City Council - Regular Meeting

Anyone on Zoom? Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. It is 03:00. We're waiting on one more council member so we can start the meeting.

I apologize for the inconvenience. We do have councilwoman Gonzales. She says is here, but she's taking care in emergency over the phone, but she will be here. Thank you all for your patience. Mr.

Cagle stepped out. It's 303. The councilman is called to order. Let the record show all councilmembers are here. Councilmember Cobb is on Zoom recovering, and Councilmember Solomon had to be in Washington, D. C. For the HOP. They received a prestigious award. And also, Councilmember Alvarez had a very important attitude to take care of. We will have the invocation, and we will have the Pledge of Allegiance by Councilmember Sagara.

Please all stand. Most gracious father, we thank you once again for your many blessings. Thank you for watching over us, the city of Killeen, our military men and women and their family members, council members that are traveling on behalf of city business, accounting business, and those that are going through crisis throughout The USA and also in Killeen. Bless us and keep us and protect our first responders and the staff and the residents of Killeen. Lord, let this meeting be in order.

We do things in decent and order. In Jesus name, amen. Once again, thank you for your patience, and wait till I announce the item, please. We will now have Councilwoman Cobb, can you hear us? Okay.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Madam Secretary, presentations, please.

Madam Mayor, we need to

do the approval of the agenda. Council member Mayor Pro Tem, the motion to approve the agenda, disapprove the agenda.

May I move to approve the agenda as printed?

Thank you. Councilmember Solomon I mean, Segarra. Second. All in favor, yes. All opposed, no. Councilwoman Cobb, is it up to approve it or disapprove it? Approve. Thank you. Motion carries five to zero. Now, Madam Secretary, thank you for that. We have presentations.

PR 25,031, presentation recognizing Veterans Cemetery Customer Satisfaction Score, presented by Lori Wilson.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mrs. Wilson.

Good afternoon, mayor and council. Today, it is my pleasure to introduce Doctor. John Kelly, the director of the Texas State Veterans Cemetery, and he's here with a couple of our wonderful members of the leadership team out at the Veterans Cemetery Of Central Texas right here in Killeen.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Lori. Thank you. At a mayor council, city staff, and citizens of Killeen, My name is doctor John Kelly. I'm the director of the Texas State Veterans Cemeteries, and I bring you greetings from Austin. It was about

a year ago that I came in front of you, to talk about customer satisfaction and how the VA solicits that every year through a survey. I also told you that in 2023, for the first time ever, we had broken a 99% customer satisfaction score. In fact,

in that year, was 99.03. Shockingly, to some, last year, I came in front of you to tell you we beat that in fiscal year twenty twenty four with a 99.11 customer satisfaction score. State of Texas Veterans Land Board, to all whom shall see these presents come greetings, know ye that the city of Killeen is recognized for dedication and unparalleled service to our cherished veterans and their families. The Central Texas State Veterans Cemetery directly contributed to the achievement of an extraordinary 99.28% customer satisfaction rating for the Texas State Veterans Cemetery division. And so not only have we broken 99% now three years in a row, every year, it has gone up.

And I think that's an extraordinary statement, on the quality and the customer service of the staff provided out at the cemetery. And I wanted I always like to tell people, it's not John Kelly sitting in Austin that does that. It is this fantastic staff that are at the cemetery every day interacting with veterans and their families and helping them and getting through burial services. And I just think it's a wonderful testament to them, and it's our thanks to you all for providing such a great workforce. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Doctor. Kelly. I didn't see Sergeant Major Golf retired, Sergeant Major.

He regrets he couldn't come. He's got a family emergency.

Yes, sir. And he and this team have done an amazing job. I think the best thing we could have done is to have this partnership together. And thank you for looking out for us at the state level. And so I just want to thank the staff and everyone. Thank you. Thank you all for making the city of Killeen look good, and thank you for taking care of our veterans and our oh, thank you, sir. Oh, can I get a picture with counsel?

Sure.

Can we all leave at one time, city attorney? Okay. Come on, counsel. Mister King?

Yes, ma'am.

Madam secretary. Oh. We're getting ready to get started. Discuss agenda items two through five to the 12/09/2025, regular session. No final actions until regular session. Madam Secretary.

