Photo by Noah Dawson
According to documents published by the City of Amarillo, Amarillo City Council appears to be planning to consider approval of its taxpayer funded lobbying agenda during their meeting Tuesday Afternoon. The agenda, which is referred to by the city as “City of Amarillo Legislative Priorities,” outlines proposed position statements on various issues and is split between state and federal priorities.
State priorities include transportation; pro-family policy; property tax, debt, and sales tax; annexation; expansion of broadband internet; right-of-way and small cell towers; open meetings and open records; virtual court; disasters and emergencies; economic development; mental health; panhandling; Amarillo Civic Center Complex; elections and ballot language; public advertising; water resources; and legislative communication.
Federal legislative priorities include Cross Bar Ranch - Bureau of Land Management; transportation; U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Energy; emergency management; public safety; technology; community development; and economic development.
The city’s state priorities regarding taxation and debt are likely to be controversial. These priorities include lobbying the state to oppose legislation which would “restrict the City's ability to issue debt or impose undue burdens on debt issuance referendums” and legislation imposing “revenue caps including a lowered voter-approval tax rate or mandatory property tax rate ratification elections.”
The city also has priorities regarding “open meetings and open records,” with priorities stating that the city is looking to support legislation that “ would reduce the financial burden on local governments required by responding to Open Records Requests.” That section of the document also states that the city “will oppose legislation that would attempt to make the current open meetings and public information laws more restrictive or ambiguous.” The document does not specify if the intent is to oppose legislation making those laws more restrictive towards the city or towards the public.
In a section regarding panhandling, the document states that the city is looking to support legislation which would allow “law enforcement to redirect solicitors to panhandle in safer locations.”
The state priorities also include two items which have already been approved by the city for submission to the Texas Municipal League Legislative Priorities during their meeting on August 16th. One of those items pushes for the cap on the Hotel Occupancy Tax to be raised in order to use funds for Civic Center improvements. Placing that item on the Texas Municipal League Legislative Priorities was met with resistance from several local hotel owners during the August 16th meeting.
The other item which was included in the TML priorities that is also featured on Tuesday’s agenda seeks to support legislation which would “allow alternating from numbers to letters every other election” in regards to ballot propositions. This item seems to be in reference to the city’s 2020 civic center proposition A and 2021 tax rate proposition A, both of which failed at the ballot box. Mayor Nelson has claimed some voters in 2021 thought that year’s proposition A was the same as the 2020 proposition.
Tomorrow’s consideration of the item may run into some issues, however. While an attached memo from Assistant City Manager Andrew Freeman regarding the item states that it is related to “adopting State and Federal legislative priorities for the 2022/2023 calendar years,” the item itself is listed on the agenda as considering “a resolution adopting policy recommendations for inclusion in the 2023/2024 Texas Municipal League Legislative Policy.”
Aside from the error on the agenda, the item is likely to also receive pushback from critics of taxpayer funded lobbying. In fact, the Texas Republican Party has included banning Taxpayer Funded Lobbying in a list of it's top 15 legislative priorities.
To download the portion of the agenda packet related to the priorities, click the button below. To read our summary of other items on the agenda on Tuesday, click here.