Many may have wondered why the city of Amarillo and those pushing the Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan for downtown have given such short shrift to Route 66 as an economic driver. And my interest in this matter came up because an advocate of the Wallace Bajjali plan spread some false information on Facebook.
Here is the text of the post and linkto Facebook:
There are limited uses for HOT, which Lissa apparently doesn't understand. Demerson is right about San Jacinto , but he's fighting an uphill battle, and that is a battle against the way the city promotes and supports development. The city in general does not proactively manage growth here, mostly it sits back and watches development happen and capitalizes on that by instituting lots of silly building ordinances and collecting building permit fees. I can't imagine the city becoming proactive about development planning; it would seem far too "liberal" and interfering for the locals. But maybe he will draw attention to our city's need to maintain its historical neighborhoods. We'll see.
Well I have a theory. I just did a PRAD search of Southwest Sixth Street and not one of those properties is overtly owned by the downtown development cartel members like the Wares, ANB, Joe Bob McCartt or Alan Rhodes. Some of the owners along that stretch of the Mother Road (that’s what it is) are clearly non-Anglo, non-Panhandle pioneer names. That should explain a lot about why the power elite in Amarillo aren’t promoting Route 66.
The assertion that the city doesn’t “proactively manage growth” here is so false on its face that I can hardly respond. The entire rationale of the downtown development debacle and the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan is to “proactively manage growth.” Unless, of course, economic development isn’t growth. Oh, wait, it is growth for the insiders’ bank accounts who knew what the then-City Commission and prior City Council had planned.
The city has been overtly picking winners and losers for at least the last eight years — with nothing but a cascade of lies falling on more lies. And, Colin Cummings, your post above is a good example of the lies, disinformation and propaganda the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News cartel continues to spread, Goebbels-like, including throwing down the “L” word in order to paint the resistance to the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan as bad for Amarillo .
If you want to throw down the “L” word, thrown it at the then-City Commission, prior City Council and the city administration who bought the prostitute services from Wallace Bajjali with the Globe-News and DAI serving as main pimp and madam.
