One of Amarillo's four television affiliates refused to release information that was potentially damaging to the City of Amarillo and the MPEV project, even though it had access to the information as early as 2016, a source told the Amarillo Pioneer.
This week, a source close to KVII-TV in Amarillo, who chose to remain anonymous, said that the station had information that showed that the City of Amarillo knowingly broke state law regarding the downtown baseball stadium project, but refused to put it on air. The source went on to tell the Amarillo Pioneer that hundreds of pages of documents were given to KVII regarding the City of Amarillo's failure to hold an election on the stadium that was required to be held due to the City's acquisition of the land using Type A economic development dollars from the Amarillo Economic Development Corporation, but cut off communications with the person responsible for securing the documents in mid-2016.
In addition, the source also said that KVII recorded a local activist detailing the possible legal violations by the City of Amarillo, after the said source presented the same information to Local Government Corporation member Sunny Hodge-Campbell and other City officials. The video never surfaced, however, on any KVII broadcasts.
KVII's current news director, Amy Sullivan, told the Amarillo Pioneer on Friday that she was not employed by the station at the time that the information was provided, so she could not provide any information or comment on the story. Niccole Caan, an investigative reporter for KVII, who was assigned to the story at the time, was not in Amarillo at press time and was unavailable for comment.
The downtown baseball stadium, or MPEV, as it is called by City of Amarillo officials, is an area designed to accommodate a AA-minor league baseball team. The stadium is under construction in downtown Amarillo and, unless challenged or restrained by legal order, is expected to open in April of 2019.
