Photo via Amarillo Pioneer Staff
Amarillo City Council is set to meet Tuesday at 1:00 pm. Items on the agenda include, among other, various spending items totaling over $27 million, passing resolutions relating to taxpayer funded lobbying, waterworks and sewer system revenue bonds, and tax notes.
The various spending items are spread across twenty different agenda items, all of which are within the consent agenda. Being within the consent agenda, these items are likely to all be passed with a single vote. A table summarizing the items is included at the end of this article.
Of special note on the regular agenda to many might be 3E, which is set to be the last agenda item. The item is a series of tax notes. According to a memo from Assistant City Manager Laura Storrs, the notes are for the following purposes:
“This ordinance authorizes the City to issue the Tax Notes, Series 2022B ("Notes") for the purpose of paying contractual obligations to be incurred for (i) acquisition of enterprise resource planning software and construction and improvement of fuel islands for the fleet services department; and (ii) to pay the costs of issuing the Notes.”
Also near the end of the agenda is item 3D, an issuance of revenue bonds. In another memo, Storrs summarized these revenue bonds:
“This ordinance authorizes the City to issue the ''CITY OF AMARILLO, TEXAS, WATERWORKS AND SEWER SYSTEM REVENUE BONDS, NEW SERIES 2022" (bonds); prescribing the forms, terms, and provisions of said bonds; pledging the net revenues of the City's Waterworks and Sewer System to the payment of the principal of and interest on said bonds; enacting provisions incident and related to the issuance, payment, security, sale and delivery of said bonds, and providing an effective date. The proceeds will be used to improve and extend the City's waterworks and sewer system, including acquisition of water rights related thereto.”
Two other items from the regular agenda that appear to be noteworthy are items 3A and 3B. Item 3A is a resolution adopting the city’s “state and federal legislative priorities for the 2022 and 2023 calendar years.” According to the resolution, “The City of Amarillo shall proactively seek the filing and passage of any legislation identified as being sought in Exhibit A.” Several references to “Exhibit A” are referenced in the resolution, though Exhibit A itself was apparently not included in the agenda packet.
Item 3B, meanwhile, requests that the Texas Municipal League promote two policy positions: First, it advocates for changing the requirements for how cities list ballot measures, claiming that the current requirements to use letters only “is leading to confusion amongst voters,” according to Assistant City Manager Andrew Freeman. Freeman claims as an example that “voters complained they had already voted on Proposition A,” referencing the city’s 2020 and 2021 Prop A ballot items, both of which were defeated by voters. The other policy promoted by the resolution is an increase in the maximum Hotel Occupancy Tax rate. According to Freeman, this would help cities “needing to build or rehabilitate existing convention center facilities that are necessary to support and grow tourism in their communities.”
Notably not on the agenda is the public hearing on the budget that had been scheduled during the last meeting before being canceled late last week. Read more about the cancellation of the hearing here.
Summary of spending items