The Globe-News: from deplorable to pathetic

I almost had to call an ambulance this evening. Really. You see, I just read Robert Stein’s Amarillo Globe-News story, “Mayor wants to know who leaked information,” posted to the one of the news pages on the third-rate media outlet’s website. I had trouble breathing; I just couldn’t catch my breath from laughing.

As if Globe-News editorials weren’t bad enough, replete with poor writing and facts harder to find than a diamond in a Florida swamp, we now get an article that starts editorializing in the first sentence. Then, it goes on to whine in chorus with Paul Harpole, our Trumpian mayor, about a leak from a City Council executive session. Harpole’s panties are all in a wad because ABC7 Amarillo had a scoop from a confidential source on the council choosing a new city manager.

Harpole, who is of that Amarillo-type paternalistic ilk who think they know better than the citizenry which is mostly beneath them, is in high dudgeon about ABC7 Amarillo having information before Hiz Honor could control it as the hero of the staged news conference. In the past, that TV station has popped stories that angered Harpole: KVII broke a story about United Way a few years ago that set Harpole on a course of undercutting ABC7 Amarillo whenever he could. He usually passed news tidbits to the Globe-News when he got wind that the TV station was nosing around. It’s fair to say that the Globe-News has been one of Harpole’s useful idiots.

But what ABC7 Amarillo did on this story, and others, was in the finest traditions of American journalism. Think the Pentagon Papers. Or Watergate. Confidential sources are part of the lifeblood of reporting and if it were not for people willing to leak information, the United States and Amarillo would be the worse for it. How ironic that this dust-up about something secretive has to do with Texas’ inferior Open Meeting Act.

Of the 25 years I’ve been a journalist, I’ve lived in Amarillo almost 14 years and I’ve never seen a community so culturally ignorant about the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The understanding of what a free press is to society lives only in lip service to the denizens of public and large private institutions here. And as for the separation of church and state? I guess cinching the Bible belt tightly around “church” and “state” to keep them together is part of the problem.

So, let me throw a little shade at the Globe-News on this attempt at newswriting.

“Amarillo City Council members are once again showing their dysfunctional and, perhaps, petty sides.” — What place is it of a news page to label “City Council members” dysfunctional? And which members, if it’s going in the lede — that is, the first paragraph? In whose judgment, too, is behavior petty? Seems to me that bringing transparency to the most important post on the city payroll is what should be done. Folks, this is about control, and we all know that.

Then, the story goes on: “On Thursday, the sole finalist for Amarillo’s city manager position and details surrounding his hiring were leaked to local media following a Tuesday afternoon executive session of the council, a headhunter and the city attorney.” — Actually, the leak wasn’t to local “media” because “media” is plural. The information was leaked to only one outlet. The sentence more accurately should have read, “On Thursday, the sole finalist for Amarillo’s city manager position and details surrounding his hiring were leaked to one of the local TV stations while the rest of the media stood around with their pants down. This followed a Tuesday afternoon executive session of the council, a headhunter and the city attorney.”

When the Globe-News quoted Harpole thus: “It was apparent to me pretty quickly that someone on the council had breached executive session,” it showed Hiz Honor has a firm grasp of the obvious.

I wonder if the Globe-News had scooped a story if it would have written the word “sources” in quotes like this story did. All I could think of was Dr. Evil and his air quotes. Excuse me, I have to stop a minute to catch my breath again.

I am going to give a pass on some of the other material to get to this: “Harpole stopped short of saying Friday that Councilman Randy Burkett leaked confidential information to a local television station, but said he certainly released information that shouldn’t have been made public to the Amarillo Globe-News, which published a story with on-the-record sources.”

Oh, for God sakes, how did Harpole “stop short” if the Globe-News named Burkett?” Why not publish the whole quote?

Now, Robert and your editors, please don’t break your arms patting yourselves on the back. You don’t deserve it. You all are just upset that ABC7 Amarillo has a better news team than you do. And, having worked at the Globe-News for as long as my ethics could stand it, I know about the policy about anonymous and confidential sources. It’s too stringent and it’s gutless and it deprives Amarillo of real news.

Here are the next two paragraphs:

Burkett told the Globe-News that the council would give Miller a non-voting seat on the board of the Amarillo Economic Development Corp.

“He does not have the right to release info like that. He also does not have the right to unilaterally make decisions on behalf of the council. That’s wrong, and it shouldn’t be tolerated,” Harpole said. “While there is not a lot we can do about it, I think the public should know (Burkett) is willing to breach executive session over and over and over again.”

I wish I could have been there to see Ole Harpy get red in the face with that one. The way I see it, if a councilor doesn’t like the way the mayor is handling things, and clearly Burkett doesn’t, there isn’t any reason for him to remain silent. After all, the past commissions and councils walked in lock-step and look where it got us. Downtown Amarillo Inc., Wallace Bajjali, the Local Government Corp. and millions in tax money wasted.

“It does, however, present the city with possible issues of civil liability, violation of the council’s own policy and procedures as well as breach of the public trust.” — This is one of those sentences that begs for attribution because, given we know this story is slanted, we need to know if the city attorney said it or if Stein is just dropping in an opinion.

“Harpole and Burkett said they asked and that a local television station refused to reveal its source of information to them.” And “The Globe-News attempted to reach KVII news leadership multiple times Friday and Saturday, but calls, social media messaging and email were not returned.” — Excuse me. Had to catch my breath again.

Why in the world would a news outlet tell anyone? When The Amarillo Independent came across confidential information from the Amarillo Police Department a few years ago, the department’s Internal Affairs officer called to ask where we got it. The Indy didn’t give up the information and no good and decent media outlet would. If the Globe-News had that kind of information, it wouldn’t give up the source either — which would be the exception to the ethical and decent label.

Also, what’s up with this cute little tactic of alternately writing “a local television station” and then “KVII” when everyone knows from earlier I the story that it’s ABC7 Amarillo. Calling councilors petty and then being this petty about a TV station?

Sometimes, readers will see an editorial note at the end of a story. Maybe if material not reported directly is worked into the story, you’d see a note such as, “The Associate Press Contributed to this story.”

In this case, Stein’s story should have the editorial note, “Paul Harpole contributed to this story because the Globe-News agree to be his mouthpiece.

Let's play "whom do you trust?"

We all know one definition of insanity is to continue the same behavior while hoping for a different outcome. So, why would I be surprised when I read in an Amarillo Globe-News story slated for publishing Sunday that Amarillo’s City Council is following that path? Well, it may not be — at least if one relies on the Globe-News’ version.

