Lawyers, Guns, and Money

I suppose everyone needs a hobby, and my own, apparently, was watching the Amarillo City Council last night as it went full monkey-mode. Let the chimp poop fly!

The contentious issue was about lawyers. I’ll simplify things, mainly because the mayor kept convoluting the conversation with his frantic technique of “look at this, now look at that, now lookie here again,” which made things a bit difficult to follow. But here goes.

The city council had passed an ordinance to use a law firm in Austin to do some work for them. This, on its face, is slightly odd because the Amarillo City Council has never hired an outside law firm to work just for them before. Now, although poor and befuddled council member Tom Scherlen called this law firm “my lawyer” and “he is my lawyer” during the meeting, no lawyer hired by the city represents individual council members. The lawyers work for the council, which means they work for us. So I guess, if Tom’s right, I could say they’re my lawyers too. Fun! More lawyers for me!

Les Simpson, who is our place four representative, had a problem with the results of the ordinance. It is well worth watching what he says, starting here at 3:03:52 (yes, that’s THREE HOURS into the meeting so far).

Les bull rushed right into it, starting with this lovely intro: “Unfortunately, this resolution has turned taxpayer dollars into a poorly managed slush fund with no oversight, excess spending, and a troubling lack of transparency.”

Well, hello! Where’s the popcorn?

Les laid out the salient facts, and even though I poke at Les here and there, turnabout, of course, being fair play, he did an excellent job of what we all hope an elected official would do.

And he brought receipts.

Here are the highlights:

1. The city council is supposed to direct the work of this law firm called Hyde Kelley, but the council as a whole didn’t. Then Les listed the work and the amount paid to Hyde Kelley without council approval.
2. He showed a request by Hyde Kelley for our city council members to set up a separate email account for private conversations only accessible by them, which is what we call in the business THE OPPOSITE OF GOVERNMENTAL TRANSPARENCY. (Here the mayor jumped in to say he never did anything like that and he’s no baddie and whatever - the lady doth protest too much, methinks.)
3. Les showed an email where Hyde Kelley said it started limiting the information available to the public because people were requesting billing info from them. See opposite of transparency, above.

Really, watch the video and see for yourself. Les did some excellent work.

The gist of all this is Les wants to rescind the ordinance because we’re paying too much money without accountability. The lawyer from Hyde Kelley sent a letter to the city council protesting. The letter is funny in a pathetic, you-no-wanna-be-friends kind of way. On the video, you can see the mayor’s story time as he reads the letter.

And throughout this Tom Scherlen, who is in place three, looked like he was alternating between having a heart attack, a brain hermitage (my autocorrect fixed my misspelling of brain hemorrhage to brain hermitage, and that’s such a vast improvement, I’m keeping it), and a fear of finding himself in a prison cell with a friendly fella named “Tiny.”

So kudos to Les for doing the right job, although it’s quite bizarre the mayor was arguing (again, in his strange “aw, shucks, I’m just a country boy a-learnin’” weirdness) that Les’ arguments were, in themselves, anti-transparent. I suppose here we are in 2025 and words have no meaning anymore.

But beyond that, I want to point out one small statement the mayor said that is deeply insightful into his own way of thinking about government and how the city operates. First, the mayor’s deep psychological need to lecture forced him to pontificate on how the city council is the legislative branch. The city manager is the executive, and there’s a judicial arm.

This is total garbage, of course. The city does not have three branches of government. The city council is the boss of the city manager as well as the municipal judge. Here, take a look. These are divisions, not separate checks and balances. When the mayor says things like this, he confuses the issue and tries to sound like a Very Smart Man, which he is not.

But back to the small statement. At 3:45:53, he says this to Les: “I don’t ever want you to be underneath a mayor that can control you.”

Wrong answer. The city council is not under any mayor. That’s not how the local government works. The mayor and the council work as a group, and their power is from that group. The mayor can’t fire them. And the mayor can’t hire them.

We do that.

These tiny sentences, off the cuff, demonstrate the deeper power grab behind the person. And they demonstrate the hidden contempt some people have for the city charter, the rule of law, and the people who live in the city.

And then, on the other hand, guys like Tom Scherlen are much more open about their own style of contempt for the people. When he won his race for place three on the council, we all assumed he’d do the homework to learn what he’s voting on and what effect his decisions will have on the city. But in Tom’s own words from last night, right here at 3:49:40:

“I don’t know nuthin’. I don’t know a thing.“

Hey, Schultz, elections are in May.