The City Commissioners held their bi-monthly meeting on Monday, January 12, beginning with the 3rd Quarter Financial Dashboard report presented by Finance Director Theresa Daniels. She informed the commission that once the audit is complete, total numbers will be given in the coming months.
Next was a report of the 2025 Celebration of Lights presented by Assistant City Manager Dustin Miller.
“This started around 1995 as a volunteer-based organization that they spent year-round preparing for the Christmas season. They were just citizens taking the time to put features together, things that are displayed out there. We don’t know exactly when that died out, but it was early 2000s. In 2017, we decided to try to pick it back up. We had no funds at the time, so we had the $1 donation on the water bill to start that first year and it was about $20,000 to help get us started. I remember people asking how much money we hoped to make that first year, and I told them if we could make at least $3,000-5,000, I would feel like we really did something. I think that first year we made about $17,000. This year is year nine of the display being out there at the park. It takes a lot of time and money to build that thing up to where it is today. Things are not any cheaper, just like anything that the City does. For example after Covid, we felt like we needed to boost the park a little bit, so we hit that fund again and purchased an animated tree display with the LED lights and the music, and that was about $20,000. So when you hear about how much money we make, it doesn’t go as far as you would think.”
“In 2024, our donations were down about $5,000 and we’re trying to figure out why that was the case. The best we could come up with was Thanksgiving being so late in the month and we opened that Saturday after Thanksgiving. This year we decided to move it to the week before Thanksgiving, and the numbers did improve.”
“Our first year, we started setting up in November and this year the Parks Department started in wrapping trees in September. So thank you to Ben Ponce who is the Community Services Director, Jacob Nelson who is over the Parks Department, and the Parks crew who have spent countless hours out there not just getting it ready, but fixing things that are down, and starting it and shutting it down every night. Jason Scott and Collin Killgo both spend a whole lot of time out there.”
“I want to thank you guys for constantly supporting us. It started out as this crazy little thing, and like I said I was hoping to raise $3-5,000 and we were at $37,000 for last year.”
“The volunteers who worked the gate-we opened that up on November 1 and two weeks in we were booked for the whole season. That’s just people who want to spend their time out there. I have people call right before Christmas asking if we need help, so people are always wanting to help and we’re so grateful for that. The cocoa donors have really taken off. The Cocoa Shack is only open on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and I think throughout the whole season, we had three days where there wasn’t someone who sponsored hot chocolates. They’ll just call and say they want to pay for the first 100 or the first 150. This year we had $1,710 donated for that, so 1,710 free hot chocolates. It doesn’t benefit us, but it benefits the community. Generally when someone wants a hot chocolate and you tell them the first however many have been paid for, they say here’s another 20 and pays for the next 20, so it just steamrolls into something great. I do want to individually recognize those people who did that: Delete Dents, Grace Baptist, Barb’s Catering, Pampa Radio, Blackmon Boys BBQ, Holman Well Service, Dance Academy of Pampa, Pampa Teacher’s Federal Credit Union, Pete and Stephanae Cooper, River A Weed Control, Ammons, Cox Custom Creations, and the Hamburger Station. Also UPS employees worked one night and they wanted to donate to match whatever the Cocoa Shack made that night, so they donated $350 on top of what the sales were. An anonymous family wanted to match that $350, so it was another $700 donated that night as well. Western Equipment who also wanted to match sales picked the two biggest nights of the year-Santa night and The Grinch night and ended up donating $1,226. AJ and Tisha Calhoun donated the fire pit that was out there, which was a huge addition. Tire Works and SJH Landscape provided the wood for the firepit.”
“There were 110 sleigh rides last year, and this year were 170 rides around the park.”
“The Jingle Bell Run, since we moved to before Thanksgiving and we had to do it on a Thursday night, and if you remember, we had a huge thunderstorm all day. The Parks guys were trying to get it ready and you can just see it rolling in. The Run was down from $3,600 to $1,910, but I think we can directly tie that in to it being on a Thursday and mother nature.”
“The Cocoa Shack brought in $7,427.86 which is an increase from last year of $2,253. I don’t want to leave out Chicken Express because they donate however many cookies we need and that’s really the only profit the Cocoa Shack makes. The hot chocolate costs us only about 90 cents a cup and we sell for $1. That allows us to keep the price for hot chocolate down.”
