Potter County | featured news

After seeing a record number of ballots cast on the first day of early voting in Texas, Potter County is continuing to see a boost in early voters.
Election officials reported that 1,744 ballots were cast in Potter County on Tuesday, up from Monday’s total of 1,709, to bring the two-day total to 3,453.
In addition to strong turnout at the polls for early voting, Potter County has already received more than 50 percent of its mail-in ballots, with 1,012 returned.

Amarillo City Council members gave city staff the unofficial nod Tuesday to move forward with a trap-neuter-return program to deal with the city’s feral cat population.
More than 50 percent of cats brought into Amarillo Animal Welfare & Management this year were euthanized, according to department records. Data shows that since January, nearly 3,000 cats were brought into the shelter, and city staff estimates 75 percent of those cats were feral.

For many teenagers, C-SPAN is the channel only seen for the second or two it takes to flip forward to the next one. It’s that “weird channel” where nothing happens.
But C-SPAN’s Campaign 2016 “Road To The White House” bus rolled into town Tuesday and made a stop at Palo Duro High School with a goal of getting students to think differently about the no-frills network.

West Texas A&M University is the recipient of a $2.2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education that it will use to support undergraduate retention and degree completion.
The five-year Title III grant will allow for expanded student support offerings and pay for the coaching of first- and second-year students by full time “retention coaches,” according to a university news release.
Each of WT’s five colleges and one school will have a coach who reports directly to the dean and provides assistance catered specifically to each division of the university.

The Amarillo College Board of Regents have appointed a new director of station operations at college-run PBS affiliate KACV-TV.
Regents on Tuesday evening unanimously approved the hiring of Kevin Ball to the position at an annual salary of $70,000.
Ball has spent more than three decades in marketing and advertising positions at companies around the U.S.
He was most recently the vice president of marketing and e-commerce at Hastings Entertainment, which is in the process of closing its stores after filing for bankruptcy in June.

Amarillo City Council members are up against the clock when it comes to approving the creation of a tax increment reinvestment zone in the eastern gateway, Deputy City Manager Bob Cowell said.
Cowell told council members during a Tuesday work session that if the zone is not created by the end of the year, it risks losing out on property tax revenue to be generated by two hotels currently under construction in the area.
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If all goes as planned, area police and firefighters may soon be going digital. Digital radios, that is.
An assessment on updating the area’s police and fire department communication systems is complete, and the Office of Emergency Management have confirmed that officials are currently reviewing submitted bids to replace the old-fashioned analog system with a new digital signal, on a bandwidth that will be similar to a cellphone’s frequency.
The upgrade to digital will replace radios that serve the City of Amarillo as well as Potter and Randall counties.

Texas will receive more than $190 million for environmental mitigation under a multibillion dollar settlement in the Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal approved by a federal judge in San Francisco Tuesday. Volkswagen buyers will have the option of buy backs or repairs.
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One person died and two others were injured in a head-on collision between a car and semi-truck Monday night in Carson County.
A semi-truck was traveling west on Interstate 40 just before 9 p.m. when a car traveling east left the road, crossed the center median and crashed head-on into the truck.
The driver of the car was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver and passenger in the semi-truck were transported to a local hospital with injuries.

Potter County Judge Nancy Tanner issued a statement Tuesday denying social media claims that local voting machines are changing votes.
“There is nothing wrong with any of the machines we use for voting,” Tanner said in her statement. “They do not flip your vote. They do not flip parties. Humans do that.”
Tanner said she verified with Potter County Elections Administrator Melynn Huntley that there have been no problems with the machines.
In Randall County there has been one reported incident of an irregularity, Tanner said.