The Globe-News stated, “In a statement following Wednesday’s sudden departure of former Interim City Manager Terry Childers, Mayor Paul Harpole announced Amarillo would once again turn to Strategic Government Resources to help fill the position of city manager.”

But that isn’t a done deal until the Nov. 22 council meeting. How do I know this? Because this is the exact language from Amarillo Mayor Paul Harpole’s statement to the media which Jesse Patton of the city’s PR office sent out: “Details about filling Childers’ position, and the steps Amarillo Council must take to move forward will be discussed at the upcoming Tuesday, Nov. 22 meeting along with reengaging the process with Strategic Government Resources (SGR) to find a permanent city manager.”

Look at those works carefully. It’s a discussion; and, while I would not be surprised if the council “re-engaged” with SGR because the council is unable to learn from past mistakes thus repeating errors hoping for a different outcome. The council has such a track record. But the Globe-News’ own report noted on Oct. 31, that the council would be cutting ties with SGR.

But if the Globe-News mischaracterizes the Harpole news release, how do we know the out-of-town-owned daily didn’t also mischaracterize something more important? The paper reports, “Weeks before the November election, Amarillo City Council members began meeting in executive session to discuss when and how best to move forward with hiring a city manager, and at their next regular meeting on Tuesday they plan to bring the conversation out from behind closed doors.”

First, if this is true, there is a serious question about the right of the City Council to go into executive session over such an interpretation of “personnel matters.” The discussion about a path forward hiring a city manager and whether to go with a search firm isn’t the same as a personal evaluation. If this paper’s characterization is true, the transparency pledge from the council is as empty as that see-through class of vodka. But, if this is a mischaracterization of the council’s behavior, then the Globe-News has visited another disservice on the people of Amarillo — just as classy as the “Goodbye Terry” editorial the other day. (Say classy, Les.)

Speaking of editorials, now the Globe-News is calling for slowing down the city manager search. Doesn’t this conflict with questioning why the council wasn’t done with this search and hire mission a long time ago? Yes, most emphatically, it does. In fact, according to the voice of the Globe-News, its Nov. 3 opinion called for the hire before next May’s municipal elections. What is happening behind the scenes for the Globe-News to change directions? Does the petulant publisher have a slate lined up to back with his little birdcage liner?

Let all this sink in, will you?

A petulant publisher and a damaged city

The “opinion” page of Thursday’s Amarillo Globe-News displayed a pettiness and stupidity rarely seen in the worst of our media. But, here it is, in all its glory.

Brief background: Tuesday evening, Terry Childers, Amarillo’s interim city manager, was caught on a hot mic calling a citizen a “stupid son of a bitch” after said citizen spoke during the City Council’s public comment session. Wednesday morning, Childers resigned. It was the second such public display of profanity and bad temper, so no matter how much anyone approved of the changes Childers brought to the city, it was time for him to hit the road.

And thus, we have the two-word editorial in the local newspaper of record. Former opinion page editor and local blogger, my friend John Kanelis, pretty much took the words out of my mouth by beating me to the punch opining about the unprofessional act by Les Simpson, the AGN publisher of the city’s newspaper of record. Kanelis’ post lit up Facebook brighter than Beth Duke’s and Xcel Energy’s Christmas Electric Light Parade.

After I saw this petulant little display today, I called Simpson “a petty, petulant and deplorable prig,” and I think I also called him a “prick” and a “little shit.” But those are puerile insults on my part. The most condemning label for Simpson is hypocrite.

He made a big show for himself and the Globe-News to be leaders of the downtown development effort. He wanted to portray the paper and his role as leadership and that he was doing something good for the city. Of course he and his buddies then brought us Melissa Dailey, Wallace Bajjali and millions of lost dollars and misguided plans. When the new councilors came on board in June 2015, it was clear that Simpson’s cabal was in trouble and it was Childers who delivered the death blow for Downtown Amarillo Inc. and Dailey. Poor Les. He’s been angry, vindictive and petulant ever since. He’s been using a paper that once won a Pulitzer Prize as an ugly stick to beat on his enemies.

Now, with this openly childish reaction, he shows his hypocrisy. Everything he and the Globe-News did was for self-aggrandizement. It was for business reasons, to foster ties with the people in control of advertising dollar. It was never for the good of the city. Because if Les were interested in the good of the city, he wouldn’t have waged a 52-week war on Childers and the new councilors. He would have realized that his little, petty media outlet will now, with this very act, jeopardize getting a solid candidate to be city manager.

Who, after all, in their right mind, would want to work in Amarillo now? Congratulations, Les. You have-not only shown your true colors, but you’ve done irreparable damage to the city.

Tee time and the 19th hole

Thursday, the ABC7 Amarillo investigative team reported on the high on the hog travel that former Amarillo Economic Development Corp. president Buzz David’s and Senior VP Brian Jennings enjoyed in their hob-knobbing at conferences, trade shows and client meetings all over the United States. But that wasn’t the whole story, tonight the team told viewers about playing at golf clubs and buy golf clubs.

The ABC7 Amarillo team looked at receipts and “chits” associated with David’s and Jennings’ accounts at Amarillo Country Club and Tascosa Golf Club, respectively.

One Amarillo Country Club bill from 2013 came to $7,000, with the explanation of dues and “local meals.” And some of those meals were fit for a king. One included wild boar ragu, bacon wrapped quail and top shelf drinks like Grey Goose vodka, Makers Mark, and a $19 glass — yes, a glass — of wine.

The ABC7 Amarillo team also found purchases for golf clubs, golf bags and clothing. They found few checks to reconcile that either David or Jennings reimbursed the AEDC for personal purchases. But for two golf clubs, a golf umbrella a pullover and cart bag, taxpayers teed up about $800. Interim CEO Doug Nelson postulated those purchases might have been bought and then used as gifts or donations as part of an event with local businesses. Nelson wasn’t more specific and the team found no documentation of the assertion.

Amarillo Country and Tascosa Golf Clubs by George Schwarz on Scribd

Those memberships were, by the way, part of the executive compensation packages tacked onto David’s almost $300,000 deal with AEDC and Jennings’ $127,000 package.

Now, let’s be clear. Nothing in those receipts showed that David or Jennings did anything illegal. But, in the guise of recruiting businesses to Amarillo, they spent a lot of money going to conferences and making other trips for which the purpose wasn’t always clear. Further, as the ABC7 Amarillo team reported, for the time period it looked at, the AEDC brought in only two new businesses totaling 320 news jobs.

