Last City Council meeting before Mayor election!

Last City Council meeting before Mayor election!


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

Mayor Candidate:
Bradi Dewald Diaz - Absent
Joey Acfalle - Absent
Ron Nelson - Present
Brandi Weiand - Absent

Hello again Copperas Cove! It's great to have you back for another recap of the latest City Council meeting. We appreciate each and every one of you for checking in and sharing these blogs with your fellow residents. The more we can educate the citizens of Copperas Cove, the more educated people will be going to the polls and knowing what's going on in our little corner of Coryell County. If you haven't already - remember to subscribe!!

Breaking News for our concerned citizens!!!

Two weeks ago, Jonathan Haywood spoke during Citizens Forum about a shopping center entry way between the Laserwash and Valvoline that was very dilapidated with pot holes. The city and all the businesses in the responsible area thought the other entity owned the area so it was never repaired. James Pierce followed up a couple days later at the building department (they are responsible for business code enforcement) and filed a complaint against all the business' in order for the city to resolve the issue of ownership. Ryan Haverlah told Mr. Pierce Tuesday evening that the owner of the property where Lazerwash is located is in fact the rightful owner of that particular piece of concrete and has been notified by letter of the issues at hand.

The Agenda:

Announcements:

Ryan Haverlah: Parks and Rec has a Parks Improvement Plan survey out right now and they would appreciate all the input they can get. That survey can be found here: Survey Monkey Cove Master Park Plan  . Also, the Easter Egg round up was postponed due to weather and is now going to be this Thursday (18 April, 2019), starting at 6pm at City Park. 

Dan Yancey: Voting for our next Mayor is going on right now, so be sure to get out and vote! 

Editors Note: Voting for the Central Texas College Board of Trustees will be starting next week (April 22-30). Technically, you can get out and vote Monday and Tuesday and be able to vote twice in one day! Copperas Cove Citizens can vote for the CTC Trustees at the new CCISD Administrative Building, next to Lil Tex/across from the Library. 

Citizens Forum: Just a quick friendly reminder to our citizens - All citizens are allotted a 5 minute block of time for which to speak. There are 30 minutes set aside for the citizens forum. Additionally, by State Law, the Council Members and City Staff are not allowed to answer questions during citizens forum. Any questions asked will be met with helpless faces of "We wish we could answer, but we can't". However - you can show up early and ask council members questions, or stay late and ask them questions. 

Nick: In reference to tonight's Action Item #1, he supports it and encourages the council to as well. 

Wendy: Just showed up from Virginia, but owns property in Copperas Cove. She asked how is code enforcement enforced if violations are not addressed. She also asked is there a 5 year plan for Copperas Cove, and if so is it available for the public to see online or via email. 

Terri: There will be a major disaster drill on May 7th. An application has just been released and she reviewed the general basis of it. She did mention that it says registration does not guarantee participation. Stay tuned for more on this in a future blog. 

Siggi: Touched on the topic of transparency in government. There was a City Council Workshop on March 19th that was listed as "Presentation and discussion on a Downtown Transportation Feasibility Plan". When reading this, she took it as they were talking about a bus route or something to do with buses. She did not understand that it would be discussing road work that would possibly be going under the railroad tracks and she feels like it was intended to mislead the public so the City Council could push this through. 

Public Hearing:

1. This hearing had to do with the applicant shutting down Kids World Daycare Center. The building has been a business for at least 50 years that she could track, and she's been running it for over 20. She shut the business down last July and the property has been for sale the past 4 years. She has been having problems selling it, and she thinks that's been in large part to it being zoned as B-2(Local Retail District) business in the middle of a residential (this is a house that was running as a business). She would like to have it rezoned to R-1(Single Family Residential) to make it easier to sell. PASS

2. This hearing had to do with rezoning from an R-3 (Multifamily Residential District) to a B-3(Local Business District). This will bring the lot in line with all surrounding lots. PASS

3. This hearing had to do with a local resident wanting to change his conditional use permit from a Commercial Office Building, to a retail store to put in a food mart. This has years of backstory and as well as a lot of recent events to it, so bear with me as I try to condense it down a little while still getting everything in here. 

