{"id":18886,"date":"2016-12-29T00:28:08","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T00:28:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18886"},"modified":"2016-12-29T00:28:08","modified_gmt":"2016-12-29T00:28:08","slug":"get-this-one-right-city-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18886","title":{"rendered":"Get this one right, City Council"},"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\/2016\/12\/bc0182de-d617-4a12-8827-85f14931bc2a-large16x9_cowell.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-18887\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/bc0182de-d617-4a12-8827-85f14931bc2a-large16x9_cowell-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/bc0182de-d617-4a12-8827-85f14931bc2a-large16x9_cowell-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/bc0182de-d617-4a12-8827-85f14931bc2a-large16x9_cowell-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/bc0182de-d617-4a12-8827-85f14931bc2a-large16x9_cowell.jpg 986w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Amarillo&#8217;s city charter gives the City Council the power to make precisely one hiring decision: the council hires the city manager.<\/p>\n<p>The five individuals who comprise the council, therefore, have to get this one right. There shouldn&#8217;t be any do-overs. They cannot foist it onto someone else. The strong-manager form of government for Amarillo gives the manager the authority to hire all other department heads.<\/p>\n<p>The first hiring decision that the council makes, though, involves the individual who will\u00a0grab the levers of government and implement council policy. The council is blessed &#8212; surprisingly so &#8212; with a strong stable of finalists from which to choose.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the council has only one thing it ought to consider as it ponders the choices for the city manager job: Which one of the five men selected as finalists is the best individual for the post.<\/p>\n<p>The council, though, is getting a bit side-tracked. Imagine that. It&#8217;s arguing over how to structure the salary it will pay the manager.<\/p>\n<p>Forget that stuff, council members!<\/p>\n<p>The city paid its previous city manager and the guy who served as interim a handsome salary of more than $200,000 annually. Whoever gets the job next presumably will be the most qualified of the individuals who are competing for the job as chief municipal administrator.<\/p>\n<p>Settle on that matter exclusively, council members. Don&#8217;t get caught up in some nickel-and-dime dickering over whether to negotiate a salary package based on an individual&#8217;s qualifications.<\/p>\n<p>This is a huge deal, council members.<\/p>\n<p>Get &#8230; it\u00a0&#8230; right!<\/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&#8217;s city charter gives the City Council the power to make precisely one hiring decision: the council hires the city manager. The five individuals who comprise the council, therefore, have to get this one right. There shouldn&#8217;t be any do-overs. They cannot foist it onto someone else. The strong-manager form of government for Amarillo gives &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=18886\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Get this one right, City Council<\/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":[288,290,292],"class_list":["post-18886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-amarillo-city-manager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886","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=18886"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18888,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18886\/revisions\/18888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}