City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you, Jerry.

The call to order. Thank you.

It is now 5 p.m. on June 22nd. I call the city council meeting to order. Let the record show that all council members are present. Council member Nash King is participating on Zoom. I need a motion to approve the agenda. Council member Brown.

Move to approve.

Councilmember Kendricks? I second. It was motioned by Councilmember Brown and seconded by Councilmember Kendricks. All in favor? Signify by saying yes. And I see Councilmember Nass King. I see your hand, ma'am. Thank you. The motion carries 7-0. It's now time for citizen comments. Citizens will have three minutes to speak. With one minute time allotted for city council to respond with a statement or explanation without engaging in dialogue. Madam city attorney, please call the first name.

Charles Carroll.

Good afternoon, sir.

How are you all? So my name is Charles Carroll, member of District 3. Today I'm here just to make some comments regarding council investigations. Investigation by council needs to be codified in a detailed way that serves the citizens of Killeen. Currently the process can end when city employees refuse to communicate. They simply stop responding whether it is to council or to residents. When the city council does not have the interest in the wrongdoings, damaging activity, conflicts of interest, illegal or corruption, communication simply stops. Without being able to bring our own items to agenda or request an investigation, all traction on any issue stops and no resolution or progress is made. This is simply unacceptable government behavior and not typical of other public servant roles such as state and federal level jobs. There is not typically a legal goes to public cause which covers these positions from not being held accountable. There needs to be a complete process in which if a city employee comes under investigation, either by city council initiation or by public request, that the issue is fully investigated to include counsel or resident submitted information and evidence, and that the investigation results in either corrective action or the overall resolution of the issue. There needs to be a clear and reasonable timeframe for these investigations so the continuation of simply ignoring accusations, whether founded or not, can't simply be ignored. Other areas of public service jobs lay out a clear framework for filing grievances that should be investigated in the timeframe in which they must be completed based on severity of those grievances. Currently, there is no way for a resident to request an investigation without going to the state level or in some cases even the FBI. This is not functional. The City Council should seek serious input from local residents and the state regarding how to make the most thorough language to protect the investigative process, citizens, and public monies. Outside legal counsels from cities who have incorporated functional counsel investigations should also be sought out for the most ironclad wording for the protection of the citizens. City Council is the checks and balances we have for protecting the citizens of our community and their tax dollars. City employees must have a high bar to include being able to communicate and defend their decisions, choices, and actions in their roles. Staying silent can't continue on the public's money. This must be written into our governing standards. On a piece that's kind of similar, so today if I wanted to sit up here and talk about for my three minutes on why I believe the duck-billed platypus is the most important animal on the face of this earth, I should probably do it. The citizens say what they care about. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam City Attorney.

Jeff Seidel.

Good evening, council.

Good afternoon, sir.

My name is Jeff Seidel and I was city councilman for Gerald, Texas for several terms. In Gerald, we were a type B general law city, we are, and have certain parameters and guidelines imposed by TML. Whereas you are a home rule city with much more flexibility and latitude as to how you are governed. Danielle Singh seemed to have lacked the differentiation. Danielle Singh was hired into Gerald as city manager. through the back door by then Mayor Pro Tem Rusty Bryson of the Bryson crime family. The Mayor Patrick Sherrick, who is a close cousin to Danielle.

Excuse me, sir. This is not on the agenda.

I don't have to, it's getting to the, well, it's getting to the agenda. You're saying it's- Now, this is public comments, is it not?

Yes, sir, this is public comments.

Okay, well, I'm going somewhere with this, if you'll allow me my three minutes.

Is this referring to the agenda?

It relates to the agenda, yes, it does.

City Attorney?

Mayor, you can make the termination, but yes, there are citizen comments. The citizen comments have to be related to the agenda item. The only agenda item on this agenda is charter review. And so you're speaking about a specific person, a former employee. And so I think the mayor's finding I'm not understanding how it's related to the charter.

Well, it actually comes down to maybe the situation with Jeff Reynolds. And I'd like to get to that.

No, it's not on the agenda, sir.

Well, it has to do, doesn't it?

No, sir.

Doesn't it? So you're wondering how to do discipline? What are we talking about here? How a citizen can come forward and how they can. Okay. If you're telling me I can't speak, I won't speak.

No, sir. Not on that.

All right. Well, I appreciate your rules, I guess.

Thank you, sir.

Yeah.

Madam City Attorney.

Patsy Bracey.

Okay, I wish to address DS26051. I'm gonna be short and brief. I'll probably take less than my allowed time. All of you received an email from me, including the city manager. related to comments, citizen comments, on the agenda. I believe one of the city council's responses indicated, I had mischance to vote, and I think not really what they were trying to correct or defend themselves. This is a perfect example of why people don't come up here and express themselves. because she tried to talk to you guys and you don't want to listen to them. So many things could be resolved if the citizens were allowed to just speak. And you stood in this chamber, raised your hand, and swore that you would protect the Constitution and the state of Texas laws and then so help you God. What happened? We've got to get those items back on. It's essential to your functioning, and it's essential for this city to move forward. So just remember, citizens put you in here, they can remove you.

Thank you, ma'am. Madam City Attorney.

Michael Fornino.

Good afternoon, sir.

It's the Bill of Rights, not the Bill of Suggestions. So restore our full first member rights. January is coming quicker than you think. The case for judicial removal, and I'm going to be very specific with this. I may need an extra minute, but everything I say relates to this. So as it stands, as Mr. Seidel was here earlier trying to explain about general law city, They have that as part of their standard package with a general rule city. Whereas you have a case of a council member who is either ineffective, unethical, or just outright breaking the law, conflict of interest. State law says that we have to defer to whatever's in the city charter. Well, we don't have that in our city charter. Nothing says we can't. Case in point, Jose Segarra's unethical, and very questionable dealings with Comedy Club.

Sir, that's not on the agenda.

Yes, it is. This is the cause and the reason. Don't interrupt me. I am on point. It's not on the agenda. Yes, it is. Okay, the reason he could not be removed, I brought the evidence to you folks and said, look, here's Mr. Segarra's involvement, and the council chose not to investigate or defer it. So judicial review would be the... I am on the agenda. I am on the agenda. Madam City Attorney, please pause my time.

Madam City Attorney...

Mayor, you decide if someone's on the agenda or not. Thank you.

You're not on the agenda. Madam City Attorney, I'm discussing on point exactly the case and why we have it, why not having it,

Yes, I was going to continue. I mean, he's relating it to judicial removal and how he would want to remove a procedure for removing a council member, and that is part of the Charter Commission review today. I'm glad to see that again, ma'am. One of the topics for your charter review today is the council investigation. I'm sorry, that one as well, but judicial removal of a council member that is on the charter review commission items today. That topic is, yes, if he's going to relate what he's saying to that topic.

Am I to believe that the mayor doesn't know what's on the agenda or what's in the charter? This is exactly why we need judicial removal. Judicial removal means that a citizen can go out.

Excuse me, sir. I want to give you more time. Can you give him back his time?

The city secretary stopped his time during that conversation.

You can continue, sir.

Whereas I've been on the phone with Texas Rangers Public Integrity Unit. They said that a lot of the stuff that I brought to them, they would jump all over. However, It takes you on the council to vote to bring in the Texas Rangers. That's where we're at. Judicial removal, I can go out to the DA, file charges, I can spend my own money, but spend my money, that will keep it from being frivolous to where I can't have you removed for wearing socks that I disagree with. It would be there, but it would make you accountable. It would give the citizens an option because as it is, like, oh, subpoenas, who does that in the words of former Mayor Debbie Nash King? Oh, investigating counsel is dangerous. How is that dangerous? If you're not doing anything, nobody's going to bring any charges or file papers on you. If we have credible evidence like I did with Jose Segarra and the comedy club and all the dirty dealings with that, You folks would have investigated and removed him yourself, but you refused. So give us the tool to do it every time you don't have the courage or the integrity or the whatever to actually move on an investigation. That needs to be in there. Oh, the will of the people, the will of the people. Well, then give us that option where if you don't have the integrity or the courage to investigate one of your own, just because you're up there in the dais does not make you infallible. Like, oh, well, the people elected us. We go to church. Nobody cares. Like, this is going to be the first time anybody ever went to church, did something wrong. Give us that ability. Thank you, sir.

Madam City Attorney.

Leo Gukaisen, and this is the last one I have.

Thank you, ma'am. Okay. Good afternoon, sir.

Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Madam Mayor Pro Temp, council members. I'm up here this evening to talk about one of the items on the city charter review. It's been called different things. the petition, the right to petition the council, city comments, or whatever the verbiage is gonna be used on it today, because I read it different ways and different articles in the paper and everything, so. As I stood here a while back, I told the body that I was the one who spearheaded that item at the review, because I think it is very important that every citizen should have the right to address their elected officials. And it should not be determined by a non-elected official if they get to speak to the council as it was before this item was stopped. This item was stopped a few years back as a temporary motion. because of how certain people interpreted what was going on. And it was never brought back up as an item for discussion or be put back in the governing standards or anything. It was just killed at that point, which is totally, in my opinion, inappropriate and wrong that this body denies their citizens the right to address them. I also push for it to be put into the charter itself because it should not be being able to be taken away on a whim. For example, since I don't believe in tearing up official documents or historical documents, I'm just using plain sheets of paper. Imagine this being your governing standards now. This is your governing standards that this body votes in. And this is a governing standard for the body after y'all. It should never be as easy to tear up a piece of paper or change a little document that denies the citizens of this city the right to address And that's what you do every time you just put this in your governing standards. You might put it in today. Next council takes it out. Council after that keeps it out. Next one puts it in. It should not be a Russian roulette when we address the individual personnel rights of our citizens in the Killeen. I understand why some people wanted it out last time and they got their way, but it wasn't right. You should not ever deny the citizen, any citizen, his or her constitutional rights is guaranteed to them in two very important documents. The Constitution of the United States and the Texas Constitution both have the same thing. Maybe a little the or the or tomato or tomato, but it's the same thing. The citizens have the right to bring grievance to their elected officials. And elected officials are not, should not be taking that away from them. And I have maybe 30 seconds, Mr. Mayor, to finish off.

Yes, sir.

The last time this item was brought up, a former council member read something from a website, a legal website, which I actually read myself. And he talked about forbidden language or threatening language or whatever. And he went through it, but the bottom line that he did not read to that body at the time and the citizens here and watching is that it is up to a judge to determine what is threatening language when what violates the Constitution. It's not up to an elected official by themselves to It goes to a judge, but that was one key aspect that he failed to mention on that. And with that, I thank you very much for your time.

Thank you, sir. Madam City Attorney.

Araceli Cook.

Good afternoon, ma'am.

