Pre-Independence Day Fireworks at the Council

City Council Workshop and Meeting for July 2, 2019

HELLO Copperas Cove! Thank you for your continued support and following of the blog. We appreciate all of you - be sure to share these so you can help keep your fellow citizens involved as well. Did you know we have a Facebook page now? If you haven't already been to it, go check it out! https://www.facebook.com/speakupcove/ Ok - on with the latest City Council Workshop and Regular Meeting.

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


Quick Workshop notes about the proposed budget.

1. $44,658,523 is the proposed amount expenditures compared to $42,034,726.
2. Golf course deficit was not designated as a priority for the council. The CM says that time is coming soon.
3. There is slow property tax growth for the city at 1% to 1 1/2%.
4. The forecast is for flat sales tax growth due to the thinking of a recession is on the way. In the last 12 months we have averaged 8% increase in sales tax.
5. 61% of the budget is for Public Safety.
6. 0% increase in expenditures in the proposed budget.
7. $1 increase in garbage collection fee.
8. Important Dates: July 9 at 5PM budget details discussed. July 30 Proposed tax rate. August 1, HOT funds and General Fund request presentations.

Council Meeting!

The Agenda:

Citizens Forum:

James Pierce spoke about permits in the city after the June 9th tornado. His home was affected by it and suffered moderate damage. James had called the Building Department this afternoon to inquire about fencing permits, in order to replace his damaged fence. James learned the the permit process was the same for tornado victims and people wanting to upgrade their properties. He stated that he understood the whole process but why were the victims being charged the permit fee and all the requirements for the replacement. He did not choose the replace his fence or roof the tornado made the choice for him and his family. The council should look at this situation for a resolution now and if for some how happens again in the future. James also told the council that he supports the Visitor's bureau staying in the city. It has been very good with tourism function since the city took it back from the Chamber of Commerce. It should be the city's job to run the bureau and not a non-profit entity.

-Siggi Loe spoke about several things. She started off about the recent City Manager search. She doesn't have a problem with Ryan Haverlah being the person nominated for the position, but she did echo the sentiment of a lot of citizens in that she feels he was going to be the winning candidate from the start based on comments she had heard from council members like Dan Yancey during the search. When this comment was made, Mr Yancey started shaking his head as if he was wanting to argue that his comments were being taken out of context, however Council Members are not permitted to respond to citizens during citizens forum.  Siggi continued that she wishes the city hadn't wasted $26,500 on a search that took longer than it should have when we had a qualified candidate all along.
From there, she went on to mention that Copperas Cove City Park was recently in the news with a story about the poor condition of the restrooms at the park. She brought up her feeling that the Parks and Rec department should have addressed these before addressing the parking lots since people have always been able to park there, but the restrooms have long been in disrepair. She also brought up the recent Library overhaul and wanted to know why they didn't install an automatically opening front door during the overhaul since it is required by the Americans with Disabilities Act. This is especially surprising with the emphasis the city has placed on installing ADA ramps and sidewalks all over 190/downtown Cove to the point that several of them are in the way of traffic and routinely being run over by large trucks/trailers.
The citizens have been against the downtown overhaul just as much as they have the 190 median project, however she feels like the council just does what they want with disregard to the wishes of the taxpayers which has led to a loss of trust by the citizens. For an example, she brought up that Marc Payne ran on the platform of being against 190 which got her vote as well as other citizens. Then, when it was time to vote - he voted for the project. As a final point, she tried to compliment the bill board in front of Mr Manning's business, however she was cut off by the Mayor and told to stop calling out council members.

Action Items:

-On June 18th, we covered 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. After much deliberation, they post-pone the decision for today's meeting once it was discovered that Copperas Cove would have to pay for any bonded land if they were to annex the land for development. Since then, Kempner VFD did have a meeting with the City of Copperas Cove on June 20 and brought some new information to the city. Right now, Kempner VFD is just asking Copperas Cove City Council to approve the request so it can go to the County Commissioner for open forum, and then hopefully be approved on to a public vote by the citizens. Dan Yancey wanted to know what would happen if the city annexes out of the ESD, to which it was confirmed that the city would just need to send notice to the ESD, and the ESD must remove the territory. However, if there is debt involved from a bond, the city would incur the debt for that portion of land. The % of debt would be based on the appraisal value of the land, which goes back 120 years throughout all of Texas.
Speaking to Ryan, Kirby said he is split with this decision. The humanitarian in him would love to pass this to help Kempner VFD improve their response times to emergency calls and potentially save lives at stake. But working for Copperas Cove says he should not be bringing on extra costs for the citizens if they won't be getting anything out of it which is what would happen if the city were to try to annex land so a developer could build on it - the city would have to pay for any debt on that land, which would come from the tax payers. Fred spoke in agreement with Kirby in that incurring more debt isn't something he wants for citizens. Ryan brought up that if the city annexes land from the ESD, they can ask that the ESD releases the land and take on the debt, or the city can annex and not ask for release, but then the ESD gets paid double. He also brought up that a lot of this land they are looking at implementing an ESD on already has homes on it with homeowners who intentionally bought outside of city limits for their own reasons. In Texas, it is virtually impossible to annex land that already has homes on it without the home owners approval. With that said, the only land they would be able to annex would be open land that developers are looking to build on which would put the city in a position of paying for a developer to be able to build on that land. Jay also pointed out that someone could request to be annexed into the city, but then the citizens would be responsible for footing the bill to allow that to happen.
Marc Payne, who was absent from the last meeting so he could attend a "Keep Texas Beautiful" conference, then went on to ask a lot of questions that were already covered at the last meeting, and that he could have gotten answers to by watching the cities video coverage. Most of the questions were regarding KVFD, their lack of personnel, equipment, response times, and future foreseeable problems. In the end, there was a 5-1 vote AGAINST this measure, with Kirby Lack being the only vote in favor.