Granted, the AEDC retained and expanded other businesses, but even some of those moves were controversial. Some would say the role the AEDC played in moving the Coca-Cola facility out of downtown to make room for the ballpark wouldn’t pass legal muster under laws governing AEDC’s type of economic development charter. And, don’t forget, the community is awaiting the results, if any, of a federal grand jury investigation on the AEDC’s Commerce Building deal.

What is most important about this story for Amarillo’s taxpayers? The previous Amarillo City Commission and then Council — which approves the AEDC operating budget — failed in its fiduciary duty to properly oversee taxpayer money. So did the AEDC board. Both of those governing bodies let AEDC executives run amok and failed in their fiduciary duty to taxpayers. In fact, some of the expenditures make the infamous gang from Wallace Bajjali look like pikers. On June 9, the city’s Laura Storrs told The Amarillo Independent that the AEDC has had clean audits from the same firm that audits the city’s books.

And, finally, remember all the drama and bashing of the three new City Council members, especially in the Amarillo Globe-News? It’s clear the ABC7 Amarillo investigative report vindicates those members of the City Council who called for replacing the entire AEDC board a year ago.

High on the hog, or traveling in style

Last night, Niccole Caan and Kendra Hall of the ABC7 Amarillo investigative team told viewers watching the 10 p.m. broadcast the reimbursements to former CEO Richard “Buzz” David, and current Senior VP of Business Development Brian Jennings for their miscellaneous expenses. On tonight’s Nightside, ABC7 Amarillo reported on how these top two executives traveled high on the hog, spending for top-of-the-line booze, lavish meals, swanky hotel rooms, golf outings and more.

The ABC7 Amarillo team flagged high-dollar items or receipts that were obviously for luxury or upscale facilities. Examples of those items include $931 of taxpayer dollars at the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas with enough documentation to show an up-sell to a room with a view, cappuccinos in the lobby and a resort fee.

Flamingo by George Schwarz on Scribd

The most expensive meal the investigative team found was a reimbursement to Jennings on a date and at a restaurant the team couldn’t identify from the quality of the copy of the paperwork the reporters had requested under the Texas Inspection of Public Records Act. That $672 for seven guests was a true wine-and-dine, with orders of crab legs, filet mignon and 11 top-of-the-line alcoholic beverages.

672 by George Schwarz on Scribd

David’s $644 tab on June 12, 2014 at Paesanos Ristaurante, San Antonio, was a close second.

While several of the lodging receipts topped $1,000, the single largest amount was in April 2014 when Jennings was reimbursed more than $1,600 for hotel, clothing and golf at the famous golfing venue in North Carolina — Pinehurst 1895. David also has a similar receipt from Pinehurst for $879.

Pinehurst Jennings by George Schwarz on Scribd

Thousands of taxpayer dollars reimbursed to David, and Jennings, were made on the basis of hand-written “receipts” and receipts with no backup or itemization.

Those hand-scribbled “receipts,” many on David’s business cards, AEDC notepaper or plain paper filled out in either David’s or Jennings’ handwriting, exceeded $1,000 from 2013 until now. The most expensive of these was David’s $140 note “a service charge.”

Hand Written by George Schwarz on Scribd

Although the ABC7 Amarillo team found a few documents that could be linked some expenses to conferences or trade shows, most lacked any link to a project or client. And, few receipts had itemization or even reflected the number of people attending the meals.

A little tax and a lot of money

As the ABC7 Amarillo investigative team reported earlier this evening, reporters looked at the Amarillo Economic Development Corp., it learned that every purchase in Amarillo subject to sales tax sends one-half penny to the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. And that adds up to a tidy sum. That sales tax also pays for the salaries, operations as well as travels and a pool of money for loans, buildings and other items, the projected operational budget for the fiscal year ending in September is almost $1.9 million, with almost 40 percent of that in salaries.

According to the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. Managerial Report (see below) for the five months ending on Feb 29, 2016, the organization is sitting on $3.2 million in operating equity and $68 million in project equity.

The AEDC has this and other reports on its website; and, while this seems to be transparent, not that this public document states “Restricted to management only, notes are not presented.” But, notes are an integral part of financial documents.

The ABC7 Amarillo reporters learned that the AEDC is subject to the state sunshine laws because it is tax-supported and a contractor to carry out city functions. But, as a separate organization, it is not subject to the city’s rules for accountability for travel, reimbursement and other policies.

But, did the AEDC have its own policies? Yes and no.

“Well we do have policies, we just don’t have written policies” Interim CEO Doug Nelson told ABC7 Amarillo’s Niccole Caan.

And that, essentially, gives AEDC employees carte blanche for travel, hotel, meals, golf games, clothing and equipment, including former CEO Richard “Buzz” David the authority to approve his own travel. Officials with the city told ABC7 Amarillo that the AEDC has had “clean” audits with the same firm that audits the city’s books, so seemingly no red flags came up. It isn’t clear whether those warnings should have occurred.

According to the AEDC’s own website, where it has 2014 and 2015 annual reports, the organization brought in two new businesses for a total of 320 jobs; and, in the 26 years of existence, the AEDC claimed it attracted or relocated 34 businesses while expanding 138 more.

AEDC April 2016 Managerial Report by George Schwarz

Stonewalling, and vindicating three councilors’ call for AEDC board resignations

As revealing as the documents are, it’s equally instructive how KVII undertook this investigation and how the AEDC reacted to it — stonewalling, resisting and evading. But. nothing the AEDC can or will do can erase the stench emanating from the paper trail of these two guys, who make six-figure salaries on the taxpayer dime, try to live like Donald Trump.

The first indication of the AEDC’s reaction was when the ABC7 team filed a public records request on April 5, 2016, for more recent expenditures. Based on the Texas public records law, the organization should have responded by April 21. That didn’t happen. The AEDC claimed it never saw the original request. It was sent regular mail. Because ABC7 didn’t send the letter registered mail, it was hard to prove the AEDC got it. Imagine however, if you will, a letter from a company wanting to investigate moving to Amarillo disappearing into the Twilight Zone. Don’t we expect an organization with highly paid leadership to have enough competence to check its mail, registered or not? Nevertheless, an email exchange on May 11 resulted in a negotiated request.

The AEDC’s resistance to ABC7 when beyond dragging feet on responses. Despite having sent questions ahead of time and setting a 3 p.m. May 10 appointment with Interim CEO Doug Nelson, when ABC7 team members arrived at the AEDC offices, Nelson was nowhere to be found. The reporters later learned he was holed up at the Underwood Law Firm. Subsequent repeated calls and emails were ignored. And, not one AEDC board member would talk to ABC7.