Good afternoon. Good afternoon, council, council members, and mayor. The reason I'm here, I think basically everybody already put the information out, but I'm just going to put it in my perspective. I'm under DS-26051. When we talk about city council initiative investigations, I know it was in the meeting that the meeting prior to this one. I'm sitting in my house, listening to it on live stream, and I understand everything that was asked and requested in the motions and everything, and I'm not a council member, and I'm not a politician either. But if you make it so hard, like somebody just mentioned when they were up here, if you're so scared of being investigated, then maybe you should do the right thing in the first place. instead of trying to fill your pockets and not working for the citizens. Then you shouldn't be worried about any investigations like a resident just mentioned. Also, as far as the recall procedures, Okay, you want to change the recall procedures or whatever you want to do. Okay, some of you are sitting up there for your interest or somebody else's interest. You're not here for the residents. And I can see that already because in our district, which I'm District 4, we haven't had a meeting yet. I had to go to Mr. Bass's meeting, which was an excellent meeting that he presented. And I'm District 4, and I went to District 3's meeting. And he was excellent when he gave us the opportunity to speak and everything. Now, the procedures for recall, they shouldn't be that hard because if you're not doing your job, if you're not paying attention when the other council members are talking and putting information, then you don't belong there. You were there because somebody forced you to be there. As far as the judicial removal of election officials, it's just the same thing. Just like somebody mentioned, that's what I'm saying, you know, somebody already brought the information. If you're not running scared and looking over your shoulder, then you shouldn't worry about changing these charter amendments here. Do it for the right reasons. And now we got a new council and a new mayor, hopefully everything works out. Because I think I sent all of you an email on what happened on Mr. Bass's meeting. If you're going to do things right, start doing them right now. Because before you, I mean, the city is hurting. And you, with your plague that you don't want to do the right thing, you're separating the citizens. So think about that when you make your decisions. Instead of making decisions by somebody else that's pushing you to make that decision. That's all I have.

Thank you, ma'am.

All right.

Madam Secretary.

Discussion items DS26051 discuss charter amendments related to the City Council initiated investigations, candidate filing fee, initiative and referendum requirements, change order briefings, recall procedures, judicial removal of elected officials, and citizen comment period.

Good afternoon, sir.

Good evening, Mayor, Mayor Pro Tems, Council Members. I'm back again for another round. So the first item I have, as we were discussing, is the city council initiated investigations. This is something that we discussed at the last meeting. It ended, unfortunately, without any sort of final motion to either approve it or reject it. And so I decided I wanted to bring it back to the council in order to reconsider and whether or not they wanted to take any sort of final action. So just as a background. The Charter authorizes the investigations by the City Council in order to inquire into the conduct of any office, department, agency, officer and allows it to make investigations as to municipal affairs. The Charter Review Committee recommended an amendment to require that the City Council adopt an ordinance specifying the procedures to conduct that investigation. That change would need to be done to section 39 of the city charter and that on your screen there is the proposed red lines. It's just a simple one sentence amendment requiring an ordinance. So with that, staff is requesting direction as to whether the city council accepts, modifies and accepts or rejects the charter review committee's recommendation regarding city council initiated investigations.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Kendricks.

Yes, Madam Mayor. I would like to move that the City Council not advance the proposed amendment to Section 39 to the Charter and instead address investigative procedures through the governing standards.

It was motioned by council member Kendricks. Is there a second? And city attorney, could you repeat that motion, please?

The motion I have is to not advance this change to the charter, but to address this issue in the governing standards.

Thank you. Is there a second to the motion?

Second.

Second. It was second by, thank you, Council Member Nash-King. Second by Council Member Debbie Nash-King. All in favor, signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Oh, I'm sorry. My apology. Discussion. Council Member Debbie Nash-King. Council Member Kendricks, I'm sorry, I don't see. Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. So I just have a few questions for clarification. So looking at the current, based on comments that were made today and some other comments. So when it comes to city employees, There's already a process in place for that. For every city employee of the city of Killeen from department head down, there is a prescribed process for investigation in the employee handbook, right? Also per department, right?

I would say so, yes. The charter provides that also that any staff-related issues would be handled by the city manager. So that wouldn't even fall within the purview here as well. But yes, to answer your question, yes, there is investigative procedures.

And again, just for some historical context, unless somebody can answer here who's been here, has the council ever had an investigation on a city? The council ever had an investigation on a city outside the city management team? I'm not aware that this provision has been used in that way. Okay. So just for clarification, it seems like this is kind of targeted, I don't know if target is the right word, it is probably more for I guess the way it's written for council members or some other officer that we have jurisdiction over. Correct.

Okay. So any officers that report directly to the city council.

Okay, okay. Just for clarification, there was context made on city employees, but that process is already codified.

Correct, correct. So the city charter already provides that that would fall within the city manager. That's one of his duties. That's all I have for this round of questions.

Council Member Brown.

We actually have used this before as a council when it came to staff members. But it was at the time the directive that the council had was to direct the city manager to investigate something going on with staff. And really, I think, side looked, every single city that has a charter provision to have council investigations also includes a procedure someplace. Otherwise, you're kind of up in the air. It leads as many questions as it does. Usually, it leads to more questions than answers if there's not. set procedure. So again, I think this is just a safeguard to make sure that future councils don't take it out of the governing standards. I've heard plenty of our council members up here say that they agree and they feel like it needs to be there in the governing standards, but this is just a safety for going forward.

Council member, may I approach him?

Thank you. I just have a couple of questions for clarity, sir. So typically when the type of investigations or inquiries that a council, I understand having a process seems to be part of the question and then where that should be located. But technically in the state of Texas, aren't there protocols already for inquiries? removal or investigation of a council member under the guise of misuse of funds or anything that they could be legally held to or bound because like what would how would we determine that we are within legal rights to clarify what is considered a council-led investigation or inquiry how would we make that determination typically

I'm sorry.

How would you make that determination so that we're not overstepping Texas legal law, Texas law?

Well, I mean, I'm sorry, but I think the things you're mentioning would be a purview of, you know, big criminal charges with the criminal investigations as far as, you know, attorney office general, the attorney general or some other offices. But in this regard, this would not be necessarily criminal matters. It's going to be Like I said, it's the investigation into any sort of municipal affairs, how a certain department might be governing or how they might be conducting business in a certain way. That's what this would be.

Councilmember Kimball just asked, just to make sure I'm understanding, he just asked the question if there's already a policy in place for the staff or for that the city manager has responsibility over so we can only have oversight basically of the people that we would manage directly or we're responsible for directly is that correct that's correct so would those people have the same process or have the same rules as employees under that under that umbrella do they have the same process

Process as far as like an investigation so it would just be a typical investigation, you know with the employee supervisor relationship with investigation using HR Or anything like that or there could be direction to the city manager in order to conduct something like that So there would not would there be a need typically for council?

Oversight and when would that and what would that look like is guess what I'm trying to get some understand clarity on what does that look like? if we have a person that we're responsible for and there's counsel, if there's already a policy in place. So that policy I feel is the policy. But if counsel has additional oversight or we're talking about an additional investigation or inquiry, I don't understand. It sounds like there's double duty there. How do we make sure we avoid that pitfall?

Well, no, I mean, so this is already part of the city council's authority is to conduct this investigation. Correct. Right, so I'm gonna make that clear. So yeah, so this is not expanding that in any way. And quite honestly, I haven't been part of this investigation. I don't know what this would look like, but it is gonna be an open hearing. It is gonna be pretty much similar to this, where it's gonna be whoever the employee is and council answering questions and producing any sort of documents that council has requested.

And so would it have been up to the council to establish that policy to clarify all the ramifications of how this works, who's responsible for costs, what happens to the accused versus the person making that accusation? I mean, it would be council's responsibility, according to what I see written here, to write that policy and create that process.

That's correct, yes.

For council's oversight, right?

Right, so right now it's kind of open. There is no set policy. So yes, it would be up to council and any individual case that comes before them for an investigation would be up to council to determine how they want to best continue the investigation. That's all I have for now.

Thank you. Council Member Williams.

Have there been any investigations in the past? of anybody that maybe you say that the council would want to investigate. Has there been a procedure like this in the past?

I'm not aware of one. I know Councilwoman Brown was mentioning that they may have had something in the past where they directed the city manager to investigate something. I don't think there's been anything like an informal investigation of one of the certain staff members. So it's the... Sorry, I'm blanking. The municipal court judge, the city manager, anything like that, that reports directly to it. I don't believe that there's been an investigation in that regard, but I understand it was like direction in order to conduct an investigation into an employee.

And you said that we had this procedure in place before. My question is, and it worked. Did it work before when you had the procedure in place before?

I can't answer that. I wasn't here. I wasn't a part of that. I don't know.

If I could just clarify, the procedure versus the charter is in place that allows you to counsel investigations into municipal affairs. For the procedure, I'm not aware of any procedure for that counsel investigation ever being in place. Okay. Yeah, so I just wanted to clarify.

I think the procedure she's talking about is a procedure, or might have been what was mentioning, is a procedure conducted by HR whenever they're looking into something and they're investigating an issue. Might have been what the earlier conversation was talking about.

Okay, I really want to, I'm just trying to see why is to put so much for the investigations by the council to add it on to the charter. Was there anything, I'm trying to see, was there anything that needed investigation in the past that you guys requested and never got done? This is my question. Why is it so much to push for this investigation to be on the charter?

Well, I mean, because it's not creating an additional right for the charter to create an investigation. So if there was an investigation, this same provision, more than likely was around. This would just be to set policies and procedures for how the council would move forward in conducting it so that those rules and procedures would be set in stone.

But they said there's already something in place for that.

Not for these council-initiated investigations. There is not. The procedures we were talking about are the ones that would be conducted by HR.

Right. I understand that. But I'm trying to... Okay. Well, thank you. Appreciate it.

Council Member Brown.

Yeah, I just wanted to clarify. Continue. I just wanted to clarify that the council had requested investigations before, but through a motion of direction to staff. We never had a policy in place that allowed the council to actually do anything. So the charter right now, for example, gives the council the authority for subpoena power. How do we subpoena somebody or something at this point? And that's kind of a rhetorical question because we really don't have a process by which to do that. So there's something allowed in the charter, but minus having a procedure or policy in place, then there's no structured way to accomplish that end goal. So, for example, right now, you know, the council had requested let's look into the North Killeen Grocery Store in KEDC. Well, that is for all intent and purpose. That is an investigation requested by the council. We're just kind of ad-libbing it right now, right? We don't have a procedure for exactly how that goes. I'm not exactly sure where we're, like, what that process is looking like behind the scenes right now because we don't have a process to give anybody other than saying, hey, this was something that we wanted looked into, right? And so there's no ultimate way for us to get to an end goal on that. If we have a specific way we want it done, should I have each and every single time saying to staff, do this particular investigation this way? Do this particular investigation this way? And my fear is the more we do that, the more we could end up in a situation where it looks like we're giving favorable treatment to certain people or certain situations. But just for clarification on this, voting in favor of allowing this to go through tonight doesn't require the council to actually create the procedure today, correct?

That is correct. So we would look for direction at a later date and would set those procedures out through workshopping and to come out with them at a later date.

and so really if we approve this to move forward the only thing that happens next with it is presumably hopefully by the next meeting we're able to determine the language we want to have put on the ballot and then after that the voters decide if they want it in their charter or not right right that's correct okay thank you thank you council member kendricks okay um

When we talk about the investigating procedures, I understand there is no procedures actually in place. And that is what I'm wanting to see is kind of the reason why I made the motion. And I probably should have added that we needed staff to look into it, like you just said, to create that language for it to go into effect. But what I'm seeing is it should more or less go into governing standards. And the reason why I feel it should go into governing standards, for the same reason the state law changes every year with certain things, it gives us the flexibility to adjust and stay within the state law because if we put it in the charter, then it's in the charter that way and we cannot go against state law. Is that correct? That's right.

Right, and so to add to that, this amendment is not even creating anything that this council can't do right now anyways. There's nothing preventing this council from moving forward with some sort of policy or procedure. And there was some discussions at the last meeting where Charter Review Committee's recommendation was amended to take out ordinance, even if it put resolution or put in its governing standards or something like that. So that is also an option to you if you wanted to move forward with this, but strike ordinance, but something else in.

But, okay. You're such a matter of expert because you're a lawyer. Flexibility would be better in the governing standards rather than the charter, because then we don't have no flexibility if the laws change, correct?

That's right, but the procedures themselves will not be in the charter.

