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.

TIRZ action on Herring Hotel tip of iceberg

It’s been about 10 months since the FBI served the Amarillo Economic Development Corp. with a

grand jury subpoena, launching a probe into some of the activities associated with the so-called downtown revitalization project. Since then, we have heard nothing about the investigation into the deal involving Alan Rhodes, a shareholder in the Underwood Law Firm, and the AEDC. The deal at issue is a transaction involving the Commerce Building, West Texas A&M University and local property owners.

Secrecy is a common characteristic of this type of scrutiny. But in addition to learning about the probe, we have learned much about the tentacles gripping downtown development:

· Alan Rhodes and Joe Bob McCartt, the husband of former Mayor Debra McCartt, are involved in a deal to invest in the Newcrest Images/Supreme Bright convention center hotel. That information became public last month despite Chuck Patel, the chief financial officer for Newcrest, telling us who are the investors in the publicly subsidized part of the project that the information is none of our business;

·Statements by the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc. crowd have claimed, in too many places to document here, that neither the Xcel Energy building now under construction nor the convention hotel would proceed without the ballpark and other guarantees. And yet we recently learned that Newcrest/Supreme Bright has told Richard Brown, the point person on the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, that construction begins this fall despite the vote on killing the ballpark part of the MPEV being on the ballot;

·The contract with the city of Amarillo for the heavily subsidized convention center hotel, part of the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc.-inspired trifecta that includes a ballpark and parking garage, includes a non-compete clause barring the public assistance of any type for another downtown hotel;

·The parking garage contract with the now defunct fraudster firm of Wallace Bajjali includes the city’s requirement to eliminate free street parking downtown with parking meters. One implication not fully explored at this point are the costs and scope of that requirement give nthe large area in the “downtown” definition established eight years ago;

·In a scurrilous act of betrayal of the public, the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone has sat on the Herring Hotel’s request for a tax abatement for three years. And, in a more despicable move than a civil tongue bars other words, on Thursday finally denied the iconic hotel’s request.

What we know about FBI-grand jury investigations in general are they are carried out secretly — that neither the FBI nor grand juries make information known to the public during their process. What is less well known here is that the investigation may well delve into more than the Commerce Building. I have it on good authority that the FBI is fully aware of the situation with the Herring, including the possible anti-trust implications. Of course, no one on the outside knows about the progress or depth.

But I have a couple of theories that I have mentioned to an attorney or two and, while I may not be right about these as I was about Wallace Bajjali, those hypotheses make sense.

First, I believe the “where there’s smoke, there’s fire” cliché is plausible here. Had the federal level investigation cratered early on, it would have stopped; the public would have known, in part, with the release of information about the lack of indictments. That may be a bit simplistic, of course.

Second, I think there is a fair chance this investigation is being done under the framework of RICO, or the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. This law, born in the 1970s to for after the Mafia, covers far more than the Goodfellas these days.

As the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc. plan advocates move forward and we see Amarillo divided in a war within itself, one can only think the famous Winston Churchill line: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

It also brings to mind another observation about the truth: The advocates of the Wallace Bajjali-DAI plan for downtown development find the truth so precious that they use it sparingly.

I wonder when the facts will emerge to give us the truth.

Lessons from the sessions

Advance Amarillo is on Facebook crowing about the great turn out and support for the Wallace Bajjali-Downtown Amarillo Inc. plan for downtown development.

“A big thank you to everyone who voiced their support for the plans to revitalize downtown today, it was a good day!” reads the post. And one of the supporters, a Sally Jennings, responded, “Today was a great day for the citizens of Amarillo!! Those that want to create and do something good and make this a great city spoke up and were heard. 99% positive comments!!!!”

Here are some major takeaways about the Wednesday session.

• While the turnout was good at the start, let’s remember that the purpose of the all-day dog-and-pony show was to sell and/or pressure the new councilors to buy into the Wallace Bajjali-DAI plan. By the way, one of the speakers said the ballpark wasn’t a Wallace Bajjali idea, but that was one of the many pieces of disinformation. The so-called three-legged stool is the cookie cutter approach Wallace Bajjali peddled elsewhere.

