Amarillo City Hall/Photo by Noah Dawson
While voters in Amarillo are set to head to the polls on Saturday, June 24th to make a final decision as to who will be elected to Amarillo City Council Places 1 and 4, the newly elected members won’t be sworn in during the June 27th meeting of Amarillo City Council. The agenda for the meeting does not contain any items for canvassing the election results.
The does contain an item labeled “recognizing Councilmember Howard Smith.” Smith, who was first elected to Amarillo City Council Place 4 in 2017, did not run for reelection but remained in office after voters failed to deliver a majority to any candidate in the May 6th election. His term will officially end when the winner of the runoff is sworn in.
Though the winners of the runoff will not be seated during the meeting, the current council will have their hands full, with just over $9 million in spending items on the agenda.
All of the spending items are on the consent agenda, which will allow for the council to pass all of the items with a single vote. The largest of these items, 9N, is consideration of renewal of various city insurance coverages. According to the agenda packet, the lines of coverage included are “Inland Marine (Rare Books), Professional Liability (Medical Malpractice ), Cyber Liability, Public Officials Liability, Law Enforcement Liability, Property, Boiler & Machinery, AFD Fire Fleet - Auto Physical Damage, and Fiduciary Liability.”
Two other items will cost more than $1 million. Item 9I is a one-year renewal of a surge staffing contract with Angel Staffing, which is not to exceed $2,481,280. Staffing provided under the contract includes registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, epidemiologists, and public health specialists. The item will be funded via grants from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Item 9L is consideration of a five-year contract for tasers for the Amarillo Police Department. The item is worth $1,028,600 and is set to be awarded to Axon Enterprises, Inc. Two other items on the agenda, 9P and 9Q, are for APD. Item 9P is consideration of a $73,000 award to Apetto for ballistic vests. According to a bid sheet for the item, Kel-lac Uniforms Tactical, Princip Defense, and Mig Equipment had made lower cost bids, though the sheet states that both of those bidders “did not meet specs.” Item 9Q is consideration of a $151,972.50 award to Greyshift for a three-year contract for a forensic phone extraction device and software.
The council is also set to discuss the service agreement for Covid-19 communications and marketing services, downtown parking management, and homelessness.
The meeting is scheduled to take place at 3:00 pm in the Council Chamber at Amarillo City Hall. The full agenda and agenda packet can be downloaded at this link. Those wishing to speak may sign up at this link.
While this will be the next regular meeting of the council, there are several other meetings coming up. A quorum of the council may be present at Southwest Library at 9:00 am for the McDonald Lake clean-up event. The council is also set to hold work session meetings on June 28th and June 29th “to discuss and develop governance policies and skills for the City Council.” Both workshop meetings will be held at 9:00 am in the Regency Room at the Civic Center. A special meeting is slated to be held on July 5th, though no details of that meeting have been published as of writing.