And that's how... Yeah, right. I'm 100 with that. But that is correct, yes. That they go into the governing standards. Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Council Member Debbie Nesking and then Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. There are there's two things going on here. We have two separate conversations. The motion was, do we want to put we all agree on the investigation? We agree on that. The motion is whether it's going to be in the charter or is it going to be in the governor's standards and expectation? That is the motion. And this is how we get off track. Because right now, the procedures are not in place. We're just talking. But if we do want it in the charter, then we vote for it to go in the charter. But the council already have authority. Whatever the council acts of the city manager, it is his responsibility, once we get four votes, to carry that out. Say it does not work out that way, hypothetically. then the council can say, hey, these are the guidelines we want you to follow. These are the procedures we want you to follow. But all those things, the nuts and bolts, that goes into your governor's standards and expectation. And if I'm incorrect on this, Mr. Attorney, can the council put in their governor's standards and expectation the word There must be an investigation if four council members vote to investigate. The only people you can investigate is the city manager, the auditor, and the judge. Because the problem we're going to have when we hire a city manager, and I stated this before, I'm not against investigation. I just think the proper place is in the governor's standards and expectation. But what city manager would want to come to a city And the council is going to have to dictate him. We really will dictate to him what our expectations are. But we shouldn't go lower than that level. Why would you hire a city manager? We're going to do the job for him. Then we should be a strong mayor. Then we don't need a city manager. If we're going to do everything, then we become micromanagers. So I don't have a problem with the council saying we got four votes. We heard a lot from the residents about this department and we would like for you to investigate it. I agree with that. But I don't think it should be in the charter. It should just be in the governor's standards. And we write it in such a way that there's no option for the next council that's coming. to say no to the investigation if they have four votes. So I just want us to stay on what the motion is. The motion is simple. We either want it to go in the charter or we don't. But it will go into the governor's standards because the last meeting we had in reference to the charter, the one before, all the counts agreed there should be something in procedures. And procedures should go in your governor's standards and expectations. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and council. Council member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. First of all, I'll say thank all the council members for the healthy discussion. That's why we do this. And we got a lot of clarification. I think after hearing the explanation from the attorney, I think, or excuse me, at least in my opinion, that we are only trying to codify a procedure. This doesn't take away the process of all city employees. That process is in place. It's in the department. When it comes to all employees, those procedures are in place. We are not voting tonight on how to do an investigation when it comes to the manager, the auditor, or the judge. We're not doing that. We're going to do that later at a workshop. Looking at the motion, I think approving the motion as written is probably the best way to go. And then we figure out in a workshop how to work out those procedures. That's how it seems. After listening to you and your explanation and with the charter committee was trying to put in effect, it sounds like as written is I think I can support that because we're not codifying on how to do procedures. how to do an investigation. It's just saying that if it comes to a certain standard, then we will go to the charter outlines how to do it. So I think the bigger discussion is when we get together on how to do the investigations is where the meat and potatoes are. So after your explanation on what the charter committee wanted to do, I can support the way it is as written now. So thank you for the explanation. Thank you for the council for the healthy discussion. And thank you for the citizens for, you know, for tonight, particularly tonight and other nights, you know, saying what their expectations are. So at the end of the day, we are here to hear the citizens. The citizens have spoken. The explanation has been given. I think as written, I can support it. And I look forward to working with everybody on the procedures on how to outline investigations.

Thank you. Uh, if there's no other discussion counts, um, city attorney, could you repeat the motion again? We'll take it to a book.

The motion I have is to not advance the change to the charter that would require procedures and address that instead in the governing standards.

Thank you all in favor of signify by saying yes or opposed. No, I see your hand is I see, okay, the motion passed five to two. Thank you, council.

The next item I have is an item that was developed and recommended by the Charter Review Committee. This is for the candidate filing fee. The background is, in order to have a place named on the ballot for election in the City of Killeen, a person must meet the eligibility requirements prescribed in state law and file a sworn affidavit with the City of Secretary attesting to that. The City of Killeen does not charge a filing fee in connection with the filing to run for public office. State law does require that if a city charter requires candidates to pay a filing fee, the amount of the fee and an alternative procedure to payment of the fee shall be prescribed in the charter as well. With that being said, I looked at the 26 comparable cities that fall between the 100 and 300,000 population range. Within those 26, I found five that all have a filing fee and you'll see those numbers there. So you had three Lubbock, Amarillo and Wichita Falls all charge $100 for filing fee. The city of Frisco charges $200 and the city of Round Rock charges $250. Also note in there that the city of Temple does also charges $100 filing fee as well. It included them in that since they fall outside of that population bracket. So the alternatives to filing fees from those five cities, they range from signatures. So the alternative procedure, instead of paying a filing fee, is by submitting a petition with a certain amount of signatures. So the alternatives to those include ranging from signatures from 25 to 100 of the registered voters. Three of those five that require those, which are the cities of Lubbock, Frisco, and Round Rock, went a little step further and they said a set number of voters or, for example, 0.5% of the number of voters that voted for mayor in the last election. The Charter Review Committee recommended an amendment to the charter requiring a $100 filing fee or the submission of a petition signed by 50 registered voters. And that would be 50 registered voters across the city for the at-large council members and mayor, or it would be 50 registered voters from each district for the district council members. Based on the recommendation, amendments would need to be made to section 95 of the city charter. And there is that change effectuating the recommendation. Based on that, staff is requesting direction as to whether the City Council accepts, modifies, and accepts or rejects the Charter Review Committee's recommendation regarding candidate filing fees. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Bass.

I oppose having a filing fee. I just went through a campaign. And I will tell anyone who decides to put their name on the ballot, it's expensive. You can put your name on the ballot and then do nothing after that. Some people do that. But as a minimum, most candidates will at least go by signs. And I can tell you signs is going to cost you anywhere from $300 to $500 minimum. You might want to put ads in the Clean Daily Herald. That's another expense. You might want to purchase social media ads. That's another expense. You might want to pay for targeted text messages to people in your district or in the city. That's another expense. Our city, thankfully, different organizations have forums. And so you're paying for gasoline in your truck to go back and forth to the forums. So the bottom line is the reason I oppose this is anyone who decides to run for office, you're putting yourself in for a lot of expenses, and I see no reason to add another $100 to that. Let the person go spend $100 on signs. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Bass. Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Sir, in the discussions with the Charter Committee, what was the reasoning to have 50 registered voters equal both in the The citywide race versus a district race obviously less people vote in a district race and people in the district have the chance to vote in both obviously to the mayor and You know at large and district so it would seem like you know if we're doing easy math here is that if there are you know 5,000 people that vote in the mayoral race, and there's only 1,000 people vote in the district, but you still make them equal to get the number of authorized voters. I just wondered just what was the process. Maybe I'm missing something. I just didn't know what was their explanation. It seemed like if that's the case, then maybe it should be 25 in the district.

So initially, when this conversation was started, the initial recommendation from the committee was 25 across the board. So it was 25 for both mayor, at-large, district council members. There was a lot of discussion that essentially – and I think because this also came on the heels of the last election where we had so many people running for at-large in this last election that they thought that if anybody who's willing to run – would be able to go out and do the work to get 50 elections. There was no real discussion as to differentiate charter. I think it's more just for simplicity, because how would you differentiate the different districts and change that amount? But at the end of the day, they just decided that it was easiest just to keep it at 50 across the board, or to keep it the same, rather.

I don't know, okay. There's a lot of easy things to do, but there's also fairness if districts are obviously smaller than the city. It just seems like then, It'd be easier if I'm running a city-wide race. I'm not going to have a fee. It'd be easier for me to get 50 votes. I mean, you know, 50 registered voters to sign. Whereas a district, it seemed like it's just a quarter of the number. I don't have the numbers in front of me. But at least it would be a quarter of the number of registered voters. It seems that number should be proportional, in my opinion. That's why I'm saying was there any discussion that I'm missing? The intergression, no. All right. Thank you, sir.

You know, I see you, Council Member Brown. But let me say this. I agree. I concur with Council Member Bass. that it does cost. First of all, it's cost, it's time, it's a sacrifice. And kudos to those who want to sign up and serve. It's a servant. Like I've always said, this is a servant position, whether you're on council or mayor, whatever you're doing for the city. It costs. It's a lot of time. And I don't see why we would... We have to go with charging or not charging but a filing fee when it's already going to cost us. No matter how big or small, whether you're in District 1 or District 2 or whether you're at large, it costs you and it costs a lot of time. And contrary to what people think, we don't – there's no money in our pocket or we don't get – We only get, well, we get gas money, I would call it, but people are not signing up to get money. They're signing up to serve, and it costs money. And so I certainly agree with Council Member Bass. Council Member Brown.

So I want to just clarify and make sure I understand this correctly. Even though it is still 50 signatures for the district candidates, those 50 signatures are not specific to the district for which that candidate would be running, correct? As written or as proposed.

No, it is. It would require 50 registered signatures from the district. So the red line, I don't know if I can go back to the red line.

And that's where I was confused. I know during the discussion initially it had been, no, you just get your 50 from the city, whether you're. district or whether you're at-large, whether you're mayor, so that 50 would have been able to be received from anybody citywide. I forgot. Oh, I'm sorry.

If I said that, I misspoke. I apologize. No, it would be mayor and at-large would be from the city.

Yeah, and I remember that that was part of the discussion they had during the committee meetings also at first was the recommendation was no matter what, your 50 signatures come from anywhere in the city. I agree with Councilman Kimball that if it's going to be a district person that's running, then we should have a lower requirement for the number of signatures. I personally don't support this because no matter what, it's putting more work on staff. Right now our staff is overloaded. So it's going to mean that somebody has to go through, they have to validate every signature, make sure that every signature is a registered voter within the city of Killeen at the time that they've signed it, et cetera, et cetera. And really, at the end of the day, $100 per candidate is not going to make a dent in our expenses. That isn't going to pay for the next person who turns in a 50-person petition for that staff member to be able to sit there and go through it because it's not just a check at once. It's typically a staff member will check and then another staff member will double check to make sure they're not missing anything. So personally, I'm opposed to this. However, because this is just a motion to put it on the ballot for citizens to vote on, to determine if the citizens want to see this happen, and that would include anybody who would like to run for council in the future, then I'm going to make a motion of direction to amend it to require in lieu of the $100 for a district candidate, 25 signatures on a petition or 50 signatures for an at-large or mayor position, and then let the citizens decide. Thank you.

City attorney, would you repeat the motion?

I actually was going to ask that we clarify the motion. I didn't. I think it's 52. Yes, if we can get the motion repeated.

So the motion of direction would be to accept this with the amendment that for district candidates, it would only require 25 signatures of voters from that district.

Yes, so I have the motion to accept the change that you have in the presentation, but changing the number required for registered voters from the district to 25, keeping the 50 for the at-large .

Do we have a second? Second. Council Member Kimball? Second. It was second by Council Member Kimball. All in favor? Discussion? Council Member Debbie Nisking? Council Member Debbie Nisking? Can you hear me, ma'am? Can you hear me, ma'am? Council Member Nisking? Okay, we cannot hear you.

Yep.

Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Just so I'm clear for a matter of procedure, If we strike down the amended motion, I second it because I need a discussion, to strike down either the amendment or the original, we just keep it as is, everything stays as is, with no filing fee and no registered voters.

If the motion is to reject the recommendation, then that's how it would stay, correct? No filing fee.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, Council Member Naskin?

Okay.

Okay. We may need to connect with her. I'm back. I'm here. Okay. Council Member Nash King.

Thank you. It keeps freezing. I just have one question. If we do collect the fee, where would the money go?