“Corporate donations were $7,226, and that is up about $2,700 from the year before. Flogistix has given pretty much every year since this started, Resound is a first-time donor, and I included Western Equipment because it was $1,226, and Xcel who has also donated ever since. Flogistix, Resound and Xcel all volunteered to work out there. Xcel was great fixing things if we needed electrical work. They laid utility poles out for us this year. There were a lot of concerns about safety issues with children crossing the street or people going the wrong direction, so Xcel gave us some old poles that helped out with that. We had only asked for poles, but they had already laid them down by the time we were going to get them.”
“Private donors were $4,500 this year, which is up by $4,000 this year. There were two anonymous donors, and the Shults family donated $500. I just want to give you a little story about one of the donors, but I won’t mention their names. One of them is an original board member from the Celebration of Lights. There are only two living, and she is one of them. They come out annually and they were looking in the park, and she said, ‘my night was Tuesday nights, and I had to come no matter what the weather was and plug in every feature before we opened to the public. Not only that, but I had to come back and unplug them all.’ I didn’t want to tell her that we have four switches now and we’re able to turn them off in about five minutes. They donated $3,000 that night. They were so grateful for the park and how it’s still up and going. That’s the largest donation we’ve ever received.”
“Gate donations were $31,531.42, which is an increase of $7,570 from last year. I will tell you that just when I worked the gate, we try to ask if they’ve been here before, and I heard Colorado, Arkansas, Kansas-I know they didn’t come just for this and were probably just passing through, saw and pulled in. Locally, we saw Amarillo, Perryton, Bushland, Dumas, Borger, Dalhart and obviously the smaller ones like Miami and Wheeler. The gate donations is what’s put into the stocking every night, so it’s pretty impressive when you break it down.”
“Special event nights-we had Tim Johnson who is the town Santa volunteer his time to work that night. World Finance reached out to me and asked what they could do, so they showed up and handed out candycanes that night. The live nativity is put on by Briarwood Church. Pastor Hancock and his crew put together people and animals for this and it’s such a great setup. Carmichael-Whatley provided the nativity story pamphlet that was handed out to every car. Reindeer night kind of fell through because of some legal issues between animals crossing state lines, so we threw together a Grinch Night. On Reindeer night the year before, we made $2,500. Grinch Night that was thrown together in a week, we made $2,000. The Gray County Sheriff’s Office helped us out with their Grinch antics all week. I did reach out and told them I needed the Grinch out of jail before Saturday, so they played it out and released him and he was out at the Celebration of Lights.”
“So overall, the increase from last year is $14,809.98. I think that extra week helped, the weather was nice and people were even wearing shorts. I want to thank my family who spends a lot of time out there and they love it as much as I do. We grateful to so many people, and this is such a great thing for our town and it’s only getting bigger.”
“I just want to say on behalf of the citizens of our town how great this is,” Mayor Mike said. “I have kids in Tulsa and Dallas, and we were also on the coast during the holidays, and every light show we went to, ours was better than any of them. What started as a small is now something really cool. I commend you for your vision and your creativity in putting that together. I don’t think anyone realizes the amount of work involved in that, especially taking it down. It’s just a quality of life thing in Pampa that is just pretty incredible, so we thank you.”
Next on the agenda was to approve the minutes of the December 8, 2025 regular commission meeting, which was approved.
Next was to consider approving the list of disbursements dated November 2025, which was approved.
Next was to consider adopting on the second and final reading Ordinance No. 1829, granting Atmos Energy Corporation a franchise to construct, maintain, and operate pipelines and equipment in the City of Pampa, which was approved.
Next was to consider accepting the Pampa Chamber of Commerce 2026 Tourism Budget.
“You guys know better than anyone the hotel/motel tax revenue was down,” said Pampa Chamber of Commerce Director Cortnie Hale. “For us, it was about 12.5%, so we were operating off $44,224. The majority of that goes to event support, and we do a grant program so they have an online form they can fill out. Our tourism committee meets and decides which of those meet the criteria and best benefit the city. The tourism committee decides on those and they go to the Chamber board. We did impose a rule a couple of years ago that no event could get tourism funds more than three years in a row unless they could show some kind of growth and addition to the event. That way we could stop giving to the same kind event every year. We prefered to look at it as seed money for an event rather than a continued injection into the same events. The budget did show a deficit of $8,480, but I did attach the last four years’ budget and we had the $9,000 left over from the year before so that’s where that money came from.”
