June 18 City Council Workshop and Council Meeting

June 18 City Council Meeting and Workshop


The council:
Mayor Diaz-Present
Joann Courtland-Present
Fred Chavez-Present
Dan Yancey- Excused Absence
Jay Manning-Present
Kirby Lack-Present
Marc Payne- Excused Absence
Charlie Youngs-Present

Editorial Comment: Marc Payne was not at council this evening because he was at a Keep Texas Beautiful meeting. This is not a sickness or emergency! I do not know where Dan Yancey was.

https://www.facebook.com/KeepCopperasCoveBeautiful/photos/rpp.99914121766/10156180266606767/?type=3&theater

From our City Charter

Sec. 2.07. ‐ Vacancies, forfeitures, filling of vacancies. (a) Vacancies. The office of a council member or office of the mayor shall become vacant upon death, resignation, removal from office by recall, or forfeiture of his/her office. (b) Forfeiture. 1. A council member or the mayor shall forfeit his/her office if he/she: (1) Lacks at any time during the term of office any qualification for the office prescribed by this charter or by law, (2) Violates any express prohibition of this charter, (3) Is convicted of a misdemeanor involving moral turpitude, felony or is assessed a deferred adjudication or probation for a felony, (4) Fails to attend two (2) consecutive regular meetings unless excused by city council (said excusal may be obtained before or after the absence occurs) caused by sickness or emergency, or (5) Moves his/her permanent residence outside the city limits.

Hello Copperas Cove! Welcome to another City Council Update. There have been a busy couple of weeks since the last City Council Meeting, and of course the leading buzz around town is the Tornado that hit Skyline Valley/Flats/Hill on June 9th. I just wanted to take a moment and express how thankful we are that in all the damage, nobody was hurt. We're also very thankful for the quick response time of local citizens, business owners, Copperas Cove first responders, employees, and the Cities of Kempner, Lampasas, and Killeen for pitching in a helping hand. 

Tonight's meetings saw discussion covering topics from Mayor Diaz proclaiming June as "Parks and Recreation Month" to a local business owner finally finding a way to move forward with a lot he has that has been caught up in a lot of red tape. 

Workshop Items

To start off the workshop, Mayor Diaz proclaimed the Month of June as Parks and Recreation Month. She went on to express her pride in our P&R department, and said "We have an amazing Parks and Rec Team". Ryan Haverlah pitched in that "Parks and Rec do tremendous work". When you look at the stats, our Parks and Rec "Do more per person and per acre than most communities try to do". Congratulations Parks and Rec - we appreciate everything you do! 

As if that wasn't enough good news for the city employees, Ariana Beckman (Interim Budget Director) presented the council with  the "Government Finance Officers Association Distinguished Presentation Award" for FY 18-19. This is based off very strict nationally recognized guidelines. 

Once done with the award, Ariana went on to give a presentation on the proposed FY 19-20 budget, taking discussion and direction on the different sections. There really was a lot to follow, but it seemed like they had some fat to trim from the budget, and the biggest targets were maintenance budgets for the fleet, fuel/oil, and raising tax rates to make up for short falls. NOTHING HAS BEEN FINALIZED. This was only discussion for now, and it will be brought back for review.

City Council Meeting

Ryan Haverlah started the meeting off with a thank you to the community for the immediate action after the June 9th Tornado. Within minutes of the tornado dissipating, neighbors and citizens were out trying to help assess damage and clear out downed trees. He also thanked the cities of Killeen, Kempner, and Lampasas for their help with the clean up. No citizens spoke during the Citizens Forum, which is a rarity. So we'll jump into the Public Hearings. 

Public Hearings:

The First two public hearings were in regards to Mr Abdelazeem and his lot on Meggs and 1st. In past updates, we've gone into how he was wanting to establish a convenience store on the edge of a long-time neighborhood, and the neighbors were fighting him on it. On top of that, he had gone against what the city wanted him to do and found himself caught up in a lot of red tape trying to get this store to happen, but kept getting shot down. Mr Abdelazeem has changed course - he is now looking to amend the Future Land Use Plan as well as rezone the property to allow him to build a completely ADA compliant Duplex aimed at being used by Disabled Veterans. These were PASSED with no objections from the citizens or council. 

