First City Commissioners Meeting of 2025

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On Monday, January 13, the City of Pampa commissioners held their first bi-monthly meeting of the new year, opening up with public comments from Mr. Kirkpatrick.

“In 1985, I accepted the position of Parks and Recreation Director for the City of Pampa. Upon accepting my position, I was informed that one of the first priorities was for me to develop this park east of town by the name of Recreation Park. It was an empty field with a silted-in lake and that’s all there was out there. I worked on the design and development of this park and I also worked on a grant. I was able to write the grant and submit it and I received on behalf of the City of Pampa, a half million dollar grant to develop this park. I was also responsible for doing all the documentation for all the work to be submitted to the place where we received the grant. I oversaw all the development and design of the park until it was completed. On September 5, 1992 to my surprise, there was a dedication for Recreation Park and City Manager Glenn Hadler at the time presented to me a collage of pictures of the development of this park and I’ve had it all these years. I had it my office for the City of Pampa for 15 plus years and I’ve had it ever since at my house. I would like to present this collage of the development of Recreation Park to the City of Pampa. This is a piece of history that I hope you will cherish and preserve and that you will enjoy this for years to come.”

“Thank you, Mr. Kirkpatrick,” said Mayor Pro Tem Jimmy Keough. “That’s a really nice piece of Pampa history and we’ll find somewhere really nice to put it. Thank you.”

Next on the agenda was a report from Assistant City Manager Dustin Miller regarding the Celebration of Lights.

“Every year after the Celebration of Lights, I like to come to you guys and give an update on how the year went and how the donations were,” Miller said.

“Right off the bat I would like to recognize Ben Ponce who was the community services director who oversees the park and Jacob Nelson who is the park’s superintendent. I want to recognize all the park’s crew-those guys work many, many hours setting up the displays. We used to start Thanksgiving week back when this thing first started and now they start early October just to make sure we’re ready to go by Thanksgiving. Jason Scott who probaby didn’t know what he was getting into when he took the building and grounds position, but he ended up being an electrician for the Celebration of Lights and did a lot of wiring for us.” I want to recognize every sponsor who worked. We opened up on November 1 for sponsors to volunteer to greet visitors at the park. Generally that is full within a week, sometimes there’s a few days left after Christmas but for the most part, my phone was ringing on November 1 with people wanting to volunteer. It just speaks highly of our community and their willingness to participate. My goal for this is to always keep it free as much as possible and be donations-based. I want people to come out their with their families and make memories and not have to spend a dime. With the help of those who do donate, that’s what makes this happen.”

“We start with the Jingle Bell run that is on the Friday after Thanksgiving and that is basically our biggest fundraising effort for the park and is the only time we charge. This is a family night where they pay and they get a T-shirt and we open up the park for them from 6 to 7 PM and it’s basically just walkers and some do run a 5K, but for the most part these are just walkers who are with their family and want to walk the park. That event raised $3,650. The next is the Cocoa Shack which we started a couple of years ago. You can’t go anywhere in America for a cup of chocolate for a dollar, but we that’s all we charge. It’s just something to provide to the visitors. The turnup of that was $5,173.95. I do want to recognized Chicken Express because they did donate chocolate chip cookies to us to sell with the hot cocoa also just for a dollar. I also want to recognize the Davis family-they spent many, many hours and their personal funds to make sure the Cocoa Shack was running and serving the community. Next we have corporate donations. This year was $4,500 which was a little less from last year which was $6,000. I don’t seek out corporate donations. If they want to do it, then we’ll sure accept it, but I don’t go knocking on doors for it. Flogistix, ProMan, and Xcel are our big corporate donations and private donations-Wendell and Charla Shults donate pretty annually $500 to start the year. The last thing is the gate donations which is our volunteers greeting visitors out there with a stocking and this is basically what is dropped in the stocking for those 4 or 5 weeks. That was $23,961.35. It’s pretty incredible when a lot of that is change and dollar bills and such. Everything added up for the year comes to $37,785.30 which is a little less than last year, but Thanksgiving was a little late this year and we opened a week late, so if we would have had that week, I feel like we would’ve made what we did last year on donations.”

“I spoke to people from Amarillo, Borger, Perryton, Dalhart, some even in Kansas. We’re pulling people from all over into our little park and it’s exciting to see that.”

“One last thing I want to talk about is every weekend we had some sort of event. First weekend we had Santa night. Tim Johnson does this for us and he does a great job for the community. He is outstanding for us. Briarwood Church did the live nativity the next weekend. They provided us people in costumes set up in a stable to provide a live nativity scene. That was the largest fundraising night for us and Carmichael-Whatley helped sponsor that. After that we reindeer night which is insane in how many people come out to see live reindeer. The line was backed up on Frederic until about 8:30 PM. We had ESU helping us get vehicles in. That night we brought in over $2,500 just in donations at the gate, so that was a huge night for our town. That night is sponsored by Rhodes Ranch and they never hesitate and it was actually their idea. They approached me with this many years ago and they’re always super quick to get on board with that again.”

“I want to recognize my personal family who spend many hours helping. If someone can’t make it or doesn’t show up, the Millers are there to help. I really wish you all could hear the ‘thank yous’, the joy, the laughter, the smiles, the memories people are making at the park. We just get so many grateful people that I wish you guys could hear what we hear. I thank you all for your support in this crazy endeavor we started seven years ago.” 

Next on the agenda was to consider approving the minutes of the December 9, 2024 meeting and excusing the absence of Mayor Lance DeFever from that meeting, which was approved.

Next was the consideration of adopting on the second and final reading of Ordinance No. 1817 which is closing, abandoning and vacating the 200 blocko of north West Street between Kingsmill Avenue and Francis Avenue; it was approved.

Next was the consideration of approving the List of Disbursements dated November 2024, which was approved.

Next was the consideration of approving an agreement with the Gray County Elections Administrator for election services for the 2025 calendar year, which was approved.

Next was the consideration and approval of Ordinance No. 1818, authorizing the issuance of “City of Pampa, Texas Combination Tax and Limited Pledge Revenue Certificates of Obligation, Series 2025 and other matters incident related thereto, which was approved.

Next was the consideration of adopting Resolution No. R25-001, establishing a Legislative Agenda for the 89th session of the Texas Legislature, which was approved.

Next was the consideration of approving on first reading of Resolution No. R25-002, approving an economic development project between the PEDC and The Zone Bowling Center, and Ryan Bradley, Executive Director of the PEDC spoke to the commissioners.

“The Zone Bowling Center approached us several months ago looking for assistance in funding the new lanes that they had previously put it. Upon board review, we concluded that that is something we can and should be helping them with. We see it as a benefit to the community for better quality of life and just helping local businesses. So with that being said. I appreciate your support in supporting them.” The resolution was approved.

Next was the consideration of adopting Resolution No. R25-003, approving an Interlocal Agreement and Professional Services Agreement with Parkhill for joint bidding and engineering management of the 2025 Seal Coat Program, which was approved.

Next was the consideration of approving an Interlocal Agreement with the Panhandle Regional Planning Commission for administrative services related to the City of Pampa’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for emergency generators and authorize the City Manager to execute, which was approved.

The commissioners then went into an executive session and upon returning covered the last item on the agenda, which was consideration of adopting Resolution No. R25-004, appointing a Chairperson to the TIRZ Board, which was approved. The meeting was then adjourned.