-Jonas Titas, Executive Director of the Copperas Cove Economic Development Corporation presented the 2019-2020 proposed budget to the council.

-Ryan Haverlah held discussion with the council about involvement in the regional Defense Economic Adjustment Assistance Grant to move forward with the Multi-Modal Rail Facility. The rail facility will be tied in with the current rail head just to the east of HWY 9, before you pass under the overpass for Tank Destroyer Road. This project would bring two extra ramps to HWY 9 - one would be northbound allowing you access to Tank Destroyer Road, and the other would be allowing access to southeast-bound HWY 9 from Old Georgetown Road. If the project is approved for funding, it MUST be completed in 2 years. Fort Hood normally would contribute 1,000,000 for a project like this, but they are concerned with contributing money for a project that they would lose ownership on. Because of this, local entities will probably have to contribute more than usual. The cost of construction is estimated at 5 million, so Copperas Cove would like to see that split to 1.7 million per local entity. Marc Payne asked if ramps will be used by civilians or only the military? Ryan said that's a great question and that Ft Hood is looking to move its entry control point to Tank Destroyer Rd. If that happens, the primary activity with these ramps is expected to be commercial. The council voted unanimously to PASS this and move forward with how things are going.

The next item on the agenda was the discussion about moving the Visitor's Bureau from the City to the Chamber of Commerce. The was the idea of Councilman Youngs, who was not present this evening. The City Manager recommended that the discussion and action to move should wait until after the HOT request on August 1, 2019. He said that the Chamber had already made HOT requests for those areas belonging to he Visitor's Bureau. All the present council members agree to the delay. Editor's comment: Why did the Chamber of Commerce already do HOT funds requests that the Visitor's Bureau usually requests, who led them to to the request, and who coordinated all the activities. Also, all the members of the council and mayor (only if they are members of the Chamber of Commerce) should recuse themselves from the discussion and vote because of possible conflict of interest. The conflict comes from the local government moving the Visitors Bureau to a non-profit organization which would be using tax funds approved by the council.

-Brian Wyers, Deputy Chief of Police, brought discussion on the Animal Shelter Project. He had previously brought this to council and presented plans for an indoor shelter with a cost of $7,473,000 or an outdoor shelter with a cost of $6,105,000. The council rejected the original costs and told him they were in agreement with the idea, but to bring down the cost.
Since then, he's looked at removing some storage rooms, and reducing the size of some work areas. He can't see doing too much more than that without really impacting operations of the center. He's able to get the cost down below $5,000,000 for an indoor facility. He would prefer to locate it at Ogletree Gap, but has also located next to the incoming Fire Station in the Narrows business park, or next to Fire Station #2 out past City Park. From there, he went over the different options for moving forward with bidding or bringing in contractors. The council repeatedly expressed that they weren't crazy with the idea of this being in Ogletree Gap, but they did seem to come to an agreement on using the location in the Narrows Business park. There was initial concern over putting a pound in a business park, but Brian clarified that this isn't going to look like what people think of when a dog pound comes to mind. It will be modeled more like walking into a petsmart with how the animal displays are. They are trying to make it more inviting and nicer so it will attract more people and have a better chance at competing with the pet stores. The council voted to allow this to move forward and get input from an architect as well as put it on a bond for 2020. Editor's comment: Councilman Chavez asked how deceased animals are taken care of and if that was taken in account. He was briefed on the process but not before Councilman Payne said that "they were taken to a restaurant downtown" in a joking manner. I am sorry but that is not a joking manner and that Mr Chavez asked a serious question. One person stated to me as they left "Let me know when they start acting like adults".

The council set the Public Hearing day for the budget on July 30, 2019.