Amarillo City Council holds board meeting to discuss AEDC, parks, Sunset Committee

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - It was a full docket presented to Amarillo City Council: parks, a sunset committee and the AEDC were among many topics discussed in the meeting.

One of the biggest topics at Tuesday’s meeting was the update from AEDC’s Chairperson Alex Fairly after the separation agreement with former president and CEO Kevin Carter.

However, that’s been rescheduled for next week.

“What we’re expecting is where have we been, where are we now, and where do we really need to go? What is the ROI that we’ve seen over the last 10 to 15 years,” said Mayor Cole Stanley, City of Amarillo. “Then I really want to push forward with the rest of that board of should we go ahead and start the search looking for that director? Do we need to go ahead and place that permanent board?”

Another item on the consent agenda was a $1.2 million playground construction and additional lighting project for Thompson Park.

“We are really hopeful, we’ve been trying to make a lot of improvements out at Thompson Park. I will say it’s an area of town that does see some public safety concerns, with lighting it becomes a deterrent,” said Laura Storrs, CFO for the City of Amarillo.

Mayor Cole Stanley also discussed creating a Sunset Committee, which would be a citizen-led committee working to update, regulate and also deregulate codes that may cause more harm than good for building codes, energy codes and more.

“Sunset Committee really would speak to codes and standards task force and that may be a more fitting name,” said Stanley. “So if we do that what we’re saying is, ‘What codes and standards are being changed at the federal level that we now need to accommodate?‘”

This was the last meeting held at the current city hall.

The next city council meeting with be held on Feb. 25 at the new city hall building.