City Council - Regular Meeting

It is now 5 p.m. I'll call this meeting to order. Note that all council members are present and council member Charles Kimball is on Zoom. We will be, I'm gonna ask the council to, when we vote to show, we're gonna vote by showing of hands. Okay. I need a motion to approve the agenda. It was motioned by Councilmember Kendricks. Do you need a second?

Second.

Second by Councilmember Brown. All in favor signify by raising your hands. Councilmember Kimball, I'll see you. The motion carries seven to zero. Thank you. And now it's time for citizen comments.

We have five people signed up. The first person is Anca Nyagu.

Good afternoon, ma'am.

Thank you, Council, Mayor. First of all, in my opinion, anyone who requests an extra minute should automatically receive it. Otherwise, you're going to discriminate. If one person can get the extra minute and the other person cannot, that means you're going to, in my opinion. Regarding citizen comments, The governing standard, well actually, City Council in 2023 added non-agenda items for the public. After the City Council voted to add the non-agenda items, Mr. Cagle changed that to restrict to only residents of Killeen. And after that, The mayor at the time, and I quote, we're going to put on the agenda in January in detail with our legal team on how we can address the same five or six citizens who come up to the podium and only attack the council, end of quote. And the non-agenda items were removed as a result. The purpose of removing the non-agenda items, was to silence those five individuals. Counsel, you didn't silence five individuals, you silenced hundreds, if not thousands. Respectfully, if you cannot take criticism, again, respectfully, you should not be on the council. And I agree, there are people that come up here and I don't like the tone of their voice. I don't like some of the things they say. I don't agree with them. but they have the right to say it. And they're gonna be disrespectful, they're gonna be critical whether it's agenda item or non-agenda item. The only problem I have with non-agenda item, and I am for them, I am for them, but I'm wondering what if 50 people show up and they all wanna speak on non-agenda items. I wonder if there is a way to limit that so it'll get a little bit overwhelming. I don't have much more to say. I am for non-agenda items. One of the persons was denied speaking. Well, I was one of them. The other one was C.J. Gershon. I understand he's very intimidating, but he's a member of the public, and he should be allowed to speak. being intimidating, being whatever you want, disrespectful, whatever you think the case may be, you're a member of the public. Unless somebody threatens one of you, yeah, that would not be okay. But other than that, tone of voice that sounds critical to some of you, they have the right to use it.

Thank you, ma'am. Your time is up.

Thank you.

Madam City Attorney.

Michael Fornino.

for some house cleaning.

Good afternoon, sir.

The discuss and consider changing time for special meetings scheduled, whoever's bonehead idea that was, deny it. I already suspect that somebody's trying to rig it to have these meetings to where the public can't participate at a very inconvenient time. That being said, I attended all but one of the Charter Review Committee meetings and some of the things that I think that you should definitely especially in the signs of today's issues with KDC and others that I'm sure to follow on shortly. City Council initiated investigations. We have the unique position right now where Mr. Kimball is not present but he is more than qualified to write up an SOP that would be standard operating procedure on how to conduct an investigation. I think his qualifications on that are impeccable and unquestionable. So as far as any of that goes, that follows on to something that I also further advocated for. As we're a home rule city, if we have a council member that is indeed not performing to par, not responding, not living up to the expectations of the constituents, is a provision that a general rule city has to where a citizen can go out to county court file and have judicial removal it does have a cost to it that would definitely prevent it from being frivolous i don't like someone's haircut their shoes or whatever there would be a prohibited cost prohibitive cost to that so as far as I'm sorry to say, but we've had the good old boys and girls club up here for far too long. We need to have something from the citizen side to push back. So if somebody up here is doing something that we feel needs to be investigated and the body will not act, we the people, at cost to ourselves, at least need to have that right to go out to county and have the district attorney act on our behalf, do the investigation, and pull it. On that caveat, if the district attorney does that and they take a look at it and they say there's no case, whoever files for it is not getting their money back. So, I mean, it's not something that could be used frivolously. With resign to run, I don't so much mind anybody moving from seat to seat, but if they're definitely running for a seat outside of current level at municipal, county, state, whatever, yes, resign. Because truly, how can you have full focus on for one thing or the other. It's just unfair to everybody concerned. Candidate filing fee, I don't really have an opinion on that one way or the other. That's something for bigger heads on money. Initiative of referendum requirements, well, this one's gonna be fun. I think we should just check the box now since we already know how that case has wound up. We're just waiting on the judge to finish signing his name. Citizen comment period and all that, I think that We need to open it up and adhere to the First Amendment, and that's all I have.

Thank you, sir. Madam City Secretary.

James Sills.

Welcome, Mayor and council members, back and new. Mayor, talk about non-agenda citizen comments. So one, email is not a sufficient replacement for listening to citizens. I sent you all an email on June 3rd, and the mayor and two council members acknowledged receipt of that. I specifically requested that you acknowledge you received that email, and only three people did that. And so I'm either sitting here to presume that you didn't receive it or you ignored it. All right. And that's the crux of the issue when you have a dependency on email to address or hear your citizens because we have no feedback. There's no feedback mechanism for that unless you respond to us. Next, it can be time, right? Time is not the problem in listening to citizens. You just had a nine-hour meeting, and nine minutes of that were citizen comments. That's not us, right? We didn't prolong that meeting. You had a six hour one and it was 12 minutes of citizen comments. So it's not about time. That wasn't removed because of time. And that's why standing here is the most important thing and listening, right? Hearing us talk about things that are not on the agenda to bring awareness to issues around this city. You know, emails don't do that, right? You don't have to listen to me, but I know standing here I was hurt, and that's the difference, right? That's why non-agenda citizen comments should be brought back. But they can't just be brought back and left up to this council because there's chances people get their feelings hurt. There's chances people get on political whims. They want to do something different to silence those voices. It should not be your decision. The same democratic process that put you in those seats is the same democratic process that we are requesting as citizens. The right for non-agenda citizen comments should be in the charter, and that should be left up to vote by the citizens, not a decision by a council. If it's in the charter, it can't be removed based on how a council's feeling that day. So give us the chance, give citizens the opportunity to decide if non-agenda citizen comments should be available to us. Put it on the election, let us vote on that, and provide us that opportunity. Thanks.

Thank you, sir. Thank you, Madam City Attorney.

Dr. Sue Neesey Croft.

Good afternoon, ma'am.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm here tonight seeking clarification regarding the Chapter Review Committee recommendations that are being presented for discussion. According to February 3rd, 2026 council meetings, the council directed the charter review committee to review articles three, six, nine, and 10 of the city charter. The motion referenced the city attorney's overview of charter amendments related to those articles. As I review the current discussion topics, I see election dates, term limits, resigned to run provision, vacancies, council-initiated investigations, candidate filing fees. I think y'all need to be paid more for the crap that y'all got to deal with. Initiative and referendum, especially if you got to pay a fee to get up on that dais. requirements, recall procedures, judicial removal of elected officials, citizens' comment periods, and change order briefings by the city manager. My request is simple. For the benefit of the public, would staff identify the specific chapter, article, and sections associated with each proposed amendment under discussion? Doing this so helps citizens understand whether each proposal falls within the scope of Articles 3, 6, 9, and 10 as authorized by the Council on February 3rd. In addition, if any recommendations affects a chapter article outside of Articles 3, 6, 9, and 10, I would appreciate clarification as to when Council expanded the committee scope to include those additional provisions. Rather, my purpose is not to support or oppose, in particular, amendment tonight. Rather, I am seeking, asking for transparency and a clear roadmap so citizens can follow the connections between the council's original directions, the committee's recommendations, and the specific charter sections being considered for amendment. Since additional special meetings have been scheduled to further discuss the chapter review committee recommendation, I would also respectfully request that the public be provided with a cross-reference document identifying each proposed amendment, the current city chapter article and section being amended and proposed change, and the rationale for the recommendation. Such a document would help citizens review the proposal in advance, provide meaningful feedback, and participate more fully in the chapter review process. I'd like additional minutes, please.

You may, ma'am.

I want to thank you for your time and consideration and the 394, I appreciate you. My only question is, will staff provide a matrix or cross reference document before the next special meeting showing each proposed amendment, the article and the section affected the recommended change and the reason for the recommendation? Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Brown.

I just want to point out that if you go to the city's website under City Council and Agendas. Are you referencing me?

Are you talking to me? Excuse me, ma'am. Ma'am, it's okay.

Yeah, just a general point. Anybody can go to the city website under city council and agendas, and they will be able to see the entire presentation that the council was presented.

No, ma'am, that's your time. It's okay. She's answering your question. You may have a seat. No, ma'am. No, ma'am.

The entire presentation that the council has been provided is available online at any time for all citizens to view under city council and then agendas. You can pull up the presentation and it does have the redlined charter amendments that are recommended there.

Council Member Neske.

Mr. Mayor, we have one more person, and I can just click off and click back on after the next person speak.

Thank you, ma'am. Madam City Secretary. I mean, I'm sorry, Madam City Attorney.

Thank you.

My apologies.

No problem. Leo Gukaisen.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Temp, council members. First, I apologize for my attire after this event. I'm heading off to another one on the Belton Lake, so it's easier to combine the two. It's casual, but I'm here today. First of all, as I've done before, my famous quotes of my day, there are no laws, just cops. This is a statement via Joe Miller from the show The Expanse, written by two authors under the name of James S. A. Corny. Simply put, no rights, just rules. As lucky to be selected to be on the Charter Review Committee, The eight of us sat together over a period of time with our expert legal opinion there sitting with us, advising us on what we could and could not do. We came up with a good set of opinions and changes that we agreed with. Yes, there were some who did not, but the democracy of it is. Everybody that sat on that committee had their opportunity to voice their opinion on each and every item, and this is what we came up with. Our recommendation to you as the sitting government body, there will be items on there that you're not going to agree with, but all I ask, one thing, is to eventually look at it, try to understand where we're coming from, and don't butcher them to meet personal opinions. There were two or three of them that I personally spearheaded. One was dealing with requiring to put into the charter that the city manager, whoever that may be at the time, come back and advise this body and the citizens in open form on all change orders that he or she approved during a quarter. Because when you look at an item, that I did at one particular item, with all the change orders, it cost them almost double to triple. It would have been easier to tear down a building and build a new building back at that point than what we paid for it. So that is one key things. And also the other one is the right of the citizens of the city of Killeen and their EJT to address their legal representation with items not on the agenda. A member of the committee, wanted it to be put into the city council's governing standards, but that defeated the purpose because that document changes on the whim of the council. If this item is put into the charter, which it should be, then only the citizens can change that document. agreement, that chapter, verse, phrase, whatever you want to refer to it as, it is not up to the whim of a council at the time. Because this council might agree, yes, but the next council might agree, no, and take it out. And once again, you are silencing your citizens. You are condemning them to an atmosphere of, like I said before, there are no laws, just cops. Simply put, no rights, just rules. May I get the one minute, please? I'm sorry if I have time. I'm almost done.

Yes.

A key word, another item that was brought in that I spearheaded was the right of the resign or if you're gonna go to request another position. And I firmly believe that because it's not saying anything negative about the individual. They want to do better for the city, the county, the state. I understand that and I agree with them on that. But the question that came into a lot of discussion was where the loyalty of that individual lies. I'm not doubting anybody's loyalty up here. I'm not doubting your respect to the council, the respect to the citizens and the city. But it's a question that pops up in a lot of conversations I have, is where is their loyalty going to be? Are they going to be at the city level or are they going to be working toward the next higher level they're going to? And in conclusion, a word of a day, transparency. Transparency is a practice of openness and honesty in communications, decisions, and operations. And thank you very much.

Thank you, sir. Council member asking.

Thank you, uh, Council and Mr Mayor. Uh, I think Mr Goukai sent for being serving on that committee and also taking, um. responsibility for the ones that he brought forth and also explain why he brought that particular three items forward. Mrs. Nisi made a good point, and this is to you, sir, Mr. Attorney, Mr. Mayor. Please feel free to give a comment, sir. Mr. Mayor, can I ask him a question, please?

Yes, you may.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. You may step forward, sir.

Good afternoon, sir.

Yes, ma'am. Good evening. Good evening.