The AEDC stonewalling denied the ABC7 team and the public information about how the AEDC conducts oversight of its executives’ expenditures — acting as though it is nobody’s business how it spends (wait for it) taxpayer money. The arrogant leadership’s stonewalling also forfeited the organization multiple chances to tell its side of the story. The only two city councilors who would go on camera with ABC7 were Elisha Demerson and Brian Eades.

ABC7 also filed a public records request to see the AEDC employee handbook and travel and reimbursement policies. The response was to send the city of Amarillo’s employee handbook, with the email stating travel and reimbursement policies don’t exist. It’s clear to see the implications of a nonexistence of policies in the spending patterns.

Now, let’s be clear. Nothing in those receipts showed that Buzz David or Brian Jennings did anything illegal. But, in the guise of recruiting businesses to Amarillo, they spent a lot of money going to conferences and making other trips for which the purpose wasn’t always clear. If someone wants to know who the AEDC executives entertains for all this money, Nelson said that information is “confidential.” Further, as the ABC7 team reported, in the time period it looked at, the AEDC brought in only two new businesses totaling 320 news jobs. Granted, the AEDC claimed it retained and expanded other businesses, but even some of those moves were controversial. Some would say the role the AEDC played in moving the Coca-Cola facility out of downtown to make room for the ballpark wouldn’t pass legal muster under laws governing AEDC’s type of economic development charter. And, don’t forget, the community is awaiting the results of a federal grand jury investigation on the AEDC’s Commerce Building deal.

What is most important about this story for Amarillo’s taxpayers? The previous Amarillo City Commission and then Council — which approves the AEDC operating budget — failed in its fiduciary duty to properly oversee taxpayer money. So did the AEDC board. Both of those governing bodies let AEDC executives run amok and failed in their fiduciary duty to taxpayers. In fact, some of the expenditures make the infamous gang from Wallace Bajjali look like pikers. On June 9, Laura Storrs told The Amarillo Independent that the AEDC has had clean audits from the same firm that audits the city’s books.

And, finally, remember all the drama and bashing of the three new City Council member, especially in the Amarillo Globe-News? It’s clear the ABC7 Amarillo investigative report certainly vindicates those members of the City Council who called for replacing the entire AEDC board a year ago.

Stay tuned: ABC7 Amarillo investigates the AEDC

ABC7 Amarillo’s investigative team has done another great service to the community. On tonight’s Nightside at 10 p.m., investigative reporter Niccole Caan kicked off a week-long series on the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. The series caps a months-long investigation of this taxpayer-funded agency. That’s right. A five-day series. And, in TV promotion parlance, it’s something you’ll see only on ABC7 Amarillo.

What triggered this investigation? Several months ago, a confidential source gave the investigative team a box of more than 700 pages of AEDC receipts and other documents from 2013 and 2014. When the ABC7 reporters Caan and Kendra Hall, who also worked hard on this series, got 960 pages of records from the AEDC May 24, they confirmed the first set was genuine by matching a large number of receipts and the handwriting. That satisfied the team of the authenticity of the confidentially supplied documents. In all, the reporters reviewed 1,660 of pages of documents, with most of the pages having copies of several receipts.

Tonight, the station reported on the Amarillo Economic Development Corp.’s stonewalling, trying to avoid being accountable for taxpayer money, 99.6 percent of which comes from the taxpayers. And it will show that precious little oversight exists for how the agency spends taxpayer dollars. Later in the week, ABC7 Amarillo’s investigative team will give viewers a detailed look at travel expenses, hotel costs, food items and some unusual expenses.

It’s no exaggeration that these numbers will make your head spin.

ABC7 Amarillo kicks off a five-day series investigating the AEDC

If you caught ABC7 Amarillo’s news at 6 p.m. and Nightside at 10 p.m., you heard the “tease” for an extraordinary five-day series investigating the free-wheeling spending by staffers at the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. Why use the word “extraordinary?” When was the last time a local commercial Amarillo TV station ran this kind of story over an entire work week?

The ABC7 Amarillo team went through almost 1,000 pages on which were copied thousands of receipts from taxis, hotels, airfare and meals. The team also looked at the receipts and spending reports from two country club memberships. Those findings will be bolstered with posts to abc7amarillo.com

By now, anyone who has surfed the Web knows that words like “jaw dropping,” “you won’t believe …,” “bombshell,” “shocking” and so on are click bait. But, in this case, those words apply to the ABC7 Amarillo team’s finding about AEDC spending.

Tune in to ABC7 Amarillo for the 10 p.m. Nightside news cast starting Monday to learn how our tax dollars are used.

Interesting Letter

It took me a while to figure out how to get this online, and it is, of course, late. But this is one other thing in the background of the recent election.

Why the downtown cartel isn't interested in Route 66

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 Streetand 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 Amarilloaren’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.

Lies, damn lies and the Amarillo Globe-News

Not too many years ago, corrections or retractions of articles in a daily newspaper were rare. And less

frequently were legitimate accusations of news stories containing outright lies for propagandizing. In addition, when running either opinion pieces or editorials, facts and some semblance of truth informed the newspapers’ opinions. Somehow in Amarillo, we have fallen far from those standards.

The Sept. 20, 2015 version of the Amarillo Globe-News offers readers two examples that should have never seen the light of day.

The first is the long and winding editorial, about defunding Planned Parenthood and the videos that purported to show that the organization is “hit with a scandal involving the sale of aborted baby parts.”

The editorial continues with this entirely false one-sentence paragraph, “Speaking of the videos, there really is no debate justifying an investigation, not if you look at the videos from a logical and nonpolitical perspective.”

This line is such an outright lie that I don’t care if someone thinks my criticism is discourteous and unseemly The videos made public were from a rabid anti-woman group that secretly recorded and edited content in the worst way possible — to portray the exact opposite of the facts. It isn’t news when it’s done that way. It is fomenting lies based on the kind of propaganda Joseph Goebbels promoted against Jews during World War II. (Yes, I am playing the Nazi card here, because that is how low the Center for Medical Progress and the Globe-News stooped to put out their lies.)