• The daylong meeting was designed to bring out the supporters who had pecuniary interests in the plan and to exclude those who would have spoken against the ballpark in particular. Amarillo’s working stiffs had zero chance of sitting through this disinformation campaign.

• After almost 8 hours of the advocates representing Center City, the Local Government Corp., Downtown Amarillo Inc. and Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone as well as the city itself with the mayor touting elements of the plan, the public comment session began 2¾ hours after the originally scheduled 3 p.m. start time for public comment. This was a transparent ploy to wear down the outnumbered opponents of the Wallace Bajjali-DAI plan.

• It became clear that the public comments portion of the day was also a setup when participants learned about the City Council’s sacred three-minute time limit, wired to favor the advocates of the Wallace Bajjali-DAI plan. The setup included “youth” with clearly scripted speeches that conveniently fit the time limit. When was the last time you heard a high school or college kid refer to “catalyst project?”

• And, speaking of three-minute time limit, it was impossible for anyone sitting through the 8 hours of presentations from the advocates talking without time limits to come up with an equally balanced critique of the disinformation.

• While one of the key pitches to the public, and made by several at the meeting and after as presented on ABC 7 News Nightside, the purpose of the meeting was transparency. But when some key questions came up, there was not transparency. Case in point: Who are the investors in the convention hotel? NewcrestImage’s Chuck Patel said it was no one’s business. But newly elected Councilor Randy Burkett got a confirmation that Joe Bob McCartt, former Debra McCartt’s husband, and Alan Rhodes, of the Underwood Law Firm, were two of the 30 investors in the hotel. And McCartt and Rhodes are also involved in the Commerce Building scandal that has triggered an FBI and grand jury probe.

The new City Council members — Mark Nair and Elisha Demerson — have joined Burkett in the first shake up at City Hall. They called for and got Assistance City Manager Vicki Covey’s resignation on Tuesday and succeeded in getting City Manager Jarrett Atkinson’s job status on the agenda for next week’s council meeting. They also called for the resignation of the entire AEDC board. I can’t imagine that the DAI and LGC boards are far behind.

But ultimately, the meeting, while cordial, generated more heat than light. We still lack in-depth and, perhaps, honest answers about:

• Why the city didn’t move to rebuild the Civic Center first.

• Why it focused Wednesday so much on “millennials” while throughout the process until now we’ve not heard about those folks.

• How the “millennials” would drive conventions and hotel usage and how that relates to the ballpark.

• Why the budgets after eight long years of planning are so tentative.

• Why the city is stonewalling the Herring Hotel and who is behind this attempt to put this kind of squeeze on the owner.

• Who the other local investors in the hotel are and what ties they have to public money and local decision- and policy-making.

• Who the organizers of Advance Amarillo are and the interests those people have in property downtown.

• How DAI’s Melissa Dailey came up with Wallace Bajjali and has contributed to some of the enmity toward her, going back to the 2007-2008 years with her treatment of people objecting to the design standards.

• How Dailey has also misled (some have told me she lied) about some of the plans.

The City Council, it turns out, has the power under Section 19 of Amarillo’s Municipal Code, to “investigate the financial transaction of any office or department of the City government, and the acts and conduct of any officer or employee. In conducting such investigation, the Council may compel the attendance or witnesses, the production of books and papers, and other evidence, and for that purpose may issue subpoenas or attachments which shall be signed by the Mayor; which may be served and executed by any officer authorized by law to serve subpoenas or other process, or any peace officer of the City.”

In the 12 years I’ve lived here, I don’t remember anyone using this provision. But, if that is what it takes to get answers to the questions that may make the citizens and taxpayers of Amarillo more trusting, then I hope the new council will do so.

Don't increase the Amarillo City Commission's powers -- reject charter changes

Tuesday is Election Day.

With no candidate on the ballot you’d think that this isn't an unimportant election with no significance for the future of the city of Amarillo. If you think that, you’re wrong. This election is more important than the last one at which we elected people to the City Commission.

Why?

Because the City Commission is asking voters for approval to “update” the 100-year-old City Charter. To modernize it, they say. Be careful. Propositions 11 through 21 would concentrate the power of the commission further and make it harder for the citizenry to buck the commission. They are designed to make it more difficult to petition the commission and to run for mayor. Please go to the page on the city website to look at the proposed changesto the charter. Some are relatively harmless.