Thank you for serving on that committee. Of course. And my question is, the council gave a directive, and Madam City Attorney,

I may be the better one to answer that question since I was actually at the council meeting. That direction that was given by council was for specific articles, but then when requesting clarification that that would limit the charter to those discussions, council came back and said, no, as long as the charter committee reviewed what you wanted them to review first, they could also make recommendations in addition to that.

Okay. So did that answer your question, ma'am?

right thank you and sir thank you and mr mayor thank you thank you okay madam city attorney is anyone else council council member kimball hitting comments I want to make sure I did not miss you, sir. Did you have any comments?

No, I don't have any comments. Thank you.

City Attorney, that's that's that's.

DS-26046, discuss and consider changing the time for special meetings scheduled on June 22nd, 2026, July 14th, 2026, and July 28th, 2026. Good afternoon, Ms. Wilson.

Yes, sir. So, Council, if you recall, at the last council meeting, you set the dates to have special meetings specifically to discuss the charter amendments as proposed. And the time that was set for each of these meetings is 5 p.m. So we're bringing this item forward just to confirm that, yes, you do, in fact, want to do 5 p.m., or if there's another time that you want to do, that's up to the council.

Thank you. And, yes, Council Member Kimball?

For discussion, I guess we had a motion and we had time selected that we voted on. Why is this even an issue? Why are we even talking about changing the time?

Okay, well, one of the things we wanted to consider because we have three more meetings of the Charter Review and we just think because it's going to be a lot of discussion and as in previous Council meetings, we have been here up until nine, 1230 in the morning. And so in sync with what we have been with our regular meetings at three, we wanted to have the council to consider, consider thinking that with what we normally do. So we would have time to discuss the charter.

A quick follow-up, sir. I mean, thank you for that explanation. That being said, since the charter is so important, and obviously based on the comments from the last three or four citizens, I think citizen input is probably more important because we're talking about changing the charter. So the only thing I've heard from citizens is they want to be involved. They can't do it while they're at work. So I support staying at 5 o'clock. That's just my opinion. Thank you, Mr. Payne.

Thank you. I'm not seeing the names. You can raise your hand if you want to. Council Member Brown.

The charter is the citizen's document. It is not the council's document. I understand wanting continuity. We can't move the regular meetings until later, until next week. If we're going to discuss changing the time, the only recommendation I would have at that point then would be to move it till 5.30 instead of 5 o'clock so that people can get home from work or make it here from work if they're getting out at 5.30. I had recommended 5, I think that it is more accessible than 3 o'clock. But sitting here, I've seen citizens walk in after 5 o'clock. That gives me concern that even 5 o'clock is not late enough for the citizens to be able to have input on their charter. So if we don't want to keep it at 5, then my recommendation would be that we make each of the following meetings 5.30. to maximize the amount of citizen input and engagement. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Brown. Council Member Williams.

I agree with the citizen as far as the 5 o'clock. And I think that we've had many of them who has requested for the 5 o'clock time as well. And so I'm in agreement with that as well and with the citizen.

Thank you, ma'am. I still cannot. Council member? Anyone else? I cannot see the names. Mayor Pro Tem?

So I won't belabor the point. I do support this. We've already made a decision as a council, as a body, to make that time the time. The only recommendation or something I would say that council probably would think about maybe because in our past, they have gone on for extended or absorbent amount of times, maybe putting a cap on them so that they are not unproductive. So 10 o'clock would be that. I would say a cap would be good, and then anything that needs to carry over to the next meeting, we carry it over. That would be my recommendation, but I'm in favor 100% of leaving it at 5 or 5.30, whichever way the council decides.

Councilmember Onasky?

Thank you. Thank you for whoever brought that forward, giving options. I think of citizens that made a statement. It's not the citizens that's taking up the time, it's the council. So I think if we all study our packages and come in here prepared, not saying you're not, but once we make a decision and even in our governor's standards and expectation, it makes states clearly. Once a person say something, repeating it over and over, we're not supposed to do that. So you make a new statement, you cannot go right behind the person that say, oh, yeah, I agree, or oh, yeah, and add on to that. And I'm guilty of that, too. But if we want to control time, it's left up to each individual that's on this council. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am. Council Member Kendricks. No, I'm sorry, your name's... Okay. Anyone else? Okay. Okay. Mrs. Wilson, I'm sorry, attorney. With that said, we'll move on.

So there's consensus to keep it at 5 o'clock?

Yes, the consensus is to keep it at 5.

Yes, sir.

Okay. Madam attorney?

DS-26047, discuss charter amendments related to election dates, term limits for elected officials, resign to run provision, filling vacancies on city council, city council initiated investigations, candidate filing fee, initiative and referendum requirements, recall procedures, judicial removal of elected officials, citizen comment period, and change order briefings by the city manager.

Mr. Chapman, welcome back.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tem, Council Members. So as Mr. Gugheisen said, I did have the joy of sitting here for seven weeks and going very in-depth through the charter review, going through the recommendations or the requests of the council and then those additional requests made by the committee. So tonight I have all 11 of the amendments that were recommended by the Charter Review Committee kind of queued up in order for us to discuss. That way we can get as far as the council would like and to stop whenever at whatever point. But the thought was to go ahead and get all the information out to you tonight so that there is nothing that would hold up just so we didn't post it. Most are set up, the format is I've got in here what the charter currently says, what the Charter Review Committee's recommendation was, and then also providing you with some relevant comparator information, some examples from some other cities and some considerations for you to make in your recommendations. At the end of each of the recommendations, staff is requesting a motion of direction from this council as to either approve the recommendation by the Charter Review Committee to modify and approve that recommendation or to outright reject that recommendation. So with that being said, these are all just that. These are recommendations. There is no additional requirement on behalf of this council as far as any sort of majority requirement to override the committee's recommendations. So with that being said, I'm just going to kind of jump in here. recommendation i have for you tonight is for the election dates this will provide some background on it the charter currently provides that the mayor and at-large council members are elected in may during odd numbered years and all district council members are elected in may during even numbered years on december 19th of 2025 the city council approved a resolution move in those elections for the mayor and council members to the november uniform election date in odd numbered years beginning in november of 2027. So this was presented to the charter review committee. They recommended that the charter be amended to reflect the resolution and to move all regular elections to the November uniform election date in odd numbered years. Based on that recommendation, amendments would need to be made to sections 22 and 93 of the charter. So as part of the charter review committee, we did go ahead and make proposed red line amendments to the charter and present them to the committee to which they provided their approval or their recommendation as to the proposed red lines. So this is the first edit that would be required in order to effectuate this change here. You'll see it's a lot of change here, but effectively it's saying that everybody is elected at the same time during odd numbered years. Section 93 is what's actually calls for the election, so that one would be changed just to specifically state that it would happen in every odd-numbered year at the November uniform election date. So it's just specifying that. So based on that, the staff is requesting direction as to proposed amendments to the city charter regarding election dates. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Nash King.

Thank you. Sir, so in 2027, we will all have to run at the same time.

Yes, ma'am.

But can we not tonight change that, that we have one group, whether it be at large, stay on the council, or districts stay on the council and the other individuals, they run? Do we have to all run at the same time, or can we make that change?

In order to have the stay with the two-year terms, it would have to be... Everybody in order to have it staggered or only half would be elected in one and then the next election two years later It would have to be four-year terms and that's gonna going from anything of beyond a two-year term is gonna create a lot more Requirements that we'd have to a lot more amendments that we'd have to make In the Charter because this is when we no longer have regular at-large Positions there's there's a lot more the Constitution has a lot more requirements that would come into play at that point.

Okay. Thank you

Council Member Brown.

This was already decided on by the council before. This was what actually initiated the review committee. So based on that, excuse me, I make a motion of direction to accept this amendment as proposed.

It was motioned by Council Member Brown. Second.

That's taken second.

There is no second.

Mr Mayor, excuse me, but Kelsey, the city attorney would you dress circle? There is some motion on the floor. I had, excuse me.

It was motioned by council member Brown and we need a second. We need a second. Is there a second council member or Williams?

Second. Yes.

Now we can go into discussion. Mr. Council member Kendricks.

The question that I had, I know you said it would have to be four years. Why couldn't it be three years?

The way that the new state law is written, it allowed the city to change it as a one-time change to November uniform election dates in odd-numbered years only. So we could not have it in even-numbered years. So the only way it would work would be even-numbered terms. So it would be two or four-year terms in order to effectuate a staggered scheme.

But if we do, I got you, I got it. You answered it. I got you. Thank you. Okay.

Council member.

Sir. Um, when we have our elections in may, the city administers those elections. Is that correct? That is correct. If, and when we move it to November, The county will administer those elections, true? That is also correct, yes. Thank you. You're very welcome.

Council Member Nashkin?

Sir, Council Member Kimball will come before me because I already went.

Thank you. Council Member Kimball?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Turner, I just want to make sure, because one thing that concerns me is the talent and experience that could happen with a big changeover when it comes to elections. So you're saying that the only way to stagger the elections is a four-year term?

In order to keep these election dates, so we do have terms as another item on here, but in order to keep these election dates that we're talking about, in order to have it where the city would no longer host May elections, the big driver of that is the cost savings because it's about $90,000 a year for the city to run these elections. In order for the city to be able to change it to odd-numbered years only in November, it would have to be even-numbered. It would have to be either two, four, six terms. So it can't be... Just the way it sets up, it could not be three or five. Just the way that the election code, the new statute, is the election code correct? I don't know if you want to chime in on that part.

The bill that passed that allowed the city to change its election to November limited only to odd number years. So you cannot have a November election in an even number year. So you have to have those elections every other year if you're going to do November. And you can't stagger a three-year term every other year. That's what we're saying is if you had a two-year term, then that's fine. every odd number year in November. If you had a four-year term, you could stagger those for every two years, half of the members would be elected and the other half on the two years later in an odd number year. With a three-year term, it would be... you would have to do them in odd number of years, and so that doesn't allow you to do that in a staggered way. I will add that, as Mr. Walder pointed out, with four-year terms, if you have four-year terms, there are additional requirements of their constitution, additional runoff elections, your at-large positions would have to be place-numbered, all of those things, so you'd have more elections if you went to a four-year term. That also applies to three-year terms, so anything over a two-year term. those additional requirements and additional changes to the charter would be required.

Okay.

Thank you.

Council Member Kimball?

Thank you.

Council Member Nashking? Thank you. If the council decides four years, but my concern is that it's always been two years, but I'm not trying to take away from if the council want to go four, but could it be possible if they do decide they want to go four, I'm for two, can it be on the ballot as two years, give the residents an option two years and also four years, or we have to choose one?

Well, the charter currently provides for two years. So if this council wanted to change it to four-year terms, then we could present that ballot language to change it from two to four years.

So they don't have an option between two and four. We have to choose either one or the other.

I mean, they could not approve the ballot measure. So they would have the option between two or four because it would either be approved and go to four or stay at two.

Because four years is a long time, and I think that every citizen should be afforded the opportunity to run for a city council seat, especially with almost $160,000 or over that. That that would be fair to the residents and also run off. We have to that's expensive. You have to go through that. And we see other cities that have to get 50% or more in order for that seat. And we, we really struggle with just making the adjustments to have an hour. we all decided to run and have an open seats to ensure that we didn't have open seats, that we leave somebody on there. So I think that would be confused. People would be confused by that. So I'm just, I just think I don't want us all to leave. I think that's important because we shouldn't have to all leave at one time. And again, And we're in a position now that to really be fair to the residents and future candidates that may want to run for city council, two years would be our best option. Thank you.

I want to ask you, what would it look like if we go two years in terms of the stackers? We started in 27. in terms of the districts.

The current composition of council as of right now? Is that what you're talking about? Yes.

What I'm saying is if we go two years, what would it look like in 27? We all have to run in 27, but how could we stagger that? Everybody had to run.

The only way to stagger it and to go with these new election dates would be to go to four-year terms. That would be the only way to do it. Because we're only going to be hosting them in odd-numbered years, in every November election in odd-numbered years. So it's either going to have to be two years from now or four years from now. The resolution, the direction was to get rid of the May elections in order to save the money. So it would have to be the four-year terms.

Okay, so what would, for discussion, what would it look like in the four-year term staggered, starting in 2027?

We could do pretty much, it would be up to the council what they want to do, but we could do a lot like we do now where mayor and at-large council members are elected in one election, and then in two years later, the district council members are elected, and then it just kind of flip-flopped like that from forever.