At this point, I do not know that.

Okay. It would go into a general fund. General fund. Okay. Yes, ma'am. My second thing is this. We haven't charged anybody to run. And because other cities are doing it, it does not mean we should do it. And how can we expect the hardship on future leaders of Killeen when we didn't even go through it? And I just think it's hypocritical that we would try to impose something on someone else that financially may not even be able to afford it. So what we're discriminating with people who can afford to pay a fee and those who cannot pay a fee. I just think it's just wrong. It just seems like we're making up things just to be like everybody else. We really need to focus on our city. Fees shouldn't even be a concern. We should just be focused on how we can get revenue in. And we always talk about we're taxing the people, but yet still individuals that may want to run, they have to pay to serve others. I totally disagree with that. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Thank you, Madam Council Member Kendricks.

There we go. I'm kind of in agreeance with Councilmember Nash-King. We should not create unnecessary barriers. This may discourage citizens from participating in local government, and I just believe it's not in the best interest of those who may want to serve. Without going over the things that she talked about, those are pretty much my thought process is not to put any unnecessary barriers to people who want to run for a position, and that's all I have with that.

Council Member Williams.

My question is just, what is the reason for this? I agree with Kendrick, ma'am. Why would you want to charge when it's already hard and we're having hard times? And they want to charge you for this.

I can only speak for what the discussions for the Charter Review Committee, what they referenced is they wanted anybody who was serious about running for council, they thought that the number was, the dollar amount and the signature amount was sufficient to, it was low enough to be attainable by anybody who's serious enough to run, but not enough to create an undue burden on anybody, but they thought that it was it was important to have something to show that you're really serious about running and you're not just signing up to run just to sign up to run and then not to put any serious effort behind it.

With this, I believe that it would deter people from wanting to run. You know, I don't think it's right. I'm totally against this as well. Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think we just need to kind of go back, at least for me, I can't speak for anybody else, that this item was bought just by the citizens. The last council, they were the citizens, they had a charter review committee. The citizens wanted this issue to be addressed. So I think that when I look at the fairness of it based on the amended motion of having 25 signatures versus 50 all around, we don't have to connect money to that. I think not having money, I agree with everybody here, discouraging. putting a monetary amount on filing, that's probably, in my opinion, overboard. But to have some skin in the game by having signatures does give you a little bit of wherewithal to get involved. So as long as it doesn't involve money, I'm for it, but having the signatures for it, I can't agree with that because that's something that the citizens wanted in the last council when they selected members to be on the committee and then to bring this forward. Now, if we agree to move it forward, and then the citizens can vote it up or down. So I think we should at least move it forward based on the recommendations of the citizens.

Council Member Nash-King.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. Mr. Mayor, this is directed to you because I cannot speak to the council individually. Because the charter committee bring things to us, it does not mean that we are against the citizens. Because a committee of 10, 15 compared to 160,000, we all have constituents. We all listen to our citizens because I just want to go on the record, Mr. Mayor, that we care what the residents are saying. However, I just don't think there should be a fee. And we can disagree and we have voted things down from charter committees prior to this council because the council has the last say and we do want their input. But if it's not for the good of all residents, We have to make the best decision based on the population, not just a group of people that we selected, and I'm grateful for them serving. But if it does not benefit...

Okay, you dropped out, ma'am. We cannot hear you. You got disconnected. You're disconnected. You're disconnected. We'll come back to you. Councilmember Brown?

This isn't about what we want. This is about what the citizens want. It's the citizens charter, not ours. In order to run for city council, you have to be a registered voter. So the people who will be voting on this are the same people who may or may not be interested in running for council in the future. Let them decide if, if you, as an individual person and I, and I mean that broadly, not just other council members, but anybody in the public, if you as a general person feel like this is not something you personally support. Please go in November when we have a charter election and vote no on it. If it's something you support, then go vote yes on it. I've already made it clear that there are things that I have voted in favor of putting on the charter that I personally don't support. And I will go out and let the people know that I do not support this, but it still is the people's charter to make that decision on. Again, this isn't putting any policy in place tonight. Is it simply to allow it to go onto the ballot in order to be voted on by the people? That's it.

Council, Mayor Pro Temp.

So, and I understand, thank you for that clarification there, but we're asking basically, it's a barrier to entry, a vote to vote. So we're asking, based on what is written here, to go onto the charter for consideration. We are asking our citizens to, if you're interested in running for office, to pre-campaign and get signatures. to be considered to be able to run for office. If you don't get those signatures, then basically you cannot run basically ultimately is what could potentially happen.

So it's either you pay the fee or get the signatures. So, I mean, it's either you could put the effort in to get the signatures or get the fee.

So potentially it could be a barrier to entry, though. I just want to make sure that our citizens, to your point, I get it, but I just want to make sure that either way the pros and the cons, the citizens do understand both clearly that this could potentially be a barrier to entry, potentially. if it is not, if they don't acquire either the $100 fee or they don't acquire the votes to be able to be considered to be voted into office. So, thank you.

Council Member Brown.

I know this is my last time on this topic, but I just have one more clarification that I need to make. So we talked about moving up from council into county and state and federal positions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if you are going to be on a countywide ballot, then you already have to pay a filing fee and or get signatures on a petition in lieu of.

To run for a county position? I don't know that. I've never had to...

Yeah, so I know there are people here who can attest. If you're going to run for a county or above seat, there's already a filing fee that is significantly more than $100, regardless of what size you are. your area that you're going to represent is going to be or the number of signatures that you have to get in lieu of paying that filing fee is significantly more than what we have here. So I know we already addressed the resigned run. There was a lot of talk about encouraging people to continue to move upward and progress past the council position. To me, this is just one more step in becoming a bigger city and moving in that direction. But it is not unprecedented. for there to be filing fees, and it doesn't stop people from running because we do have that other option because it's not just about the money. You can't, and to get 25 signatures, I promise you I could do that in a day. You know, to get 50, you can do that in a day. So it's not overly burdensome is where I think that we have to remember. I know there's that fear, but I think it's more of a hindrance to people to run for council when we have a 3 p.m. start time.

Council Member Bass.

I'm opposed to the fee. I'm even more opposed to gathering signatures. I have no idea how I would have went about gathering 25 or 50 signatures. I guess go around the neighborhood, knock on doors. I don't know how that would work. It would be a big hassle, I tell you that. In my opinion, if a citizen in Killeen wants to run for city council, do what just occurred, come down here to City Hall, fill out the paperwork, put your name on the ballot, and run for office. There should be no obstacle to that. That's easy, and it should be easy. Thank you.

Council Member Williams.

I agree with Bass 100%. With Councilman Bass 100%.

If there's no further discussion, City Attorney, would you repeat the motion?

The motion I have on the floor is to accept the changes and move them forward to the ballot, but require only 25 signatures for district seats.

All in favor, signify by saying yes. All opposed, no.

I am opposed.

Thank you, Council Member. Thank you, sir. The motion fails five to two. Thank you, Council. Sir, you can continue.

We still have that recommendation from the Charter Review Committee, so I'd like to get direction from Council whether or not to reject it. Yes, sir. We're still here. Yes.

Council Member Bass.

Mayor, I make a motion to reject this recommendation by the committee.

Council Member Williams. I second it. It was motioned by Council Member Bass, second by Council Member Williams to reject the P. Any discussion? If there's no discussion, all in favor? Signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Okay. Council Member Nash-King? You can signify by it. If you would put your thumbs up for yes and thumbs down for no.

Mayor, it sounded like she was asking what the motion was.

I'm sorry. Okay, could you repeat that, city attorney?

So the motion was to reject this change and not move it forward to go on the ballot.

And that was the... Could you repeat that, city attorney?

It's to reject the change that would require a fee or a number of registered voters to sign prior to... being a candidate on the ballot. So the motion is to reject that change. So we would just maintain status quo, no change to that section.

It would be rejected, the change. Council Member Nesking? OK. There's a freeze. Okay, the... Council Member Nash-King, can you hear me? Yes, sir. Was that a yes or no vote? Ma'am, was that a yes? Did you understand the motion? We're having some difficulty working on it. Okay, I think she's gone.

Mayor, for any time that a council member that is remote loses video or audio and she may be back, then they're considered not here. So you could continue with the vote. I'm here. Okay.

So, ma'am. I'm here. Hello? Did you understand the vote, council member, in that scheme, ma'am? We voted no for it, correct? You vote no?

I voted no first.

No, no. Did you hear the motion?

Yes. Yes, sir.

OK. So can we restate the motion to? Excuse me, Councilman.

I can restate the motion. It looks like there's a tally. Has someone tallied? There is a tally. The motion, to clarify, the motion, though, is to reject any change to this section. So we wouldn't be adding any requirement for fees or signatures.

Okay. So the motion passed 5-2. Thank you. Yes, council member asking.

Yes, sir. Do we vote on that item twice?

No, we do not. Okay. Thank you. We voted and it failed on the motion to earlier than we came back.

Thank you.

Sir, you can continue. Okay.

We're on.

Okay, so the next item I have for you tonight is the initiative and referendum procedures and requirements. A little bit of background just to put it out there in case anybody doesn't know, anybody in the audience. So the charter grants the power to an elector to petition the city council for either an initiative or for a referendum. An initiative petition is to propose a new ordinance, whereas a referendum petition is to repeal an adopted ordinance. An initiative referendum is submitted in the city of Killeen as per our charter. Initiative or referendum is submitted to the city council through a petition that must be signed by 25% of the number of voters in the last election in which the mayor was elected. The city secretary must then certify that petition within ten days. And if deficient, the petitioner may amend it within ten days. Just as a little bit of background, there are 4,760 total voters in the last election, which would require 1,191 required signatures for a petition. Just to put it out there and let you know that I did find some comparators, just find some distinct differences across some cities and what other cities are doing. So Amarillo, they have 5% of the total number of registered voters in the city must sign a petition. They also prohibit the petition that has been subject to a public election with them proceeding three years. Any petition that moved forward and went to the election and failed is prohibited from coming back for three years. The city of Temple requires 20% of the total registered voters, whereas Lubbock is 25%. And you'll notice that there's a distinction between registered and qualified voters. It's gonna be the same semantics, it'll be the same thing. The city of Waco, it must be signed by 15% of the total qualified voters. The city of Austin differentiates and says that the petition must be signed by 5% or 20,000 people, whichever is less. Both the city of Austin and Waco both prohibit initiated ordinances in conflict with the city charter, Texas Constitution, or state law. The Charter Review Committee recommended that the number of required signatures should be equal to at least 25% of the number of voters who voted for the office of mayor in the last election in which the mayor was elected. So it's a unique distinction. So we're not talking about the total number of voters who voted in the last election in which the mayor was elected. It's who actually voted for the office of mayor. For instance, we had 4,760 total voters at the last election, but there were 4,543 votes cast in the mayoral race, and this recommendation would be based on that number, not the total number of voters. The Charter Review Committee also recommended that the city secretary should have 30 days to certify a petition, and that a petitioner would have 30 days to amend a deficient petition. Finally, they recommended that any initiated ordinances that are inconsistent with state law should not be approved by council or be submitted to the voters. So based on those recommendations, amendments would need to be made to sections 100 through 107 of the city charter. Just to let you know, the impact of that amendment will reduce the number of signatures for petition for initiative or referendum, just based on those. However slight on this one, it would go from 1,191 to 1,138, based on that change. Okay, so this first, I'm just going to kind of go through all seven sections here. So the first one, this is the change taking it for it's actually who voted for the office of mayor as opposed to the election in which the mayor was elected. Again, same change here, one's for initiative and one's for referendum. This change is there was also a directive in order to make any sort of gender specific changes to it. So that's what the only changes to this section would be for that. Section 103 would change the deadline from 10 days to 30 days for the city secretary in order to certify those petitions. Also some gender specific language in there, or general neutral language, I'm sorry. 104 is also for gender neutral language, but then it's got the 30-day requirement for a Insufficient petition in which they can bring it back Okay, so section 106 is when we get to the recommendation regarding the inconsistent with state law this is put in there that the council may adopt the ordinance once it's so this is once a successful petition is filed and it's been deemed a The city secretary's office has certified it, that the city council may just adopt the ordinance instead of sending it to the electors. What this part is saying is that the city council may do that unless they find that, or only if the ordinance is consistent with the laws of the state. So this is specific language that was referred by the charter review committee to put in here. Finally, there's the, Last change, 107, so this is if the city council does not choose to enact the ordinance that is put to the voters in order to choose whether or not to adopt this ordinance. However, we put the ending on there in order not withstanding anything to the contrary. If the council makes a determination that an ordinance, an initiated ordinance is inconsistent with laws of state, it would not go out to the electors. So based on that, staff's requesting recommendations or direction as to whether the City Council accepts, modifies and accepts or rejects the Charter Review Committee's recommendation.

