Tag Archives: Amarillo City Council

local news

City council races turn partisan?

I reported for work at the Amarillo Globe-News in January 1995, the same week that Mac Thornberry took office as the congressman from the 13th Congressional District.

I have teased Thornberry over the years that we “grew up together” taking on new roles in the sprawling environment known as the Texas Panhandle.

At no time during Thornberry’s tenure as the Republican member of Congress did he offer a public endorsement in the non-partisan races for Amarillo City Council. He stayed out of those tussles … publicly at least.

Thornberry’s no longer in office. His successor, the wacky doctor-turned-politician Ronny Jackson, has tossed his name into the brewing municipal kerfuffle by endorsing three candidates for City Council. Jackson did so two years ago as well, endorsing candidates for the council.

Why is this troubling? Well, for one thing Jackson has been an extremely vocal proponent of the policies put forth by Donald Trump. He has been an vehement critic of former President Joe Bden, contending that the 46th president conducted a “shadow presidency” while hiding what he said were “obvious” signs of mental decline.

Jackson is a MAGA Republican whose world view comports nicely with the far-right wing of his party, but which is at variance with the issues that decide municipal contests.

Jackson brings a fire-breathing partisan flare to a contest that should be decided solely on the basis of who is best qualified to set municipal tax rates, who has the best view of policing, fighting fires, providing water and other mundane — but vital — activities associated with running a city on the move.

Mac Thornberry, unlike his successor, always seemed to know his place. He served his constituents with decorum and class and understood he didn’t need to insert himself into a political battle that, to be blunt, he had no business taking part.

local news, media news

Yes on ward politics!

This won’t surprise many readers of this blog, but there was a time when I wrote editorials for daily newspapers that I penned opinions with which I disagreed personally.

Hey, I was getting paid to speak for the newspaper and my voice wasn’t the only one to be heard. I had bosses and I answered to them!

You want an example? I once wrote editorials endorsing Amarillo’s at-large voting plan for its five-member city council. I disagreed with that notion, but I sucked it up and spoke for the Globe-News.

I left the paper in August 2012 and wrote on this blog that I actually endorse the idea of creating single-member districts for Amarillo’s five-member council.

Well, the city is putting a proposal on its ballot next month that expand the council by two seats, and the two seats will be elected at-large along with the rest of the council.

Amarillo’s population has grown past 200,000 residents. It is a diverse collection of residents, comprising a growing Latino base, an expanding Black base, more immigrants are moving in. Residents have a wide variety of interests, ethnicities, creeds and values.

Why not divide the council into, say, four ward seats, two at-large seats and the mayor? I’ve seen such a system work in other Texas cities. Beaumont, where I first lived in this state from 1984 to 1995, operates on a hybrid system. It works well.

Yes, a ward system can go too far. I visited Charleston, W. Va., this past summer and learned that the city of fewer than 50,000 residents is governed by a council comprising more than 20 members, all of whom represent wards. Talk about tiny constituencies!

Amarillo, though, remains wedded to a system that worked well when the community was much smaller and much more homogenous than it is today.

Truth be told, I still wonder how a city can govern when the entire governing body — including the mayor — answers to the same citywide constituency.

local news, national news, religious news

‘No!” on travel ban

Barry Goldwater, I am supremely confident in asserting, is spinning in his grave out yonder in Arizona.

The late Arizona U.S. senator and father of the conservative movement would no doubt be aghast at what might be transpiring in Amarillo, where the city council is preparing to vote on an ordinance that would ban women from using local roads and highways to obtain an abortion out of state.

Goldwater used to preach that conservatism, as he understood the principle, kept government out of people’s lives. He was particularly leery of religion being used to dictate public policy.

Amarillo is pondering whether to knuckle under to far-right conservatives’ call to ban women from using local rights-of-way to obtain an abortion. Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley said he doesn’t believe the council will approve the ordinance, which is being brought to the council on the strength of petitions circulated throughout the city.

