By Thomas Warren III, Editor-in-Chief

Amarillo voters spoke loud and clear on Tuesday night, defeating Proposition A and the 39% tax increase that went along with it. Apparently though, that is not good enough for Mayor Ginger Nelson.

In an interview on KFDA-TV this morning, Nelson addressed the defeat of Proposition A. The Proposition, in question, would have approved the issuance of $275 million worth of bond debt to fund the majority of a $319 million spending package for various downtown projects, including renovations to the Amarillo Civic Center. The Proposition went down by a large margin, with over 61% of voters declining to support the measure.

During the interview on Friday morning, Nelson chalked up Proposition A’s defeat to a “negative campaign” against the measure.

“Another thing that disappointed me was how that conversation played out in our community,” Nelson said. “The group of citizens that were against it were very negatively against it, and just really took that rather than a conversation about it into a negative campaign. And that’s very disappointing.”

Nelson also went on to say voters were influenced by “incorrect facts” they saw on advertising about the Prop.

“I think a lot of people voted no on that Proposition because they were voting on incorrect facts that they got off a billboard,” Nelson said.

It truly is amazing that Nelson will not admit the real reasons Proposition A failed — voters do not trust her City Council to do the right thing and they did not want to take on a 39% tax increase in the middle of a recession. I know it might make Nelson feel better to try to chalk the defeat up to some “incorrect facts,” despite offering no evidence of any inaccuracies in the facts, but her statement is simply untrue.

Perhaps Nelson is talking about the 39% tax increase number, which the junior version of Amarillo Matters PAC, Build Amarillo, had been calling incorrect. However, it is tough for Nelson to call that number incorrect when a member of her own City Council, Councilwoman Elaine Hays, confirmed “it is accurate to say” there would be a 38-39% increase in municipal property taxes. Maybe Hays didn’t get the memo that telling the truth about the tax rate doesn’t play well for Nelson’s schemes.

So, why did Proposition A go down? The simple truth is Proposition A went down because voters didn’t trust Nelson and didn’t want the tax increase in the middle of a recession. The lack of trust is unsurprising, considering Nelson and her government have burned the bridges of trust so many times that voters were simply unwilling to trust them again when they have shown their only allegiances are to themselves, Amarillo Matters PAC, and the people who fund their campaigns.

Keep in mind, Nelson’s dismissal of Proposition A’s failure as being caused by “incorrect facts” is right in line with the contempt she has shown for citizens throughout her entire tenure in office. Just last year, Nelson and city manager Jared Miller hosted a presentation at a “Servant Leadership Conference” entitled “Facing the Hyper-Vocal Minority.”

Nelson seems to believe if you disagree with her, you are in the minority, you are uninformed, and you are a roadblock to progress.

I guess in Nelson’s eyes, the 42,596 people who voted against Proposition A were either uninformed or were totally negative against progress.

It’s amazing, isn’t it?

Nelson claims to be a servant leader, but writes off almost a fourth of her constituents as being uninformed or just simply too negative to participate in a civic dialogue. Talk about contempt for taxpayers.

Either way, Ginger Nelson and the Amarillo City Council cannot write-off what happened on Tuesday night as simply being a result of what they believe to be “incorrect facts.” This was a mandate on this City government, with citizens saying loud and clear they are done being used as a piggy bank by elected officials who hold so much contempt for taxpayers they don’t even believe them to be informed enough to be part of the conversation.

Mayor Nelson, I know you don’t like it, but it is what it is. The taxpayers of Amarillo, the people you once referred to as the “hyper-vocal minority,” have spoken. Deal with it.