{"id":11510,"date":"2015-11-05T02:42:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T02:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11510"},"modified":"2015-11-05T02:42:09","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T02:42:09","slug":"dear-council-do-not-drag-your-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=11510","title":{"rendered":"Dear Council: Do not drag your feet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"ama<\/a><\/p>\n

Dear Mayor Paul Harpole and the rest of the Amarillo City Council:<\/p>\n

This is an open letter to y’all. It serves as a piece of unsolicited advice in the wake of Tuesday’s big election … not that you aren’t going to be getting a lot<\/em> of such advice from constituents.<\/p>\n

The voters spoke their minds. Yes, it was close. In reality, though, it wasn’t a razor-thin margin that produced a victory for those — such as me — who favored the multipurpose event venue that includes a 4,500-seat ballpark.<\/p>\n

I wish the turnout had been larger. With all the sound and fury preceding the balloting on Tuesday, I was hoping more folks would have bothered to vote. A 22,444-vote turnout isn’t all that great. But, hey, why quibble over that just yet?<\/p>\n

The 4-percentage point margin isn’t so tiny. Presidents of the United States have been elected with far less of a margin than that.<\/p>\n

My advice to you now is simple.<\/p>\n

Ratify the results. Do it unanimously. We’ve heard some rumbling around Amarillo that one of you might want to hold out. I hope that’s not the case.<\/p>\n

You’ve got a chance to discuss these results in the open, in front of the public. I encourage you to do so. Do not fabricate some bogus reason to do it behind closed doors.<\/p>\n

Once you do ratify the results, then by all means keep discussing the developments relating to the MPEV in the open. You’ve all talked about transparency and its value to the democratic process. Here’s your chance to prove you’re all men of your word.<\/p>\n

If there’s going to be any tinkering with the project, then be sure you do so under the glare of public scrutiny.<\/p>\n

But the majority of those voted on the MPEV made another statement that’s more implied than explicit. They want action taken and they do not want you to dawdle over it.<\/p>\n

Amarillo’s voters decided to go forward with this $32 million project and it is incumbent on you to do so in a timely fashion. We’ve had enough drama as it is. The time to rally behind a single purpose has arrived.<\/p>\n

We’ve lost three senior city administrators just since the May election. You need to hire a city manager, who then needs to hire an assistant city manager and a city attorney. I truly wish you luck in trying to recruit a top-flight municipal administrator. Hire that person, lay down your policy — and then get the hell out of the way.<\/em><\/p>\n

Amarillo’s voters have taken a big step toward the future with the affirmative vote on the MPEV. A downtown hotel is coming, too. At some point we’ll all need to talk about how to expand the Civic Center.<\/p>\n

Gentlemen, the time has arrived for you get real busy.<\/p>\n

Right now …<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Mayor Paul Harpole and the rest of the Amarillo City Council: This is an open letter to y’all. It serves as a piece of unsolicited advice in the wake of Tuesday’s big election … not that you aren’t going to be getting a lot of such advice from constituents. The voters spoke their minds. … Continue reading Dear Council: Do not drag your feet<\/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":[288,293,1436,5580,3153],"class_list":["post-11510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-civic-center","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-embassy-suites-hotel","tag-mpev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11510","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=11510"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11511,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11510\/revisions\/11511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}