As LauraBassett points out in her Huffington Post piece, a forensic analysis of the videos on which the Globe-News relies “found they are so egregiously manipulated that they would never be accepted as evidence in a court of law.” It is bad enough that the Globe-News is going to conclude those videos are nonpolitical and a logical basis the basis for an investigation. Congress has asked for the full and unaltered videos from the Center for Medical Progress. We’ll have to see what those show and whether the Globe-News will have the ethics and decency to make that information public.

And speaking of ethics, let’s look at our controversial local issue: the downtown development debacle and the upcoming vote about the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News ballpark. In a story about DAI’s Facebook page, the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc. propaganda rag has this line, “But voters in a Nov. 3 election will decide the fate of the $32-million MPEV.”

That is flat-out incorrect and, given the Globe-News’ position on downtown development and Wallace Bajjali, its publisher’s role in the Wallace Bajjali and Downtown Amarillo Inc., one can only conclude this is misleading on purpose. In other words, it’s a lie. For those interested in facts, the vote is advisory; it’s non-binding on the City Council.

The DAI Facebook, page, by the way, states, “DAI does not take a position on ballot issues and will not provide a forum for any positions.” That is also a lie. DAI has advocated for the Wallace Bajjali plan all along and the entire Facebook effort by this taxpayer-funded organization is advocacy for Wallace Bajjali and the fraudster firm’s plan. The law is clear on who can and can not advocate on a ballot measure and it is possible DAI’s role on Facebook and elsewhere bears investigation by the Texas Ethics Commission. Given what some of the councilors know and will learn more about DAI and Wallace Bajjali, the council may kill of the entire project and DAI no matter the outcome of the Nov. 3 vote.

And, trust me folks, when the community learns more about Wallace Bajjali and DAI, people will applaud the action that the City Council must and will take to end this fraud upon Amarillo. Stick with me on this one, folks. The Amarillo Independent was right in 2010 and is right about Wallace Bajjali and DAI in 2015.

Meanwhile, just like there are lies, damn lies and statistics, there are also lies, damn lies and the Amarillo Globe-News.

More misguided propaganda -- and a deconstruction of it

Nick Gerlich, a professor of marketing at West Texas A&M University, posted in his blog a discussion of the Amarillo Millennial Movement, comparing these youth to the Baby Boomers who protested the Viet Nam War. Gerlich portrays these youth as victimized by the older generation because the some of their elders are not taking them seriously.

But, Gerlich is as misguided as this youthful friends. Herewith is a deconstruction of his blog post.

A Different Voice

I am a Baby Boomer. Born in 1959, I was one of the later ones to call this cohort mine. We were a rambunctious group of ne-erdowells. We played our music loud. We protested the View Nam War. We indulged in the free-loving culture of the day. And we wore our hair and clothes in ways that made our parents cringe.

I am a pre-Baby Boomer, technically, with a 1945 birthday, but see myself more of a Boomer than a pre-Boomer. That said, Nick, I also didn’t like the Viet Nam War (maybe the View Nam War refers to it as the first real war brought into the nation’s living rooms on TV. Quite the Freudian slip for you.) However, wearing clothes and listening to music that outraged our elders was not the exclusive domain of Boomers. It’s always been a generation thing. Do study history.

But more than anything, we just wanted people to listen to us. The status quo was to be defied. Our mantra was Question Authority (and sometimes more vulgar).

Again, not the exclusive domain for you.

Somewhere along the line, though, we got a bit older, cut our hair, started families, bought houses in the suburbs, and became Republicans. In other words, we became our parents.

No we didn’t. We became somewhat more permissive and a lot more thoughtful than our parents. And less harsh and more nuanced in our child-rearing. In part, it’s because we didn’t endure the Great Depression like our parents did. Or flee our homeland; or, fight World War II, which was seen as a legitimate war.

History has a funny way of repeating itself, though. Today’s Millennials (those born more or less  between 1980 and 2000) are in many ways like my generation: vocal, passionate, and desirous of change. I see that spirit (and yes, it is a spirit!) in Amarillo among a youngish crowd seeking change in our downtown. The Amarillo Millennial Movement has mobilized its forces, has a social media presence on Facebook, and is actively campaigning for downtown development and anything else that will help make Amarillo a place that they want to live.

No, Nick. You really have this quite wrong — unless as a professor of marketing you have hard data to back up your assertions. But as a long-time journalist and one who has extensively covered downtown development, Wallace Bajjali and the poor judgment of the then-City Commission and now the City Council, I see this differently. If you knew the connections between Brian Eades, one of the city councilors responsible for the downtown development debacle, you’d know these kids are not on some spontaneous spirit-inspired epiphany. It’s a calculated political move, in part evidence by the fact that the AMM is registered as a type of PAC.

And it isn’t pushing for downtown development in total. It’s pushing for the so-called MPEV. A glorified ballpark. They didn’t give a damn about the downtown development until the new City Council was elected and the supporters of the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News plan was put on the ballot for November, thus jeopardizing the insiders’ deals.

How do I know this? I’m an investigative reporter and I’ve seen documents. Have you?

And not move somewhere else.

Yes, they will. For reasons other than some pathetic ballpark. It’s because Amarillo doesn’t have the upscale jobs base for the good kids from good programs that WT and AC are turning out. Oh, sure. Some of the teachers and health care grads will stay here because we do have the jobs base. So will some of the ag-related majors. But don’t kid yourself. We really don’t have the jobs base they really need.

The only problem is, their Baby Boomer elders are being less than receptive to this new voice, in spite of the fact that we belly-ached for change ourselves some 40-50 years ago.

We have a lot of people the same age as those active in the AMM who disagree with the AMM’s entire approach and premise and see through their charade. And, perhaps the elders who aren’t listening to the AMM, such as me for example, is because I believe they are ill-informed, manipulated and basically too naive to realize they are merely pawns in a larger battle.

Critics respond that Amarillo Millennials do not work, do not pay taxes, and by virtue of this, do not have much of an economic impact at the local level. That was true of my generation years ago, too, but that never stopped us from being loud…and being heard.

See above. The critics I know take issue with the AMM for the reasons I outlined above.

Our local activists want a town that appeals to their sensibilities. They want downtown entertainment. They want downtown living. They want a pedestrian-friendly downtown. They want downtown shopping and dining. They are in favor of the new MPEV (Multi-Purpose Event Center), parking, and retail district.

You really have that quite wrong, as I pointed out above. Their interest in the other elements of downtown development arose only in conjunction with them being sucked into supporting the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News stadium. In fact, I’ve had Facebook conversations with some of the AMM members who have misquoted me, misquoted The Amarillo Independent and relied only on information from Downtown Amarillo Inc. You know, the DAI leadership of Les Simpson and Melissa Dailey who brought us Wallace Bajjali. You know, the DAI and Globe-News that claimed due diligence. And, trust me on this prediction, the people who are still wedded to Wallace Bajjali’s ideas will face massive embarrassment.