If you’ve followed the city’s business as closely has I have, you will understand why these changes should be rejected. The City Commission’s efforts to “revitalize” downtown Amarillo started with a bad premise and became a runaway train. Instead of asking for a bond issue to renovate the Civic Center, something that would have passed with little controversy because the venue’s deficits are obvious, the commission went down an Alicein Wonderland rabbit hole. Who knows what the commissioners, past and present, were smokin‛, drinkin‛ or chewin‛ to come up with third-rate developer Wallace Bajjali and a $113 million package for a convention center hotel, parking garage and baseball park to cure whatever woes they thought needed curing.

If people want some key pieces of information, I’ve gone back to the original video of a Nov. 16, 2010 City Commission work session. The commission’s delay in awarding a contract to Wallace Bajjali Development Partners came at that meeting. The Amarillo Independent had just broken the story on Wallace Bajjali’s troubled history — I’ve retrieved it from The Amarillo Independent’s former website backup — and posted it here. The story, which then-Mayor Debra McCartt acknowledged during the meeting, forced commissioners to step back from the slam-dunk that Amarillo Globe-News Publisher Les Simpson clearly wanted. At the time, Simpson was president of the Downtown Amarillo Inc. board — a clear conflict if one subscribes to the Society of Professional Journalist’s Code of Ethics.

Simpson, former Commissioner Ron Boyd and Commissioner Brian Eades statements at that work session show why the commission hasn’t been held accountable and why those changes to the charter shouldn’t occur. Let’s look at those:

·At about 2½ minutes into the meeting, after explaining that Wallace Bajjali was recruited to Amarillo, Simpson said, “… I know the feeling from Wallace Bajjali is any proposal they would ask you to consider would be one in which they would not get any payment for projects unless those projects were completed. They come prepared to put some skin in the game.”

But two years ago and without any progress, the City Commission approved paying almost $1 million to the developers.

That’s a broken promise.

·At that same meeting, a little past 9½ minutes into the video, Boyd clearly implied that the citizens would get to vote on the downtown proposal. The commission went forward without giving Amarillo’s voters a chance to formally endorse this plan. There was a good reason, of course. McCartt and others expressed concern they couldn’t get the votes.

That’s another broken promise.

·David Wallace, on Nov. 9, 2010, had pitched the City Commission. His bravado about being able to bring financing to the project hasn’t panned out. Instead, as evidence that the “skin in the game” may be the city’s taxpayers, not Wallace Bajjali’s, in a well-spun presentation, we learned last week that the developers couldn’t even put together the hotel deal they said they could as promised in the Globe-News’ Nov. 2, 2009story cited above. By all accounts, the city finessed a deadline for the developers using the Amarillo Government Corp. to front for the developer’s failure.

That’s another broken promise.

Let’s also not forget how quickly the City Commission moved on acquiring the old Santa Fedepot, with little public notice. The same holds true with the bond issue for the Amarillo Recreation Complex. In these two cases, my issue isn’t my position on those matters. It’s the lack of the city’s transparency and notice in moving on them.

I could reach back to 2008 when the commissioners acted with thoughtless abandon in adopting design standards for downtown while treating those who object with shoddy disdain — a pattern that continues to this day for anyone who dares question the commission. And, I could cite some other actions the commissioners pushed through based on false and faulty information. The two most glaring that come to mind is the over-reaching hands-free cell phone ordinance and the red light camera program.

Don’t get me wrong, I think texting and driving is reprehensible and should be barred. I also think it’s stupid to talk on one’s cell phone without a hand’s-free device. But the commission knowingly passed this measure on the basis of the chairwoman of the Traffic Commission misrepresenting the traffic group’s findings in its “extensive” study of the issue. It kind of reminds me of the run up to the war in Iraq when the Bush administration lied about weapons of mass destruction. As for the red light cameras, none of the data posited by the Amarillo Globe-News or other outlets used proper statistical techniques such as used by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Under these circumstances, it’s my belief we need more than an election every two years to impose checks and balances on city government. The proposed changes to the City Charter move in exactly the opposite direction needed. Please vote against these changes in the charter.

