Breaking Down “Proposition E” In Amarillo Into Layman’s Terms

As we find ourselves days away from heading to the polls, if you're not an early voter that is, we've got one more proposition in Amarillo that we need to dive into.

The purpose of this five-part series we've done is not to influence your vote in one direction or another. Balloting language is tricky, and all we want to do is break everything down into layman's terms so it's easier to understand.

How you decide to vote is entirely up to you, just as long as you go out and vote.

Today, we'll dig into Proposition E. On the ballot, it will read like this:

To Amend Article V, Section 3 - Vacancies, of the Amarillo City Charter, repealing the existing section, and substitute provisions applying new law allowing for a fewer than 12 months remaining in office vacancy to be appointed by the City Council for all City Councilmembers and the City Council would appoint a Councilmember to the office of Mayor in the event off a vacancy in the Mayor’s office. Finally, the amendment adopts a “resign to run” provision creating vacancies in office should be elected city official elects to announce an intent to run for another office, while serving as an elected city official.

So what does this all mean? This one is a little trickier to read than a few others.

It's all wrapped around a vacancy within the city council. Should a councilmember decide to resign, be removed from office, pass away, or simply not be able to carry out their duties, it would create an open seat.

Typically, when any seat opens, candidates announce they're running for it, we go through the entire campaign process, then we get to vote in who we believe should be there.

This proposition introduces the idea of taking away the traditional process in going through all of that and allowing the city council to appoint who they believe should be sitting in that seat.

So, a yes vote for this allows them to appoint whoever they feel is best. A no vote on this would keep things the way they are if a seat opens up. That's a lot of legalese and words to put on the ballot for all that.

If you want to catch up, you can find each prop below that we've put into layman's terms.

Proposition A
Proposition B
Proposition C
Proposition D