Update: Amarillo City Manager Grayson Path is resigning. Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley requested an agenda item for the next City Council meeting this coming Tuesday to accept Path's resignation.
Original Post: The Amarillo City Council adjourned Wednesday after spending roughly three and a half hours behind closed doors discussing personnel matters involving City Manager Grayson Path.
Councilmembers convened for the work session at 11 a.m. and immediately went into executive session. The closed-door portion of the meeting ended around 2:30 p.m., with no public action announced before adjournment.
City officials said a press conference is planned for 2 p.m. Thursday.
Wednesday’s agenda identified Path’s position as the sole subject of the executive session. Councilmembers were scheduled to discuss “personnel matters, the appointment, employment, evaluation or reassignment of” the city manager.
The agenda did not specify what prompted the discussion or what, specifically, councilmembers were considering.
Under the city’s meeting procedures, votes or final decisions cannot be made during an executive session or work session. Any such action would have to take place during an open regular or special meeting. The published agenda listed only adjournment following Wednesday’s executive session.
Path has served as Amarillo city manager since 2024. Before coming to Amarillo, he was city manager in Paris, Texas. The city manager oversees more than 2,300 employees and serves as the city’s chief administrative officer.
The lengthy personnel discussion comes after several high-profile issues involving city government in recent months, although the council has not publicly said whether any of them were connected to Wednesday’s meeting.
In May, a fire at the city landfill rekindled and escaped the facility, eventually burning 2,335 acres and destroying 52 homes while damaging another 25. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that the landfill had violated state requirements involving daily cover of deposited waste before the fire.
Path said he was not aware of the compliance issue before the fire or the state’s notice of violation. The landfill superintendent was later no longer employed by the city, and Path said a review of landfill operations would continue.
The city also dealt with widespread complaints over water bills following the rollout of a new utility billing system. Some residents reported bills two or three times higher than normal.
City officials attributed some of the confusion to duplicate readings displayed on billing graphs and irregular billing cycles during the transition. Those billing cycles could also push some customers into higher usage tiers. Path said customers would not be required to pay for water they did not use, and the city temporarily suspended late fees and disconnections associated with disputed April bills.
More recently, oversight of Amarillo Police Department technology came under scrutiny after former officer Christian Eder was charged with 78 counts of tampering with a government record.
Authorities allege Eder improperly searched Flock Safety license-plate camera data 76 times for a person who had no connection to a police investigation. Eder was fired following an internal investigation. The department subsequently announced additional supervisory reviews and auditing of searches, reduced access to some software and shortened data-retention periods.
Those events have placed several parts of city government under public scrutiny, but there was no public explanation Wednesday connecting any particular controversy to the council’s personnel discussion.
The council’s unusually long executive session nevertheless puts attention squarely on Path’s position. The city’s official website continued to list him Wednesday as city manager and chief administrative officer.