And all they get are complaints about how or why this won’t work in Amarillo. It might cost taxpayers a few bucks. It’s too hot in Amarillo. Cold. Windy. No one lives there. No one wants to live there. It’s too dangerous downtown (Really? I grew up in Chicago. This place is soooo safe!).

Whatevs. Just tell us you don’t want change, and you will be a lot more believable.

“Whatev.”

Really? Nice try at humor, but the situation isn’t funny. Those “complaints” you so cavalierly dismiss are legitimate. Just saying they aren’t, or calling us negative and all the other well-worn Joseph Goebbels propaganda techniques won’t change the facts or the overall truth derived from those facts. In part, every time we learn more facts, we also find that Dailey, Simpson, DAI, the Amarillo Economic Development Corp., the Local Government Corp. and Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone have misrepresented the plans and contracts — misrepresented, hell, they have lied. That, too, is on will be revealed because, as a journalist, I have faith that in the end the truth wins out. Oh, and then there’s that pesky FBI and grand jury investigation. Oops.

As an educator, I have always sided with youth. After all, they have a lot more future to live than my cronies and I do. I may be getting a little bit on the old side, but my heart is still young…and it is kept young by my students. I believe in them. I trust them. I love them. They can see the future from here, while my cohort has a better view of the past.

That’s all very sweet. It’s all well and good to love, trust and side with them, but it’s misguided in two respects. First, if their view of the future isn’t informed by the past, then they are condemned to repeat the errors of the past.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana, “The Life of Reason,” 1905.

Further, the youth you mention have no monopoly on seeing the future. Alvin Toffler was age 42 when he published “Future Shock” in 1970 and 52-years-old when he published “The Third Wave.” Those are both futurist works, looking to the future with a respect for the past.

Second, while as an educator you can side with the young, you also have a leadership responsibility toward those same young people. And part of the responsibility is as a role model. To me that means showing more respect for the facts, evidence and “truth” rather than the emotions which the writing above reflects.

And I want to see more of these brilliant Millennials stay in Amarillo. The future is theirs, not mine. Too my contemporaries dismissing the redevelopment project out of hand, I say it’s time to let go.

Let go? Of what? That’s the same rhetoric the AMM and Advance Amarillo people are using. And I counter that the elections in May have consequences and no amount of denial will change the implication — that voters in Amarillo saw through, finally, the lies and spin from the Globe-News, DAI and the now former members of the City Council.

Let go? Maybe the AMM people would face that facts and let go of the illusion that they aren’t any more than useful idiots — pawns in a greater scheme. A scheme, I might add, that could be more embarrassing for the city’s leadership than anyone imagine. And a revelation that some people think they are untouchable either by the law or by democracy.

You know. Kind of like we begged of our parents and grandparents.

Dr “Move On“ Gerlich

As Toffler pointed out in “Future Shock” by quoting Herbert Gerjuoy: “The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction — how to teach himself.”

Peace out.

The more we know, the better decisions we can make as a community

The Turner Report, a blog run by Randy turner in Joplin, Mo., has been combing a state audit and other records related to that city’s hiring Wallace Bajjali as master developer. His latest review of the documents once again shows that the now defunct master developer had an inside track with at least one Joplin city councilor, the city manager and others.

Those connections were clearly structured to have certain people benefit from Wallace Bajjali deals. And one city councilor now faces possible censure from the Joplin City Council this coming week. Don’t forget, too, that the state auditor has turned over material to a state prosecutor for review of possible criminal wrongdoing.

We have commented on the strong parallels between Amarillo and Joplin in dealing with Wallace Bajjali and the fallout from the fraudster firm’s vaporizing. It’s too bad neither Texas nor Amarillo have a similar mechanism in the form of a state auditor to undertake the same kind of probe as was done in Joplin. But we have an equally potent one if we care to use it: The Amarillo City Council has Sec. 19 of the city’s code to launch a similar investigation. Between the city and the FBI, the public should learn who did what for whom as part of this tainted deal.

We deserve no less than the full and honest truth. The leftover mayor and councilor need to face the fact that the more they resist letting the full truth out, the more trust they lose — and they ain’t got much left at this point anyway.

It’s time to start the Sec. 19 investigation so some information can come out before the Nov. 3 vote on the proposed ballpark.

Stupidity reigns supreme on Harrison Street

The ineffable stupidity in part of the Amarillo Globe-News Saturday editorial about the attendance at the City Council deserves at least a short comment, if for no other reason than to reinforce what a pathetic rag the faux-news outlet has become.

The drivel that Dave Henry inflicted on Globe-News readers observed that the attendance at the initial meeting of an experiment to start the council meetings at 6 p.m. wasn’t much different than those meetings that began earlier. And, that the audience was populated by the usual suspects.

Only the stupidest of people would expect that attendance at the meetings would suddenly blossom at first blush. Only the stupidest of people would also criticize that the regulars would be there. After all, they are engaged in watching city business properly, but for the Globe-News anything that disrupts the past status quo is wrong. And the new City Council surely does that.

So, keep this kind of critical thinking in mind when you see information or editorials in the Globe-News. It’s not journalism. It’s claptrap and disinformation.

More stupidity and propaganda: Guess where

Reading the Amarillo Globe-News these days would be entertaining were it not the “newspaper of

record” for Amarillo. And, in this case, I use the word “newspaper” very loosely. But it isn’t the Globe-News alone that provides the entertainment. It’s also some of those who come before the City Council to comment.

One of those becoming a regular is one Cindi Bulla, a Realtor, who regularly spouts the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-Amarillo Globe-News approach to downtown development. She has shown she will not be moved by facts. Let’s start with a Sept.8 story that Kevin Welch penned about the tax talks at the City Council Tuesday.

By the way, it’s instructive of the Globe-News’ approach to the news that the story refers to Bulla as a “resident.” That, of course, misdirects the reader away from Bulla’s portfolio or political reach as a Realtor active with the local realtor association. But that isn’t the worst of it. Bulla then goes on to tell the council, according to the article, “Work together and get the job done and get it done right.”

