By Hayden Pedigo, candidate for Amarillo City Council Place 1
My name is Hayden Pedigo and I am running for Amarillo City Council Place 1.
I had a realization awhile back about the Amarillo city council and the future of the city. I recently watched a YouTube video titled “Portland, Oregon: The city that doesn't work?”. In the video, residents of Portland were complaining how the city of 650,000 residents still utilizes an at-large government consisting of a mayor and 4 council members. The Portland residents were complaining how their city is fractured and certain parts were ignored because of this dated form of government. I was amazed how many parallels there were to Amarillo and the current situation we are in with our city government.
I realized that our current council are just a symptom of a greater problem that has plagued Amarillo’s city government for years before them. Amarillo having nearly 200,000 residents and still utilizing a dated at-large election system with low voter turnout is the reason the city is not moving forward as a whole and only developing in certain areas. I would love to see new faces on the council this time but I worry about what happens after two years when the same type of council we have now could possibly win again.
We won’t see long term change until we address the long-term problem of our dated at-large government. Don’t confuse the symptoms with the actual disease.
Pedigo/Photo by Campaign