The city has validated enough signatures to call for a vote, the Texas Tribune has reported.

What now?

If the council rejects the ban the issue, then it can go to voters for a citywide referendum, as I read the Tribune story. That would give the anti-abortion fanatics room to persuade most Amarillo voters to endorse the ban.

Again, Barry Goldwater would come unglued at the notion.

The Tribune reports: The original ordinance supporters want to see passed in the city does not call for pregnant women to be punished for having an abortion out of state. However, anti-abortion legal crusader Jonathan Mitchell has filed legal petitions seeking to depose women he claims traveled out of state for abortions. Mitchell is working with anti-abortion activists pushing the travel ban on a municipal level.

The proposed policy makes anyone who “aids and abet” the procedure vulnerable to a private lawsuit from other citizens. The enforcement is similar to Senate Bill 8, the Texas bill that banned almost all abortions in 2021, prior to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. This is the only enforcement mechanism for the ordinance, which some council members have criticized as creating a system for neighbors to turn on each other to collect reward money.

Amarillo City Council must vote on abortion travel ban | The Texas Tribune

Limited government conservatism has given way to all-hands-on-deck conservatism … as long as the issue reflects a certain religious principle. Come to think of it, the nation’s founders would be appalled as well.

local news

Interim manager now just an ‘assistant manager’

Amarillo, Texas, once had an interim city manager get too far ahead of himself and has paid the price for his, um, boldness.

Andrew Freeman, as I understand it, made some high-level administrative moves without first consulting with the people who hired him: the city council.

The result? Well, he’s been booted back to his former job title of “assistant city manager.” Were I a betting man, I would suggest that Freeman will not be around when the city decides to hire a city manager who will take the job for keeps.

Freeman’s hubris showed itself when he created a new public safety director and elevated Police Chief Martin Birkenfeld into that post, then appointed an interim chief of police to take Birkenfeld’s former job. One problem with that and other appointments: He didn’t seek the “advice and counsel” of the city council.

Freeman sort of sought to suggest that he did notify the council of his intent, but absent any consent, he seemed to believe that notifying council members of his desire qualified as seeking their “advice.”

That is not how most of the council members saw it. Or so I am led to believe.

A few of my social media acquaintances accuse the council of “micromanaging” city government. I don’t see it that way. I consider the decision to return Freeman to his old post as an assistant city manager as a demonstration that they believe in the letter of the city charter’s rules and regulation.

“Advice and consent,” as I understand the term, means that the governing body must grant its approval before a senior administrator makes his or her move. Andrew Freeman, it sure looks like to me, got too far ahead of himself to suit the folks who sit on the city’s governing board.

There’s a clear downside to all of this nonsense. Will any of this make finding a permanent city manager more difficult? Yep! It damn sure will.

local news

Rein this guy in … now!

A story reported in a city I once called home had me laughing out loud this morning as I checked my email … which I do every morning.

Amarillo has an interim city manager, Andrew Freeman, who apparently got way too far ahead of himself — and ahead of his bosses on the City Council — when he announced several key management appointments and promotions. Freeman, who succeeded former City Manager Jared Miller, who was canned late this past year by the council, had announced several key management promotions. Some of them involved people I know fairly well when I lived in Amarillo. Well, Freeman had to rescind the appointments. Why? Because he failed to consult with the council prior to announcing them to the public. Steve Pair, the fellow I quoted recently as publisher of a weekly newsletter he posts from Amarillo, said he asked Mayor Cole Stanley why the city rescinded the appointments. “City Charter requires that the council be advised of all needs of the city and then give consent before staff can take action,” Stanley said. The manager, Stanley said, is able to “appoint all appointive officers or employees of the city with the advice and consent of the council … and remove all officers and employees appointed by the manager.” So, there you have it. The interim city manager, it appears to me, got a little too full of himself and acted without consulting with the folks who appointed him to the job. The council met in closed session to discuss the city manager’s job performance. Hmm. Do you think they might’ve frowned a bit on the manager’s actions regarding these appointments? I am not a betting man, but my trick knee suggests that Andrew Freeman might have erred enough to deny an appointment to the permanent city manager’s post … presuming he wants it. Oh, and where was the city’s legal counsel when all of this was occurring? Someone needs to call that individual on the carpet, too.
local news

Why the big payout?

