Amarillo's New City Hall Plans Hit A Stumbling Block In Austin

The plan started out simple enough, Amarillo's city hall needed to be replaced. The city figures put it to a vote and package it with a new civic center and that should pass and help revitalize two facilities that are badly showing their age. Should pass right?

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Plan B, The Workaround

Michael J. Rivera

The $275M Proposition "A" failed miserably. like not even close or even in the same area code as close. So what do you do when you want something that badly and still want to make it happen? The city decided to move forward with the plan anyway. Buildings were purchased already so why not? The plan became to spend $35M on the Amarillo Hardware Company site. How would they pay for this if the voters turned it down?

Certificates of Obligation

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Here's where it gets a little funky... The city figures it could make a new city hall happen with certificates of obligation. fancy term but in reality they behave pretty much the same way a bond does both are backed and paid for by tax payers like you and me but generally speaking bonds are voted for while certificates are issued. Most municipalities generally consider bonds for wants and certificates for needs. So the underlying question now becomes the age old one that has faced many of us over the years, do we really NEED this vs WANT? For the city the argument is need over want if they feel they have to move ahead.

The Case Goes To Austin

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Yep, the fight over a city hall for Amarillo made it's way in to a Travis County courtroom yesterday when representatives for the city felt like two lawsuits related to the construction needed to be handled locally in the Amarillo area. One of the suits filed by Amarillo businessman Craig Gaultiere says the city has to wait three years since voters turned down the project and asks the city to put the new project on the November Ballot since in essence the city is technically issuing a bond to cover the project. The second lawsuit was more of a procedural lawsuit over the ability for the city to actually issue debt to cover the project. The Travis County judge gave the okay for the cases to be tried together locally here in the Amarillo area.

Michael J. Rivera/TSM

So what does this all mean? Well, for starters Amarillo's city hall is staying put for now and whatever they wanted to spend on it will now certainly go to court costs and litigation that we're all still going to end up paying for in some way or another.

The Incredible Street Art You'll Find Hidden Around Amarillo

Amarillo is full of astonishingly beautiful artwork in the most unlikely places. Check out our collection of the hidden gems you'll find around town. Some, you'll recognize from Downtown and others you might have to go hunting for.

The Abandoned Herring Hotel in Amarillo, Texas

You may have passed it a million times while driving downtown, or you may be new to town. Either way, chances are you've seen the beautiful Herring Hotel. The beautiful aging brick tower sits unoccupied on 3rd and Pearce streets. It's a grand building that stands as a reminder of Amarillo's early days as a cattle and oil town and it tells the stories well.

If you've ever wondered what's inside this towering building, just take a peek below.

Look At All The Pretty Classic Cars

The Polk Street Cruise is a beloved annual event where classic cars of all make and models slink across Downtown Amarillo for a crowd of bystanders to admire. And like many other events across the globe, the Polk Street Cruise skipped 2020 amid Covid-19 restrictions.

But nothing would stop this year's event, not even cloudy skies and rain. Amarillo's renowned Polk Street Cruise was on August, 7, 2021 and had a tremendous turnout. Did we happen to see you there?