In mid 2013, the property owner, Mr. Amr Abdelazeem (we'll call him Mr A - with all due respect), requested the property be rezoned to R-3 (Multi-Family Residential) District with a Conditional Use Permit to allow for the construction of a commercial office building for a branch of his business office and an additional office space to lease to a future tenant.  The item was passed through the P&Z Commission on May 28, 2013 and presented to City Council on June 4, 2013. The Conditional Use Permit was granted by Ordinance No. 2013-29 and was limited to the operation of certain conditional uses outlined in the Zoning Ordinance for two (2) professional office uses being Engineering Services and Architectural and Planning Services.

In addition to granting the Conditional Use Permit for them to run a business office, they presented Mr A a long list of standards that had to be met covering everything from numbers of parking spaces to the privacy fence in the back and lighting that couldn't leave his northern property line. Somewhere along the line, Mr A decided that the business office wasn't going to work out, but he wanted to put up a convenience store instead. 

He took this to the P&Z Board and showed he had plans to meet all the criteria, and then some. However, upset citizens were taking notice as well and were also showing up as well as writing letters to show their displeasure. Eventually, the P&Z Board shot it down, which sent it to the City Council where it could only pass with a 75% vote in favor. Ryan Haverlah updated the council and showed that every specification asked for was met. They wanted 6 parking spots, he put in 7. They wanted a plan to show how the delivery trucks and trash truck would get in and out - he had it. They wanted a well let back area as an emergency exit, with privacy fence and a way to keep kids out from that back area - he had it all figured out. Then came the public forum. 

Anna is a nearby resident and she spoke out against this. She and her neighbors are fine with it being an office space because then they would only be there during normal office hours, there would be no increase in crime, and traffic wouldn't be affected. The roads nearby aren't wide enough to handle big delivery trucks or a lot of traffic and they have had 5 hit and run accidents recently to prove it. There's not enough parking here, the building doesn't have enough square footage, and she saw mention of this needing a generator as an office building, so as a convenience store with all those cold beverages, it would need an even bigger generator which would be loud and smelly from all the gas they use! There's not enough room in the back for a privacy wall, bushes, and sidewalk as required by the city. There's not enough sidewalks in the area so kids would be walking in the streets being a hazard to traffic, or walking on peoples lawns, damaging property. Since 2013, there have been 31 code violations to this property and on average they take 1 month to resolve the issues. On top of that, the property is a construction mess that should be closed off because people are getting hurt on it as well as stuck, needing help from Cove PD to get them off the property. There's also a fire hydrant right next to the parking spots which isn't allowed, too small of a loading zone, and the city setback lines aren't met. Lastly, they have a fear of reduced property values, which their values have already been dropping in recent years because of this building. 

Ginger is also a nearby resident and spoke out against this. Cove prides itself on being a community built on family living, so they need to keep citizens where they belong and businesses where they belong - not mixed together. 

Mr A finally had his chance to speak up. He argued that they have complied with every city and ADA condition thrown at him. He's also on the corner of a residential, not mixed in it, and there's other convenience stores around town that are actually IN the residential areas, such as the Family Food Mart on S 23rd and Urbantke. Furthermore, there has never been any discussion about him needing an external generator for his business because they will be using city water, power lines, and everything else typically supplied to a business via service carrier. No shrubs will be needed in the back because of the fence he's putting up which leaves plenty of room for the sidewalk and fence. The fire hydrant not only isn't in the way, but he's already gotten the fire marshal to approve its location in relation to parking. The new building will be better than what was there before and will actually raise property values once it's done because it will look very nice and be nearby shopping. Trucks won't ever need to be on Megg Street, so the tight spots aren't a concern, and in fact his impact on extra traffic is 0%. Nobody is coming across town just to use a convenience store. They have met all city requests and have had no code violations, so he's not sure where this 31 number came from. When this is done, not only will the building be very clean, but it will also be run by a property management company - not him. So there should never be any code violations. This project complies with all ADA, Federal, and City codes. The sidewalk in the back will have a back door from the building as required by fire code, but there will be a gate with a one way latch on it so you can only open the gate from the inside to keep trouble makers out. 