Okay, so I'm saying even with the two-year, 2027, whoever wants to run, we run in 2027, November 2027. When did you start staggering?

If we were to go to four-year terms, is that what you mean? If we were to go to four-year terms?

Okay, four-year terms. I understand what you said. What about two-year terms?

There would be no staggering. The entire council would be up for election at one time.

I see. I see. Council Member Brown?

Just to kind of pull us back into what we were talking about, the item, the motion was actually only talking about recommending approval of the odd year Novembers. There was no recommendation about staggering or changing to four-year terms at all. I understand where there's some concern from individuals about everyone being up at the same time for election. But at the end of the day, I think that's up to the citizens to decide. Are they comfortable with having all eight of the elected officials on the ballot at one time or not? Because if they are, then they'll vote yes in favor of this. And if they're not, then we just go back to and continue May elections. And nothing changes. So the motion is simply to take this and approve it as the item that we want to move forward to put on the ballot for the voters. That was the only thing that I was making that motion of direction for today.

Understood. But we're in discussion mode. Council Member Kendricks. I'm sorry. Had you finished? My apologies.

Okay, my question is, it's kind of like what Council Member Kimball relayed, what he was talking about, everybody leaving at one time. Now, I do understand, like, my term right now, I was extended. Basically, could we not do that and that place us If, say, for instance, all of the districts, just the districts, get elected in November 2027, and then the at-large stay on, and then they come to be with an election in 2029, that would put us in a staggered mode, meaning the same way I got extended, now the at-large gets extended, and I think that would be best for this city.

But you would then be up for reelection at that same meeting in 2029. So it would still, because it's still a two-year term. And as long as you're still talking about staying with two-year terms, then you'd be up for reelection again. So it would just, and I think that point was brought up of when we would effectuate this change when the resolution was passed. And there was some discussion as to whether or not it would take effect in 2027 or if we push it back a little bit. And the decision was to make it there. But so, but you brought up a point. So the current, just to, go on your point there. So the current mayor, uh, and at large members because of that change, you are going to serve like a truncated term. It's only the 18 months, uh, whereas district council members are serving a 30 month term. So then it's just until we get to that November election, then everyone serves a 24 month going forward. I don't have to answer that question. I'm sorry.

No, no, you're good. You're good. You're good. Thank you.

Council member Nash King.

This is for the city attorney. So if we don't do anything and just leave it as it is, or we decided to go the four years and the residents, we put it on the charter as four years, and the residents decide they don't want it, will we still have to be in November or can we go back to May? Okay.

Council passed a resolution to do what this would do, November of odd number year elections to elect everyone. If council decided not to put this on the ballot, then the charter would be in conflict with the resolution that was passed. And then the resolution would trump your charter in this one case, because the statute says that the resolution passed would trump your charter. would take precedence over what the charter in this one very specific incident. If this went to the ballot, if you did put it on the ballot to put it on the ballot so that electors would have the opportunity to vote on whether they wanted the charter to align with the resolution and it failed, council would have the opportunity to repeal the resolution to align with the charter or not to repeal the resolution to align with the charter, in which case, again, the resolution fails. would still have precedence over your charter.

The bottom line is, regardless of what we decide here, it cannot go back to May.

That's not what I'm saying. If the council repealed that resolution, it would go back to May. If the council repealed the resolution that you passed last December or, right, if the council repealed it, then you'd go back to May.

So that's another option, to repeal it and it goes back to May.

I mean, is that the conversation that we're having?

No, I just asked a question about options because we have the option today to say we don't want to do it.

Right. If you don't want to move forward with this recommendation to go to the ballot in November, then you could do that, and then we could bring back an item for future consideration for the council to repeal the resolution that it passed moving elections to November.

Thank you. I think that's very important to know. Thank you. Because we have new council members, Mr. Mayor.

Any other discussion? It's been a motion and it's been a second to accept. The two-year, could you be, in motion, could you repeat that?

The motion of direction was to accept this change as proposed. And if you would like, Mr. Wallinger, to go back through the red line changes or the recommendation. This is to align your charter with the resolution that was passed by council to change elections from May to November of odd number of years and elect everybody at one time.

You can, excuse me. Yeah, can we put that back up, please, Mr. Kendall?

So this... So this was the the recommendation was that the Charter be amended to reflect that resolution and then the change you the all elections to November uniform election dates and odd-numbered years To effectuate that change it's going to require two changes to the city charter one would be in section 22 which is the council and discuss it. That is also where terms are discussed. And then also in Section 93, discussing election dates. So these are the two red line edits that would be required to effectuate that change.

That's the recommendations that we can accept. Okay. Correct. All right. All right. All in favor, signify by your raising of your hand. All opposed? All in favor? OK. All opposed? Mr. Kimball, do you? He was in favor. So the motion passed 5 to 4, 3, 2. Motion passed 5 to 2. Mr. Chairman? Okay.

So the next item I have for you tonight is the charter recommendations regarding the city council term limits. And I apologize on that previous one. I know you requested whether or not it was a city council requested amendment or a charter review committee. That one was a city council, as was this one. This was one that the charter review committee was tasked with looking into. So the background. Currently, the mayor and all council members serve two-year terms and may serve no more than three consecutive terms in whole or in part in one office. There is no max term limit or even like a waiting period between serving in different offices. So a person may serve three years council member, three years mayor, three years council member. There's no upper limit to that. There's no requirement to step down for an X number of months or anything like that between those time periods. I looked through a couple of different cities, and I found some differences just to provide you with some comparators and some considerations if this council wants to make some changes to this. Houston and Austin both have finite term limits. Council members are limited to four-year terms. Austin limits due to two consecutive terms, and then they have some additional language regarding when you stop serving there. Waco has no term limits at all. They have two-year terms, but they have no at-large council members. The city of Temple has three-year terms, and they limit to three consecutive terms in any one office and no limits on total terms, so very similar to the city of Killeen. I've got the city of Wichita Falls in here. This was, like I said, whenever I found something that was a little bit unique, I wanted to put this in here for you to see. Wichita Falls limits council members to two consecutive three-year terms, and council members are limited to three consecutive terms in total. Partial terms don't count towards that term limit, and it requires an 18-month waiting period to become eligible to hold office again. So elected officials who resigned to run for another office had that initial term counted in full. So what this is saying is that you can have two terms in one office and then you can serve one more term in one other office. But after that third term, you have to wait 18 months at the end of your term in order for you to become eligible to run again. The city of Abilene is also like the city of very similar to see a clean all serve three year terms with no term limits. The Charter Review Committee recommended amendment to limit the members of council to six consecutive terms in any combination of office. So following that sixth consecutive term, a person must wait one full term before they are deemed eligible to run for any office. So what that's saying is that in any combination of Two years as council member, two mayor, two council member. At that point, you're no longer eligible to run again. You'd have to wait one full term in order to run again. There's no three and three, but you're still limited to that three-year term limit per office. So you could do three council member, three as mayor, and any combination of those in order to get to six. But any time, once you get to that sixth consecutive term, you do have to take one full term off. In order to effectuate that, so section 22, paragraph three, where it discusses the terms, those are the changes that would be made. You see the second part down there is the addition of the part that basically deems a person ineligible to run for a seventh term. So based on that, staff requests direction as to any proposed amendments to the city charter regarding term limits for members of the city council.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Kendricks.

As you was talking, you kept saying three, but we talked about four, right? Four-year terms.

No. No, three terms. Three two-year terms per office.

All right. So when we get here with what the Charter Review Committee is recommending, If there's six consecutive terms and we're saying we're going to do four years. Yeah, I got what you said. I'm asking the number of years when you go six consecutive terms, that's four years. Each term is four years, correct?

No, each term is two years. Two years. So it would be 12 consecutive years that you could serve on council in any combination of offices.

Okay.

I will say that the initial recommendation on this is the Charter Review Committee wanted to limit it to three consecutive terms. So once you termed out in an office, you were actually termed out to serve on council, and you'd have to take that one term. It was after discussion. It was a natural progression of individuals being able to serve as a council member and then serve as mayor. The change was made to change it to six consecutive terms.

Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Nash-King.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council, I would recommend, it's just a recommendation, it's not a motion of direction. I would recommend that we leave Section 22 of the charter as is. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

You recommend them? Okay. Council Member Bass.

I am opposed to making this change. I believe that our current method works fine. If we go out in this hallway and we look at the city council members over the years, we can see that the voters make changes quite often. So I trust the voters to change council members and mayors when the voters decide to do that. And I think that is working just fine under our current method. Thank you.

Council Member Brown?

Mr. Wallander, you had mentioned that what I thought I had remembered, the motion being at the Charter Review Committee, which was it was a hard term limit. You can do up to three terms consecutive or not per seat, and then that was it. You were done. So you could do a total six years or three full terms as a council member, three full terms as the mayor, and then that was it.

that was it there was no more eligibility who changed that and when that wasn't the right that wasn't the motion that i understood it from the charter review committee because we were discussing it it was just a natural progression i think is when we were discussing it they originally said three except the initial direction was a hard limit of three, and it was any combination of office, and you were termed out at that point. We brought it back the next meeting and discussed it with them about losing that natural progression, and it was changed to just six consecutive terms in any combination of office. The red line edits that you saw that I presented there, those were the ones that were – presented to the China Review Committee. So I'm not sure. That's the way I understood it, was the six consecutive, any combination of offices.

I don't have a problem with that except for I did believe that the charter committee had thought that this would be a hard term limit. So the prior council to me coming on here is the one who recommended that the review committee actually look at term limits. I think part of that was just based on the number of council members at that time who had been up here longer than that six or eight or however many years. And there comes a time where we want to allow as many citizens as possible to be able to be on the city council and serve the city. And if we are not enacting hard term limits, that becomes harder and harder to do. So I would recommend that we actually change that to just a total of three terms in each seat, regardless of whether they're consecutive or not. And I would say full term because I know the other discussion had been what happens if you're appointed to a seat and you're only there for three months. I think that was where the bigger concern was. And I know that's addressed later on also. But, yeah, I think a full term, so that full two years from election to election, three of those, you do six years as a council member, you do six years as the mayor, and that should be your term instead of going back and forth. What the citizens had requested was we stop the merry-go-round. We stop letting people keep going back and forth, back and forth on it. Okay. And I think that that is something that we should allow the voters to decide on, whether or not we want to impose term limits on ourselves. Thank you.

Council Member Kimball, and then-

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I will say this. I think when it comes to the discussion of term limits, it's always in the voters' hands. If they don't like you, they vote you out. That makes us as council people, council members, perform and do our jobs. That's just my soliloquy on that. I guess to Mr. Walter, What was the energy behind term limits anyway? I heard Council Member Brown talk about the merry-go-round. Was that the energy that was in the discussion room about having fresh blood on the council? I'm just trying to figure out what necessitated the change based on the discussions of the Charter Committee.

Yes, effectively, it was a sentiment of it. They just felt like it was, city council has been repetitious as to who sits on the council, and they wanted it to be where, essentially what you said, it would be new people.

Okay. That's all I have, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Kendricks.

I didn't have any more questions.

I wanted to actually make a motion.

I would like to make a motion that we keep our current term limits as they are.

How would we motion that to the attorney?

You can either reject, modify, or approve the recommendation so that you can move to reject this amendment being included on the ballot.

I recant it. I would like to move that we reject this amendment.

Okay, it was motioned by Council Member McKendrick to reject the amendment. I need a second. Second. SECOND BY COUNCILMEMBER NASKING AND OPEN FOR DISCUSSION. COUNCILMEMBER NASKING.

THANK YOU, SIR. THE REASON I WAS STATED EARLIER, I WANTED TO STAY THE SAME BECAUSE IF WE GO WITH THIS METHOD, IF YOU ARE COUNCILMEMBER and you serve all three of your terms and your six years is up, you will never run for mayor if you have that ambition to go higher. So that means that after your second term is over, you can run for council your third term if once you serve six, you're completely done, if that's the case. you would have to give up your last term and run for mayor. That's the same situation we will have because every person on the council should be inspired to make change regardless of the mayor position is your objective. When we're in the city council position, we should give 110%. And when the reason I'm for, we should allow people to vote for you to come into term. Because if there's things that any council member, and I can only speak for myself, feel like there's some unfinished business, and that's what I ran on, and I'm on agenda on that too, that the term, you don't have enough time. Now, if we would have gone for four years, then the negative side of that is, It's not fair to the residents because some of us will get elected over and over again. And so that's why keeping it two years is best not only for the council because you won't get so comfortable in your seat, but it's also fair to any resident that may want to run for these positions in the future. Thank you.