RS 20 5190, consider a memorandum resolution accepting the Victims of Crime Act, FOCA, 2026 Crisis Assistance Program grant through the office of the governor, criminal justice division presented by chief Pedro Lopez.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chief Lopez.

Good afternoon, mayor and council. This afternoon, I'm here to ask this council to accept the fiscal year twenty twenty six VOCA grant, which is a program that we use within the department to help the victims of crime in Killeen. The victim's assistance office of the police department has been awarded a one year grant from the office of the governor, criminal justice division to fund the continuation of the crisis assistance program. This grant will provide funding for the crime victims clerk, continued professional counseling services, emergency financial assistance, and temporary shelter services for safety to victims of violent crime. Grant funds was awarded to the cities are to the city of Queens is $79,901.60.

That's a 20% match in the total amount of $19,975.40. And the total project amount is $99,177. Matching funds are already budgeted as part of the crime victims liaison salary. And staff recommends the city council authorize the city manager or the destiny to accept the 2026 local grant.

Thank you, chief. There are no questions.

Alright. Thank you.

Madam Secretary.

RS25191. Consider a memorandum resolution authorizing the award of RFP25 Dash 37 utility bill print and mail outsourcing to InfoSend Inc in the annual amount of $479,016. Thank you. Good afternoon, ma'am.

Good afternoon, madam mayor, city council. So as stated, this item's for utility bill print and mail outsourcing. A little background. The city of Killeen has over 55,000, water utility customers, which generates 14 regular bill cycles a month in addition to supplemental off cycles and final billings, which consists of 38,000 to 40,000 regular bills, 11,000 to 15,000 electronic bills, and 11,000 to 14,000 delinquent notices monthly. With the increasing cost of paper, envelopes, and postage along with continuous growth of water utility customers, a request for proposal was issued to explore outsourcing of utility bill print and mailing.

RFP 20 five-thirty seven closed on August 14. Nine proposals were received. The top three proposals were interviewed virtually and a demo was conducted. InfoCin, Inc. Was selected based on their detailed implementation process, consistent customer service, and overall cost competitiveness.

This slide here shows the cost comparison between bill print and mailing internally and then outsourcing externally with InfoSend, which results in about a $7,000 cost savings to the city. The advantages to outsourcing reduces operational costs, streamlines processes, increases efficiency by allowing utility collection staff to focus on higher value customer service task, improves the quality and appearance of bills, and minimizes risk related to equipment maintenance and supply cost. This slide here shows your current bill, so as you know, if you receive a paper bill, this is what your utility bill looks like. It's just plain text. There's no, type of graphs or charts in it.

This slide here shows the current, e bill, your electronic billing. So, again, very generic, plain text, nothing really pretty about it, right? So, with InfoSend, we will have the ability to, put graphs and charts on our bills that's going to break out, your bill total, show what your usage is during that cycle. With InfoSend, we will also have the ability to, make our e bill the exact same way as your paper bill. So in your paper bill now, you receive a city insert or any type of inserts that we're getting from, you know, environmental services or whatnot, we'll be able to have those inserts, with your electronic billing as well so that all citizens are getting the same information and not just the ones that are having the paper bills.

The recommendation is that, we move forward with this item for approval. Now, at this time, I'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have. I also have Tim Zombek from InfoCenter here if you have any questions for him as well.

No, ma'am. Well, now we do. Mayor Pro Tem.

I saw there's a drop in the personnel costs. Are we reallocating that position or those costs someplace else?

Yes. So, we do have a line for personnel costs. So, currently, right now, we have a part time employee at utility collections that does a lot of the billing process for us, and, his task will now be, reverted to more admin clerical staff, in obtaining, those duties.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Anyone else? Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Secretary. RS25192, Consider a memorandum resolution authorizing an agreement with Quick Roofing tips contract number 25010401 for roof replacement at the Clean Arts And Activity Center Building G in the amount of $180,126.32 Thank you. Presented by Tiffany McNair.

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

Good afternoon, ma'am. On 05/16/2024, the city filed a claim with TML for damage at several roofs, including the CAC Center, Building G after high winds and rain. An adjuster was on-site 06/18/2024, and the initial claim from TML was for $90,248 for CAC Buildings A And G. While working with the adjuster, there was a change in personnel at TML, and a new adjuster was assigned to our claim. Subsequently, the new adjuster approved the claim for the expanded roof here at Building G, and there is a separate or was a separate claim for Building A.

