I’ve been thinkingĀ for the last little while about the gender makeup of Amarillo’s municipal governing panel during the 21 years I’ve lived here.
We arrived in Amarillo in 1995 and the then-City Commission had a woman serving with four men, the late Dianne Bosch.
As I look back during the two decades here, I seem to recall that almost during that entire time the commission comprised at least one woman.
It had a co-ed composition until this past year, when two female incumbents — Lilia Escajeda and Ellen Green — lost their re-election bids.
Now the City Council comprises all men.
One of them, Dr. Brian Eades, is leaving the council in July.
Should the doctor’s colleagues on the council pick a woman to succeed him just for the sake of gender diversity? To be honest, I can’t really identify how a woman’s perspective would fundamentally change the enactment of municipal policy.
Still it’s worth considering this fact: Women comprise roughly half the city’s population. Why not recruit a qualified woman to serve on the City Council? Shouldn’t the council represent the interests of all its constituents?
It does have an African-American serving. But the rest of the men on the council are Anglos. Hey, aren’t Latinos the second-largest ethnic group living in the city?
Again, it’s not that I’m promoting necessarily a gender-basedĀ affirmative action policy for the selection process.
The city has run well with woman at the controls. Heck, we even elected a female mayor — Debra McCartt — who seemed to defy the laws of physics by appearing to be in multiple places at the same time.
The selection process will be an interesting exercise in the first place. The council well might face some competing political differences as it wrestles with finding the right person to succeed Dr. Eades.
Let’s toss around the thought of looking for a female to restore the recent tradition of gender diversity on the Amarillo City Council.