Council Member Kendricks. Council Member Brown.

I still think that if somebody does their three two-year terms and gets to six years, then they've put in that time. And if you haven't accomplished it, then I hope that you have brought somebody behind you and that you have done your job to mentor them and make sure that they can carry on. and bring in new people. My biggest point in this, this was recommended by a committee of citizens selected to represent the citizens and their desires. I don't think it should be up to this council to strictly decide what we think our term limits should be. Again, I go back to this is the citizen's charter, and it doesn't cost us anything more or less to put this on the agenda, or I'm sorry, on the ballot and allow the citizens to vote on it. And so I will not be voting to keep it the same way because I feel like it should be in the hands of the voters. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you. And I respect all the sentiments that have been presented. But at the end of the day, the citizens will decide who gets what. So I don't want to belabor the point, but I understand what you're saying. But at the end of the day, the citizens will decide whether they want whomever to come back or not. With this statute the way it is, no more than three consecutive terms, I feel that it should remain the same the way it is.

Council Member Nash-King.

Thank you, sir. And council, this is the other part I want to say. Each one of us have a representative. When this was brought forth, the charter committee, the prior council voted to have this committee because you want input from the residents and you need a committee. I think everybody should have a committee. However, there are representatives on this council that have residents that say, hey, don't make it chaos. We went through the charter of voting in the prior history, and some of the stuff that was on there was really hard to understand. Just keep it simple. So listening to the charter review committee, that is very important. But the bottom line that this council also serve other residents that not represented on the charter review committee. And I think if we moving forward, we make our decisions and we're going to put it on the charter. It should be so simple that they understand what they're voting for and not make things complex. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member Bess.

I want to clarify the motion. A yes vote means that we reject this recommendation, correct? That's correct.

Thank you. It has been motion and second. All in favor? Of the rejection, yes, all in favor of the rejection of the term limits signify by raising your hand and I'll see you council member. Kimball. The motion carries 6 to 1. Thank you. Mr Waldo.

Next item I have. I'm sorry.

Mayor, if I can, if we can confirm that vote, I think we got the six, but the one person we didn't actually ask for any in opposition, so we can get the vote for the record.

Yes, it was six to one, and Council Member Melissa Brown opposed.

I don't think there was a request to any opposed because someone could – So I'm just asking if you can ask for if there's any opposition and we can record that opposition.

Is there any opposition? Opposition by Councilmember Brown. Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Yes, sir.

Okay, so the next item I have for you tonight is specifically the resign to run provision that's contained within the city charter. This was one that was, it was sort of brought up by the city council because it is contained within the vacancies and it was brought up when we were discussing filling those. But this was ultimately a charter review committee recommendation as to an amendment. So the background. Currently, if the mayor or council member files to run for a different office within the city of Killeen, then the mayor or council member must resign and vacate that office immediately upon filing for that other office. It does not apply to a member of the body who files to run for an elected position outside of the city of Killeen. But that being said, upon accepting those positions, there may or may not be the requirement that the person resign due to conflict of interest provisions or that it's incompatible with their current position serving on the city charter. But there's nothing that requires them to resign, just a file to run. The Charter Review Committee recommended that the city charters resign to run provision be amended to apply only upon filing to run for elected positions not within the city. The recommendation also said that the resigned to run provision would no longer apply in the event that a council member seeks to run for mayor or vice versa. So I will say that the City of Killeen is in a relatively unique position when it comes to this resign to run provision. I've only located three other Home Rule cities with less than 200,000 people that had a similar provision. So I've dug through a lot of cities and I've found these three. So there's Parasol Sugar Land on the next one. I've got Amarillo here. But these are straight out of their charters here. So parasol, if the mayor shall become a candidate for nomination or election to any public office other than mayor, he or she shall vacate office immediately in his or her place. For whatever reason, the city decided that the resigned front provision should only apply to the mayor. That one, it does not apply to the city council members if they decide to run for mayor. In Sugar Land, if a member of the city council becomes a candidate for election to any public office other than that of city council, such candidates shall constitute an automatic resignation of the city office. So again, this is very similar to what the Charter Review Committee has recommended here. In the city of Amarillo, if the mayor or any council member announces a candidate to be elected to another public office with more than 12 months and 30 days remaining in their current term of office, it shall be considered that the officeholder immediately resigned. So that one's kind of, now you're looking at a hybrid on there. So it's requiring you to resign if you're going outside an outside office, but only if there's a certain amount of time left on your term. So going back to it, so in order to effectuate that change that the Charter Review Committee We would have to make, again, more changes to Section 22. This would actually create, the way that it would end up working out, we'd just end up creating a paragraph four. And so the language regarding resigning to run for an internal position would be struck, and new language would be included to require the resignation for running for any sort of outside position. Okay. And based on that, staff requests direction as to proposed amendments to the city charter regarding the resigned to run provision.

Council Member Nash-King. Sir, I'd just like some clarity, please. Yes, ma'am. So if I'm running for governor, and I'm sitting on the hypothetically decision. Did you say governor? Yes, sir, just because, you know, people get a kick out of that. And I'm on the council. What we're going by now is that if I file to run for that position, I will automatically come off the council. However, will a council member, if I understood that correctly, I understand I got to come off, but if a council member wants to run for mayor or a mayor wants to run for city council, they can stay. Did I understand that?

Under the amendment, under the proposed recommendation, that's correct.

Okay. Okay, I can support that because I don't think with this past situation, I don't think a person in the people elected you to represent them and you decide to run for another position with While serving on the council, I don't think that person should have to give up their seat only to win in some cases, and they comment right back when you have to go through that board or trying to appoint someone. That is chaos because you want the best candidate, and it's not fair to the residents. They live in that district. They put in their application and everything, and they're not selected. So I think that is the best approach from my opinion. Thank you.

Council Member Kendricks.

Oh, yeah. I just want to kind of just make a statement in reference to this. If we even go back to COVID, there was no playbook. There was no playbook for what just recently happened to council. And with some of these provisions, if they was in place, we wouldn't have been able to have meetings. And this would have pushed a lot of things back. And especially dealing with state laws, when certain things got to come to a council meeting at a certain time, we'd have put ourselves in a very bad situation. So part of this I'm in agreement with, and part of it I'm not. So that's just my take on it, that we would have been in a bad situation had we had the opportunity

I'll say that this happened to come about right when we were in the situation you're talking about when we were very close to not having a quorum on this council is when this charter review committee was going on. So that was definitely on the mind of the committee when they were making this recommendation is that this would help prevent us from getting in that situation in the future.

Thank you.

Council Member, may I approach you?

Thank you. On the resign to run provisions, the way it stands is that council members or mayor in that position were elected for a term to uphold that. I don't believe that they should be penalized should they seek higher office. As if you were in corporate world, if you're seeking a higher position, you don't necessarily, unless you are hired, have to provide a two-week notice or resign from that position because you haven't been elected yet. But historically, this resigned to run, which is why you don't see it, why you're having difficulty, typically favored the wealthy or political outsiders who did not risk losing their employment status and things like that. And it prevented average people, single moms, other folks from being able to run and then to seek higher office across the different components, the different opportunities. So I'm not in favor of restricting voters' options. The voters will still ultimately decide. To the point, though, if we wanted to have the conversation about restrict like when if you're elected to the position, of course, immediately stepping down or making sure there's tighter things about campaigning from the office and things like that, that's different conversation. But I don't I'm not in favor of suppressing voter options.

Thank you. Council member best.

During our most recent election, one council member decided to step down, who was running for another position, and I respect that. But as a citizen, I was very thankful for the council members who remained on the council and kept the city functioning. I appreciated that. The city kept going. Decisions were made. Wise decisions, in my opinion. So I'm glad that they stayed on and they had a legal option to stay on. Thank you.

Council Member Brown?

Leave it to me to be the difference of opinion. So this was originally made a charter section provision in order to try to prevent anybody from getting an unfair advantage so that if you were a council member running for mayor, you didn't have that advantage over your political opponents who were not on the council and you were – are not the incumbent to the mayor's seat, but essentially every time there's a council meeting, you get the chance to campaign in front of everybody on television, online, on YouTube, and in the media free of charge, which is something that another person running for a different position other than what you're holding does not have. That's why it was originally put there and that was voted in by the citizens of Colleen. So I support there being that left in there. If the council doesn't want to change it, then okay, let's leave it the way it is. But I also think that our voters are very smart. We can add these things in there and let the voters, let our citizens decide if it's something they want or don't want. Essentially a lot of what I heard is if you choose to run for a different seat, then that means you are no longer interested in the seat that you're holding. And if you're no longer interested in that seat that you're holding, then go ahead and remove yourself from that seat, resign, so that that seat can be filled, whether it's by a special election, whether it's by a regular election, or whether it is by an appointment. At the end of the day, though, last year or this past year was a one-off situation that I don't think the city of Killeen has ever seen before, except for when there was a mass recall. The way that we decide to move, whether we decide to run for another position or not, we all know what the rules are and when we're supposed to resign. So if there ends up being a vacancy where we end up not having a quorum, then that comes down to the mindset of the individuals who have resigned to run for another seat because that says they're putting their own personal political ideology above the citizens in getting that work done. So I'm in favor of at least putting this on the ballot and letting the voters be the ones to decide if they want to risk, as we call it, if they want to risk having another situation like this or if they want to move forward and have everyone resign. So I make a motion that we accept the recommendation and put it on the ballot.

Okay, it was a motion by Council Member Brown. Is there a second? A second? No second, motion fails. Council, I'm sorry, Council Member Kendricks.

Yes. I just want to say something. We talked about the citizens vote. And a lot of this language and a lot of these things is you're trying to dilute the citizens vote who have already voted someone in. And I feel when we start talking about free time and being in the public eye, we cannot throw rocks and then hide our hands. There are several people that have been in the situation to where they gotten that TV time. So you cannot throw rocks and hide your hand. I don't appreciate that because we are here for the citizens. So don't throw the rocks and hide your hand. That's all I got.

Council Member Neske.

Madam City Attorney, okay, so that amendment was voted down. But on this same amendment, if we wanted to add something else, but it's about this particular amendment, can we make that recommendation to the council or according to governor's standards and expectations, once something is voted on, we have to move on? What I want to talk about is on this particular item, but it's the opposite of this.

Yeah. Your governing standards, Our general rules, I will tell you when, usually when you're going through things like charter review or governing standards, you've suspended those types of rules because you're trying to get to what you want actually to get to the, you're not voting up or down a contract. You're saying what do you want the charter to say? What do you want to send to the voters to vote on? So I think it's appropriate once a motion fails, if there's another, if a motion fails, and there wasn't a vote actually on that motion. The motion just failed at all. So there's not actually been a vote on this item at all.

A motion in that direction. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. So, Mr. Mayor, with that being said, my recommendation to the council, because we represent the people, regardless if you decide as a city council member you want to run for mayor or you're a mayor and you decide to want to run for city council or you're on the council, you want to run for a higher position, not within the city. We should not have to give up our seats, right? Because it was like that before. And a couple years ago, they changed it that you had when I was running for mayor, they made the decision that you should give up your seat if you want to run for another position. It was not always like that. So my motion of direction for the council is that... Once you voted in your position and you choose to run for mayor or city council, the diverse or you want to run for a position that's not on this council, whether it be the county state or the Congress, you should not have to give up your seat because the people voted you in that position to represent them. That is my motion of direction.

It's emotional direction. by Council Member Nash-King. Is there a second? Second. Second by Council Member Bass.

And, Mayor, if I can get clarification on that, it sounds like, and tell me if I'm wrong, it sounds like that motion or direction would be to remove resign to run provisions from the charter completely. Correct. So no resign to run regardless. Okay.

No. A council member wants to be voted in by the residents of Killeen, regardless of what position they want to run for in the future, should not have to resign their position.

Thank you. I'm second by... Council Member Bass and open for discussion. Council Member Brown.

