{"id":13234,"date":"2016-02-29T01:34:28","date_gmt":"2016-02-29T01:34:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13234"},"modified":"2016-02-29T01:35:03","modified_gmt":"2016-02-29T01:35:03","slug":"amarillo-city-hall-intrigue-ought-to-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13234","title":{"rendered":"Amarillo City Hall intrigue ought to end"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Councilmen_2015.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-11650\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-11650\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Councilmen_2015-300x220.jpg\" alt=\"Councilmen_2015\" width=\"300\" height=\"220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Councilmen_2015-300x220.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Councilmen_2015-1024x750.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Amarillo City Hall has become a source of melodrama and intrigue.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t how government is supposed to work.<\/p>\n<p>Three men got elected in 2015 to the Amarillo City Council. They promised &#8220;change.&#8221; It came, all right.<\/p>\n<p>The city attorney quit. The assistant city manager retired. Then the city manager quit. All the while other key positions remained unfilled.<\/p>\n<p>Then the city hired an interim city manager. He shuffled duties around. He reorganized the City Hall bureaucracy, getting high praise from those who report to the manager.<\/p>\n<p>The City Council yanked economic development duties from a non-profit agency and handed them to City Hall operators, again at the recommendation of the new interim manager.<\/p>\n<p>Now the new guy has gotten entangled in a controversy over how the city 911 emergency call center works. His briefcase got misplaced and he placed a call to the center and made some stern demands of the dispatcher who answered his call.<\/p>\n<p>Then more change came about, this time at the call center.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m watching this drama &#8212; right along with the rest of the city&#8217;s residents\u00a0&#8212; from the proverbial peanut gallery. I get that change often can be a good thing. I also get that change isn&#8217;t necessarily achieved for the better. Sometimes change for the sake of it takes over and confusion reigns.<\/p>\n<p>To be candid, City Hall ought to be a place that runs with cool efficiency. That&#8217;s what the governing council &#8212; the folks who are responsible ultimately for how the city works &#8212; keeps promising for us.<\/p>\n<p>They vowed to bring about change. They didn&#8217;t tell us about the chaos.<\/p>\n<p>Or the intrigue.<\/p>\n<p>How about getting a grip on things at City Hall?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amarillo City Hall has become a source of melodrama and intrigue. This isn&#8217;t how government is supposed to work. Three men got elected in 2015 to the Amarillo City Council. They promised &#8220;change.&#8221; It came, all right. The city attorney quit. The assistant city manager retired. Then the city manager quit. All the while other &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=13234\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Amarillo City Hall intrigue ought to end<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[6015,288,290],"class_list":["post-13234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-911-call-center","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13234","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=13234"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13237,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13234\/revisions\/13237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}