Council Member Bass.

Sir, I have two questions. Did I understand you correctly to say that under this formula, based on the last election, a referendum would prior to this change being made, if it's made, would need 1,091 signatures. Under this formula, the referendum would need 1,038 signatures. Did I understand that right?

My calculations are 1,191 under the current, and then it would be 1,138 on the proposed. 1,138. 1,138. Under this? Under the proposed recommendation, so it would decrease it from 1,191 to 1,138.

Okay, I'm with you. I'm with you now. So that's not a huge difference. What, like 53? Am I doing my math right? I think you're spot on. OK. So it's about a 53-vote difference. I can support that. And then what I think is actually most important in here is the council may adopt the ordinance, but only if the ordinance is consistent with the laws of the state. So if this was in effect, Prop A would not have gone to the voters. Is that correct?

Well, it would have been up to the council if the council made that determination that it was inconsistent. Yes, that's correct under these.

I support this. Everybody knows I supported Prop A. But I supported Prop A because this sentence did not exist in our charter. If this sentence had existed in our charter, I would not have supported Prop A, if that makes sense. So I support this recommendation. Thank you.

Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Again, great work by the charter committee. I would like to make a motion that we accept the charter committee's recommendations with a modification of all voters who voted in the last election, last regular municipal election.

I'll second.

Okay, I'm asking that y'all would, to be recognized, please push the button. Request to speak. Council Member Brown?

I second the motion.

Okay. Again, please, I will not recognize you if you do not press the request button. It was motioned by Council Member Kimball, seconded by Council Member Brown. All in discussion.

Just a clarification, point of order. There was a few people that Councilmember Bass and Councilmember Kimbrell had a chance to speak, and before this motion was pushed, you had not acknowledged the motion, but me and Mayor Pro Temp was also in the thing to speak.

Yes, sir, but once the motion is made, you have to act on the motion. And then you can go to discussion after the session. Want someone to make a motion?

I understand that, but there hadn't been a knowledge yet. And that's what you just said. Yes, sir. I mean, they haven't been acknowledged yet. So in essence, I'm not going against the motion, but I'm just going into the order of things that he wasn't acknowledged yet and I still wanted to speak. That's all I'm saying. But if I can't speak, I'm okay.

It is proper. If a motion is made, then you can have discussion on that motion. But you don't have to hold up a motion to make sure everybody gets to speak before a motion is made. First speaker could make a motion.

You're correct, sir. And that's why I'm asking that from here on out, if the council would request to speak, I will not recognize you if you speak without requesting to speak. Will Council Member Bass? We're in discussion mode.

Yes, could I hear this motion again? And my question is, Does this change that number? Does this motion change that number of 1191 and 1138? Thank you. City Attorney.

The motion I have is to accept these changes, but modify to all voters who voted in the last election. And with that, I would just seek clarification that what we're talking about is our changes to looks like section... 100, Section 101, where you have the change of who voted for the Office of Mayor, but the change to that would just go back to who voted in the last election. Is that the intent of the motion?

Yes, it was every place in there that said for the Office of the Mayor. I think that was 101 and 104.

Okay, so Section 100 and Section 101. It would basically stay the same. And to answer your question, that would be the higher number. So I think it's the 1191.

The current number. Correct. Okay. I understand. But what would definitely stay in there, Councilman Kimball, is that we would not contradict state law.

Thank you.

Okay, so did you, city attorney, the motion, could you repeat that again before we, if there's no more discussion?

The motion is to accept the changes as presented, except to modify to all voters who voted in the last election, instead of limiting it to voters for the mayor's office.

Is there any more discussion? If there's no further discussion, all in favor, signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Council Member Nashke.

Yes.

Motion passed. 6-1. Thank you. Yes, sir. You can continue. Excuse me. We need to take a five-minute break. Okay, we'll call this meeting back to order. Mr. Wallin, you're good, sir.

Okay, all right, so the next item I have for you tonight is charter recommendations regarding change order briefings. This was something that was recommended by the committee. So as a background, a change order is a written agreement that changes the price, scope, and or schedule of a project. They're typically used in any construction related projects throughout the city. State law allows a city to administratively approve any and all change orders of $50,000 or less and restricts the increase in the total cost of a contract resulting from change orders to 25%. So for instance, if you have a $1 million construction contract, it can't go over $1.25 million without stopping and going back out for bids. In addition to that, city policy requires that once cumulative change orders for a single project reach $500,000, then all change orders must be approved by the city council, regardless of the amount of the change orders. The Charter Review Committee recommended that the charter be amended to require that the city manager brief the city council and the citizens in attendance on a quarterly basis on all monetary change orders approved during the preceding fiscal quarter. So essentially what they're recommending is a briefing by the city manager four times a year going over every single change order that results in increase or decrease. And that would be from one month Within one month of the end of every fiscal quarter, the city manager would walk down and walk through every single change letter that's been approved, regardless if it's under $50,000 or if it's over $50,000. In order to make those changes, changes will need to be made to Section 45 of the Charter. It just goes under the powers and duties of the city manager. So this is the first part of it. It's a long section, so this is the first part. It's just going to be some general neutral language amendments. The second part is what we've done is added in a section in here that just states that the city manager shall brief council and citizens at a regular meeting on all contract change orders that result in an increase or decrease in the contract price approved during each fiscal quarter during within one month at the end of the quarter. And so we wanted to make that distinction that it is result in change orders that result in increase or decrease because there are no cost change orders. These are change orders that are just increasing the time of a contract for completion due to weather delays and a number of other incidents. So you can have no cost change orders that wouldn't be subject to this. So based on that, staff's requesting direction as to whether City Council accepts, modifies and accepts or rejects the Charter Review Committee's recommendations.

Thank you, sir. Council Member Bass.

I make a motion to reject this recommendation.

Second.

It was motioned by Council Member Bass and seconded by Council Member Nash-King. Open discussion? Is there any discussion? Council, may I approach him? Thank you.

So I do have a general question. As Council is responsible for general oversight of projects and things that happen, so with us not being briefed on change orders over, let me ask you this this way. On average, how many change orders do we know that are over $50,000 or at that $25,000 mark? Do we know in general how often that happens?

The 25% mark is very rare. It's very rare. That's very rare. In my instance, there's one project that may or may not reach that, but otherwise, no, it's very rare. $50,000 change orders, depending on what the project is, it can very easily reach $50,000. Now, any of those change orders are already coming to the city council. It requires city council approval. So city council is already being briefed on any of those change orders. Those large change orders, you're usually resulting in, I'm just trying to think about ones that I've seen. It's maybe three or four large change orders on a typical project. You might gonna have a number of smaller ones though that the city council wouldn't necessarily see.

Right. So I definitely would not be in favor of creating anything that would create extra barriers or make it more difficult for someone to do their job overall. But I do have a question in general as we're starting to look at organizing better and making sure the council is aware of project oversight. Because when there's huge delays, for example, in certain projects that could happen over let's just say a situation of many councils, it could cause problems and so at what point would the council be notified? So the change orders then become a way in which that we would be briefed in theory, a way in which we'd be briefed at least quarterly under this provision so that we could be aware of any potential delays to projects that we should be using our full oversight on. Is there another way to do this, or would this be intensive, labor-intensive for general purposes? That would be my question I would have for staff.

I don't know if it would necessarily be labor-intensive. It would be an additional requirement, right, in order just to get those together and get that presentation put together. Okay.

Thank you. Council Member Bass?

Thank you, Mayor. We're going through a very complex procedure to hire a competent, experienced city manager. I have full faith that we will hire a very experienced, competent city manager, and I will trust that person to do these small change orders rather than us micromanaging the city manager. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. I have mixed feelings about this. Oversight, we do have to have oversight on everything, not just this, but everything. We should already be having oversight. And I do know there has times where there has been a breakdown in communication. One of the things that really concerned me the most was Rosa Hereford. watercress stagecoach infrastructure when things are going on and we're not putting information out to the residents in a timely manner. And this goes back to the governor's standards and expectations. More procedure, more detail in there. When we do hire our new city manager, I think it's very important for the council when it comes to change orders to ensure that he or she understands the importance of it. And just try to get if, you know, through the interview process, get their input on how they would deal with things in communication and things of that nature. Because sometimes things do happen and we miss it. Because the information do come out sometimes, and I read it, and then I hear people say I didn't get it. But it comes out, and sometimes we don't get it. So I just think in a timely manner, we get it eventually, but not in a timely manner because our constituents are calling us and wanting answers. So I think we could put something to Mayor Pro Temp concerns, which our minds do, something in the governor's standards and expectation that really details what is expected of the city manager, the new one that's coming on and I think that would be better than trying to not have the flexibility if you put it in a charter. Thank you.

Council Member Brown.

So right now, in a quarter, Let's use the two major roads and the one building that everybody talks about that are under construction. So right now, let's say we haven't had any change orders on those yet. Theoretically, within a quarter, you could have a $30,000 increase change order. on each one of those that the council doesn't see, doesn't approve, may or may not get updated on during the entirety of the project or even after it's done. So that's about almost $100,000 right there. We just got a budget preview that said we have less than no wiggle room. So it's just a way for us to, in addition to those quarterly financial reports, being able to keep up on where we are budget-wise on these projects if there are these changes. I don't think that it's micromanaging. We're not saying you have to come to us for approval each time you want to do one. The rules would still be there. that ability for flexibility for the city manager or their designee to be able to approve the change orders isn't going to change. And that is a state law that gives them that Uh, that's already correct.

That's correct. Okay.

So we're not trying to take any authority away. We're not trying to micromanage what you are and are not allowed to prove as staff or city management. It's just a way for the council to keep up on it and not be surprised at the end of a project. When we find out how far we are above, or let's not forget those change orders go the opposite direction too. Correct.

Right, correct. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I'll say a lot of times what we'll have is what's called clean-up change orders. This is at the end of a project when there's a certain amount budgeted or allocated for a project. If it comes in underscoped, then we'll have a change order that essentially changes the contract amount down to what was actually expended.

And then also, if a change order is going to change the length of time or the projected completion date, that would be on those same change orders, correct?

It can be. They can be standalone. They can be by themselves as well.

Okay. So in my opinion, it's just one more way to be able to track project completion, how far we are on target with that, how far we are either above or even below budget on something. And as long as it's just an informational thing, we're not taking away any of that authority, I don't have a problem with it. But again, it should be up to the voters to decide if it's something that they want to to see if it would be a requirement of the city manager or not. Thank you.

