Independent News Drop

KELI From Inkwell, this is the Amarillo News Drop. I'm Keli, joined by Hast.

HAST Good morning. The city council meets at three p.m. today with final votes on the 2026 budget and tax rate. Public hearings are scheduled first.

KELI The counter-read here: when a council votes a budget the same day it holds hearings, the outcome is already locked. The hearings become procedural theater — a chance for residents to speak into the record, not to change the math. Watch which council members speak before or after the public comment period. If they're silent during hearings and vote afterward, the decision was made in closed session or earlier council work. If they ask questions during public comment, something shifted. The vote happens at three p.m. Check whether the final rate differs from what staff proposed in August.

HAST Different scale, but higher stakes for ratepayers. Xcel Energy filed a proposal with the state asking Texas to let them shift infrastructure costs onto data centers and large industrial customers who sign long-term deals. If a project gets delayed, reduced, or canceled, those customers still pay their share of the grid built to serve them.

KELI Xcel's argument is that this protects residential and small-business rates from absorbing those costs. But the mechanism is worth naming: the utility gets paid either way — whether the load shows up or not. That's a revenue guarantee. It locks industrial customers into long-term commitments and transfers project risk from Xcel to the customer. The Panhandle has data centers expanding. This proposal would affect which customers pay for the lines that reach them.

HAST In the courts, jury selection begins next week for Ulise Delao. He's charged with two counts of manslaughter in the death of Brittany Torres. She died May 27, 2024, in a crash in Canyon. The pretrial hearing happened Monday. Opening statements are expected to follow jury selection.

KELI On public health, Amarillo Public Health is conducting contact tracing after a person tested positive for tuberculosis and spent time on the West Texas A&M University campus. Public health said TB is not spread as easily as the cold or flu, and there's no need for blanket testing across campus. An information session for the WT community is scheduled for Wednesday.

HAST One marker on the calendar: voter registration deadline for the November general election is October fifth. Texas Secretary of State Robert Howden is reminding eligible residents — you need to be eighteen by Election Day, a U.S. citizen, and a county resident. Registration is online at VoteTexas.gov.

KELI On this day in 1923, the Mandate for Syria and Lebanon took effect under the League of Nations.

HAST That's the Amarillo News Drop. Full script and sources at inkwell.wiki/news/amarillo.

KELI Before we close, a word from Inkwell. Over at Gil's Intelligent Version there's a piece on what the original words of scripture actually say about the Trinity — before any translation decided for us.

HAST Six words, examined in Hebrew and Greek. It's at inkwell dot wiki, slash trinity.