“The tourism grants that we gave out last year included PampaFest, Top ‘O Texas Rodeo, Downtown Business Association events that they do at the end of the year that include Harvest on the Bricks, Lighting of the Bricks, and Christmas on the Bricks. We help them with the advertising. We did the Alzheimer’s Shootout, the Battle at Adobe Walls, the Western Swing Society of the Southwest Summer Showcase, and additional efforts for visitor engagement, materials, and destination promotion tied to community events. So we buy goodie bags and all the pamphlets, tri-fold booklets and things like that just to put together so people who come into town or comes by our office, we can give them a bag of things. The biggest majority of the expense on that is buying the printed materials and keeping those on hand.”
“Our projected revenue, I think we’re still going to operate off the anticipation of $50,000. As you many know, our contract says up to $75,000 and we hope we meet that this year and we can do some even more exciting things. We’ve decided to take a step away from funding events, because most of the events that we’ve been funding have passed that three-year mark, so this year we are looking at a mural program. We already have several locations and businesses interested in that. We are going to put those funds into murals that will hopefully encourage visitors, photo-ops, and social media sharing. It’s a little more of a longterm use of the funds rather than a one-time event.”
“We’re working on a new website, visitpampa.com. Our previous website was not in our possession, it belonged through the Woody Guthrie Museum and it was hacked, and I apologize to anyone who experienced that. Hopefully through some software that we purchased which includes an interactive map where people can go through scavenger hunts or go on our sculpture tour around town and win prizes for completing those programs.”
“The 2025 tourism funding maintained visibility during challenging revenue year. 2026 tourism funding is focused on long-term value, destination, identity, and measurable outcomes. The Pampa Chamber of Commerce remains committed to responsible stewardship of tourism funds, and our strategic partnership with the City of Pampa.”
“So do you think putting those funds into the murals and stuff like that will create more traffic?” asked Commissioner Wendi Horst.
“That’s our anticipation, yes. When I was on the board for EDAC, they were working on putting together a map for the panhandle. People see them on social media and they will come to town just to take pictures of the murals. The research seems to point in that direction. It seems to beautify the community and draw people in who might not otherwise come.”
“On the $2,600 for the tourism printing, that’s a 186% increase. Was that on the bags and stuff?” asked Wendi.
“So we did purchase bags and we only purchase those every few years. We had not previously purchased those, we are still using the yellow bags that were there when I got there. I think they may have bought a half a million of those. We started doing posters in our office. The Chamber itself purchased a printer that is able to poster-sized prints, so we’re able to print more posters for events around town as well to offset some of that as well. The Chamber was paying for the ink and paper, but now if they’re set for tourism, they’re charged through tourism for printing instead of the Chamber.”
“The hotel/motel tax is the source of this revenue, and I understand that sometimes that’s a challenge to collect that. Any ideas on how we can make sure we’re getting that collected and anything we can do to help you?” asked Mayor Mike.
“Shane and I have talked about this and there are a lot of revenue streams that we can look into with our permitting office,” said Theresa. “With air b&b and things like that. Some of those are not paying their taxes as they come in without us knowing who these owners are. We are not able to contact them in order to get those taxes. It’s their responsibility to contact us and send those numbers in, and half the time, we don’t receive them. They do have to have permits, but not necessarily for the air b&bs or hotel bed process.”
“Is there a possibility we could have staff search those sites and search Pampa and see if we can identify them and make a list?” Mayor Mike asked.
“I’m not sure how the legal process of that is. With the comptroller’s office, a lot of that is confidential, so for us to be able to pull those reports, you have to jump through hoops and sometimes even getting the tax confidentiality report. We have to go through three different signatures to do so it’s possible, but it takes a lot for them to release that information to us. So if they’re not reporting it to us, then they may not be reporting it to the comptroller, and that’s where we get into the issues with it. Especially on whether or not some hotels are reporting the right amount of taxes to us and on their gross sales. We used to be able to go into the comptroller’s website to review everything that turned in, but now that information is not readily available to us.”
The budget was accepted.
Next was to consider awarding the bid for the Downtown Revitalization Project for sidewalk repair to Carter Sand and Gravel, which was approved.
Commissioner Wendi Horst asked when vegetation would be put down, and was told that the grant for the revitalization didn’t include vegetation and would be a future project.
Next was to consider authorizing the City Manager to enter into an Interlocal Agreement with Angelo State University for participation in the Regional Security Operations Center.