Council Member Kimball, then Council Member Nashking.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There's already a process in place for change orders, and we do get briefed. I think when we start talking about communication, that communication, as much as it is on the manager to brief us, is also on us to provide that oversight. We've already talked about the Rosa Hereford proposal. In our oversight capabilities, we would either talk with the manager or the mayor to say that, hey, on such and such a date, I would like a briefing to the citizens on Rosa Erfurt, for example. I think we don't lose our oversight committee. As us as council members, particularly as district council members, if Rosa Erfurt is in your district or whatever project it is, and you know that it's taking longer than usual, or things aren't going that way, and it was going on with the weather, that us as those district council members, then we can request that oversight or request those updates on those projects. So I agree with Councilman Bass. I think we are fine. I agree with... not moving forward with this, but remember to use our oversight authority when needed on specific projects to get that oversight from the manager, department head, or whatever the case may be.

Council Member Nashke.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Also, I just wanted to point out that we get a weekly email, maybe quarterly. No, it's weekly. I think it's weekly. We get an email from our staff telling us about all the updates and things that are coming up. That could be one place that we can act for those updates and change orders to be. But even if there's a change order, I just want to make sure we understand that if there's a change order and we already halfway through a project, we cannot go back. We can only move forward. They will have to use funds to do it. And I agree with Council Member Kimball at the two-way street on communication. So there are some things that we do, we should ask, I agree, but there are some things we should just know. You don't have to ask the question. There are some things that should just be told to us. You don't have to search it if you know there's a problem because we, the council, have the answer to the residents. And I think it's important it goes both ways, not just the council, but staff, council, and they do an excellent job. I'm not taking away from that. But we both can do better. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez.

Thank you for that additional insight council member Nash. I just would also ask the council to think about this not just from the perspective of where you are today but understanding that when you're coming into a position you're not going to necessarily know all of the ins and outs of each particular project. You're going to get briefed on it but again as far as being able to identify challenges with these things, there's gotta be ways. What I kind of hear is that there's already a policy in place, but we need maybe, or there's already a process in place, but maybe there should be a policy regarding communication for significant delays, significant changes to any project. I don't know that we have a policy or process in place for that, and that's kind of what I'm hearing right now at this point, so thank you.

Council Member Kendricks.

Just with what Mayor Pro Temp just said, it ran something across my mind. Is there a way that we could understand the emails and everything that are coming out, but create a matrix With all of the projects on it, with all of this information in different columns, that way we can see what's going on and everybody can have that updated information. Even though I understand it's going out on email, but I think if you do it in a matrix where it is all, this is the scheduled date, it moved on such and such a date because of whatever rain, And that way, everything, I think, is transparent, where everybody see everything that's going on.

I mean, I think that's something that, because the engineers are going to be tracking all these. They do track all the change orders, and it's approved, whatever's pending council approval. That might be something that they already have or be able to easily generate. I'd have to get with them and ask.

Andy, I'm happy to answer that as well. Yes, sir. There's a number of ways that we can certainly get council that information if that's information you're requesting. The governing standards is an appropriate place to put in that policy. Our engineering reports that are updated on a quarterly basis, we could also add updates or change order information to those reports that go to council. They're also posted to the public online so they can get those. One of the concerns with the specific language that worries me a little bit is the timeline provided. By the time that we're gonna have all those change orders and collect all the change orders that are done for the prior quarter, we're gonna have to accumulate that information. And then we're gonna have to route it into an agenda item to go forward to council. That'll have to be posted a week in advance. We're gonna make sure that it goes to every single department for review. So that is gonna be time consuming. So that 30 days is gonna be really, really tough to meet for staff. So if there's another way that you want to ensure that council and or the public gets this information, there's certainly methods in place for that.

Thank you. If there's no other discussion, city attorney, would you please repeat the motion?

Motion on the floor is to reject this change.

Okay. All in favor signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. um council councilman nash king councilwoman nash king i said yes okay the motion pass thank you ma'am the motion the motion passed bob the two thank you council okay sir you have the floor okay

Okay, moving along. Okay, so the next item I have is the Charter Review Committee's recommendations regarding the recall procedures. As a bit of background, the charter currently provides that any member of the council may be recalled or removed from office. Any voter registered within the city of Killeen can seek to recall any council member or the mayor by filing an affidavit. The city secretary must then issue petition blanks to that petitioner within one business day. A person may not seek the recall of an officer within the first six months of that council member's term or six months following a recall election in which the officer was not removed. So that means that it actually went forward to an election and the people voted against it. So you'd have to have a six-month delay. Within 30 days of receiving the petition blanks, the petitioner must collect signatures. So I'm going back to right when the city secretary hands over the petition blanks. The petitioner has 30 days to collect signatures from registered voters in a number greater than 50% of the total number of voters, either in the city in the last election, if it's a mayor or at large, the recall for mayor or an at-large council member, or in the particular district for a single district council member. Following receipt of that petition, the officer may resign within five days. If not, the city council must call an election for that recall. Just to walk through again, going through comparators of what another comparable cities are doing. So again, there's the city of Killeen, requires 50% of the total number of voters. And then that's the only stipulation and limitation that city of Killeen has. The city of Waco is 30% of the total number of qualified voters of the city. So I'll say there's a distinction. So ours are the total number of voters in the last election, whereas again, their reference is 30% of the total number of registered voters within the city. They have a similar provision against the no recall for the first six months, and no more than one recall election per term. Cities of Temple and Amarillo are both 30% of qualified voters. Again, they have six months. College Station requires grounds where the petitioner must allege incompetency, official misconducts, or malfeasance in office. It requires 40% of the number of voters who actually voted in the last election where that office was filled, and no recall against an officer within the first six months or within six months of a previous recall election. City of Georgetown is 15% of the number of registered voters. Again, same limitation. City of Lubbock is 30% of the number of qualified voters. City of Lubbock, I thought that was interesting, they have 10% of those signing the petition shall certify that they voted for the officer that's being proposed to be recalled in the last election. So based on that, the Charter Review Committee recommended that a petition for the recall of an at-large council member, should be signed by qualified voters equal to more than 50% of the number of voters actually received by that council member in the last election in which they were elected. An elected official should only be subject to a single recall election per term. And they also recommended that the city charter should be granted five days instead of one day in order to provide those petition blanks upon the receipt of an affidavit. Based on those recommendations, amendments would need to be made to sections 112 through 117 of the charter. Again, putting it out there that the impact of this amendment would be to reduce the number of signatures required to call an election for the recall of an at-large council member. This first section here is changing that first business day to fifth business day. We felt this was an important change because one business day is tough for our office. We only have two people in the city secretary's office. One day is tough to get those petition blanks issued. Staff's not there, then it would be out of compliance with this, but that fifth business day does give them a little bit of breathing room. This slide here is the change of changing the 50% for at-large council members. This is just some general neutral language. The same. Again, a lot of general neutral language in this amendment. This is the limitation, so what we previously allowed It was within a recall election. You had six months. The Charter Review Committee recommended that it be changed so an officer can only be subject to one recall election per term. So based on that, staff is requesting direction as to whether City Council accepts, modifies, and accepts or rejects the Charter Review Committee's recommendation.

Council Member Bass.

one how how many signatures would be the difference I did let me thank you okay so currently so there are a total of four thousand seven hundred and sixty voters currently it would take two thousand and 381 signatures to initiate a recall against an at-large council member for this last May election. So this one is just affecting the at-large council members. So for the May, based on the May 2026 election numbers, it would take 510 votes for Councilwoman Williams, 562, I'm sorry, not votes, signatures to initiate a recall for Councilmember Williams, 562 for Councilwoman Brown, and 1,240 for Councilwoman Nash-King to initiate a recall election.

Currently, it would require 2,381. Correct. And those are the new numbers? Can you say them again?

Correct. So 2,381, they're all calculated across the board the same. It's going to be the 50% of the total number of voters. This one is changing it for the actual numbers for at-large council members. So it would go from 2,381 to 510, 562, and 1,240. That's a significant change, correct? Significant, yes.

I make a motion to reject this recommendation.

Second.

Council Member Kendricks. only thing that i i actually are you though i'm i'm sorry go ahead i'm i'm sorry continue this discussion um the only thing that i is a discussion right now well we just i'll wait i'll wait we needed a second in council member it was a motion by somebody second Council Member Bass and second by Council Member Nash King.

And now we discuss. Yes, sir. Okay.

Continue, sir.

All right. I thought I heard the second. All right. I'm in agreeance with what Council Member Bass stated, with the exception of that one day, With the city secretary doing what they need to do, I think five days would be sufficient if we was to do anything to add that to the existing, the way that things are, just to add that five days would be a good thing. That's all I have.

Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I see this was focused on at-large. The change is solely at large council members. Yes. So that means there's no change to the district council members in the way they are recalled. That's right. That being said, was there any discussion on the charter committee when it comes to council members who were appointed or who ran unopposed?

So, yeah, we did discuss it. There was the concerns brought up that whether or not, you know, ran unopposed, if it would only take one vote. But historically, it's always been the last election in which that seat was filled. So if you ran unopposed, it would go back to the previous election, even though it wasn't you specifically being elected to it, it was the last time that that office was filled.

Is that codified in the charter?

No, I don't believe it's codified. No, it's just been interpreted that way. It says filled, so it's always been interpreted that it's the last time it's filled.

So it's interpreted as, in the case of current District 2, that for a recall for the District 2 representative, being me, that it would be based on the numbers in which then council member Solomon received when he ran?

No, so as a district council member, you're still going to be running off the total number of voters. Let me get the actual language. The only ones that are going to be based off the actual number of votes actually received would be the at-large council members. Recall petition for a district council member must be signed and qualified by the district represented by the... Recall petition for a district council member must be signed by qualified electors of the district. So in your case, it would be 50% of the number of voters from district two. It wouldn't be the actual number of votes received by you specifically. The total number of voters in the district, not votes received. Correct. the number of voters who voted in that district in the last election that the position was filled.

Nobody voted in District 2 election.

Right, so that's why you'd have to go back to the last election, so 24. We'd have to go back to 24 and see what the number of voters were from that district in order to calculate.

Okay, and that's not codified, but it's interpreted.

It is codified in the section he's talking about. It's for that district in the last municipal election where the district seat was filled. So you have to go back to the last election. When the election was canceled because you ran unopposed, then you go back to the last election. So you go to the numbers for the last election.

And that same interpretation is if someone filled a seat. those same rules apply. If there was a vacancy in District 3, for example, and someone is appointed, whether we appoint him or whatever, then if he's appointed, then those same rules would apply.

That's correct. Right. You're always going to go back to the last time that that position was filled by election. Okay. Thanks for the clarification.

Council Member Brown.

So I'm going to follow up on that line of questions first because I see that, for example, under the mayor, it says 50% of the total number of voters in the last municipal election at which the mayor was elected. And again, for the at-large, it says at which the council member was elected. For district, it says the election where the seat was filled. Technically, in 2026... There was an election, or there was a municipal election that happened where the District 2 seat was filled during that election because we still had an item there that said, you know, presumed elected. But because it was a special election, we didn't actually cancel District 2. I thought that there were, I swear I remember seeing there was something on the ballot that said presumed elected, unopposed.

It's saying unopposed, but the election was actually, I don't know if you want to.

Yeah, that's the language that's from the statute, but the election was canceled for that district, and then we put it on the ballot for those members to know what happened, that that election was canceled, and they are presumed elected, but the election was canceled.

