or so dollars short, so the city ponied up the rest to finish off the $30 million project. The deal still was a sweet one for the city.

What the MPEV critics say should happen is that the city should refurbish the Civic Center, make it more attractive for larger-scale conventions that now pass Amarillo by in favor of cities with more spacious meeting rooms.

How much will that expansion cost? A friend of mine who’s been active in downtown revitalization efforts told me privately that the “best estimates” of improving the Civic Center to a level desired by those who want it expanded would be 10 times the cost of the MPEV. Who would pay for the Civic Center, a publicly owned building? Taxpayers would foot the bill. Every nickel and dime of it.

The city could issue general obligation bonds without a vote, or it could put the issue up for a vote in a bond issue election. How do you suppose an election would turn out? Amarillo voters demonstrated two years ago they aren’t in the mood to spend tax money on “quality of life” projects, such as the huge recreation center proposed for the southeast area of the city; voters rejected that bond issue request handily.

I’ve visited with city leaders repeatedly over the years about the downtown plan. I like the concept. I endorse the vision the city has put forth. I believe it will work and it will create a downtown business and entertainment district that will make our residents proud.

I also am willing to trust that it can be done the way its proponents say it will be done: through lodging revenue collected at our hotels and motels.

Will there be some public investment? Sure. Streets and lighting must be made suitable. They belong to us already. But the heavy lifting — construction of the sites under consideration — will be borne by those who come here from other places.

And yet, the City Council has members who now might want to throw all of this in reverse because, by golly, they’re just plain mad.

I ask once again: Why?

 

local news, national news, political news

Obama goes 'Red' to tell his story

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Hand it to President Obama. He delivered a State of the Union speech to a Congress now in full control of the opposing party and then he heads right into the center of the Red State base of the Republican Party.

He took his sales campaign today to Idaho. He is heading to Kansas on Thursday.

Idaho gave 64 percent of its vote in 2012 to GOP nominee Mitt Romney, while Kansas was casting nearly 60 percent of its vote for Mitt.

That doesn’t deter a lame-duck president who isn’t likely to call himself such as he pitches his middle-class tax cut to residents in states where he’s held in relatively low esteem.

“I still believe what I said back then,” Mr. Obama told a crowd at Boise State University. “I still believe that as Americans we have more in common than not.”

He’s surely entitled to believe that. Some of us out here in the Heartland aren’t so sure about the commonality. Still, I give the president props for taking the campaign into the heart of the loyal opposition’s territory.

Here’s a thought. How about coming here, Mr. President?

Texas isn’t friendly to you, either. But you did do nominally better in the Lone Star State than you did in Kansas, winning 42 percent of the 2012 vote against Mitt.

I even can make a pitch for Barack Obama to come to the Panhandle, where the 26 counties of this region only gave him 20 percent of the vote in 2012. But hey, he says we’re “not a Blue America or a Red America. We’re the United States of America.” He repeated that mantra Tuesday night at his State of the Union speech, recalling how he introduced it to the nation during his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Look at it this way: If Bill Clinton can come here in 2008 and campaign on behalf of his wife, Hillary, and pack the Civic Center Grand Plaza Ballroom to overflowing, surely the Leader of the Free World can command a big audience to sell his vision for the country.

I know more than a few Republicans who’d attend.

 

local news, political news

Don't pick a place-setter, Mr. Mayor

Amarillo’s mayor has been given an actual task to perform with the death of City Councilman Jim Simms.

Paul Harpole will go through his grief over the loss of Simms, who cast a far larger shadow over this city than his short physical stature would suggest.

Then he’ll get to select the next councilman to sit at Place 4.

Here’s some advice, Mr. Mayor, from one of your constituents — me: Don’t pick a place-setter, someone who’ll just serve the remainder of Simms’s term and then walk away. Find someone who’ll run for election next year when the entire council faces voters.

The city has some key decisions coming up regarding downtown revitalization. There will be, for example, a proposal for an extreme makeover of the Civic Center, which likely will require a citywide vote. The city needs five council members with a serious commitment to standing behind whatever vote they cast on that notion.

The city charter doesn’t give the mayor a lot of actual power, given that he or she is just one of five council members representing the same citywide constituency as the rest of the council. All of them select the city manager, who does virtually all the heavy lifting at City Hall.

