By Thomas Warren III, Editor-in-Chief

Happy Festivus, everyone!

If you are unfamiliar with Festivus, the world was introduced to this new holiday thanks to an episode of Seinfeld in 1997, “The Strike.” If you have not seen this episode, it is well worth a 30-minute viewing. But, to make a long story short, viewers were introduced to Frank Costanza’s holiday, Festivus, which rejects the consumerism of the holiday season and instead focuses on things like feats of strength and the airing of the grievances. Also, no Christmas tree — replaced with a single metal pole — and no tinsel. Constanza finds tinsel distracting.

For today’s article, I want to focus on the airing of the grievances tradition of Festivus. While I have many grievances that are worth airing for 2020, I want to focus most of my grievances toward the Amarillo City Council. Again, to quote Constanza, “I got a lotta problems with you people, and now you're going to hear about it!”

First and foremost, I want to address Proposition B. Did we really need you guys to ask to extend your terms in the middle of a pandemic after claiming just a year earlier that you didn’t support such a measure? Specifically for Mayor Ginger Nelson, how is it transparent whatsoever to claim you support such a measure, walk it back when people get mad, then just do it anyway? If you supported such a measure, then should have been honest with people instead of lying about terms being taken out of context.

Let’s just be very frank about Proposition B: Mayor Nelson, you said you didn’t call for extending terms then tried to do it anyway. You lied.

Next up, let’s talk about Proposition A. Did we really need to push a 39% tax increase in the middle of a recession? It’s totally ridiculous that such a measure was even advanced to the ballot. But, hey, our City Council tries to spend money like it’s going out of style, so not a big shock I guess.

Speaking of spending money, what about the $8.15 million in certificates of obligation our City Council issued to build a water park while businesses were closing due to the pandemic? Was that in line with fiscal responsibility? And how was that even acceptable considering the early damage COVID-19 and shutdowns were doing to the Texas economy?

But that wasn’t the only tax-funded debt local taxpayers didn’t get a say on this year. Remember when our City Council decided to issue debt to buy downtown properties for a new City Hall? That vote by the City Council came after local voters rejected Proposition A, which was part of the spending package that included the new City Hall. Talk about respecting the result of the election.

And on the note of the result of the election, how about Ginger Nelson’s recent tour to discredit the result of Proposition A? For the past month, Nelson has been claiming to any media outlet that would listen that the result of Proposition A, which went down by a huge margin, was a result of “misinformation.” Instead of owning up to the problems with Proposition A, including the cost of the measure, Nelson has been simply claiming “misinformation” as being the main culprit for the item’s demise.

I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t misinformation. Maybe people just didn’t want their taxes to go up again thanks to their “champions for low taxes.”

Speaking of the self-proclaimed “champions for low taxes,” let’s talk about this year’s tax increase. Just a year after claiming they would work to keep taxes low or fight against tax increases, the Amarillo City Council unanimously voted to approve a tax increase for Amarillo. Councilman Eddy Sauer, a tax-and-spend establishment crony who called himself a “champion for low taxes” during the 2019 election, was one of the supporting votes for this year’s tax increase. If Sauer is a champion for low taxes, I must be the King of England.

There are so many more things we could discuss about the past year for the City Council, but if we did that, this airing of the grievances would last all weekend.

With all of these crazy things in mind, I want to remind local voters that we do not have to tolerate another two-year replay of this madness. In May 2021, Amarillo voters will have the opportunity to change the composition of the City Council and elect new representatives who will put citizens before politics. It’s time for a change at City Hall, but it can only be done with good candidates and voters showing up to the polls to make it happen.

So, please show up and vote in May. But for now, give yourselves a round of applause. We somehow survived the City Council’s 2020 madness. Just be careful when you’re clapping. We wouldn’t want anyone to be arrested.