Dan Yancey said that in June 2013, this was approved for a conditional use permit issued for commercial office use - not a store. Why did you not complete that office space? Mr A stated he was told by the city planner that he could lease the space instead to make a store. He provided papers that I am assuming were backing up this claim. 

Marc Payne proposed that the original use of the term "High Volume Generator" when describing the property may be where the generator confusion came from. The proposed parking use is doubling use of the loading zone/handicap zone. The area that should be allowed for vans to unload wheel chairs is also marked as a loading zone, so if a delivery truck is there, that driver may not be able to get in their van for at least 15 minutes. Mr A stated that the loading zone for vans is actually on the other side of the parking spot and is plenty of room, as dictated by the ADA standards. 

Mr A's Son came up after some slight deliberation among council members and stated that he was also available for any questions they may have. Their family has convenience stores all around the area so they're used to doing things right. 

Siggi spoke up and said she stands with the local residents. If they don't want it, she doesn't approve either. This sentiment was met with support from other Cove residents supporting the neighborhood residents directly affected. One resident stated "This store can't be there to support the community when the community doesn't support the store". 

With that, this went to vote and was REJECTED by the council - with no votes approving.

Action Items:

H-1 On the west side of town, the owner of the land by the SE Bypass and Dollar Tree wants to develop his land for commercial purposes. Before it can be developed, water issues need to be ironed out. The Certificates of Convenience and Necessity (CCN) belongs to KWSC (Kempner Water Supply Corporation) and they can supply the water for the Copperas Cove property but they can't supply the 1500gpm for for fire flow to fire hydrants. That is the city standard in order to supply fire suppression from hydrants. If it can't be provided then you can't build. The Interim City Manager offered three options to the council. Option one, let KWSC provide everything (they can't). Option 2, Let KWSC provide water and Copperas Cove provide fire suppression (many concerns of long term maintenance and right of way). Option 3, Copperas Cove purchases the entire CCN for $810 per acre and does it all. The council chose Option three, unanimously. This was a very wise vote because we needed this to spur development on the west side, of Copperas Cove.

H-2 Darrell, with The HOP presented a summary of it's operations the past 6 months, since the last time it was before the council asking for funding. This funding is to cover operational costs such as fuel, insurance, maintenance, salaries, etc... They have a goal of 10 passengers per service hour, and have been averaging out at around 11.5 passengers per service hour. They run Monday - Friday from 6:45 - 5:45 and recently had cut back an hour to adjust for this fiscal years budget. Jay Manning says he remembers them from their last presentation. It's not very often they get someone up there asking for 3x more than their normal asking funding like the HOP did last fall. With all these increases in funding requests, have they increased their fee schedule? Darrell stated they have not yet, but they are working towards that point. Jay responded with it's unfair to ask tax payers to increase how much they are funding the HOP if the HOP isn't going to reflect the raise on their riders. Right now, tax payers are paying about $4 per ride. Darrell responded that their fairs only cover about 4% of their operating costs right now. Additionally, the more business they get, the more federal dollars they can bring in. The less business they get, the fewer Federal dollars they bring in which in turn makes them rely on local communities more. So if they raise fairs up too much and people stop riding because of that, then that will affect how much they come to their local community for. 

PASS

H-3 Clarence with the National Mounted Warfare Museum presented a slide show and video showing how the new museum would affect the area, where it would go, and what it would look like. He then requested the $25,000 payment from the council. PASS  You can find out more about the museum here: http://nmwfoundation.org/

H4 and H5 were both having to do with approving some new homes coming in off of Lutheran Church Road as well as approving ordinances to do with Water Conservation and the Drought Contingency Plan. Both of those were a solid PASS. 