If we're not going to Keep it the way it is. I would recommend going with that. I will support the council in putting it on the ballot to not require anybody to resign, but I will also publicly go out and encourage people to vote against that amendment.

Council Member Mayor Pro Tem.

I just have a quick question for clarity. On that provision, if it were to be accepted the way Council Member Nash-King has presented it, the provision, though, should they, when their office that they are running for required to step down, effective immediately still stand, would that still stand in that provision?

Mr. Mayor, do I have permission to answer the question, please, sir? Yes, you may. Thank you. Council on... Mayor Pro Tem, I apologize. I like what you said, putting some stipulations. You must step down immediately. You cannot use the diets to campaign. And I don't really see much. I don't see people doing that from me personally. I don't see it, but I do see a lot. I see a lot, you have the right to, you have your Facebook page, you have your podcast, some of you do, and you have different shows where You're campaigning when you're not campaigning because we're going to go to events. People are going to see us because we are the faces of the city. You don't even have to say a word about your political views. It's just that being in these positions, especially being on television, and it's constantly being played over and over again. So I think with immediately stepping down once you win that position, I think that's what should be added to that.

Okay, thank you very much. Yes.

Thank you for that clarity. Council Member Kimball and then Council Member Bass.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just for clarity for Councilwoman Nash-King's motion is that are we going to remove the right to run provision in its entirety so it won't exist? Or do the voters get to make the chance to

believe it as is or not allow it mr mayor can i answer what i was trying to say yes council member it was that this will go on the charter uh and it's just saying the opposite that a council member or mayor running diversa for a position or if they choose to run higher they will not have to step down but the voters will get the choice to vote on it

Yeah, I just needed that clarity. I just want to make sure that the voters, because it's already provisioned, I just want to make sure we're not striking. I just want to make sure that the voters have the input on this decision.

Yes, sir. Everything we discussed tonight, it will go on the charter or it's rejected. If it's accepted, it has to be voted on. We don't have a choice in it.

Okay. I don't think that's entirely true. Okay.

Would you clarify, please?

Yes, I can clarify. So what you're doing now is giving motions of direction about what you want to include on the charter election in November. So if you vote it down and reject this amendment, it will not go to the voters in November. If you make a motion of direction to include something, to include some change to the charter in this case, The motion of direction is to remove the resign to run provisions so that council would continue, members would continue in service regardless of whether they're running for another position with the city or otherwise. If you vote yes to that amendment, then that would be included on the ballot in November for the voters to decide whether to amend the charter to say this rather than what it says now.

Yes, ma'am. I didn't say it that eloquent, but it's the same. Thank you.

Well, I just want to be clear. Based on your motion, this will not go to the citizen to vote off. Is that what I heard, Ms. City Attorney?

No, the motion is a change to the charter, and we would bring that language back so you could see that in red lines like you've seen the ones in red line today. We would bring that back to you so you can see the red line change for that. But this would be a change to the charter, and any change to the charter has to go to the voters.

Okay. Thank you for the clarity.

Council Member Nesking? I'm sorry, Council Member Bass.

If the voters reject this, then what?

If the voters reject the amendment that you place on the ballot, then you continue with the charter language as is, which includes the resign to run provisions when you go from a council member running for the mayor or mayor running for the council member does not include resign to run if you're running for outside office.

Thank you.

Okay. Council Member Williams.

Yes, so either way, it will still go to the voters. The voters will still have to vote on it. That's what we're saying, right?

The only way that any change to the charter, if you're accepting the proposal as proposed, the amendment as proposed, or if you're amending that, as has been the motion of direction on the table right now, those would go to the voters. If you rejected it completely and said we don't want any amendment to go to the ballot, then nothing would go to the ballot. The charter would stay the same.

And then we have a new vote.

Okay, so we have a motion on the floor in second. Is that correct? And could you repeat the motion again, please? So all council would understand.

What I have is that the motion of direction is to amend, to change the amendment language here so that council would be able to continue to serve regardless of running for another position with the city or otherwise, which would in effect remove the resigned to run provisions from the charter.

All in favor signify by raising your hand. All opposed. The motion carries seven to zero. Okay, thank you. You may continue, sir.

Next item I have for you tonight is charter recommendations regarding filling vacancies on the city council. And again, this was one that was requested to be looked at by council. Background, okay, the charter currently provides that if a single vacancy occurs more than 90 days before regular municipal election, the vacancy shall be filled by appointment. If it occurs within 90 days before regular election, it may be filled by an appointment. But if two or more vacancies occur at any time, then they shall be filled following a special election. The Charter Review Committee recommended that any vacancy, regardless of when or how many occur, shall be filled by appointment no matter when the vacancy occurred or how many existed. A special election would only need to be called if a quorum didn't exist. So if for whatever reason there was no longer a quorum, then it couldn't be a point just based on simple facts that there wouldn't be enough to do so. Based on that recommendation, amendments would need to be made to Section 26 of the city charter. So you'll see on here that we have removed any language regarding the 90 days or anything regarding more than one vacancy at any time and have changed it to that they're all filled by appointment. We did, after discussion, add a provision in there regarding that ability to call a special election. Felt like it would be necessary to have that in there in order for us to be able to go to the county in order to request to get that special election call. This would allow us a mechanism to appoint two to have that special election.

Just looking at some comparators.

looking into this, I looked at the charter of 26 comparable cities to see how they fill vacancies. You'll see that 26 a lot. What I did, what I've done here is I looked at a lot of cities between 100 and 300,000 population. Um, so that's why I'll mention a lot of comparable cities. That's ones that I'm discussing. 10 of those 26 require that all vacancies be filled by election. And keep in mind that any city that requires, um, three or four more than two-year terms require vacancies to be filled by election. It does allow for appointment in certain provisions, but that could kind of skew these results here. Five cities require that all vacancies be filled by appointment, and then 11 cities allow the appointment unless certain conditions exist, so very similar to what the City of Killeen provides. And those quotes that I've got below both of those, those are all just kind of model language that I found in cities, just to show you what... what the language actually says. And I will say that among the five that require all vacancies to be filled by appointment, it's pretty cut and paste almost between cities. The second option is a very common one. So 8 of the 11, So eight of these 11 that allow for appointment unless certain conditions exist, those are with cities with three or four-year terms. Like I mentioned earlier, that it requires them. Only two cities between 100 and 300,000 require an election to fill a vacancy when not required. It's the city of Tyler and Denton. So those are ones that require all vacancies to be filled by election. So based on that, staff is requesting a direction either to accept, reject or modify the Charter Reviews Committee recommendation as to filling vacancies on City Council.

Council Member Nash King. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Council, I believe that when there is a vacancy on this diet, that all positions should be filled. The reason being the residents need a representative. So my motion of direction is to accept the Charter Review Committee recommendation is to fill all appointments no matter when the vacancy occur or how many vacancies exist. That position should be filled.

Okay. Council Member, are you making a motion or a motion of direction?

It's a motion of direction. Okay.

Okay, we have a motion in direction by Council Member Nash King. Is there a second? A second by Council Member Bass. Open for discussion. Okay, I'm seeing Council Member Bass.

So this is a question. There were two special elections that just occurred, one that resulted in me sitting up here on this dais and the other resulting in Councilmember Kimball sitting on the dais. Under that circumstance, if this passed, would those special elections have occurred or would the council have filled those two positions by appointment?

Under this charter amendment recommendation, the council, the remaining members of council would have filled those vacancies as they occurred. Thank you.

Council Member Brown?

And that is a very good point, Councilman Bass, because the voters, we keep hearing from everybody how the voters should say the voters should say. If the first amendment passes and we move to only elections in every odd year where the entire council is on the ballot at the same time, and then we add that every vacancy would lead to an appointment, in theory you could have a council at the end of two years that is fully appointed by the remainder of the council and not have had anyone actually voted, minus the mayor. If we had this provision that's recommended in place prior to May 2nd, then half of the city council would have been appointed. That would mean half of the people who are up here voting, over half, would have been appointed. And that is not a representative government. We are voted to represent, yes, but we are not voted to pick who else represents, especially for terms. So I personally think the way that it is now, if it's within 90 days, that's too short of a notice to really call for a special election. It does allow for a vacancy to be filled, though, by appointment if it's within 90 days. And if a council doesn't decide to vote on that appointment at the time that it comes up, then that is still a vacancy, correct?

I'm sorry.

So if there is a vacancy, the council decides not to vote on who it is that's going to fill it at that time, it remains vacant, right?

Oh, correct, right. If they just failed to appoint someone, yes, it would just remain vacant.

And we saw that happen here in Killeen on the city council within the past few years where there was a vacancy, there was not a majority vote of the council, and so that seat remained vacant for an additional month or six months after that. so it doesn't mean just because we can make the appointment that it's going to happen and it's going to be filled either way but i think that in order to keep the balance and make sure that there is elected representation up here we should just keep this the way it is councilmember nash king

Thank you, sir. I can see a council member perspective. However, if there is a district position, then that person must come from that district. And what happens while the same people run over again when you run in the district, and a prime example is a council member currently sitting here, is because people don't fill out the application to ROM. Some people don't ROM because they don't have the financial means. Some people don't ROM because they have a full-time job and they just don't have the opportunity to take off to ROM. But if we point a district, and it should be, I said should be, it's not a question of if we would do it or not. A person should be, and I know I stated that, the council won't have a choice. If there's a district representative that's not in place, they have to appoint someone from what I put in place, and if I have to change the language before we vote on it, I will. But also at large, we need at all times as our city continues to grow, This council should be full with representation making major decisions on the welfare of the residents of Killeen. There will be a representative from that district. We have no choice but to bring them from that district. And then you have more individuals putting in their applications and participating in the process, especially those that don't have the financial means to run an election or really don't know much about municipality. I think that will give everyone a fair opportunity, still representing the residents that we serve. Thank you.

Chief Campbell.

I mean, Council Member Campbell. Council Member Campbell.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'll say this. I'm looking at my council member Bass and he and I going through the special election. And, you know, to me, the voters spoke regardless of who ran, who didn't run, who should have run. But it was an election. Everybody had their chance. Who thought they were? qualified to do it and the voters picked who they wanted to. Even in my case, no one actually voted for me because I think maybe the voters thought that I was, that that's the candidate that they wanted. I think the system that we have now is fine. I think if we let current members of the council pick spots without voter input, that's not inclusive government. So I like the way it is, and my recommendation is to keep things the way they are.

Council Member Bass?

To clarify, if this motion that's on the floor passes, Then the proposed charter change to allow the city council to appoint to fill vacancies will be on the ballot in November, and the voters will decide yes or no on that, correct?

Correct.

So, ultimately, the voters of Killeen are going to make this decision, and I'm comfortable with that. Thank you.

Mayor Pro Tem.

So, I just have some valid questions were raised, right? Not looking at historical where we are today, but thinking into the future should potential problems arise or we be in a situation that we were in one time in the past. I do think that appointments or having a provision for appointments is necessary for continuity of government because there are circumstances that could arise that could be one-offs that we should have that flexibility. So what this verbiage looks like, I don't know at this point. I'm still just processing. But I do think that there should be some level of protection for appointment for continuity of government's sake in the event that there is a special situation. I do also agree that there should be a special election if no quorum is, that no quorum existed. but then also maybe to the point that if there is a appointment that's required, maybe also a super majority of the remaining council, so it's not just a four-person vote, maybe there's a way to do that. But I think that that provision to remove an appointment completely, I think, could put us in a real bad position should something like this again happen in the future, especially with the rotation of the council with this new provision for November ballots.

Council Member Brown?

So I would amend the motion of direction in an attempt to compromise to say that there would be an appointment for vacancies with no more than two appointments in a two-year term. So that means the first two vacancies, so say we're starting in 2027, so from 2007 to 2029, the first two vacancies would be filled by appointment, and any vacancy thereafter would go to a special election. That allows a compromise there for the council to continue to move quickly, but also safeguards there being a large number of resignations and having this be a fully appointed council.

Council Member Kendricks.

All right. I can't remember.

My apologies. Okay, Council Member Brown has made amendment to the motions. Could you repeat the motion?

So the motion. Motion of direction. The motion of direction as amended would say to accept the recommendation but add that the vacancy would only be filled by appointment for the first two vacancies in a two-year term.

Okay, it was second by appointment. I'll second it.

I second it.