Next up on the public hearings, Belton Engineering (representing D Bar C Holdings) was requesting an amendment to the Future Land Use Plan to change 73.864 acres from Low Density Retail to Low Density Residential. They are wanting to put in a new 212 lot subdivision called "Big Divide" right off of ..well...Big Divide down by Taylor Creek Elementary school. The gentleman who owns the property across the street was strongly opposed to any development. He's concerned his property will be directly impacted. He claims no plans or studies have been performed by Belton Engineering. Additionally, he claims that known low water crossings are slated to have homes put right in the middle of them. Then he brought up Big Divide Rd. Will it be able to accommodate all the traffic without needing to be widened? The school letting out already backs traffic up out to Hwy 190/I-14. What's going to happen once you add in a new neighborhood? And finally- who will be responsible for future damage to his property from the neighborhood kids or trash blowing around?  Once he was done, Fred Chavez asked Bobby Lewis (Development Services Director) if all necessary studies have been performed, to which Bobby agreed they had. This vote PASSED in a unanimous vote. 

Wrapping up the public hearings was consideration to rezone property requested by WBW Development for some lots in the neighborhood next to SC Lee Jr High. The first phase of that neighborhood is nearly complete, but there are a few areas where the developer was not able to build initially due to there being a flood zone. He would like to rezone the area from a Single Family Residential District to a Planned Development District. The reason for this is a PDD will give him more room to work and build up those lots so he can build on them. He will need to bring in soil and reinforce it to make it strong enough to withstand the nearby water. A neighbor on that street spoke out in concern for the plan. He said the amount of water that rushes down that street is immense, and he's concerned that it will erode away the lots that are put in place. Kirby Lack asked Bobby Lewis if he thinks this plan will work long term. Bobby responded that this will be heavily regulated by FEMA since it is on the edge of a FEMA flood zone. Kirby conceded that if the developer can get the OK from FEMA, then things are probably going to be good to go. This measure also PASSED with a unified vote. 

Action Items:

The Star group asked and received by a vote of 5-0 a two year extension of their lease to the old police building for their non-profit group.

Fathom Rep Brad Drier came out and gave a quarterly report. Ryan started things off by updating the council we have had 2 new meter reader positions and 1 customer service position added to the Utility Department. We've also had our Utility Office waiting room expanded. From there, Brad took over. In the past three months, they've had about 3,000 phone calls. 86% of those were answered in under 1 minute, and they have an average answer time of 24 seconds. They have a 95.8% first call resolution, and the disconnect process has been improved. 22%-28% of the calls (the largest percentage) have been for move ins and move outs. Fathom has also introduced a new Customer Information System for the reps to use which has been a lot more useful than U2You. Fathom has introduced a new payment process for the utility department. This new system can take almost any kind of payment you can offer (I said ALMOST - don't get crazy), and they have a real time payment process coming soon to our utility department. That will make it so you can make a payment and have it hit your account on the spot. Copperas Cove has a 43%-52% enrollment rate in Fathoms online services, which has us far in front of the national average (20%-25%). Of the 2469 Leak Alerts sent out, only 69% of the emails were opened up. Fred Chavez started asking about the billing inquiries being called in and what they're about. Brad didn't have that exact information, but he WAS able to say that less than 1% of calls have turned into escalations where a supervisor is needed. Fathom is in the testing stages of making it to where people can not set an auto-pay for a date after their due date.  

Kempner Fire Department came out asking for support in creation of an Emergency Services District in Lampasas County, which would overlap some small portions of Copperas Coves extraterritorial jurisdiction. Right now, the volunteer FD has an annual budget of $68,000, but by doing this they could increase it to $488,000. This would be accomplished with a .10 per $100,000 tax increase for Lampasas County. Right now, they can't even afford to keep up repairs on the vehicles they have. Their annual vehicle repair budget is $25,000, and last year they spent $27,000.  If this passes, they will hire on two full time fire fighters to hold things down while all the volunteers are at work. Some legal questions came up, and this was POSTPONED until July 2nd. Editorial comment: The council debated for about fifteen minutes before they brought a motion to the floor. RRoO says motion 1st, then 2nd, then debate! Also the council wanted to table until the 2nd meeting in July so to study the matter more. ICM told them it had to be July 2nd since it would be more than 60 days. The ICM should have brought it to council sooner than he did.

The Planning and Zoning Commission had two vacancies to be filled tonight. The only two nominees that requested to serve our city were Ron Nelson (Seat 3) and Dustin Dewald (Seat 4). The vote for them was 4-0 to appoint. Neither of the gentleman were present. Councilman Youngs had stepped down for about five minutes for a break when the vote was held.

The Final Plat for Creekside Hills Phase III came before council this evening. This development is located on North FM116 and Lutheran Church Rd. It passed 5-0 (Youngs was back).

Ms Beckman and the Interim City Manager went over several changes in the fee schedule with one in regards to HB852 which forbids municipalities from charging by the square foot for building permits. It took effect immediately. The vote passed 5-0.

The Personnel Improvement Plan 2019-2023 was amended by a vote of 5-0.