Like many others still enmeshed with the fraudsters Wallace Bajjali, Bulla overlooks the electorate’s mandate to shake things up at City Hall. Further, working together was the go-along-to-get-along approach was precisely that brought us eight years of wheel-spinning, word spinning. The indiscriminate acceptance of plans from Wallace Bajjali, DAI, the Local Government Corp. and Amarillo Economic Development Corp. have gotten us to a likely corrupt downtown development plan.

This isn’t the first time Bulla’s Babbittry has joined voices with the other smug, self-satisfied Babbitts of Amarillo. She indicated during a July 1 community meeting that the voters of Amarillo aren’t smart enough to assess public policy decisions, much less vote on them.

It gets better, of course. It’s not just the entertainment in the Globe-News. It’s the unmitigated gall and hubris from the paper whose publisher, Les Simpson, is so enmeshed in the downtown development debacle so completely as to destroy any credibility for his media outlet. Don’t forget, it was Simpson, as head of DAI’s board along with Melissa Dailey, brought Wallace Bajjali to Amarillo.

So when we’re greeted Thursday morning with an editorialthat purports to tell us that cutting the DAI budget is about taxes instead of a message to DAI and the community about what DAI is worth to us, I can only conclude two things. Either the Globe-News is once again engaging in a propaganda and disinformation campaign to attack those who would follow the electorate’s wishes; or, that whoever conceived of and wrote the editorial is — how can I say this nicely? (I can’t) — is flat out stupid and thinks we are too.

I will continue to wish better for Amarillo than this. And until then, I feel an obligation to help people understand how badly misled we have been by what was once a real newspaper. And how we’re being misled by a bunch of Babbitt-line insiders whose interest is their own, notthe good of the city. Thank goodness we had an election and that it turned out the way it did.

Final thought: Councilors Burkett, Demerson and Nair, gentlemen, stay the course.

The more we know, the worse it gets

The Joplin, Mo.-based Turner Report posted two items of note Monday, both giving us more insight

into the post-tornado debacle with Wallace Bajjali.

As I noted, the parallels between Joplin and Amarillo are uncanny. Even more to the point, however, are the behaviors of the Joplin city manager and some of its council members.

In a most important post, Turner calls attention to Amarillo's city attorney report, who used the then-Strasberger Law Firm (now Strasberger & Price) findings and other sources, to determine whether the city should use Wallace Bajjali. The Amarillo City Council ignored warnings from the Independent and the law firm to engage Wallace Bajjali. And, in reading Turner’s posting, Joplin officials were made aware of the Amarillo’s information and ignored the risks as well.

Other findings, including the state audit, indicate certain people in Joplin ignored the warnings for reasons other than denial. Some, including a Joplin city councilor and former city manager, have been implicated in “insider” dealings that might turn out to be illegal — perhaps criminal — activity. That activity may not turn out to be criminal, but it’s suspicious enough for the Missouri auditor to refer findings to a prosecutor.

To even imply that such a thing could happen in Amarillo will prompt screams from former elected officials and those associated with them. Those protests would include asking why some little outsider (after all, I’ve only been here since 2003) would have the unmitigated gall to question their integrity. I experienced such a reaction from Laura Street in 2006 when I questioned her about the then-City Commission sneaking $1.8 million to make up a private funding shortfall for the Globe-News Center. But in this case, I am no longer willing to give these people the benefit of the doubt. I have come to believe a preponderance of evidence points to insider dealing, aided and abetted by knowledge of the moral bankruptcy of David Wallace and Costa Bajjali.

Then, the lateston the David Wallace bankruptcy here indicates to me the Wallace Bajjali deal was a scam from the start. And the rubes on the then-City Commission fell for it. Or, again, were they really rubes?

If the FBI and grand jury find nothing and the current City Council fails to conduct a Sec. 19 investigation, we may never know. Such a pall over a fine city like Amarillo would be a shame.

A Tale of Two Cities: An Open Letter to the Amarillo City Council

An Open Letter to the Amarillo City Council:

I am sending this letter to you and posting it to The Amarillo Independent blog for a specific reason. I

had thought about coming before the council during its session in the Council Chambers to read this. But I chose not to for a few reasons. First, what I have to convey, even if read very quickly, will likely take longer than the three minutes. Second, after watching the former commission and now council, I am quite aware how Mayor Harpole treats those with whom he disagrees. I thus choose to not subject myself to the highly likely interruptions, verbal abuse and boorish behavior that characterizes the way he runs these meetings.

As I write this, I’ve just returned from a week-long camping trip. I only followed the news alerts about Wallace Bajjali sporadically. Now I’ve caught up about Wallace Bajjali’s situation in Joplin, where the now-defunct firm was also a master developer. If anyone wishes to get caught up on that situation, all they need do is Google “Wallace Bajjali” and Joplin or go to The Turner Report. Turner provides a pathway to the media coverage and the damning Missouri State Auditor report. In fact, the findings in Joplin are so bad they have been turned over to a prosecutor for possible criminal action. If you and other leadership haven’t studied the information you best do so.

The audit found that Wallace Bajjali seemed to have an inside track in Joplin, aided in part by the Chamber of Commerce months earlier giving information to Wallace Bajjali firm to respond to the RFP. According to the audit, “It is unclear how Wallace Bajjali was able to obtain 11 letters of intent for various projects within the redevelopment area before the concept of a master developer was presented to the city council or a RFP was issued unless the firm had prior knowledge of potential project details.”

As I’ve written before, much of what happened here and in Joplin are uncannily parallel.

The audit also faulted the decision-makers in Joplin for ignoring the Wallace Bajjali’s problems with regulators, financial liabilities, failures here in Amarillo and other warning signs. In Joplin, Wallace Bajjali won the deal over bidders with no liabilities; their City Council, like ours, ignored warnings, including those that told them engaging Wallace Bajjali would be a huge error. And, in Joplin, that information was kept from the public.

Of course, how Amarillo ended up with Wallace Bajjali remains murky at best, what with so many meetings behind closed doors. But, in November 2010, The Amarillo Independent’s story raised the same issues that later unfolded in Joplin and at the then-Amarillo City Commission Nov. 16 meeting, Downtown Amarillo Inc.’s Melissa Dailey, with Amarillo Globe-News Publisher Les Simpson, who was her board president, said DAI had done due diligence. Dailey downplayed the Independent’s findings. Now, of course, we must raise the same questions about Wallace Bajjali’s selection here. It is a fair question to ask what DAI's Dailey and Simpson knew and when they knew it.