We're just here for Building G. Replacement of the roof is necessary to ensure a safe and healthy work environment and to protect recent renovations to the work area. Staff obtained two quotes through the tips cooperative, QR roofing, $181,121.32, and then FSR who was just over $206,000. The quick roofing conforms to city policy through the tips contract, and it is exempt from the competitive bidding process as stated in Texas local government code 271.102. Funding will be included in the fiscal year twenty six year end budget amendment in conjunction with insurance proceeds.

The scope of the work includes demo of existing membrane to attach 60 mil TPO per membrane. I'm sorry. But I did try to memorize that. I'm sorry. Standard color drip edge with cleat and twenty year no dollar limit warranty. Staff recommends that the city council authorize the city manager or his designee to enter into the agreement for the roof repair at Building G at CAC for $181,001.26 and 32¢.

No questions. Thank you. Madam secretary.

PH 25075, hold a public hearing and consider an ordinance requested by Republic Engineering and Development Services on behalf of Hereford Development LLC and the Cheryl Yell Anderson 1998 trust case number Z25Dash36, amending the planned unit development, PUD, zoning designation of approximately approximately 390.72 acres out of the MJ Pleasant survey, abstract number 652, and the SD Carruthers survey, abstract number 177. The subject property is generally located South Of Stagecoach Road and West of East Tremere Road Killeen, Texas, presented by Wallace Measure.

Thank you. Good afternoon, ma'am.

Good afternoon, mayor and council. This item is a request to amend the plan unit development for the preserve at Thousand Oaks Development. The red star on your screen indicates the location of that property. This is an aerial of the site. So as you can see, the the development is already underway.

Tonight, the applicant is requesting to amend their their approved plan unit development. So as you know, the council approved the existing PUD for the subject property on 08/09/2022. The purpose of the proposed amendment tonight is to modify the concept plan by adding 73 residential lots to the development. The proposed PUD amendment introduces an additional 45 foot wide lot option with a minimum lot area of 4,500 square feet. If approved, the proposed PUD amendment will change approximately twothree of the area identified for 60 foot lots to forty five and fifty foot lots, approximately and half the area identified for 50 foot lots to 45 foot lots.

So, on the screen here is the original concept plan. So, you can see this area here was identified for 50 foot lots. Roughly half of that is being changed to 45 foot lots. And then this purple area in here was identified for R1, which is our 60 foot lots, and the proposal is to change roughly onethree of those to 45 foot and onethree to 50 foot. So you can see that change here.

This is the proposed new concept plan. On the screen is a breakdown of the proposed lots by size. So you can see that the total number of lots is increasing by 73, while the total number of dwelling units is increasing by 71. The reason for that is that there will be two less duplex lots with the current proposal. So the density of the overall development is going from 3.04 units per acre to 3.22 units per acre, so it's relatively marginal increase in density.

The proposed amendment also includes modifications to the Parks and Open Space Plan, which was included in the original PUD to include reducing the number of dog parks. There were two dog parks in the original PUD proposal, and the amendment will have one dog park and also changing the pavilion requirements from one large pavilion to three smaller pavilions having roughly the same square footage. So again, this is the parks and open space plan that was included in the original PUD. You can see that this park area here had, in the original proposal, a dog park, as did this open space area over here. The proposal is to remove the dog park from this park and provide only one dog park in this area.

The reason for that is that both the applicant and city staff wanted to separate the dog park from the playground so that dogs and children aren't in the same general vicinity. There's also a covered pavilion here. They're supposed to be, per the original concept plan, one large covered pavilion. The intent here's the revised parks and open space plan. The intent now is to provide three smaller covered pavilions.

There will be two in this location here and one here. And the reason for that is to be able to incorporate those covered pavilions in and amongst the trees without having to take out trees. The subject property is located within the intended growth area on the growth sector map and designated residential mix on the future land use map. We notified three fourteen surrounding property owners, and to date we've received two written responses in opposition. This is the notification boundary.