REPORTS:
Fred Chavez was recently at an event in Killeen where they were discussing I-14 and it's entirety. Since I-14 passes through Copperas Cove, he started asking how Cove could be a part of this "14 Forward" initiative. He was told we should continue expansion, and look into these 5G efforts. Get with CCISD because they are looking to bring fiber optic into their schools and we could implement that into the city. One attraction for a lot of people these days is moving to areas that are fiber equipped. When it comes to the rail head - joint use can be difficult because the Army is known for taking what they want when needed. But, don't let that shy us away because this can be very good for the area. The feasibility study was easy, finding partners and funding is the hard part. This will bring rail access to the local area that we haven't ever had. Our relationship with the Heart O Texas Defense Alliance is good to have. Don't get so focused on only us that we isolate our community. We are encouraged to keep regional cooperation and awareness going.

Future Agenda Items
Marc Payne would like to see a workshop on purchasing of CCN's.

Capitol Improvement Plan Town Hall

11 FEB 2019 - Capitol Improvement Plan Town Hall 

Hello Copperas Cove! The Copperas Cove City Manager (Ryan Haverlah) held a Town Hall event tonight to go over some of the projects the city is working on right now. He wanted to do this to inform and update the public of what is in the works as well as let citizens voice their opinion about the current projects and bring up ideas for future projects. The presentation is non-prioritized, and still has several different projects in their early stages of planning. 

This was not a required event for our City Council members to attend, however we did have most of them in attendance along with Bradi Diaz and Ron Nelson (Mayoral Candidates), as well as several other directors of public departments and organizations. In case you're wondering about your elected council members:

Joann Courtland: Present

Fred Chavez: Present

Dan Yancey: Present

Jay Manning: Present

Kirby Lack: Absent

Marc Payne: Present 

Charlie Youngs: Absent 

The presentation was presented in 5 sections divided by funding: General Fund, Water and Sewer Fund, Solid Waste Fund, Drainage Fund, and Golf Course Fund. A lot of these don't require a lot of commentary, so I will be touching on key points. 

The General Fund is expected to be funded through a bond not to exceed $40,000,000, so they do still have some trimming to do on costs. As of now, the expected total for the General Fund sits at about $55,000,000, so that's at least $15,000,000 that they need to cut back by revising projects or putting them on the back burner. 

For starters, we'll dive into the General Fund Projects. A few points to note:

-Fire Station #3 is located out west of Ogletree Gap. It isn't that old itself, however shortly after we finished building it - it was already too small. Fire trucks and ambulances have grown in size since then which requires bigger bays to store them. Additionally, this station staffs 2 people. Each truck requires a minimum of 2 people to run it; even then, those 2 people are usually taking the vehicle and meeting up with other crews. Once that truck is out, there's nobody left to staff the station if another call goes off in it's area or if someone shows up needing assistance. So this project will be to update and expand the building which will accommodate the larger vehicles and allow increased staffing. This is scheduled to be a 2019 project. 

-Radio Station Communications System Infrastructure Update- Over the years, our first responders have been updating their equipment, including radios. New radios and old equipment/infrastructure don't mix very well. They will be updating this facility to fully maximize use of the current radios, update consoles and add 2 additional consoles, 

-The animal shelter has long been identified as being inadequate for our needs. The current plan is for them to build a completely new building at a new location in 2020. It will have more kennels, an upgraded adoption space, more office space, an updated clinic, and updated quarantine area. This plan as it stands was presented to the council and kicked back due to exceeding what they wanted to spend. It is being revised right now to bring the cost down, but as it currently stands the cost shown is correct. 

