{"id":18440,"date":"2016-12-08T02:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-08T02:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18440"},"modified":"2016-12-08T02:00:40","modified_gmt":"2016-12-08T02:00:40","slug":"how-about-some-more-change-at-amarillo-city-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18440","title":{"rendered":"How about some more ‘change’ at Amarillo City Hall?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Let’s talk among ourselves about the upcoming municipal election.<\/p>\n

Amarillo went through a “change election” in 2015 when voters unseated two incumbents and installed a majority of new guys on the five-member City Council; the third new guy won\u00a0a seat vacated by an incumbent who was just keeping the seat warm until the election.<\/p>\n

In May 2017, voters will fill the five seats on the council.<\/p>\n

I’m wondering if someone will run solely on the platform of serious change in the city’s voting plan. I’m wondering also about discussing publicly a reform that would involve electing four council members from single-member districts, two of them at-large along with the mayor, who of course also would run citywide.<\/p>\n

I wrote in 2013 that I was rethinking my earlier opposition to changing the city’s current five-member at-large council voting plan.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/2013\/12\/re-thinking-single-member-districts\/<\/p>\n

So I’ll ask the question here. Are we ready to have a serious, adult conversation about changing the City Council’s voting plan?<\/p>\n

I’m no longer confident that the at-large system is serving an increasingly diverse city of 200,000 residents, with burgeoning ethnic and racial minorities. The city is growing and it’s becoming a different community than it was a decade ago; it’s a much different place than it was 20 or 30 years ago.<\/p>\n

Would such a plan be approved if it were put to a vote? We’ll never know if we don’t try. The city charter would need a serious rewriting. Changing it requires a municipal election.<\/p>\n

First, though, we need to have a discussion among those willing to serve on the City Council, to set governing policy.<\/p>\n

The so-called “agents of change” who were elected in May 2015 ought to demonstrate a serious commitment to significant change in the city’s governing policy.<\/p>\n

That change ought to include a reform of the City Council composition. A hybrid council — partly single-member, partly at-large — such as what I’ve suggested hardly is unique. Indeed, it preserves an at-large option for two council seats that is\u00a0similar to what’s been enacted in cities of comparable size all across Texas.<\/p>\n

The debate until now has been whether to create single-member wards, while keeping the mayor’s seat as the only at-large seat on the council. I think a hybrid solution is more feasible.<\/p>\n

At the very least, it’s worth a serious community discussion.<\/p>\n

First, though, candidates ought to step up and initiate it.<\/p>\n\n

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Let’s talk among ourselves about the upcoming municipal election. Amarillo went through a “change election” in 2015 when voters unseated two incumbents and installed a majority of new guys on the five-member City Council; the third new guy won\u00a0a seat vacated by an incumbent who was just keeping the seat warm until the election. In … Continue reading How about some more ‘change’ at Amarillo City Hall?<\/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":[9,14],"tags":[286,288,290,6720,4279],"class_list":["post-18440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","category-political-news","tag-amarillo-city-charter","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-at-large-election","tag-single-member-districts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18440","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=18440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18442,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18440\/revisions\/18442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}