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Opinion Editorial Downtown development demands openness The redevelopment of Amarillo's downtown cleared a major hurdle shortly before Christmas when the Downtown Development Committee approved a master plan. At that same meeting, Richard Brown, the prominent local attorney who had a hand in creating Center City of Amarillo, also proposed a new organization — a morphing of the Center City Foundation into a private, nonprofit corporation that would deal with those who might want to develop property in the downtown Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone district. The corporate entity would be a private one, and, therefore, not subject to the same transparency provisions under Texas law to which local governmental entities are bound. The issue of openness arose Jan. 10 when Marcus Norris, the city's attorney, had to clarify to the TIRZ board members that circulating a draft organization plan would constitute a rolling quorum and violate the Open Meetings Act. On one hand, the private-sector business members of that body aren't used to the rules for the processes of government and so the misunderstanding makes sense. On the other, a paternalistic perspective exists in the upper echelons of Amarillo that calls for the power structure to take care of things and for the rest of the community to trust it to do the right thing for everyone. We might acknowledge that this could be a paranoid and cynical rant except that several people close to the situation raised the concern that the good old boys could be at work to implement their paternalistic view of things. Add to this our concern that there are enough downtown organizations now to confuse even the most informed person and that the new organization, which would use public funds, adds another layer of bureaucracy to the TIRZ effort. We ask everyone here to go slowly and carefully on this effort, and to do so openly. E-mail
comments about this story Posted: January 17, 2008
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