A whole array of things fly over my noggin, and the news out of Amarillo about the dismissal of City Manager Jared Miller happens to be one of them.

The Amarillo City Council effectively terminated Miller, citing some sort of lack of cohesion between the council and the city administration. Translation: Miller wasn’t leading the city in the direction mandated by the council.

So, what does the council do? It pays the former manager a ton of money as a severance.

Let’s back up for just a second. If a chief municipal executive isn’t doing the job in accordance with City Council policy, does that mean he then is being let go for cause? If that is the case, how does the justify paying him a high six-figure severance?

The money reportedly is coming from a source other than the general fund; I understand it to be a sort of rainy day fund.

Miller spoke kindly of the council and wished it and his former City Hall colleagues well as they embark down some new path that was supposed to be led by the former city manager. It wasn’t. So … he was dismissed, let go, effectively fired.

The council surely softened his landing with a payout that, to my way of reasoning, seems to lack any sense.

local news

No pleasure in criticizing good folks

Let me be crystal clear about something, which is that I take no pleasure at all in criticizing the fine men and women who serve on the Amarillo City Council.

I just believe the council messed up when it foisted on voters a $260 million debt obligation in the form of “anticipation notes,” despite the undeniable fact that city voters had delivered a resounding “no!” vote on a bond issue to pay for the projects sought by the council’s anticipation notes.

At issue is the Civic Center renovation. Does it need to refurbished, expanded, modernized and gussied up? Probably, yes. Had I been able to vote on the 2020 bond issue calling for the work, I likely would have supported it.

But … I also accept the verdict of a voting majority who said no to the project. Which also is why I reject the move that the council sought to pull off by passing those anticipation notes, in effect going over the voters’ heads.

I don’t need to remind anyone that in a representative democracy, the voters are the bosses, not the people who represent them.

All this is my way of endorsing a Texas Senate bill that aims to attach stricter regulations on the issuance of these kinds of financing tactics. The Senate puts a five-year minimum on cities; Amarillo sought to shove the anticipation notes down voters’ throats in two years. It prompted a lawsuit by a local businessman, who eventually won his court fight.

I want to stipulate that during my many years living in Amarillo I was generally supportive of most initiatives that came from City Hall.

Not this time.

Timing, as the saying goes, is everything. Amarillo’s council was too quick to pull the trigger on those anticipation notes. The voters of the city clearly had not forgotten the decision they delivered in rejecting the bond issue.

The result has been that the City Council has learned a tough, but necessary, lesson about the government they inherited. It is that the voters clearly deserve the last word when it comes to spending their money.

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Back to beginning for Amarillo’s council?

Amarillo’s governing council has received a kick in the gut, thanks to a judge ruling that its issuance of $260 million in anticipation notes is “invalid” and “void.”

What is that all about?

Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly had filed a lawsuit seeking to block the issuance of the tax notes. A visiting judge hearing the case in a Potter County district courtroom agreed with him.

From my vantage point, the city has been the chance to do it right.

The city issued the tax notes after voters had rejected a $275 million bond issue the city had called to repair the Civic Center and to relocate City Hall to a new site. The city wasn’t about to be dissuaded, so it issued the notes that sought to circumvent the will of the voters.

I believe the judge’s decision in favor of Fairly’s suit should send a message that City Hall needs to honor.

It seems like a complicated outcome. The City Council says it disagrees with the judge’s ruling and it will consider whether to appeal it.