Okay. All right. A second. I'll open for discussion. Council Member Kendricks.

We were... Man, we went back and forth with this. And there was a few people that came and they spoke on it. When we talked about appointments and everything and the citizens that did speak on it, they didn't want the council to appoint. But now you've got this language in here by the committee. When some of those, I believe, if I might be wrong, was the same ones that wanted something different. So I'm conflicted with that.

I can kind of shed some light on the discussions, if that's what you're looking for. So some of the concerns they had, why they came up with this recommendation, was essentially a big one is the reduction of elections. So since we're trying to get rid of May elections and get them down to November and save those costs, having a provision there for special elections would still have a very real possibility of having May elections. So that would still have that cost for the city. They also said that having it extended to a special election would extend that time until that someone is elected and would cause no representation. So if, say, for instance, somebody vacates and the next election wouldn't be out for six months, there'd be a six-month gap between that vacancy and when that seat would ever be filled by special election. And then it was a lack of just representation during that time was the general consensus. And this was a unanimous recommendation by the Charter Review Committee.

Okay. And I'm understanding that, what you just said. So they wanted to go to a special election.

No. No.

They want all the... See, that's why I'm conflicted with it because some of the same ones, they came in here and that's what they said. They did not want us to appoint because they wanted it to go to an election. So now I'm hearing even with the individuals that are on that committee, it's a conflicting story. Now it changes. And I've read over each and every one of these things and did my pros and cons, and I'm seeing confliction, and it worries me with the confliction, why all of a sudden you want to go a different route when you stood here in front of us and said something totally different.

That is on my opinion.

I'm making a statement. I'm talking about it. But I'm just saying that's what I mean. Conflict.

I will say there was a kind of common theme amongst the entire charter review committee was the underlying getting rid of those May elections. So that was a big motivation factor in a lot of these changes as well. Just any possibility to get rid of them.

Yes, sir. That's all I have.

Mayor Pro Temp.

Just so all hearts and minds are clear, once the changes were made and recommendations were made by the Charter Review Committee, right, they went back and forth and they made these changes. You said there was a final decision. Did the Charter Review Committee have a chance to review these final decisions before they were presented to us? Yes, ma'am.

Yes. So what I did with the Charter Review Committee is every night I brought a new topic and I presented essentially a lot of what you're seeing tonight, the backgrounds, the comparators, things like that. They just had a frank discussion and they gave me a motion of direction as to what they would like to have seen as far as proposed amendments. I went back to my office, made those red lines and proposed changes, and brought them back at the next Charter Review Committee. And those items are at the beginning, and there was a motion to accept that final recommendation. There was a few times when there were some secondary changes made, or they just accepted those changes as is. But yes, they were sent a second time.

So just so all hearts and minds are clear, they saw these changes that were recommended. Okay, very good. Thank you. And so just, I would like just to have the, before we serve, I can please request that we just restate the motion as amended again, just for clarity's sake. But I just want to be on the record that I do support continuity of government. I do think that the motion as originally presented is extremely important. I can support the change because that would prevent the concern of Entire council being strategically appointed the only And then a special election would be called if no quorum existed I just wanna make sure that that Burbage does stay and that does remain in this Motion either way. So if you could please have it restated, so I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

That was a moment asking.

Thank you, sir so When we appoint to a position, it's not for two years. We just cannot do that, because a person has won an election, so you can't appoint for two years. And history does repeat itself. When a person step down, that's either to run for another position within the council, and that may not even happen for the simple fact if our first amendment that we put in place passed, that council members don't have to step down, then what we're saying now is irrelevant. However, it is some circumstances, health reason, a husband or spouse may be deploying or they may be military and they have to go. There are exceptions to the rule. But I want to make it clear, a council... Do not appoint for two years. That's impossible because somebody will have to run. And when their time is up, just like the whole council, because we all got to leave at the same time, everybody will be running. It's not like that person is going to linger on. We all running together. So rather you have a year to serve in that position or you have three months to serve. Once that election come, we all have to run for election. So I don't want you to think my motion is that a person will serve exactly two years is virtually impossible because we all have to run at the same time. Thank you, Mr Mayor.

Council Member Brown.

No matter what an amendment on this, what didn't change? what an appointment does or doesn't do wouldn't change the way a special election works. A special election doesn't elect a person to a full two-year term, correct?

That would be correct. It would just be to fill the remainder of the term.

So the two individuals elected this year in a special election are not getting a 30-month term. They're getting an 18-month term. Okay.

Well, they're getting that not because of the special election, but because of the change in election dates.

Right. So, for example, District 4 and District 1 have a 30-month term. They're getting 18 months because they're filling in that extra time until that would have been termed out. Right. Go ahead.

No, I'm just saying you're correct. It would have filled the remainder of that term, however long was the remainder on it.

So whether it was an appointment or a special election, it works the same way. And goodness knows, I... Talked to the receptionist at my doctor's office on Friday, and her brother was killed in a car accident on Stan Schluter very recently. We never know what's going to happen. And so whether it's six months or whether it's 23 months, because God forbid something horrible happens, we could end up with a lot of appointments in a short amount of time. Mayor, I'm just going to restate the amended motion, if that's OK with you.

Please, I was going to come to that, but you can do it.

So the amended motion would be to make a motion of direction to accept and move forward this proposed charter amendment, adding in that there shall be no more than two appointments for a two-year term.

Okay, there's been a motion and amended motion of direction. And it was second by Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez. And all in favor, signify by raising your hand. All opposed? The motion fails. Can I see those hands all opposed again, please? It's four to three. Motion fails. Okay. Thank you. Did you get that?

I did. The motion to amend the motion failed. So we still have a motion on the floor. Yes. Yes, we still have a motion on the floor to accept as presented.

Yes. OK, so there's a motion on the floor. And for my sake, I believe I was not here. That motion, again, that was.

The motion on the floor is to accept as presented the recommendation from the Charter Review Committee. to make appointments to vacancies rather than have special elections.

That's a motion of direction?

Yes.

Okay, and it was second?

It was. There was a, Council Member Nash-King made the motion, Council Member Bass seconded it, and then we had a motion to amend that failed, so we're back to the original motion.

All in favor, signify by raising your hand. Okay, all opposed? Okay, the motion fails. Passed by 61. I like the electronic better. Thank you. We're going to take a 10-minute break. Come back. Thank you. Hold up. Sir, you may continue. Candidates, can we go to candidates filing fee? Did we do that one yet? I'm sorry, what? Candidates filing fee. I've got that.

I've got one more item and then candidate filing fee. I can jump forward to that one if you'd like.

No, continue. Okay, okay. Continue, sir.

Good news is I've already covered exactly what I was kind of planning on covering in one meeting, so we're making good time.

Okay, let's just see one more. We asked the council how far do you want to go. Okay.

So the next item I have for you tonight is council investigations. These are investigations initiated by council. This was a... This was an item presented or requested to be reviewed by council specifically of whether or not there should be a provision in the charter regarding an ordinance that sets the procedures in order for the council to conduct these investigations. So the background. Charter authorizes investigations by the city council in order to inquire into the conduct of any office, department, agency, or officer and to make investigation as to municipal affairs. As part of the investigation, Council may subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, compel the production of books, papers, and other evidence. So the Charter Review Committee recommended an amendment to require that the City Council adopt an ordinance specifying the procedures to conduct the investigation. So based on that recommendation, an amendment would need to be made to Section 39 of the Charter. Again, this was something that was specifically requested at a specific amendment. So you'll see here, this is the section that's out of the city charter. It's just a basic provision that would require essentially staff to write an ordinance and for approval by council to adopt a procedure to conduct any investigation. The cities of Waco, so again, I looked into a lot of the other cities. The cities of Waco, Denton, Mesquite, McAllen, among others, all have charter provisions that are very similar in nature to that with the city of Killeen city charter. And by that, I mean everything here on this screen above the redlined addition there at the bottom. Those provisions all allow for councils to investigate any city matter, subpoena witnesses, documents imposed, penalties. This is a pretty boilerplate provision across most city, home real cities charters. I could not find a comparable city with a charter provision that requires the adoption of an ordinance setting the investigative procedures. It was presented to us for for an example was the city of Hondo had recently amended its code of ordinances to adopt some procedures that specifically outline the procedures for council to conduct an investigation. The city of Hondo is a very small town, less than 2,000 people. That's why I'm saying there's no comparable cities. So based on that, Based on that, staff is requesting direction. Again, so the Charter Review Committee did recommend that the section be amended to include that provision. So staff's requesting direction as to proposed amendments accepting, rejecting, or modifying that recommendation.

Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. For Mr. Walter, I mean, I'm looking at this amendment or excuse me the addition to the charter it feels like something that would be more appropriate for governing standards or city policy is there any discussion on why why it had to be in a charter uh and you know versus uh governing standards for example

The reasoning I got is they wanted this in order to go into the charter in order for it not to be taken out. That way, once it goes into the charter, it's a lot more difficult to come out. It is our opinion that, yes, this is usually more appropriate to go into the governing standards or something like that and not necessarily into an ordinance. It would not prohibit this council from adopting a resolution or an ordinance or just adopting a policy at a later date that sets out these policies as well, these procedures.

Thank you for the clarification. To me, it just seems like something this detailed, you know, charters are like for these overarching, you know, philosophical type things. And this is kind of down in the weeds. I think it belongs more in the governor's standards. That's just my opinion. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Investigating a council member is dangerous territory. And I see it from a perspective, it's just like a recall to me. You can make up any and everything. People can also decide, not this council, maybe a council after us. If they don't like a person, all they have to do is come together, ensure you're not on the dais, you can get four votes. That's too easy by talking to having other people to talk and coming up with evidence to remove a person, as I stated, not this council. And that person is gone based on I like them or I don't like them. I think when the people voted us in this position, only the people should have the authority to remove us. To put this in place for four votes to move a person in an investigation, because after that you got to go in more detail. Okay, we got the investigation. What happened? We sanctioned them. Do they sit out a meeting? Or can we automatically go to a recall? We can put it in place to recall them. There's so many loopholes to this that it is dangerous territory because you're going against the will of the people when you decide to take on your own investigation and make a decision whether a council member stay or not once the people have already voted because we done through voted the people residents but now we're trying to circumvent it I am 100% against this. We have already had this discussion in the past with other councils, and it was denied then, and I stand by that. The ones prior to me, the ones that when I was serving on there was brought up with other council members, and this time I deny it because we don't have that authority. Why would we want to investigate a council member when the people selected who they wanted to represent them? Thank you.

Council Member Brown?

This is already in the charter, correct?

Correct.

The council already has the right and the authority to do an investigation into anything that is a city department, a city employee's activity as it pertains to their job, or any official of the city. We can already do that.

That's correct. This would not expand council's authority in any way.

Right. And so in attending the meetings, what I heard is very similar to what I heard in the discussion about the non-agenda items. That, yes, ideally it would be something that the council just does, that the council just does. puts in an actual procedure on how to exercise the right we already have. So that let's say, I don't know, we want to call an investigation or an inquiry into a staff member who says don't do what the council said. It would actually lay out the steps of that procedure and how to do it, other than just make a motion. It would lay out how a subpoena would be issued by a council. It would outlay how we would administer an oath and who would do that from the council. Stuff like that, correct?

Correct. Right, right.

And so because this has come up multiple times from different council members putting it on the agenda as an RQ item, we get the remainder of the council to put this into... to put this into a resolution ordinance? And it has not gone through because some people disagree with even having that authority. It hasn't been put there. So the only way to actually have a procedure so we are consistent in the application of it is to have that ordinance resolution or something in the governing standards. But the only way to ensure that it is there and that it remains there is by having it in the charter. And so that's what I gathered from the committee as far as why they were making this particular recommendation. Is that what your understanding was?

That is correct. That's my understanding.

Okay. So with that, I would make a motion of direction to accept this proposed amendment as presented.

Motion by Councilmember Brown to accept this amendment. Second. One second. There's a second. There is no second. The motion fails. Council member Bass.

So if the council accepted this recommendation, and if it went to, well, and then it went to the ballot in November and the voters voted in favor of it, we would have to come up with the procedures first, correct?

That is correct. So we would request direction from staff as to what those procedures would be. We would generate an ordinance in response.

And then those procedures would be locked in stone in the charter. My point, go ahead.