“The reason for this line item is our current solution is what we call an EDR (endpoint detection response), and it helps protect our network,” said Kevin Webb. “It’s like an antivirus. An antivirus is for after the fact, and EDR is live. So anything that happens on the network at any given time can be caught by the EDR and we get notified of it. I tend to evaluate and go through at least a year ahead of time before our contract expires. The current solution is going to go up tremendously in price, so I decided to start about a year and a half early to evaluate. That’s when I came across the ARSO, which is the Regional Security Operations Center. It’s funded by the State of Texas and operated by San Angelo State University. They’re fixing to onboard four more, there’s already four. There’s UT Austin, UT Rio Grande Valley, and of course Angelo State University. So this is a free resource given to the city, and all we have to do is onboard.”
The item was approved.
Next was to Consider approving on first reading Resolution No. R26-001, approving a project of the Pampa Economic Development Corporation with High Plains Practice Management.
“I think it’s awesome that I get the 001 designation first project of the year,” PEDC Executive Director Ryan Bradley said. “I just want to tell you that there’s a lot of things going on in the background. 2026 is going to be a great year for us, it’s exciting. On behalf of the Pampa Economic Development Corporation, we respectfully request the City Commission approval for a support package up to $75,000 to assist High Plains Practice Management with opening a location at 1701 Coffee Street. This project supports local investment, strengthens a key service sector business, and contributes to continued activity and occupancy in a high visible commercial area. High Plains Practice Management increase visibility and accessibility for their patients, enhance the quality of their facility, and support service delivery to our community. They’re requested support will help bridge the cost of improvements and the startup while aligning with forgiveness and benchmarks. This project was reviewed and approved by the PEDC Board of Directors, and in accordance with our by laws, we held a public hearing on the 20th of November at 5 PM during which no public comments were submitted or voiced, which reflects both transparency in our process and a positive reception from our community. So upon approval, we will finalize the documentation, establish milestone requirements, verification of standards, and repayment provisions for anything not earned and get this going.”
“I brought this business to Pampa in 2017,” said Dr. David Godino. “It has been fairly well since then. Ultimately how this benefits you and our community is it revitalizes the location that has at least not been maintained very well or occupied since I’ve been here. We will be hiring people who are well-educated, whether they’re physical therapists or a doctor of physical therapy which is a high-paying job, and also PT assistants who have associates degrees. It may not be bringing in lots of jobs, but it will be bringing in professionals and encouraging professionals to come here. I also have an agreement with all the schools in the state even as far as Boston, Massachusettes, and we actually have two students coming here in the next three months where they will be in Pampa every day having lunch and dinner before going home, and hopefully it will attract them to move here.”
The resolution was approved.
The commission then went into an Executive Session regarding economic development.
Upon returning, the commission went over the last item on the agenda which was consider approving on first reading Resolution No. R26-002, approving a project of the Pampa Economic Development Corporation with SaraWest, LLC., to which Ryan approached the commission.
“On behalf of the Pampa Economic Development Corporation, we respectfully request the city commission approval for an economic support package for the Sara West project. This proposed project for the Pampa Energy Center will be adjacent to ProMan and will be separately secured and gated. It represents meaningful employment opportunity for Pampa and aligns their objectives of driving job creation and the productive reuse of existing assets. The Sara West planned operations will focus on the manufacturing and processing of equine care, leather processing, and additional items and expertise will be in personal care, pet care, and automotive cleaning. These product categories are well-positioned in our region for ease of market access and available production and distribution. The employment will support a mix of skilled production, logistics, technical and administrative roles. This project was reviewed and approved by the PEDC Board of Directors, and in accordance with our by laws, we held a public hearing on the 20th of November at 5 PM during which no public comments or questions, which reflects both transparency in our process and a positive reception from our community. The EDC requests authorization for a three-part support package that totals up to $400,000, which is going to be structured to protect both the city and tie later funding to performance. Round one will be $200,000 up front fully secured, round two will be an additional $100,000 contigent on hiring and performance milestones, and round three will be an additional $100,000 contingent on additional hiring and performance milestones. The first round will perform upfront and necessary funds to launch their operations, and the second and third rounds will ensure the EDC participation is earned through measurable execution. It will be primarily based on job creation outcomes. Their initial plan is to hire ten full-time employees in year one with positions spanning in both blue and white collar, and the company projects growth to 25 and 50 employees in subsequent years as their operations ramp up. The Pampa Energy Center has agreed in good faith to make facility upgrades to accommodate the project. They are committing up to $500,000 to improve the facilities out there and get them job-site ready for what they want to do. With that being said. the EDC requests the city commission to approve an economic support framework that includes the authorization of the first round for $200,000 fully secured up front, and then conditional authorization for an additional $100,000 rounds, each based only upon the satisfaction of board-approved hiring and performance intiatives.”
The resolution was approved and the meeting was adjourned.