Original Text of article describing Wallace Bajjali's troubled past - published Nov. 16, 2010

By Gina Haschke, Greg Rohloff and George Schwarz
The Amarillo Independent

The principals in the development firm that the Amarillo City Commission is considering as the master developer for downtown revitalization are no strangers to litigation, with one of the firm’s showcase Houston area projects the subject of a foreclosure and lawsuit. And, those same principals, David G. Wallace, and Costa Bajjali, are on the periphery of an ongoing Securities and Exchange Commission fraud investigation.
Last Tuesday, Wallace, co-founder and chief executive officer of Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, Inc., impressed city commissioners and staff with a presentation touting his experience with developments in his hometown of Sugar Land, where he served as mayor until 2008. He also touted his firm's developments in other cities, including Waco and the Houston area.
(See the video of Wallace’s presentation here.)

But at least one development has soured — the Creekmont Plaza mixed use commercial development in Fort Bend County.
According to a petition filed June 10, 2010, Frost National Bank foreclosed on the Creekmont Plaza Development in Missouri City.
The two men took out a loan of more than $1.9 million with Frost in August 2008 as the general and limited partners in Creekmont Plaza Partners, L.P. and personally guaranteed the loan.
“Despite demand for payment of the balance due, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Bajjali have failed to pay the balance due,” the petition alleges.
The petition states that the property was sold in a foreclosure sale in April at the Fort Bend County Courthouse. But the sale, which brought $1.1 million, was almost $820,000 short of the loan amount. At that time, taxes on the property were also overdue.
“The delinquent taxes for the years 2007 through 2009 were in the amount of $157,494 if paid on March of 2010, plus the 2010 taxes and the Defendants are jointly and severally liable to Plaintiff for the taxes plus interest thereon as allowed by law,” the petition alleges.
The petition asks for payment of the shortfall of the sale, interest, court costs and lawyer’s fees.
All the defendants have entered a general denial and, as of Monday, the case is set for trial in March 2011, according to Harris County District Court records.
A search of additional Harris County District Court records shows Wallace involved in several other lawsuits, including litigation in 1995 with Mark Thatcher, son of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Wallace’s former business partner in several United States-based businesses.
How much Downtown Amarillo, Inc. is aware of all the court actions isn’t clear.
Melissa Dailey, executive director of Downtown Amarillo, Inc., said she had done “quite a bit” of background research on the firm. She said she had not looked into the Thatcher alliance in detail, but added, “I’m more interested in his development activities here in the United States.”
When asked about a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, she said she was “aware of the situation.”
It has little negative reflection on Wallace Bajjali, Dailey said, adding, “In fact, it’s a positive.”
Daily wouldn’t discuss the matter further, saying instead Wallace would talk about it when he was in Amarillo in the next week or two “because he knows the details much more intimately than I do.”
Several calls and repeated messages left for Wallace for comment were not returned.
The SEC investigation focuses on Kaleta Capital Management, or KCM, a Houston business known as BizRadio, and may yet reach Wallace and Bajjali or some of their business entities.
The year-old litigation — the SEC filed suit Nov. 13, 2009 — names Albert Kaleta and KCM as defendants in a claim that they defrauded investors of $10 million.
According to a July 2010 update on the receivership website, “Based upon the recent inclusion of BizRadio in the Receivership Estate, negotiations have now been commenced with respect to potential liability of the Wallace Bajjali entities and their principals with respect to investments by members of the public in BizRadio directly, and in other related investment vehicles. To date no agreements have been reached with respect to these matters.”
On Monday, Thomas L. Taylor III, the Houston attorney who is overseeing the SEC-ordered receivership of KCM, said neither Wallace nor Bajjali or their entities are yet named in any of the court papers but he would also neither confirm nor deny that they could be pulled into the federal investigation at a later time.
In negotiations with Taylor, Wallace has paid back $92,348 and Bajjali has paid back $45,550 to date, according to the publicly available information.
Taylor said negotiations are ongoing about further repayments by Wallace and Bajjali.
Nevertheless, DAI’s Dailey said Monday, “We have not come across anything negative. When we looked into it in detail, it all was positive.”

New developer for convention center hotel

Amarillo’s Local Government Corp. announced a revised deal for the development of a downtown convention center hotel Thursday.

