New Mayor Cole Stanley talks on his future plans for his term

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The City of Amarillo has voted and elected Cole Stanley as our new mayor.

Cole Stanley won the Amarillo mayor race with 75 percent of the votes.

His main goals as mayor are to focus on public safety, repairing streets and infrastructures, and cleaning up the city.

One of his mayoral to-do’s is changing the way city council meetings are run.

“I plan on implementing public comment back into our meetings and getting away from the public address, and so the way in which we get to run those meetings is going to allow me and the rest of council to communicate with our citizens, get involved in discussion and then also work with them on some of these policy solutions we’re looking for,” says Stanley.

Stanley goes on to say, this is the most important thing, making sure the citizens of Amarillo feel heard with “good old fashion communication”

Stanley is to be sworn in as the new mayor of Amarillo tomorrow and is ready to get to work, with revised meetings, onboarding councilmen, and staying on budget.

In terms of a timeline for Cole Stanley’s mayor to do list, the first thing is to change the structure of city council meetings.

“The first thing that we can do down there at city hall is change the way the meetings run, and get ourselves back to basics and in, you know, good old-fashioned communication, let me hear what you’re saying. let me take that into account and do the best I can with what I have,” says Stanley.

According to Stanley, there are no planned management or staff changes.

“We’re trying to keep all of our staff, right where we’ve got them and help them do their job to the best of their ability,” says Stanley.

Stanley says the top policy concern is the budget and wants to work with what we have.

“I believe we have an adequate budget to take care of all of our core services and to work in the areas that we need the money... but then as far as a tax increase, that’s what we’re trying to avoid. We want to make sure that we go through that budget, fine tooth comb, and then we use every dollar the best way we can before we’d ever look at a tax increase,” says Stanley.

Stanley says he supports spending tax dollars on downtown.

“I still believe in downtown now in the way of taking on a civic center or anything big like that. That’s not anywhere on my agenda and nowhere in my mind near future plan,” says Stanley.

Below is the full interview with Mayor Cole Stanley.

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