-Fire Station #4 will be a new fire station on the east side of town. The EDC has donated land in the Narrows Business Park for this. The 24,409 sq ft building will be started in 2020, is expected to be completed in 2021, and will need an additional $1,895,000 for trucks and equipment on top of the $12,805,582 for the building itself. 

In the Transportation projects, they will be using MPO funding for the majority of these projects. 

-Business 190 Project  was originally a 2 lanes in each direction project on top of widened sidewalks and bike lanes added. That was recently changed to 3 lanes in each direction, with sidewalks not as wide and only on the south side of the highway. It is currently in design phase, but you can find schematics on the City Website (embedded link). It is projected to start construction in 2020 and be completed in 2021. 

-South FM 116 & FM 3046 Sidewalk Improvements will possibly be having bike lanes added to the sidewalk improvements for this project. That is currently under revision. 

-Narrows Business Park will be having sidewalks installed for the entire park. 

The street projects are slated to have some MUCH needed work done around town. It won't fix all our street problems, but it's a good start. 

-Pecan Cove Drive was JUST talked about at last weeks city council meeting, so I'm hoping that Mr Oliver is paying attention. This is a very heavily used road and has had problems going back 20 years. It sounds like instead of just doing another patch job, they will finally be getting the job done right. In 2019, they will be completely reconstructing this road and installing guardrails where needed. While they have it up, they will be inspecting and relocating some water lines as needed to avoid having to dig up the road at a later date due to water line leakage. If they can get this done, it will be one of the first road projects completed in 6 years. 

-S. FM 1113 Sidewalk will be in its 2nd phase of construction. They got this started in the previous phase, but there's a lot of spots where the sidewalk didn't connect in spots like it should. This will be fixing those issues in 2020. 

-Eagle Trail Dr has sections where the road base has failed (usually due to erosion) and will require the city to completely tear it up, correct/replace the road base, and re-lay asphalt. I can tell you from personal experience in this field - sometimes you can lay a great base and top it off with a beautiful layer of good asphalt. Mother nature may have different plans for the longevity of that road, or other man-made factors may come into play from nearby projects. This is just one of those things, and I'm glad to see the city going about this with a proper fix. This is looking to be done in 2020. 

-Oakhill Drive has been having drainage problems for a few years now which has torn away at the asphalt. They're going to correct the drainage issues and replace the asphalt in 2021. 

-Veterans Ave is one of our older streets around here and the sidewalks reflect this. In 2021 they will be giving all the sidewalks on the NE side an overhaul as well as installing ADA compliant ramps. 

-Freedom Lane, South 1st, Ogletree Pass, Grimes Crossing, Suja Lane, and Megg Street are all due for reconstruction due to base failure. Freedom Lane will be having ribbon curbing installed as part of the project. 

Joe Brown over with Parks and Rec has some big things going on with revamping the city parks over a 5 phase project. Currently we are in phase 1 of that project. It will entail things like new restrooms, overhauling parks, and installing new ADA compliant parking lots. For more information, I HIGHLY recommend you sit in on a Quality of Life meeting or Parks and Rec quarterly update. I can answer specific questions, so if you have any - please leave them in the comments. Parks and Rec is also going to be building a new maintenance shop which will be 5,600 sq ft with 2 bay doors. They've added in some newer storage shops recently, and this will be the final touch to their vehicle storage/maintenance area. Construction is expected to begin 2019. There was a crowd mention to use EDC funds to help towards the almost 8 million dollar Parks Improvement Plan. 

The library has been going through some pretty major changes recently including an addition of a very nice reading room and mural in the front entrance area. Next on their list is to overhaul the childrens room, updating their shelves to be more friendly towards kids and bring in technology to modernize the room. 

A citizen stated to Ryan that she would like to see sidewalks on both sides of residential areas as well as better street lighting. She would like to see us have the contractors make this happen when new neighborhoods are put in. Ryan responded that this is currently in the works. 