In an orchestrated presentation, Chuck Patel from NewcrestImage and Costa Bajjali, of Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, told the ALGC and gathered guests that Patel’s firm will take over the financing and development of a new hotel. NewcrestImage’s predecessor firm developed the Courtyard by Marriott in the Historic Fisk Building.

But, while the soil sampling and site work is going on now, the financing isn’t completely nailed down, according to Patel, who gave a short interview here. Bajjali’s interview, in which he said the firm has met contractual requirement with the city of Amarillo and the ALGC, can be found here; and, city Manager Jarrett Atkinson’s clarification can be found here.

The full meeting is here.

Nancy Tanner is best choice for Potter County Judge

A month ago, Amarillo’s previous mayor, Debra McCartt, announced she will run for the

Potter County Judge position that Arthur Ware is vacating. Ware, you’ll recall, suffered a stroke and has since struggled with communication and other issues, finally acknowledging last month he is no longer able to fulfill the duties of the office. It’s clear, however, that he didn’t struggle with stabbing people in the back because he fired long-time assistant Nancy Tanner after she announced she would seek election to Ware’s seat. This act of vengeance occurred before Ware publicly announced he would not seek re-election. But when Ware announced he wasn’t going to run again, he endorsed McCartt.

I am not privy to all the machinations on this issue, but I got a letter from Tanner’s campaign Friday that announced her bid for the judgeship. She also held a news conference Friday afternoon. The letter I posted Friday lists prominent area citizens whose views, I know, span the political spectrum. Tanner’s campaign website also lists names.
McCartt told me she was “thinking” about the judge race at the First Friday Art Walk on Aug. 2, so her subsequent announcement was no surprise. McCartt’s formal announcement let loose a blizzard of stories and commentary in the local media. And some of that commentary wasn’t exactly kind to McCartt.

Nor, I believe, did it need to be. While many Amarilloans pride themselves of being positive and courteous — and sometimes see facts and truth to be unkind — electing people to make public policy decisions requires a clear eye and open, thoughtful and analytic mind. So, for what it’s worth, here are the only two reasons why Tanner is the right choice to become county judge: She was court coordinator for 20 years and did Ware’s job since he had his stroke.

And here are the reasons why electing McCartt would be a grievous mistake and an affront to good public policy:

• As mayor, McCartt was a moving force in the current and misguided effort in downtown redevelopment but she never acknowledged she had a conflict of interest. Her husband, real estate developer Joe Bob McCartt, had substantial interest in downtown properties at the time. McCartt might not be the only elected official to suffer an ethical lapse, but she did and that doesn’t speak well of her continuing in public office.

• When David Wallace, of Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, pitched the Amarillo City Commission to become master developer for the downtown redevelopment plan, he dropped names left and right. McCartt was enthralled. She came off like a bumpkin instead of a serous public policy leader. The Amarillo mayor is largely a ceremonial position, so being enthralled by Wallace dropping Margaret Thatcher’s name in and of itself did little proximate harm. But, being Potter County Judge is a substantial position that goes far beyond running a meeting (which McCartt did well). It requires wisdom when handling probates and mental health issues. What might sway McCartt during these very important hearings?

• McCartt’s relationship, both blood and political, would be a first step in making the City Commission and County Commissioners Court an “interlocking directorate,” something that would be a danger to good public policy in Amarillo. She is part of the “good ole boy” network and for Amarillo to move into the 21st Century, it needs new blood and more diversity. Potter County won’t get that with someone so entrenched and well-connected.

• If truth be told, McCartt’s job situation — she’s been hopping a bit — may be as much a driver for seeking a well-paying elected office. The “wanting to serve” is well-worn rhetoric. And that is all it is — rhetoric. The “wanting to serve” mantra is a sterile but helpful step to seeking higher political office, and it’s no secret among the Amarillo political cognoscenti that McCartt wants to be either a state representative of senator or run for Mac Thornberry’s seat in Congress. Since I can’t accept the “wanting to serve” as the real reason for wanting to be judge, I don’t see any other good one for McCartt to be elected.

McCartt is a personable lady. She is always cheerful and optimistic. But she’s no Nancy Tanner.