When Mayor Ginger Nelson announced the City of Amarillo’s intentions to reopen two brush sites earlier this year, it appears the plan was not discussed with City Councilmembers in writing prior to the announcement.
According to records obtained through open records requests, there appears to was no written communication between senior City staff and members of the Amarillo City Council prior to Nelson’s announcement that the chipping sites would be reopened. Nelson made the announcement on September 5th regarding the reopening of the sites, but records obtained jump from February to August, with no communication on the sites in between.
Discussion over the chipping sites began in September 2017, when the City of Amarillo announced it would be consolidating the existing chipping sites in Amarillo. It appears the sites were totally closed around February 2018.
In an email dated August 30th, a citizen sent Nelson an email thanking her for holding a “Coffee with the Mayor event” and asked about the ability to collect mulch from the new chipping sites. Nelson forwarded the email to city manager Jared Miller on September 3rd, asking about citizens collecting mulch.
“I think know the general answer is question about removing mulch or firewood from the chipping sites/brush recycling sites. (TCEQ doesn't allow it),” Nelson wrote to Miller. “Could Raymond give the more technical answer?”
The email was forwarded on and was later relayed to assistant city manager Floyd Hartman, where it was found wood chips would be available for citizens at the new brush sites. According to Blair Snow, interim director of public works, at the time, staff were still working on an “implementation plan.”
Outside of the discussion on the wood chips, no communications were turned over in the request indicating any communication between senior City staff and members of the Amarillo City Council regarding the chipping sites being reopened. The Amarillo Pioneer also filed a complaint against the City of Amarillo with the Texas Attorney General’s office to receive the information initially, but no information, with the exception of two packages of emails from February and September, were released. The City of Amarillo did not request an Attorney General’s ruling to withhold any other information on this particular request.
Additionally, with the exception of Mayor Nelson, no records were turned over showing any Councilmemebers having discussions with either Nelson, Miller, or any other City staff about reopening the sites. In fact, a search of the terms “chipping sites” and “brush sites” on Amarillo.gov returned zero City Council agendas mentioning the sites for the 2018 calendar year.
On September 5th, Nelson made the announcement official, saying the City Council had budgeted for the reopening of two sites in 2019. At the time, Nelson said she was not aware of where or when the sites would reopen.
Prior to Nelson’s announcement regarding the reopening of the chipping sites, citizens launched a petition to reopen the shuttered chipping sites. The petition was launched by Responsible Amarillo, and was filed with the City of Amarillo on August 27th. The first mention of reopening the chipping sites came from the citizen email to Nelson on August 30th.
Responsible Amarillo chairman Michael Green said he feels the timeline of the City’s decision to make the chipping sites announcement is “convenient.”
“It’s curious they made the announcement just a few days after the filing of the petition,” Green said. “It certainly seems convenient, perhaps with the aim of convincing citizens that it wasn’t necessary to sign this petition.”
Organizers are still gathering signatures on that petition, with the hope of forcing the Amarillo City Council to make an official decision on reopening the shuttered sites.
City of Amarillo spokesperson David Henry says the process has begun on reopening the chipping sites, but nothing is official. Additionally, Henry said he is not aware of the time frame of when City officials chose to began considering reopening the sites, but said staff are currently looking at the details associated with a possible reopening of two sites.
“The process is ongoing,” Henry said.
City staff are currently planning on holding meetings for the public to sound off on the possible reopening of select sites. Meetings will be held on November 26th at the Southwest Library, November 27th at the North Branch Library and on December 5th, at the Downtown Library. Each meeting will begin at 6PM.