The Water and Sewer Projects are coming from the Water and Sewage Fund

-SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Aquisition) allows for remote monitoring and adjustment of public water and sewer systems. Most cities and municipalities are running them to some degree these days. We are going to update our water systems SCADA, and install one for our sewer systems. Currently, our sewer department has been having to do this job with radios and people on the ground. This update will make things much more efficient for the sewer crew and free up people to take on more work orders. 

-Oak Hill Drive is currently in the middle of its water pipe improvement. They are upgrading to a bigger 8" waterline down Oakhill Drive. 

-A few years ago, we upgraded our waterline through Ft Hood. We never officially abandoned our 8" and 12" lines that we were using. Unfortunately, you can't just say "hey- we don't want it anymore" to abandon a water line. You have to pull it out, burst it in ground, fill it with a solid substance, or find another way to make it unusable. We are currently looking into our options and costs associate. 

-Hogg Mtn has a water tank that is needing a rehabilitation. To do this, they will be draining the tank, cleaning the inside, re-coating the metal so it doesn't rust, and then applying a new coat of paint to the outside. Turkey Run has a water tank that needs the same applied. 

-South Meadows will be seeing a waterline improvement in the nature of a loop system upgrade. Currently, the system is a dead end which is harder to maintain quality pressure and requires more cleanings/service. The loop system being installed will address those issues. 

-Mickan Mountain needs to have the "Bulldog" tank torn down and a new one built in its place.  I suggested to Ryan that if we do this - can we get a group like the art guild to come in and put a bulldog on the new tank. I feel like that has been a long standing staple of this town and would like to see us keep our Bulldog pride for past alumni and future students alike. He added that to his notes. 

-The 24" N. Loop Water Line was actually voted on by the citizens back in 2008 or 2009. When the city started looking into it, they saw it would require an easement through Fort Hood, and the easement cost more than the project itself. With that knowledge, they backed off the project. Now, the area that we needed an easement through has our hwy 9 on it, so we are going to use that area for the water line and avoid the easement fee. 

-The city has a lot of galvanized water line that they are wanting to replace to PVC. This will be a project which will take many years to complete. 

-The City Park Sewer Line has a lot of other smaller sewer lines that tie into it. So this upgrade is vital to the general health of the surrounding areas. Along with the pipe upgrade, they will also be adding in several new manholes that are needed. 

- There are many manholes around the city that need to be upgraded. They are made of brick which has problems with corrosion. There are 266 identified brick manholes that will be upgraded at a rate of 13 per year over 20 years. 

The Wastewater plant upgrades are also coming from the Water and Sewage Fund. 

-A Submersible UV Disinfectant System is scheduled to be installed. Micro-Organisms are used to treat the water, and then the UV system removes them. Other than that, they are trying to update a lot of systems due to breakdown/wear out with age as well as upgrade to that SCADA mentioned earlier. 

The Solid Waste Dept is using its Solid Waste Fund to give the transfer station some much needed upgrades. One of the biggest will be the addition of a wash rack for the garbage trucks. There are strict regulations to what is involved in washing one of these trucks, and this wash rack will address all of those. For those of you who go with smaller cars - they will be installing a lower window and transfer drawer for receipts/money at the drive up scale house. 

The Drainage Dept will be using Drainage Funds to perform upgrades city-wide to our drainage systems. They will also be addressing the washout at the Indian Camp Trail Shared Use Path. I think the plan was to run the water under the trail rather than over it, or maybe slow down the water coming onto it. 

The Golf Course will be using their fund to pay for several improvements including an ongoing Cart Path Improvement, renovation of the tennis courts and pool area (putting in a canopy for events), moving and reconstructing the Pro Shop back to its original location overlooking the golf course, remodeling the current pro shop, and reconstructing the cart barn. There was a comment from the public again about using the EDC to help fund some of these projects. 

As you can see, there is a LOT of improvement going on around Copperas Cove. What are you looking forward to? What do you think they could do better? The city council will be reviewing the CIP and public input in March so you still have time to Speak Up!!!