Photo by City of Amarillo
By Thomas Warren III, Editor-in-Chief
Do you know those movies that are really bad, and you wonder how anyone could ever like that movie? Then, they make a sequel to that movie which was terrible in the first place?
That’s kind of like what’s happening right now with Proposition A in Amarillo. Let me explain.
This year, voters will be voting on whether or not to take on $275 million in debt to fund several downtown projects. The ballot issue, titled Proposition A, carries with it a 39% tax increase, and would fund the majority of a $319 million spending package. The remaining $44 million worth of expenses included in the project would be funded through various methods, including additional debt issuances which voters will not have the opportunity to decide.
One of the projects included in Proposition A is an item to build a brand new parking garage downtown. The new parking garage added to the project would sit across the street from the other parking garage local taxpayers are still paying off.
When built a few years ago, the parking garage south of the Embassy Suites hotel downtown was promised as the convention center parking garage, to be utilized for events at the ballpark, the Globe-News Center, and the Civic Center, in addition to events held in the hotel’s convention space. With officials so confident they could fill the garage, they even added retail space to the parking garage’s outer perimeter. The vote that essentially approved the retail space additions took place in 2015. Now, fast forward to 2020, where the vast majority of retail space in the downtown parking garage sits empty and officials added stickers to the windows on the empty spaces to distract from all of the empty space. Talk about government innovation.
That disaster is already a done deal, and one which local taxpayers will see the burden of on tax revenues for a long time. However, even with the failures of the current parking garage, the City of Amarillo is once again pushing another garage as one of the lesser known pieces of the current proposal.
This parking garage would be a part of the Civic Center, even though it was my understanding that the current garage was supposed to serve Civic Center patrons, as well. What is truly concerning about this garage is the lack of information available. Will retail space be part of this garage? How many spaces will be in this garage? Does it change the use of the current garage? Does it take revenue away from the current garage, and if so, how much? Will the new garage physically be attached to the Civic Center, or not? If so, where will it go? There are too many questions that remain unanswered about this parking garage.
The issues with Proposition A go well beyond the parking garage. However, I think the parking garage is one major issue with this project that voters seem to miss when looking at the shiny mailers Build Amarillo PAC is sending them.
Proposition A is too dangerous and too expensive, with way too many unknowns in the middle of a recession.
Vote against Proposition A.