This time the mayor gets to make the call all by himself — I presume after consulting with constituent groups, his colleagues on the council and with potential candidates for the post.

One more thing, Mr. Mayor: You might think about concentrating your search in the areas of the city where residents have complained about “underrepresentation” on the City Council. The North Heights comes to mind.

Good luck, Mr. Mayor. You’ve got a big job ahead.

 

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Street light turns annoying

The older I get the more pet peeves I acquire.

It’s part of life, I reckon.

But one peeve that has annoyed me since I was, well, much younger is a light that turns red for no apparent reason, forcing me to stop — again for no apparent reason.

I encountered such a light today in downtown Amarillo.

My wife and I were traveling northbound on Buchanan Street, right in front of the Amarillo Civic Center when — presto! — the light at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts turned red. We braked quickly to stop; didn’t want a traffic ticket, you know.

Why the annoyance?

The light sits in front of the Globe-News center parking lot, which shortly before 1 p.m. today was empty. No vehicles could be seen on it. Anywhere.

Thus, the question: Why doesn’t the city traffic department turn that light off when no one is using the Globe-News Center?

The technology is there. The city can switch the light across Buchanan to blinking yellow — or it can just turn the signal off completely.

Let me reiterate: There is zero need to stop traffic at that location when nothing is happening at the performing arts venue.

I’m good now … until the next peevish bur gets under my saddle.

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Clinton star power shows itself in Kentucky

Who’s the biggest political star in the Democratic Party?

Hint: It ain’t the guy who occupies the White House.

It’s the guy who served two presidencies prior to Barack Obama’s arrival in January 2009.

William Jefferson Clinton packed ’em in at a fundraiser this week in Louisville, Ky., on behalf of Allison Lundergan Grimes, who’s running for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Republican Mitch McConnell.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/senate-races/199419-clinton-raises-700k-for-grimes

The 42nd president raised $700,000 for Grimes’s campaign. He bowled over the audience in a state that voted against Obama twice in 2008 and 2012, but which Clinton won in 1992 and 1996.

This shouldn’t be a big surprise. Bill Clinton brought his towering presence to an even more anti-Democrat region back in 2008.

He came to Amarillo that year to campaign for his wife, the then-U.S. senator from New York, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was locked in a tough primary campaign against then-Sen. Obama.

How did Bill Clinton fare when he showed up at the Grand Plaza Ballroom at the Amarillo Civic Center? He filled the place. It was an overflow crowd that, interestingly, included a lot of leading local Republicans who showed up just to hear Clinton’s remarks on behalf of his wife.

Make no mistake about what that 2008 appearance said about the former president’s magnetism. It’s real and can become a decisive asset for whoever the Democrats nominate as their presidential candidate in 2016.

Any bets that Democrats are going to nominate someone other than Hillary?

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Why doesn’t POTUS come here?

A headline in the National Journal online edition asks: Why won’t Obama visit North Dakota?

It’s a valid question, given the oil boom that’s changing North Dakota and beginning to change the nation’s energy strategy.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/why-won-t-obama-visit-north-dakota-20130825

But I can answer the question posed by the headline and the article written by the Journal’s Amy Harder. He won’t go there for the same reason he doesn’t come to West Texas. There’s no political advantage for the president.

What’s more, West Texas is resuming its own energy boom, in the Permian Basin, not to mention the growth of the wind-energy industry throughout the Panhandle.

Presidents, though, are the supreme political animals. Democratic presidents quite often don’t bother coming to regions of the country where they lack popular support. That would be, um, West Texas and North Dakota.

Conversely, do Republican presidents spend a lot of time visiting places such as, say, the Bay Area of California, or Boston, or the Pacific Northwest? Hardly.

Frankly, I think quite a few West Texans — not to mention North Dakotans — would appreciate a presidential visit to talk up the industries that are fueling our manufacturing might and keeping our vehicles on the road.

And I also believe a Democratic president could get a warm welcome here. Do you remember the reception another very high-profile Democrat — one William Jefferson Clinton — got when he came to Amarillo in 2008 to campaign for his wife, then-U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as she sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination? The Civic Center’s Grand Plaza Ballroom was packed beyond capacity.

The nation’s energy future is, indeed, changing, as the National Journal article points out.

A presidential visit would be a welcome event to call attention to the hard work that’s under way out here in Flyover Country.