From the Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo kicks off centennial celebration Amarillo Globe-News (TX) - Saturday, November 9, 2013 Author: Kevin Welch, kevin.welch@amarillo City boosters intended the birth of the 1913 Amarillo City Charter to bring some order to a city out of money and being run by Texas Rangers and Potter County. Their efforts worked so well, the newly amended charter is the focus of a yearlong celebration of the document’s 100th anniversary. “It’s a good time to look at each other and say ‘hey, we lasted 100 years,’” said city Commissioner Ellen Robertson Green, a co-chairwoman with Commissioner Lilia Escajeda of a gala Saturday that marked the start of the centennial’s events. The past century of the city’s life was not altogether certain before the charter instituted a new form of local government called council-manager. Blazing trails “We give credit to Amarillo for being the first in Texas (to enact a council-manager charter),” said Terrell Blodgett, retired professor of local government at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. “Terrell, Texas, passed one on Nov. 10 and Amarillo did it eight days later, but most of us give credit to Amarillo, because Terrell didn’t appoint a manager for three years.” The idea spread, and a large number of cities in the state and nation have some version of it. “It was seen as being a very positive innovation. The city manager is a professional who can oversee the day-to-day business of running a city,” said Dave Rausch, a political science professor at West Texas A&M University. “By 1994, it was the most popular form of government for cities with populations of more than 10,000.” But Amarillo traveled a rough road getting to the charter that would establish the council-manager government. When city voters chose to incorporate in 1887, they included 3,300 acres inside the city limits that included 482 people, according to the 1938 Golden Anniversary Edition of the Amarillo Sunday News and Globe. Judges ordered the mayor and aldermen to cease taking action on city business on at least two occasions during a lawsuit concerning the overreach of putting so many acres inside the city — making many more acres subject to city taxation than property owners wanted. “Strife over the city’s spread into thinly populated areas led to court injunctions that ended Amarillo’s incorporation,” states Blodgett, in his book “City Government That Works.” From 1894 to 1899, as the situation worsened, Potter County officials and Texas Rangers oversaw Amarillo’s operations until the court ruled city boundaries should be defined by the populated area. The next incorporation took in 925 acres, according to the News and Globe story. But the city was broke and in debt. Several attempts to get a charter approved failed for a variety of reasons. “The Texas Legislature was called upon for help in solving the financial problems which hung about the city’s neck like a millstone,” the Amarillo Daily News quoted attorney H.C. Pipkin as saying on March 12, 1912. A Daily News editorial said, “Little men will shape a little charter and it is important that only men of large caliber be placed on the commission” to write another charter. Beginning in 1910, the city worked with the Young Men’s Civic League and the local chamber of commerce to draft a charter that was approved by a vote of 657 to 169 on Nov. 18, 1913. By December, voters elected a mayor and commissioners, and those men hired the first city manager, M.H. Hardin, in March 1914. He then appointed everyone from city attorney to pure food inspector to city hall janitor, according to the News and Globe. Amarillo civic leaders chose to emulate a charter recently passed in Dayton, Ohio, that left behind forms of city government that saw city offices and commissioner posts filled by election or that limited managers to public works functions and had commissioners supervising police, fire or health departments. It also abandoned types of government in which the mayor essentially ran everything. “People discovered business men and women and lawyers didn’t have the time and experience to manage a corporation, which is what a city is,” Blodgett said. And the idea spread across the nation. “In 1914, Taylor and Denton adopted the council-manager plan. By 1947, there were 58 council-manager cities in Texas,” according to the Texas State Historical Association website. “In Texas, this form is (now) even more dominant: 251 of the 290 home-rule cities in Texas operate with a city council as a policy body and a city manager as the chief executive administrative officer.” The exceptions are very small cities that can’t afford a manager or very large ones with so much diversity in their population it takes the political skills of a mayor to manage, Rausch said. Past meets future A Saturday gala at Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport was intended to unite the city’s past and future with a video looking at the city’s history , banners representing the work of every city department and the unveiling of a city logo and slogan — Open Spaces. Endless Opportunities. “We’re branding the city for the next 100 years,” said city spokeswoman Sonja Gross. The planning of activities for the yearlong celebration is ongoing, but some of the first events to follow the gala will be educational. “On Nov. 25 and 26, We’ll have all AISD seventh-graders at the Civic Center to see booths about the past of city departments and what they do,” Escajeda said. On Jan. 14, there will be a City Hall open house. “Citizens can meet the people who run different departments like utilities, building safety,” Gross said. “And the same day, there’s a city commission meeting, so if they haven’t had a chance to be at one of those, it would be a great day to do it.” More educational and celebratory events are in the planning stages. “People realize what we offer, but when they need something, they need to know where to go,” Gross said. Well-crafted The gala followed Tuesday’s vote on amending 21 parts of the century-old charter. The number of amendments looks large since the voters had only previously amended the document seven times. “(The 21 amendments are) more than (are) generally done, but not a record. There have been some elections with 45 to 50 amendments,” Blodgett said. “Amarillo went into a good deal of work and a lot of thought, so the charter was very well done to start with. Others weren’t so well done, so they saw fit to amend those more frequently.” City Secretary Frances Hibbs said most phone calls about the charter she received before the election were about changing the name of the city commission to city council. However, that measure passed with 75 percent of the votes. “Most cities have already changed (the name),” Blodgett said. “The commission form of government was actually people who were the legislative body and also ran individual departments. It rose and fell like a meteor.” But Tuesday’s voting didn’t actually change the charter — yet. “The (city) legal staff will ... put what passed into an ordinance that would enact those changes in the charter,” said City Attorney Marcus Norris. “It will probably be several weeks before the charter is officially changed.” Many of the amendments update language and bring the charter in line with modern practices and state law changes over the years. But there still is some language that speaks of the past. Under the section dealing with “good order, safety and health,” the charter reads in part: “To prohibit and restrain the flying of kites, fire-arms, fire-crackers, rolling of hoops, and the use of velocipedes, bicycles and skates or the use and practice of any amusements on the streets or sidewalks to the annoyance of pedestrians or persons using such streets or sidewalks.” The educational centennial events should broaden the city’s efforts to raise public awareness of how it operates from the charter down. “The charter has served us well at a time when there is so much criticism of how government works,” said Mayor Paul Harpole. “We get things done and have a AAA bond rating and low debt.” City staff has been emphasizing telling the stories of how different departments work prior to the centennial’s educational outreach. There have been three installments of Amarillo 101, a program of multiple learning sessions for the public. The course is based on a program to educate incoming elected leaders. “They’ve been absolutely amazed how the city works, as were we — how efficient it is,” Harpole said. Graduates have found the opportunity to see behind the scenes beneficial. “I really wish people would learn more,” said Mark Nair, who graduated in the inaugural class in October 2012. “What impressed me is how hard the people work. The people in the garage really work hard. They show up every day for that, and they’re proud of what they do. And the library, there’s a lot of quality of life the city provides that sometimes people don’t see. The reference librarians can find anything, and the collection is amazing.” And that learning extends to the operations at the top of the ladder as set up by the charter. “I think people don’t know who’s the boss, who operates the city day to day, and that’s (city manager) Jarrett (Atkinson.) The city commission is ultimately responsible, but people think the mayor runs everything,” Nair said. * * * * *
Posted on: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:16:48 +0000
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