Right, but it was an election. That seat was filled as a result of that election because Councilman Kimball was not sworn in prior to the swearing in from that election.

No, I mean the election's canceled, so it wouldn't be, there wasn't an election, but there wasn't an election for that seat.

But the seat was filled because of that election. I'm just saying, and so I know what everybody's trying to get at, but what I'm trying to get at also is there's two different terms that are used there. For everybody else, we're using the term elected, for that one is filled. So I think when you start using different terms in that same area, then it opens it up for interpretation that there is a difference between them. That's kind of where I'm going to with this. First of all, I don't have a problem with any of the amendments on this. I'm an at-large council member, and I honestly couldn't care less if they want to make it easier by 200 or 300 signatures to recall me. If I'm doing my job, I'm not worried about it. The voters should have a say on this, not us. I'm not worried about my position personally. If that is the will of the voters to come back and recall, then that is the will of the voters. But it shouldn't be held to a different standard for at-large, and this is where I think this came from. Because you're being held to the standard of what the mayor, who voted in the mayoral election as an at-large council member. Districts, you're held to who voted for the districts that you are aiming to represent. For at-large, they're always under votes. So more people typically vote in the mayoral election than they do in the total at-large election. So you're actually giving a higher burden to the citizens to recall an at-large council member than you are anybody else in the city. And I think that's where that primarily came from. And I'll just wait for the next round.

Mayor Pro Tem and then Council Member Nash-King.

Just out of general curiosity, when we were dealing with the committee, were they talking about the process in depth, meaning looking at the reasons for recall? I noticed that a couple of the cities had gross incompetence, gross misconduct or malfeasance, so something specific as it related to that process. Was that conversation had during their meeting?

As far as requiring them to have a reason to give grounds that there was that there were discussions on it. I think they felt like they wanted to keep the process simple and I don't want to say easy, but it's simple to get the process started. They didn't feel like placing additional burdens on the petitioner was warranted, and they wanted to just to keep it as is. So there was some in-depth discussions on the different levels of what should say if it should be just stated and be taken as is or if they should be having to prove up grounds because there are some concerns about whether or not someone has to make that determination as to whether or not the facts are true uh or if just simply asserting the fact just asserting the grounds would be sufficient thank you councilman asking and then thank you thank you mr mayor and council um

The residents have already spoken. When they excuse me. When they elect you and you in the position. So. To take away from that, I don't understand because if someone elect you to serve and represent them, then. My concern is we're going against the will of the people that elected us. And because the process has been misused terribly, I'm not against it. If you want to recall me, which I've already been through the process, been there, done it. But when they recall, they just make up stuff to recall somebody. It has no validity to it.

Point of order.

So if there's gonna be a recall, what I would ask the council is go to our governor standards.

It all goes back to- Council Member Nash, can you just one second please? I just- What is your point of order, ma'am?

Speaking of governing standards, I think we should not be derogatory to citizens. So to say that they're just making stuff up or abusing things, that is making it a direct accusation that we should avoid.

Continue.

Mr. Mayor, point of order.

Council Member Nash-King and please put Tom back on. Necessary misuse of it.

So my concern is. My concern is this. If we want to make changes and go into detail why a council member should be recalled, and unless you have gone through the process and understand, it's defamation of character. You're slandering a person. And once people say things, you can't take them back. So I just think it's being misused in the past. What will happen in the future, I do not know. But I think there should be in detail in the governor's standards and expectation reasons for recall. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Council Member Kendricks.

All right. Man, there's a lot going on when we talk about recall. And as I sat and I read through a lot of the charter amendments and things that wanted to be changed, maybe I'm different, but this is what I saw within everything. A group of citizens want to find a way to pretty much take away from the vote of the people, and I find that very, very troublesome. Because a lot of things are being moved around to where if I can't get you this way, I'm going to try to get you that way. And as I'm looking at it, I mean, we're trying to move the goalposts on a lot of things. And I think we're being honest with things. There are some people that dislike some people, and they will try anything in their power to move this stuff around to make it fit to what they want it to fit in order to attack. And that is my belief on everything. I'm not point of order, Ms. Brown. I was talking. I didn't interrupt you. So please don't interrupt me.

Ms. Brown, please allow him to continue to talk.

But like I say, I'm all for the citizens. But when we start getting a group that I feel is trying to disturb the democracy, I think we have to look at that and we have to stand up for the righteousness of all things. I mean, I'm for everybody, love everybody, but on the same token, we have to do what's right and not stand by and watch the goalposts be moved where people want to do what they want to do. I'm all for any type of anything going on up here, but we just got to do it the right way. We got too much of the wrong things going on in our high echelon of government in this country right now. And that's all I have.

Council Member Brown.

The charter already allows there to be recalls. Recalls for any reason or no reason at all. I have consistently said as a council member and as a citizen, it should be easy to start the process of a recall, but very difficult to get it across the finish line. And that is exactly what we have. we've seen the number of recalls that have been petitions that have been started versus the number that have been successful. It says it's easy to start, it's very difficult to complete. Voters can change their mind midway through a two-year term and decide that they were misled or the person is no longer representing them the way that they thought before. If the voters are signing a petition and the voters are going to the ballot and the voters are voting to recall, then it is not going against the will of the voters, it is that the will of the voters has changed. November elections will significantly increase the number of signatures required to recall anybody anyway, because we are going to get a higher voter turnout in November. It's going to be more difficult regardless. But I think that where we really are ignoring the will of the people, if the will of the voters is that they want to make it easier, they want to change it, it is, again, not up to us. We are not representing ourselves and our interests. It is supposed to be representing what the citizens want, what the voters want, what the people want. So denying the ability for this to even go on the ballot is ignoring the will of the voters. The voters will decide. And again, if you as an individual... are opposed to it, then go out and tell people I'm opposed to it, please vote no. But at least give the citizens and the voters that opportunity to have that say and to have that voice. on a charter that belongs to the people. It does not belong to the council. Also, if we just straight up reject this, then we cannot make the changes that make it a little bit more manageable for our staff. So you can't change that 24 hours to five day thing if we just straight up reject it. So I would say at a very minimum vote down rejecting it and make a motion to at least accept it in parts. Thank you.

Council Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez and then Council Member Nash King.

Thank you. So I do believe that this petition is part of a democratic process 100%. But I also feel that there should be some parameters in there. And I do like what the other cities had in there regarding the gross incompetence, gross misconduct and malfeasance. malfeasance in office. I think that there lies then a burden of proof for actual wrongdoing, but I do think it's important that the will of the people is heard for sure, but there's also guide rails for this process. So I don't know where that leaves us. If you could just give me some clarity there, because I'm not in favor of rejecting it completely, but I would want to amend it with those particular parameters.

Council Member Nash-King. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. My apologies. Mr. Mayor, once we vote on this, I... My apologies, Council Member Nash-King. You can continue, ma'am.

That was just a question for a city attorney, or if you could just help me there.

Sure, the motion on the floor right now is to reject the recommendation altogether. Amending a motion to reject, it could be done, but it may be more cumbersome to do that. So you could just take a vote on the motion to reject if it fails, or if it even passes, there could be another motion to approve only limited changes.

Councilwoman Nashke.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor, I want to call for the vote and bring back a motion to add the five days to the charter, but to reject a change in how the recall process is done and come back. And I would like a motion that we would add the five days for the city secretary and remove the one day. So I call for the vote, Mr. Mayor.

It's called for the vote by Councilwoman Nash-King. All in favor? Yes. I'm sorry.

We need a second on a call for the vote.

Second? I second. Councilwoman Williams, second the motion. Is there any discussion? There isn't. OK, there is no discussion all in favor signify by saying yes. All opposed no. Yes. The motion pass. Bob 61

Mr. Mayor, can I make the motion?

There is a motion on the floor. It's to reject the recommendation.

Oh, we already voted on that. We already voted on it. I voted yes. But I wanted...

Council Member Nesking, City Attorney. Thank you.

The vote that was just taken was a call for the vote. There was a motion and a second for a call for the vote. It passed 6-1 as you announced, and so now we're actually voting on the motion to reject the recommendation.

Okay. All in favor of the motion, could you repeat that motion, please?

Motion is to reject the recommendation.

All in favor? Signified by yes. All opposed no. Motion passed five to two.

Okay.

Council member Nash King.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. I would like to make a motion that we change in the Charter City Secretary to one day to five days. To return the recall petition.

OK. Motion by Council Member Nash King. Do you need a second, Councilmember Kimball?

No, I was not. I was for discussion on the previous thing. I am not seconding this motion.

Is there a second? Second. A second by Councilmember Bass. Open for discussion. Councilmember Kimball?

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I think, you know, some very good comments from Mayor Pro Tem was brought up. I think we need to have guardrails. And I think having those guardrails.

Mr. Mayor, on order.

Excuse me?

On order. According to the governor's standards and expectation, once the council have voted on something, we cannot discuss it any longer. We have to move on to the next item.

City Attorney, would you please comment?

That is generally true in the governing standards. When you have an item that's voted up or down with conversations regarding things like the governing standards in the charter where there's lots of moving pieces on that. They're not approving an agreement up or down, this is different. And so you have allowed generally as a body to continue to have additional motions. And that's what we discussed prior to that motion taking place initially to reject that there could be another motion that comes back to just limit certain changes rather than rejecting or accepting wholesale all of the recommendations.

So the order is correct?

No, what I'm saying in this particular case I think it would be appropriate to allow additional motions and that's what we have an additional motion on the table and I think it's appropriate in this case.

Mr. Mayor? I have a question for the city attorney.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

So am I understanding you, when we're having discussions like in general, if we do the governor's standards expectations of the charter, we have no, we just, we're just having an open discussion. Is that correct?

I mean, you're having an open discussion and giving motions of direction on how you want staff to proceed to bring back ballot language. And we want clear direction on that. If council as a whole has different motions they want to apply, then that generally has been allowed. If council wants to say once there's been a motion to reject all that we're not going to entertain any other motions, they can do that. That has not generally been allowed. been done because we want council to make sure that you give us your direction on what you want the ballot language to say, what your governing standards you want to say, and so we have that allowance. So it's up to council really how they want to do that.

Thank you. We're at the point of Council Member Kimball.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, Madam Attorney, for your clarification. Great legal advice there. Mayor Pro Tem has brought up some very good guardrails I think that I would like for us to consider. you start talking about the specific outlines of the malfeasance of office gross incompetence i think those are things that um granted it may be hard to um quantify some of those things particularly when you start because there's judgment calls um i think that we should consider those mayor pro tem brought some great points up um granted i think there needs to be changes, but if we're going to, we had a chance to do it right now, we had the chance to do it correctly right now. I think we should, we should exercise that and discuss it, um, to make sure that we cover our bases.

So I may approach him.

Thank you. And so thank you, Councilmember Kimball, and I do second that just to ensure that that's not limiting by any stretch of the imagination the citizen's right to petition. It just puts a process a little bit tighter in place for that recall process. So thank you.

Councilmember Brown, then Councilmember Nashking.

So I'm going to start off with I'm opposed to putting restrictions on it, especially anything that is subjective. I think if it's in the charter, it needs to be very objective, black and white, not a judgment call, because then we get into the realm of potentially we're showing favoritism to one person. We're saying no to this because we're trying to protect the different person, whatever that situation may be. And that was a lot of the discussion that happened in the Charter Review Committee is, okay, who determines whether it's important enough for that to meet the level of recall? And ultimately, because the charter belongs to the citizens, because it's a right afforded to the citizens, the Charter Committee essentially decided that it should be up to those citizens who want to initiate a recall to make that that call as to whether or not it's important enough. Am I basically summarizing that properly?

