{"id":11482,"date":"2015-11-01T17:37:29","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T17:37:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11482"},"modified":"2015-11-01T17:37:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T17:37:29","slug":"vote-is-non-binding-only-in-legal-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11482","title":{"rendered":"Vote is non-binding only in legal sense"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amarillo’s City Council members will have an easy decision to make once the ballots are counted after Tuesday’s election.<\/p>\n

They will decide to ratify the voters’ desire on whether they want the city to proceed with a multipurpose event venue that includes a ballpark for downtown Amarillo.<\/p>\n

This isn’t even a close call, no matter what one councilman, Randy Burkett, seems to think.<\/p>\n

At issue is a non-binding referendum. It’s non-binding only in the strictest legal sense, meaning that the City Council is not legally obligated to follow the results.<\/p>\n

Politically, though, it’s another matter.<\/p>\n

The five men who sit on that council would commit the equivalent of political suicide if they go against what the voters say.<\/p>\n

Burkett told the Amarillo Globe-News that he’d have to think hard about it if the vote is close in favor of the ballpark. Burkett opposes the ballpark aspect of the MPEV.<\/p>\n

No, councilman.\u00a0You need not think too hard about this one.<\/p>\n

Council on the hot seat<\/a><\/p>\n

Three new council member — Burkett, Mark Nair and Elisha Demerson — all campaigned on a promise to listen to the residents of the city. All of them oppose ballpark\/MPEV. If the residents speak in favor of the $32 million, then, by golly, they’d better follow in lockstep with what the voters decide to endorse<\/em> the ballpark.<\/p>\n

They, after all, sought to put this issue to a vote in the first place.<\/p>\n

As for the other council members, Mayor Paul Harpole and Brian Eades, they say they’ll go along with what voters decide if they oppose the ballpark.<\/p>\n

If that’s the case, then the council has some work to do — in conjunction with other interested boards, panels and assorted groups — to come up with a suitable centerpiece for the MPEV.<\/p>\n

As for the whether to endorse the voters’ will, which will become known on Tuesday, that’s the easiest decision of all.<\/p>\n

The council must ratify whatever the voters decide.<\/p>\n

Period. End of discussion.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Amarillo’s City Council members will have an easy decision to make once the ballots are counted after Tuesday’s election. They will decide to ratify the voters’ desire on whether they want the city to proceed with a multipurpose event venue that includes a ballpark for downtown Amarillo. This isn’t even a close call, no matter … Continue reading Vote is non-binding only in legal sense<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[288,1436,3153],"class_list":["post-11482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-mpev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11482"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11483,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11482\/revisions\/11483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}