Then there is a matter of the $947,000 in so-called “pursuit costs” the city paid to Wallace Bajjali, even as some councilors knew the firm wasn’t delivering on its promises. What we know now from Joplin is that David Wallace and his firm submitted invoices for such things as a $161 pair of dress shoes for Wallace while in Springfield, Mo.; a hotel stay in Springfield for $333; and, booze for Wallace, Costa Bajjali, a then-city councilor and then-city manager and Joplin Chamber of Commerce employees. Even more incriminating was an invoice for hotel costs in Arkansas for $222 four months before the city issued an RFP. But in Amarillo, we’ve never seen a public itemization of those costs so we don’t know any of those details. Do we have the same issues here and we just don’t know it — yet?

This tale of two cities continues with “newspapers” of record being lapdogs instead of watchdogs. The Joplin Globe, like the out-of-town-owned Amarillo Globe-News, was in the tank for Wallace Bajjali from the start. And while the Joplin paper, as best I can tell, was simply egregious in slanting or not reporting about Wallace Bajjali and downtown development, the Globe-News here was grossly unethical in its participation in downtown development. With its publisher on the DAI and Local Government Corp. boards, how could anyone expect anything but lapdog behavior and boosterism?

It’s time for all of us to know more about this Wallace Bajjali-“catalyst project” albatross around our collective taxpaying necks. So, I am once again calling on the City Council to take decisive action on downtown development:

·Invoke Sec. 19 of the Amarillo City Code and launch a full investigation on the entire eight-year-with-nothing-to-show-for-it effort, issuing subpoenas to all concerned for documents and testimony about their roles in downtown development.

·Suspend any further development on the hotel and parking garage — contracts be damned because if the deals were put together illegally they are void.

·Investigate the investors in the hotel and determine if they have acted with “insider” information equivalent to what would constitute insider information under the rules of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Texas Securities laws.

·Investigate who and what is behind the treatment of the Herring Hotel and why the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone provided abatements to Wallace Bajjali and subsequently the Patel group without them submitting applications as others have done.

·Freeze all payments to Downtown Amarillo Inc. until further notice.

·The Nov. 3 vote on the “MPEV” is advisory only and poorly worded. No matter the vote, freeze any decision until the Sec. 19 investigation is completed.

This entire downtown development effort has been tainted from the start. And throughout, the advocates of the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc. approach, including former Mayor Debra McCartt and former councilors, Mayor Harpole, Councilman Eades, City Manager Jarrett Atkinson and members of the DAI, LGC and TIRZ boards have been more than disingenuous — they have been dishonest. No taxpayer money was the biggest lie, but each week we get a new revelation that oozes from one of the contracts.

The City Council with three new members elected can not only stop this insanity and reboot the planning process. But it can also restore trust in city government. I beg you to do so.

Did a Wallace Bajjali plan derail another approach to downtown revitalization?

My friend, John Kanelis, works part-time for KFDA-Newschannel 10. He has posted a storyabout

Santa Fe Railway's Madame Queen at
the city-owned mini-park downtown

Walter Wolfram, an Amarillo attorney who has tried for years to establish a railroad museum here. After all, Amarillo was a huge railroad town and remains an important part of BNSF’s Transcon route.

Wolfram has proposed to the city of Amarillo using the old Santa Fe Railway depot for such a nonprofit enterprise. You remember the Santa Fe depot that the city bought for $2.3 million from Bob Goree, the auctioneer, in September 2013. At the time, ABC7 News/KVII reported that now-former Commissioner “Lilia Escajeda said even though the city has no use for it right now, there are definite plans for the future.”

Escajeda went on to say the building and six contiguous acres might be used for the Civic Center and, at that time, also made clear the deal was no intended to attract Amtrak. At the time, Amtrak’s Chicago to Los Angeles Southwest Chief route through Colorado and New Mexico was in jeopardy and sending the iconic train through here on the Transcon was a possibility. However, as far as I know, the city made no real effort to further that possibility. And now, that train has left the station since then Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico have worked out an agreement with Amtrak and BNSF to keep the current route.

But I got sidetracked, didn’t I?

According to the Kanelis story, “Wolfram submitted his proposal to the city this past March. He’s waiting for a response.”

Once again, we can see the damage to the city from the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-inspired ballpark. Even were the Southwest Chief always a lost cause for Amarillo, the entire issue and controversy about an under-sized ballpark has distracted the downtown development advocates away from a viable form of economic development. Train tourism is a big deal and with a museum in the historic depot as a nucleus, more development could follow. It is certainly no more speculative that vying for convention business against cities with far more to offer.

More instructive to those watching the performance at City Hall is that five months later, Wolfram hasn’t heard from the city. That’s just plain rude. At a minimum, good manners would call for an acknowledgement of receiving the proposal.

I guess, that too, is too much to expect until the culture at City Hall and the city’s leadership changes.

Double standards for Wallace Bajjali supporters

From what I can tell by seeing reactions to the Amarillo Globe-News stories posted to Facebook as well as other Facebook posts, the allies of the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc. plan for a ballpark are in panic mode. These people are running scared because the voters dared to turn out in the past municipal election to vote against the entrenched “leaders” of the city. Those are the same leaders who gave us an insider’s plan for making money on a downtown development plan flawed from the start. And, if it succeeds, is sure to put money in the pockets of prominent lawyers, a former mayor’s husband and others who have insider and advance knowledge.

It’s my observation that all this social media activity is an attempt to mischaracterize this recent election and nullify the results by insulting the new councilors, Randy Burkett, Mark Nair and Elisha Demerson. I noted the most recent attacks in a previous blog post. The direct attack came in the story attacking Burkett and Nair on their interactions with the group of some 20 or so millennials who claim to represent the 43,000 millennials in Amarillo.

Here is how Laura Street tried to discount the results of the recent election, according to a Globe-News quote, “They feel they have the mandate of the public, but only 15 percent of registered voters voted.”

Two years ago, then-incumbents were re-elected with a lower voter turnout than we had in 2015 and they claimed a mandate to continue with the downtown development plan, even though some of them knew then that master developer Wallace Bajjali was in trouble in Joplin, Mo., and had missed deadlines in Amarillo. When Wallace Bajjali cratered in January 2015, the incompetence of the City Council, DAI and others became part of the election calculus. It was not just the city’s operation problems that led to the defeat of two incumbents and the defeat of an “establishment” candidate for the open seat. The egregious examples of the lack of diligence were very clear to the voters who wanted things fixed, changed and done so transparently.

Street and her Wallace Bajjali-loving allies need to explain how they can now claim the election with a better voter participation is less legitimate than the one before with a lower turnout. And they need to do it in context and honestly.