Judge rules that tax notes for Amarillo Civic Center are ‘invalid,’ ‘void’ | KAMR – MyHighPlains.com

Fairly issued a statement, according to MyHighPlains.com: “I’m thankful that a regular, ordinary, everyday guy can still raise his hand and say, ‘I don’t think this is right,’ and get a fair day in court and a voice,” he said. “I think we all have that voice. It’s too expensive, I know that. But I’m so thankful that the system is there and we were able to use it and that it worked.”

Fairly questioned whether the city decided to impose the tax notes with proper notification. I happen to side with those who believe the city’s decision so soon after a November 2020 bond issue election denial smacked of arrogance that just didn’t set well with a municipal electorate that is angry with government … at all levels!

The city issued a statement: The City received the court’s final judgment this afternoon. We respectfully disagree with the judgment in this case, and we’re reviewing the decision with our legal counsel to determine our next steps.

Well, here’s a thought. The city could craft a new bond issue proposal and take it back to the voters for yet another decision. Maybe it can persuade enough of them to back City Hall’s desire to improve the Civic Center and find a new site for its government office.

If not, well … then the city has some serious soul-searching to do.

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Days of tranquility have passed?

Surely you remember when Amarillo’s city commission (that’s what they called it in those days) would enact an ordinance and there would be virtually no public discussion — let alone debate — about its effectiveness.

From my far-away perch these days, that era might have become a relic of Texas Panhandle history.

A group of citizens has filed a petition calling for the repeal of an ordinance that authorizes the city to spend $260 million in what it calls “anticipation notes” to finance construction of a City Hall and renovation of the city’s Civic Center.

The petition appears to have plenty of legs to carry it forward. Petitioners filed it in the 320th District Court in Potter County. Now we just need to know where it goes from here.

My ol’ trick knee tells me there well might be a municipal election on tap to repeal that ordinance and send the council back to Square One in its effort to modernize and upgrade its municipal convention and meeting spaces.

I’ve been trying to figure out what has changed in the city I once called home. Is it the anger that pervades so much of our government, that it has seeped into City Hall? Is there a legitimate call for greater transparency and accountability among our local governments?

You see, voters rejected a similarly sized bond issue in November 2020.  The City Council decided, apparently, that the “no” vote was insufficient to guide its future decisions. So it sought the anticipation note funding mechanism earlier this year.

It didn’t go over well with at least one local businessman, Alex Fairly, who filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the process. He seems to be getting some traction. The petition? It drew 12,000 signatures in a blink of time.

This discussion could prove to be most helpful and perhaps even therapeutic for a city that long has placed implicit trust that its elected governing body will always do and say the right thing.

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A referendum in the works?

Well now, it looks as though there could be an election in Amarillo voters’ future, according to a petition filed with the 320th District Court of Potter County.

It appears that residents of Amarillo are hopping mad at the City Council’s decision to essentially ignore the stated wishes of voters and proceed with something called “anticipation notes” to pay for renovation of the Civic Center and relocation of City Hall.

The petition was filed in the court and it sets the stage for another election to repeal an ordinance that empowers the city to issue the notes totaling $260 million to do the work on the public buildings.

Here’s the thing: the timing is horrendous.

You see, voters decided in November 2020 to oppose issuing $275 million in bonds to rebuild the Civic Center and relocate City Hall. The council’s action appears to give voters the finger. City officials want to proceed with this project no matter what voters have said at the ballot box.

This doesn’t look good.

I would be inclined to have voted for the bond issue were I able to vote in Amarillo. I also am inclined to side with the plaintiffs in this matter who are angry at what they perceive to be municipal arrogance. The city is talking past the voters by deciding to issue these notes regardless of what the voters already have decided.

I heard the petitioners gathered 12,000-plus signatures in virtually no time to call for this referendum. Doesn’t that — all by itself — send a message that ought to rattle the lamps at City Hall?

I intend to keep watching this matter play out.

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