No, I'm sorry. No, so the procedures would not be in the charter based on this recommendation. So this recommendation is only to put a requirement that this council adopt procedures. But those procedures would be, as written, it would be via an ordinance. And so that ordinance would be either adopting, amending the code of ordinances or just be a standalone ordinance, which could be amended by majority vote of the council at later dates.

So if it's in an ordinance, then the council could change it, correct? Yes. Because we learn by doing. And so we conduct an investigation according to these procedures that we would come up with. And then we decide, you know, there's a couple of things here that we could have done better. we would have to amend the ordinance, correct? That is correct. Or, as Council Member Kimball said, we could put procedures in the governing standards. Is that correct? That is correct. And governing standards are a bit more flexible than the charter or an ordinance. Is that correct?

As far as amending them, it would be the same requirement. It would still just require a motion by a council member and a majority vote. Yeah.

Okay. But whether it's an ordinance or whether it's governing standards, it would be a motion by a council member, a second, and then a vote. Yes. Okay. And they're about equal as far as the governing standards and the ordinances are – basically equal as far as difficulty or non-difficulty of changing?

As far as changing, yes. They're looked at a bit differently. So ordinances are going to be looked at as your local laws. So those are the ones that you don't really want to be amending that often. They want to be consistent. Okay. You're talking about the ordinance? The ordinance, correct.

Well, if I understood Councilmember Kimball correctly, I agree that for procedures, it would be better to have that in governing standards. Thank you.

Councilmember Kendrick?

Just on being in an understanding, If we was just say we was to adopt what the committee is saying, it sometimes could place us in a bad situation to where there possibly could be some Open Meeting Act violations due to maybe people or even a council member talking to outside people and sharing some information that shouldn't be shared, that would put the investigation in a bad spot.

Now, again, this is not granting you any additional authority. I mean, you're able to do that. Now, unfortunately, you're able to violate the OB-GYN now. But, no, it's... This is allowing the same. All it's doing is just what the charter review committee is recommending is they're requiring the city council to come up with policy for how to conduct it.

So we can come up with policy but keep it in the governing standard but still come up with policy on it, right?

That's correct.

Well, then I'm in agreeance with what Council Member Kimball stated, that it should be done that way in the governing standards. Thank you.

So, just for a frame of reference, this is already in existence. We already have this authority. We're not amending the authority because I do have some concerns such as council member Nash King has mentioned. But I also agree with the other council members regarding governing standards. But I also believe that there should be policy because we are now finding ourselves in a situation where we have now a request for an inquiry, inquest, investigation, whatever we're going to call that, but we don't have a process in place. So what they are asking simply is that there's a process in place and it's documented, and documented in the appropriate location is what I hear the council asking. Would that be a correct statement?

As far as the recommendation, the recommendation is not only shall this council shall adopt procedures, but those procedures shall be adopted by ordinance. So there's no, it's not they shall be adopted by resolution or shall be adopted in the governing standards. It is by resolution. I mean, I'm sorry, by ordinance. Okay. So I know it's a bit of a distinction, but that's the way that the ordinance is, the recommendation.

And they're asking for a policy and a process, which we don't have. We have the authority now, but we don't have a process in place. And we have a situation that we found ourselves in that we're coming into that there's no process for. Okay, thank you, I understand.

Council Member Brown?

So I would go back to when I had proposed in my first term that we have an ethics ordinance, which then would give us something if someone brought false, knowingly brought false charges against another council member. But I think we're missing the bigger picture. This is not just about council members. I'm not doing anything wrong. Y'all can investigate me on whatever you want to. So then if the primary concern that everybody is having is that it says by ordinance, and I haven't heard any other recommendation, then I would make a motion of direction to accept the recommendation and strike by ordinance. So it would then just read, council shall provide procedures on the conduct of any investigations authorized pursuant to this section, in which case it still gives the council the authority to determine how we go about doing that, whether it's an ordinance, whether it's in the governing standards, whether it's a resolution. It would still be up to the council to decide how that gets put into place, but it just solidifies that there is a procedure. And then if the voters don't think that we need to put it in the charter, they're going to vote no on it. Again, I will restate because I know I talked a whole bunch after I said it. I would make a motion of direction to accept the ordinance and strike by ordinance so that the amendment would read, council shall provide procedures on the conduct of any investigations authorized pursuant to this section.

I second.

It was motioned by Councilmember Brown and seconded by Councilmember Kimball. And would you repeat the motion again, so for clarity, please?

The motion I have down is to accept the recommendation with the change of striking by ordinance so that the amendment to section 39 would state council shall provide procedures on the conduct of all investigations authorized pursuant to this section.

All in favor signify by raising your hand.

We haven't had discussion.

I'm sorry, discussion. My apology. Discussion, open for discussion. Council Member Naske.

Thank you, sir. This contradicts everything that I heard after we done voted it down. If it's going in the government standards and expectations, then we say, no, we don't want it in there, put it in a charter. That's wrong right there. Even though we have the authority to investigate city staff and departments, I am 100% against that. I don't even think the council have time for something like that and to do it effectively because you have not a background. Because we have a former police chief. That's not his job. Subpoena somebody. Who does that? This is a joke, to be honest. It's not about a person being innocent and guilty. We have seen it over and over with the recall process. You can sneeze and you're being recalled. And the district rep should look at that from that perspective. And I'm not coming after anyone from any perspective. I don't think the way the charter is set up for the council to look into staff and look into department heads, I wasn't for that investigation, too, because it's in there does not make it mean it's right. And what happens, we have council come out, the council out the council, and it predicated on who's up here, what we put in the charter, what we vote on, what we don't. If there is an investigation and you hire a city manager and the city manager according to the charter, which conflicts with the council trying to investigate city staff and department? That's a conflict to me because if he's in charge of staff, he's in charge of staff. So why are we trying to investigate them, not trying to investigate us? Because we are not wholly in a position to make those decisions on somebody's livelihood based on our lack of experience. That's just my perspective. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And that was not directed toward anybody, just an opinion.

Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. When you are a governing body, one of the responsibilities that you have is oversight. Oversight, and that comes in many forms, questioning, reviewing files, and in some cases, an investigation. And it's already in our charter. That's part of our responsibilities. So if it has to come up, that's what we do. We're just trying to codify on how to do it. And luckily, you do have somebody with some experience. I've done it for 32 years, and I know how to bring those resources within the city, within HR, within the police department. There's enough resources that we collectively as a council can get that done. It's already in there. It's one of our responsibilities as oversight, and let's use it. Let's use that responsibility when need be. Thank you.

Council Member Brown.

To continue where Councilman Kimball left off, we are going to have to do this at some point or another. And we've already done it to certain degrees in the past. I've watched the council ask questions about, why did this department do this? Why did this person do that? We need continuity. But also, if we have council members who are concerned about it being abused, then that is even more of a reason why we should have a procedure in place. Because we set that procedure, we can set parameters and guardrails to make sure that that abuse isn't there. Otherwise, right now, if there are four council members who say we are investigating Joe Smith who works in tap dancing and education. went with something that I know I'm not going to accidentally say a real person. Okay. But if we say, okay, four of us are voting that we're going to call an investigation into Joe Smith and the tap dancing department, then that's it. There's an investigation into Joe Smith and then we are just doing it ad hoc and we're doing, figuring it out as we go along. And there is no guardrail to say that in order to have that investigation, we have to have X, Y, and Z first. We can just randomly call it right now. So if there is truly a concern about it being abused, then I feel like that is something that this is exactly why we want these procedures in place. Furthermore, if you go all the way up to the Constitution, the legislative branch shall investigate all of the branches, legislative, executive, and judicial. It is always the job at the state level. The legislature is responsible for investigating what happens at the state level. The county level, the county commissioner's court, the legislature there is responsible for investigating the county. The city is no different. That is a responsibility we have as elected officials who represent the people, and not just the public, but who represent every citizen of the city. So that if we get concerns from staff saying that, look, this is going on in the department that I work in, then the council should be looking into that. We shouldn't be putting it on one single person who is hired and not elected. We have the right already, so let's give ourselves guardrails, and let's let the people decide if they want it in the charter or not.

Also, Member Kendricks.

I agree with a little bit what was just said. But I still think the way Councilmember Kimball explained it in his initial talking of it, that it should be put in the governance standards. And just for clarity, did we already, we voted this down, didn't we? We did. Voted by down.

This is a new motion. Excuse me.

It's a new motion? Okay. So, but, like I said, I think the way Councilmember Kimball initially announced it, I believe that should be the direction that we should head.

I think that's the motion that's on the floor at the moment.

I thought there was an amendment to it.

The original motion died due to a lack of a second, and then the motion now is to accept this recommendation, but with allowing the council to adopt these policies, like in the governing standards. It doesn't specify that it has to be by ordinance. That's the way I understood the motion.

Okay. Okay. Council Kinzinger. Well, with that, Why does it, I'm trying to figure out, why would it need to be to adopt the policies when we could just leave it as it is and then we do the policies?

I think it was like Councilman Brown said, the charter review committees, the reasoning behind this recommendation is they felt like it's kind of on the whim of council of whether or not they would have these policies. So they thought one council would adopt these policies and then the very next council that comes along would repeal the policies or they would change. They wanted to make sure that by adopting these, if this were to be approved by electors, that this Council would be required to adopt some sort of policies and procedures on how to conduct these investigations. I hope I answered it.

I'm still kind of trying to just make sure I totally understand what we're getting ready to vote for now. or with that amendment, can I hear it one more time? Because I want to ensure that I'm hearing it correctly.

Council, attorney, city attorney.

I can restate the motion. And if I can, just try to answer the question again. I think the difference here is if you reject this, then you could still, as a council, decide to amend your governing standards and put a policy in place regarding the policy. You wouldn't need it in the charter. You could do that. But the recommendation by the charter committee is to require you to do that and to require you to do that by putting it in the charter. And so the motion on the table right now is to accept the recommendation of the charter committee, but striking the requirement to put the policy in an ordinance so that the change to the charter would read, council shall provide procedures on the conduct of any investigations authorized pursuant to this section. So it would require that you actually have a change to the charter that would require council to put policy in place. Okay.

Well, if that being the case, I would like to, can I make a motion?

No, it's already a motion on the floor. Motion to recognize on the floor. All right. Council Member Nash-King.

Thank you, sir. Just clarity. Because, see, when we say words, and we do have council members on here, when you turn and twist words, it can become confusion. It can make you confused. Whatever we vote on, if we vote on this item, it will be on the charter. And that was your question. So I just like it simple, especially for people in the audience, people looking. We say a lot of stuff. It has zero meaning to them. Simple word is whatever we vote on, it will be on the charter. It is a reason why our attorney couldn't find any other municipality that has ever done this. What happens on the federal and state, that's not even our line. We were just arguing about you can't even be on the diets and run for something in the county or state or federal. You have to resign. So that says to me that that's not our concern what goes on higher. What concerns me is here. We should not have that kind of overreach. That's overreach. You can use whatever adjective to sell your case, but the bottom line, we are doing the city manager job. We are looking for a city manager, just not any kind of city manager, but the top line city manager. And if I see a councilor that's already trying to do my job for me, why would I come here? We'll get somebody, but it won't be the top line because it is clear in our charter, the city manager is in charge of the city staff. We have only three people that we should be trying to say yay or nay to. But now we're trying to circumvent that. And we become investigators. And you're talking about people of livelihood. We, as this council now, put something in place, and we don't have individuals that come after us, don't even know the reason we put it in place, do not even pay attention to attention and details, and then they say or do things, but the person they're trying to investigate, and they come up short. and the council is wrong, where else could he or she go for a job after we, with inexperience, unless the police station will take the time and give us the training, what you should look for, what we should do. Everybody's not going to have a former police chief on their council. That's virtually impossible. So what we do now is the same reason we constantly say what somebody did 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 10 years ago. We're dealing with it now. I think this should be in the governor's standards and expectation if you choose to do it. But this shouldn't be a must do it. That flexibility should be left up to the future council members to come. Thank you.

So let me ask you this, and we'll continue. In this Section 39, we already have that in our charter. Could not council just bring everything into the government standing? Do you see that in other cities where this is in their charter rather than their governing standards?

The authority to conduct investigations or the policy? The language that we've got in Section 39, investigation by council, is almost verbatim in a lot of other cities. So most every other city I looked at had this exact same language.

