{"id":9300,"date":"2015-05-13T15:26:59","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T15:26:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9300"},"modified":"2015-05-13T15:26:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-13T15:26:59","slug":"anger-finds-its-way-to-amarillo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=9300","title":{"rendered":"Anger finds its way to Amarillo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Anger is not my thing.<\/p>\n

Those who know me — I’m quite certain — would say I’m not an angry person. I see life as an adventure. The glass is half full. All that positive stuff.<\/p>\n

I’m a bit dismayed, though, at the apparent anger among residents of the city my wife and I have called home for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n

It manifested itself in the election this past weekend in which two incumbents were tossed off the City Council and the mayor was re-elected by a much smaller margin than he has in the past; some observers have told me that had Paul Harpole faced a serious opponent, he’d have been beaten, too.<\/p>\n

Why the anger?<\/p>\n

* Our municipal tax rate is among the lowest in the state, so we aren’t pay “too much” for city services.<\/p>\n

* City officials are moving forward with a plan to rejuvenate its downtown district. Show me a lively city and I’ll show you one with a downtown district that’s bustling.<\/p>\n

* We have an economic development corporation that is using sales tax revenue to lure business to the city. People gripe about the EDC using “our tax money” to bring in those “out of towners.” They fail to recognize that 60 percent of all sales tax revenue comes from folks who don’t live here.<\/p>\n

* One City Council candidate said it’s time to “run the city like a business.” Successful local governments and successful businesses are mutually exclusive concepts. The most successful businesses are run, more or less, by tyrants. Is that what we want at City Hall? I don’t think so.<\/p>\n

The anger is palpable. Who feeds it? Has it splashed against us from the hysteria we hear in places like Washington, D.C., and Austin?<\/p>\n

This new City Council is going to take office soon. It will have three new guys on board — with the third one being chosen from a runoff that’s occurring next month to fill a seat occupied by an appointment incumbent who didn’t seek election.<\/p>\n

Let’s all settle down, fellas, and get to work for the common good.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Anger is not my thing. Those who know me — I’m quite certain — would say I’m not an angry person. I see life as an adventure. The glass is half full. All that positive stuff. I’m a bit dismayed, though, at the apparent anger among residents of the city my wife and I have … Continue reading Anger finds its way to Amarillo<\/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":[288,290,1436,3638],"class_list":["post-9300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-political-anger"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300","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=9300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}