Yes, that's correct.

Okay. So I am opposed to putting any other restrictions on it. other than to amend the motion that's on the floor to also accept the change to Section 117, which would prohibit more than one recall election per term in office. It does not change the number of petitions that can be started, but it would prohibit going. So if I get recalled, it goes to the ballot and that fails at the ballot, then I would not be eligible to be recalled again for the remainder of that term. I'm just making sure I'm correct in my understanding of that, correct?

Right. So it's only going to apply if it actually goes to the electors, right?

Okay. So with that, I'd like to amend the motion to also accept the revision to Section 117 that limits recall elections to once per term per official. Thank you.

There's a motion to amend the motion. Is there a second? Is there a second?

There's no second.

Council member Nasky.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Are you making a second? No, no, sir. I thought you said it died. I'm sorry.

I saw the names on here. Council member Bass. OK, OK. The motion to amend the motion, the motion has failed. And discussions continue to open, still open Council member Nashke.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. I agree about the restrictions, but I just want some clarity. It goes back to my question. The motion of direction that's on the floor is to extend from one day to five days. Is that correct, Mr. Assistant City Attorney?

Correct. So the motion is I understand it. Right. Okay. City Attorney.

Mrs. Clement, would you answer that, please?

Yes, I can answer that. The motion on the floor right now is to accept the change for the city secretary to have five days instead of the one day to return the recall petition. And there's been some discussion about potential amendments to that motion, but a motion to amend failed, for lack of a second.

So Mr. City Attorney, Assistant City Attorney. So in my understanding, the motion of direction is that the petition, when they come in and fill out all the paperwork and they submit it to the city secretary and she has one day, once she received that packed paperwork from them to give them all the paperwork that is needed to collect signatures. Is that correct?

That is correct. That's the charter currently requires one business day in order to issue the petition blanks in response to an affidavit or petition.

Yes, sir. And my last question for you, if I understood you correctly, is that the way it would go on the charter, because you're going to break it back, is that we're just going to change from one to five. That's it. Because the motion failed. The other motion or direction failed. Is that correct, sir? That's correct. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, Council. Okay.

There is no more discussion. And would you please repeat that motion, please, so we can take it to vote.

Motion on the floor is to accept the change only with regard to the city secretary having five days instead of one day to return the recall petition documents.

All in favor, signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Council Member Nashke?

Yes.

The motion passed six to one. by the one being that Council Member Brown was, did not vote. Okay, Council, we can continue since we, we can continue. Would you please be recognized by request? Council Member Bass.

So, Mr. Attorney, my question is, is it possible to make a motion now, or Ms. Attorney, to add the words incompetency, official misconduct, and or malfeasance as a requirement for a recall?

If there are additional motions on this section, I believe it's appropriate to take them.

I would like to make a motion to add the requirement that a recall petition be based on incompetency, official misconduct, and or malfeasance.

There's a motion by Council Member Bass. Is there a second? Council Member Naskin, second. And we open for discussion. We open for discussion. Is there any discussion? There is no discussion. All in favor signify by yes. All opposed, no. Yes. Yes. Okay, the motion passed. Anybody vote? Six to one. Okay, thank you. Okay, so. I wanted to ask the Council, do you want to continue or shall we? Do we? Do we need to continue or do you want to make a motion? Anybody make a motion to adjourn? Council Member Nash King.

Mr Mayor, I move to adjourn the meeting. Is there a second?

All in favor signify by sign and yes all opposed. Can you push the button? Okay, the motion failed. Could you show the vote again, please?

Did you have a tally of it already tally was that 40? Yeah, that's what she was asking.

Okay. Can I, can we, um, see the boats? You can't, it was, it was Madam secretary.

It was four to three, four to three. For it?

For no.

For no. The no is one.

Okay, the motion bill.

There you go.

Okay, so we continue. City Manager, Council Members, Kendrick stated that he voted yes. Did it show? Okay. All right. We continue.

If you're a person that voted with the majority in this case, your vote was tallied as against. I don't have that information. Was Council Member Kendrick in the majority in the four?

Madam Secretary, could you call the votes?

As far as who did what?

Madam Secretary?

Francisco, is there a way to pull up the prior vote? No.

From the video replay?

You can't see the video?

It popped up on the video.

Not at this point?

We would have to stop the recording.

If we needed to adjust that and do that, then we could take a recess, and it may take a while, or we can't get it tonight.

We have to stop the recording, finalize it, reverse it, watch it back, show it to the council, I guess, and then reboot everything back up again.

Just start over. Could we re-vote?

I mean, that's the only way to, at this point, nobody was able to get that tally before it was cleared. But you did vote and call the vote that it failed. But if you want the actual names of people that voted against it to know who could move to reconsider, then we would have to recess, and it might take a while.

No, we won't go. We'll continue. Yes, sir. You ready? Okay.

So the next item I have for you is a Charter Review Committee recommendation regarding the judicial removal of elected officials. Now, some background of this. Chapter 21, subsection chapter B of the Texas Local Government Code allows for a citizen of a general law city to petition a district court judge to remove a local elected official. The petitioner must allege incompetence, official misconduct, or intoxication on or off duty. If that petition isn't accepted by the judge, the petitioner would initiate a lawsuit between the petitioner and the elected official and could result in a hearing resulting in the removal of that officer. The Charter Review Committee recommended that the city charter be amended to adopt the ability for a citizen to seek the judicial removal of elected official based on the same criteria and procedures outlined in state law. Just as a note that this amendment is an additional remedy to the removal of an elected official. This is the ability to recall is granted by charter and general law cities do not have charters. They do not have the recall ability that the citizens of Killeen do. Um, this is to allow members of the city are moving on like an official. So based on that recommendation, though, um, amendments would need to be made to section 35 of the charter. Effectively, this was a section entitled council to be judge of qualification of its members that was repealed. And so you can see the language there that it was essentially adopt the provision in state law and make it part of the city charter. So just as a note also, this would be, like I said, a lawsuit between, effectively, the petitioner and the elected official, too, at the subject of this petition. So based on that, staff's requesting direction as to whether city council accepts, modifies, and accepts or rejects that recommendation.

Council Member Bass. I make a motion to reject this recommendation.

motion by council member Bass. Is there a second? Council member Kendricks.

I second the motion.

Second by council member Kendricks. Open for discussion. Council member Brown.

If this were to make it to the ballot and get approved by the voters, how does that affect council member indemnification?

This would. in regard of just their actions.

So otherwise, in the charter, counsel acting under their official role is indemnified against lawsuits, meaning that the city basically defends you as an official of the city, if I'm correct in that, right? So if this were to pass, since it would be considered a lawsuit...

So the city attorney's office would not provide representation in this, if that's what you're asking. This would be very akin to an election contest. So this would be whoever the petitioner is and the elected official individually.

Okay, and so I think that, and the reason that I really support this one is for everybody who's concerned about recalls being misused. This actually costs a citizen money to do. They have to go pay the filing fees out of their own pocket. If they were to fail, they have to pay all the court fees out of their own pocket. They have to pay all the fees throughout the whole process. So this is not something where someone is just going to go arbitrarily decide, oh, I feel like doing this today. And when it comes to having grounds, the state has very specific criteria for this, correct?

Yes, there's three grounds in there that were listed in the statute there.

The incompetence.

The incompetence, official misconduct, or intoxication.

Okay. And then can you define intoxication? Is that just like, you know, I go out to the bar, I've had a few drinks. Is that going to qualify me?

As written, yes. As written, it says intoxication on or off duty. So anytime that you're legally intoxicated, you would be subject to it.

But it would still have to meet the level of the court and the judge determining that it was worthy of being removed, correct?

Right. So the research that I see, it is ultimately up to the judge whether or not to even accept this petition or not.

Right. And even if the petition is accepted, it doesn't mean that the judge is going to decide to remove an official. right it is up to a hearing it then what that does is just initiates a hearing right so again uh it's allowable by state law the only reason why we don't allow it or it's not allowable for clean citizens right now is because we're home rule in our charter doesn't allow for this option correct it's not that it doesn't allow for it it's just state law it only applies it to general law cities and that's because they do not have a state law equivalent of a recall this is a basically would be that So our charter, though, doesn't specify that this is afforded to our citizens?

No, no. Our charter doesn't currently adopt this procedure, no.

Right. And so in order for there to be the ability for judicial removal, then it would have to be in the charter for us?

Yes, yes.

Okay. All right.

Thank you. Mayor Pro Tem Gonzalez.

You just said that it was a provision put in for general law cities.

Correct.

And you said that because we have a recall process that, I mean, is this a duplication, I guess, is my question.

It is. It's a different avenue, the same way to get to the same ends of removal and officials. So state law recall is charter driven. It's not a right guaranteed by statute or constitution or anything like that. So recall procedures are in the city's charter. And so as by definition, a home real city has to have a charter, whereas general law cities would not have a charter. So they wouldn't have that ability to have the recall procedures. So this is where kind of state law comes in and fills that gap for general law cities, and it grants them the ability to be able to move.

Sure. So I understand that as it relates to general law cities, but we are a home rule city. So where does that fit into this picture? Are they contradictory? Do they supplement? Are they equal? Where does this leave us as a home rule city if we already have a recall process?

Of those, I would say it would supplement. I wouldn't say it would contradict or... Whereas a recall is going out for an election, whereas in this proposed recommendation, you're talking one person can initiate and carry through the entire process and remove an elected official. Just one person can do that, whereas a recall requires an election.

Understood.

Thank you. Council Member Kendricks.

There we go. All right. I believe the purpose of Councilman Bass' motion was to preserve the basic principles that the removal of elected officials should occur through established procedures, such as recall, which we already have those procedures. Though the actions brought by, you know, the appropriate authorities, it's already provided in the state law. Am I correct?

I'm sorry.

Well, the state law, like you just said, the other type of cities, this is what they use.

Right. So this is what a general law city, so a smaller city.

And so this removal, judicial removal, you mainly see that in a general rule city, correct?

Yes.

Right. I mean, as per the statute, it's only a place of general cities, and I'm not aware of another city that's voluntarily adopted the statute.

And you just said you're not aware of any...

I'm not aware of another home rule city that's adopted this statute as part of their charter.

All right. That's all I have.

If there's no further discussion, I'm sorry, City Manager, would you repeat the motion?

The motion on the floor is to reject this recommendation.

Thank you. All in favor signify by saying yes. All opposed, no. Council Member Nash-King. Yes. Okay. All in favor signify by just raising your hand. I don't know if this is working or not. If you're saying yes, yes, raise your hand. Okay, that's one, two, three, four, five, six. All opposed? Please raise your hand. The motion passed six to zero. Six to one. I'm sorry, my correction. Six to one. Okay. Mr. Wallin.

Mayor.

Please, Council Member Bass.

I make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

I make a motion to adjourn.

Second. There's a motion to adjourn by Council Member Bass and second by Council Member Nash-King. All in favor signify by saying yes. All opposed, no.

Yes.

Showing that a tie occurred, so.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, excuse me, sorry. And we can't do that.

We're showing that a tie occurred, and it won't tally with a tie, but you have somebody remotely. So in this instance, before calling the vote, I would recommend doing a call of hands to take the vote.

Signify by a yes by raising your hand. You want to adjourn? One, two. We're saying yes to adjourn. Yes to adjourn. And that's one, two, three. And those opposed? Opposed? So that is the time. Did you raise your hand? Yes. Yes, yes. Yeah, you just raised your hand. So it's four to three. The motion passed. Meeting is adjourned.