In their charter?

In their charter, yes. I'm sorry. When I was saying earlier about that, I couldn't find anything. It was language that says that the council must adopt policies. That's what was not found in India. I apologize if I didn't make that clear enough, but I'm talking about just the amendment. That was what, uh, that requirement was not found in any other comparable cities.

Okay. But you also said that you, and earlier on you mentioned about you suggesting that it should be in governing standards. Is that correct?

In my opinion, and I feel like that would be the better, typically that's something where you would find something like this would be in like your governing standards. It'd be more of a policy than ordinance.

Thank you. Council Member Brown. Yeah, Councilman Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think you cleared it up for me because I was looking at the comparators. The cities of Waco, Denton, Mesquite, McAllen, among others that have charter provisions very similar in nature to that currently of the city of Killeen. We're not doing anything that is outside the scope. We have the right to do an investigation if we feel that it needs to be done. I just think the better place, and it sounds like the attorney does also, that this belongs to something in the governing standards. not necessarily in the charter. So it seems fairly simple. We've always had the authority to do investigations, not to do overreach. But when things come before us that need to be dealt with, we do an investigation. And we don't have to be detectives. We bring resources to bear that we need, whether it's financial resources, HR specialists, God forbid, even law enforcement. We can bring those to bear on anything. It seems pretty simple to me. Thank you, sir.

Yes, sir. Council Member Brown.

If we accept the proposed amendment as revised, we could still, on June 16th, we're discussing our governing standards. We could still come back and add it to the policy within our governing standards then, correct?

This upcoming June, yes.

And if we don't, then that is more evidence to the citizens why they would feel like it needs to be in the charter because it's us not putting in a procedure in place. All I'm saying is that with the current version of the motion, And to everybody's point, it would not have to be an ordinance. It can go into the governing standards. Just like non-agenda items was once in the governing standards and then it was removed by the council members, this is something that if we did put it in the governing standards next week, it could be removed a week after that if we wanted to. If it's in the charter saying we have to have a policy and a procedure somewhere, then that's what it would say. And we would have to have one wherever we then choose is the best location for it. Whatever method we then choose is best for us to move forward and progress with it. And with that, I call for the vote.

The vote has been called for. All in favor signify by? Second. I'm sorry, I need a second call for the vote. Second, is there a second to call for the vote? Kimball. It was second by Council Member Kimball. Second. It was second by Council Member Kimball. Now we're open for discussion.

No.

Let's call for the vote. Call for the vote. No discussion right now. All in favor, signify by saying, raising your hand.

Of calling for the vote. So we're voting to call for the vote.

Yes, calling for the vote. All opposed? Okay, motion fails by 43.

Okay, Council Member Bass. So, Council Member Brown's amendment is still on the floor, correct? Correct. And that amendment is that we would accept the recommendation of the charter committee, but strike the ordinance part.

That is the motion on the table. It's not an amendment to a motion. That's a primary motion.

You're right. That's the primary. I got it. I understand. Thank you.

Council Member Nashking. Thank you, sir. I'd like to make a motion of direction that council. Can I make an amendment to the motion of direction? Mr. Mayor, would you ask the city attorney, please?

City attorney.

You can make an amendment to the motion. Yes, ma'am. It sounded initially like it was a new motion.

No, ma'am. If I did, and counsel, I want to apologize. I misunderstood what the attorney was saying when I was saying he couldn't find it. I apologize. I read that wrong. But it is an amendment. I would like to make an amendment to the original motion of direction that council investigations be put only into the, it should be discussed to go only in the governor's standards and expectations and not the charter.

That's an amendment to the motion of direction.

It's the opposite of her putting it on the charter, Mr. Mayor. I'm saying the opposite. This should be a discussion.

Well, I do have a question to clarify the motion, if I can understand. So your motion is just basically... Is your motion to nullify your amendment to nullify the original motion, or is your amendment to the motion to... still require something to be in the charter, but require that council shall provide per the governing standards procedures on the conduct of an investigation. Yes, ma'am. So that would be on the ballot in November to have that language.

Okay. And they cut me off because they were talking, but that's what I was trying to finish. And I apologize. I didn't get the opportunity to finish. That is mine. If it goes on the ballot for the charter... It should be that it should go into the governor's standards, and it should not be an ordinance that we must do. It has to go in the governor's standards that whatever council come after that, they have to know if they want to change it, cool, but you can't take it away. It has to be in the governor's standards and expectation. I will second that. Per what Council Member Kimball recommended.

Okay. She made an amendment, a motion of direction to amend that. And so how do we go forth on that?

You need a second?

Yes, it was second by Council Member Brown.

Okay. So now you can vote on whether Council wants to amend the original motion. So we're voting on the amendment. And then if the amendment passes, you'll vote on the motion as amended. If it doesn't, you'll vote on the original motion.

So all in favor of the amendment signified by... All those in favor? All opposed? And it passes. You oppose? Six to one? Motion passes. Okay, so we continue.

So now you need to vote on the motion as amended. So the motion as amended would have the effect of including on the ballot language that said council shall provide through its governing standards procedures on the conduct of it, or we could say instead of, yeah, governing standards was the recommendation.

Okay. So all in favor? Signify by raising your hand. All opposed? All in favor?

Are we still in discussion? No. Do I miss the discussion of the new amended motion?

The amendment to the motion passed, and so we're back on the motion as amended, and the mayor has called for a vote. But you've got a request for discussion, so you can allow that or take the vote.

We're open for discussion.

Thank you, sir. I just want to make clear, because I heard a motion that we're moving the entire chapter into the governing standards.

No, that's not what I have.

City Attorney?

That's not what I have.

I'm sorry, I thought I heard Councilwoman Nash-King say something. That's why I wanted clarification.

No, sir.

I thought we were moving the entire chapter, but we're still keeping 39 in the charter, but council shall provide by governing standards or other procedures. That's the current motion.

yes sir yes sir thank you so much thank you sir so what i said was what you said originally uh before you went to the next one and it's just that we're not putting it in the charter we're going to put this in the governor's standards and expectations the next motion is for it to go in the charter but it has no place in the charter that's why i made the amendment so we could just be done with this first uh motion of direction but we still got a vote on it okay i just i thought i heard you say

I'm sorry. I thought I heard move Chapter 39 entirely into the... No, sir.

I agree with you that it should go in the governor's standards and expectation. But the next vote is to put it in the charter, which we agree it shouldn't have a place there, sir. So that's the one we're getting ready to vote on now.

Thanks for the clarification. To the attorney.

Yes, if I could. Thank you, Mayor. So the effect of the motion as amended on the floor right now would be that the language of council shall provide through its governing standards procedures on the conduct of an investigation and if any investigation is authorized pursuant to this section, that language would be added to the charter. If it would go to the ballot in November and if it was voted, then that language would be added to the charter and then you would have to adopt the to your governing standards that have those procedures, if the electors voted on that.

Council Member Nesking? Okay. And then Council Member Brown?

So I'm just trying to get clarity on what you just stated. The amendment is that it will go, if it passed by the voters, just for clarity, that it will be in the governor's standards and expectations, correct? Correct.

The procedures. The requirement that we have to have procedures would be in the charter, and then the procedures themselves would be in the governing standards.

Okay, okay, okay. So basically you're saying we need, one more question, you're saying we need both of them in order for them to be in the governor's standards and expectation?

No, you do not need both of them for it to be in the governing standards. You don't have to change the charter at all to adopt the changes to your governing standards.

That's what I was waiting on. Thank you.

Council Member Brown.

Councilman Nash, I supported your motion because I believe that that is what the citizens, the voters decided they deserve to vote on. And so all we want to do is let the voters decide if we should have a policy or procedure that's required of us. You don't have to respond. We can vote after this. I understand where you're coming from. But that is why I support it. I think that it is a fair compromise for everybody. It fits in with what everybody had wanted. And I'm glad you asked the question because it solidifies the point that we can still put it into our governing standards next week when we discuss them. And we don't have to wait until after the election. And then the voters after this can still decide in November if they want it to be there continuously as a requirement or not. So thank you.

Okay. Council member asking.

Thank you, sir. And the reason I brought that up, and I thank the city attorney, we already voted that this will happen. And it will go into the government. On the charter, I'm talking about it's going on the charter. I understand that. What we voted on, the amendment, is going on the charter, correct?

Not yet. You voted to amend the motion. So now you still need to vote on the motion as amended to get us to move it forward.

Yes, ma'am. I understand that. But maybe I should ask the question another way. If the next motion, if the motion of direction fails, Will the amendment be put on the charter?

If the motion of direction fails, it will not go on the charter election. It won't go to the charter election.

Okay. So the only way we can get it in the governor's standards and expectation is for me to do an agenda item and request for the council to put it to vote. We can vote all of this down. We can vote the next one down. I'm just saying. to get that part that we all agree should go in the governor's standards, or we just put it on the charter. And my concern with that is if it fails on the charter, just say the people don't vote for that. We still got to go back through the whole process. So that's the only reason I asked that question. We can put it on there for them to vote on it. I'm not disagreeing with Councilwoman Brown on that. I agree with that. But just council be aware, if it fails on the charter by the people, we still will have to come back and put it on the agenda and discuss. We all vote to put it in the governor's standards and expectation. That's all I was, a roundabout way I was trying to say that. So I'm done. Call for the vote, Mr. Mayor. Okay.

Council. Council. Yes, ma'am. I understand. I understand. City Attorney, could you explain the vote again, please?

Yes. The motion on the table as amended is now to... Thank you. Accept the recommendation from the Charter Review Committee, but that the language that would go on the ballot would be, Council shall provide, through its governing standards, procedures on the conduct of any investigations authorized pursuant to this section.

Mr. Mayor, there's still a call for a vote on the floor before we go into discussion.

Excuse me, Council Member. I understand. Thank you. Okay, who seconded that? Okay. It was seconded by... Could you repeat your amendment again, please? Because we're trying to get the vote.

No, sir, I didn't make an amendment. I just said call for the vote.

Okay, it's a call for the vote, and she seconded. Okay, all in favor of voting signified by... Okay, all opposed? I'm just not voting, I'm not voting. Okay, it was motion carries six to one, would that be correct?

With one abstaining, yes. With one abstaining.

Which counts as a negative vote unless you- Okay, city attorney, please tell me,

So now we're back to the motion as amended. And so you're voting at this point to add to the charter election language to section 39 that states council shall provide through its governing standards procedures on the conduct of any investigations authorized pursuant to this section. So that's the motion on the floor that we need to vote on.

Okay. Did we open for discussion? No discussion?

No discussion at this point since you have a call for the vote that passed.

All in favor, signify by raising your hands. All opposed? Okay, motion fails. Would you please raise your hand high when we're doing this so I can count it please? Yes, can I see them? All in favor, please raise your hands. Please raise your hands. We're voting now. It was three, how much? 43. 43, okay. It's 43, I see you, council.

What are we voting on?

City attorney. It's all so confusing. Excuse me, ho, ho, ho, ho. Please let me hit the floor. City attorney, please direct us.

Mayor, you can finally call the vote, but it looks like there was some confusion before you called the final vote. So at this point, you don't have a final vote count, so you can ask them to raise their hands and get clarity on that.

At this time? Yes. Thank you. But as far as the vote, she did not understand what we, can you, can we?

Okay. You want me to restate the motion? Yes, please. As amended again? Okay. The motion as amended. is to amend Section 39 to add the language, Council shall provide, through its governing standards, procedures on the conduct of any investigations authorized pursuant to this section. So the vote is, a yes vote would say, yes, we're going to send that to the ballot in November. A no vote would say, no, I don't want to send that to the ballot in November.

OK, and we can call for the vote now.

Yes, we need to vote.

All in favor? Signify it by raising your hand. All opposed? OK. So the motion carries. Pat, fail? Fail 43? Yeah.

Mayor?

Yes. Council Member Brown?

Before we move on any further than this, I know there have been some questions. I've been going through all 11 of these trying to break them up a little bit. It just looks to me like we've gone through so much, people's heads are already starting to swim. I'm going to address that. So I was going to make the request to be able to make a motion that we adjourn now and hold the rest until two weeks from now.

Okay, there was a motion to adjourn. All in favor? Aye. Meeting adjourned.