I apologize. This is the notification boundary, and you can see here, these are the two properties that were in opposition. Staff does find that the proposed PUD amendment aligns with the spirit and intent of the original PUD and maintains a significant amount of open space and park amenities. Staff has also had the determination that the proposed addition of 71 dwelling units does not significantly impact the character of the development, and we are therefore recommending approval of the applicant's request. Planning and Zoning Commission on November 10 recommended approval by a vote of three to one with Commissioner Sebree voting in opposition. She noted concerns regarding traffic congestion. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

So the change in lots, the 45 Foot lot was because the state law. Because they have that option now because of the state law. So state

laws, you know, with with the adoption of Senate Bill 15 allows. Areas meeting certain criteria to be developed into 3,000 lots of smallest 3,000 square feet. This area is unplotted, not located near an airport or military base, and is more than five acres. So it is eligible to be developed under Senate Bill 15. However, in this case, it's also an approved planning and development, which was negotiated with the applicant. And so our suggestion to applicant was to proceed through the zoning process and amend the

PUD as typical. Yes, ma'am. I agree with you, but I think it's important if it's a change, a shift, that the public know why that shift happened. It's nothing they did wrong. The states say they can do it now, so it may be others that may come before us, and they have that right now That's right. To change the lot side. That's right. I would just I think I love this plan from day one. They have that wiggle room by state, so be it. It's still a good plan. So, yes, thank you for that explanation. Well, you did a great job too, by the way. We have mayor Pro Tem.

Thank you, mayor. Just to address the concern that commissioner Subria, would there be a requirement for a new TAI or the the previous one is already covered?

Yes, sir. There will be a requirement for a TAI.

There will be? Yes.

Okay. Thanks.

Anyone else? Thank you. Yes, ma'am. We will now open up for citizen comments. Michael Fonino. Good afternoon. You have three minutes.

Plan to contract out billing. Call myself a naturalized Texan. In fact, that farming this out to a company in California, if that doesn't offend anybody, I mean, first, there's the data migration that's going to have to happen from here to there. But what happens when it's out there? California is not really known for its strict adherence to data security or even the accuracy of the data that they receive.

We could point to recent CDL scandal out there. I mean, what's to say that if their data gets corrupted, who do we go to? I mean, this is just another excuse for the city manager and staff to say, oh, there's another thing that's not our responsibility. Remind me what we're paying him his salary for? It always comes down to not my job, but we're going to farm this out to somebody else.

I mean, if anybody noticed outside, we don't even have city workers mowing the lawn here at City Hall. It's contractors. Right? What does this man do except shuffle it on down the road, and it's always somebody else's job? And given the past history, we talk about downtown with contracts and agreements and everything else, how many buildings do we have problems with downtown that the minute we ran into trouble, oh, the agreement that we agreed to, we can't enforce it, we can't do anything, we're out of money, we're out of resources.

Show me where we have any guarantee that this is going to be of any benefit. Not to mention the fact that when it comes to mailing time, are we going have to dial back the billing schedule? You don't know anything about the postal service, 765 prefix with our ZIP code. 765 to 765 generally takes twenty four to forty eight hours to send it out. Now you're going to have stuff mailed out from California, one with a postmark, which is probably going to confuse a lot of people.

And in today's day and age, with scams, I got a bill from California for Killeen, that goes in the trash. And then the time that it's going to take. This is real world stuff. More practical items that is quite clear that nameless city staff always comes up with these ideas without even asking us to begin with. You're all set to vote yes on it. Oh, it's a wonderful idea. When does this end? When do we get a say on, hey, let's propose an idea. Should we pursue this in the first place? We don't have that option. But that's the way this council's been rigged for quite some time now. Would you shut up, sir? I'm sick and tired of this individual. You need to deal with him, and deal with him now.

Mister Fornino, you have seventeen minutes.

Mister Jones And you have a duty to reject this man.

Mister Jones, you have mister Fernini, you have nine seconds now. Mister Jones, if you are talking, please stop.

It's not if. You know he is. You can hear me scratching my privates in the back, and you can bang the gavel. You're say that you don't hear him?

Thank you. Melissa Brown, good afternoon. You have three you have three minutes.

When it comes to outsourcing, it's something the city has really strayed away from in the past. It's been brought forward for other items, and the city tells us that it's going to end up being more expensive. This actually, when you get down to the numbers, is going to be more expensive for the city, for the citizens. And I need to know, is this going to be added on to our water bill, especially as the cost increases each year. There is the extra cost for the newsletter and for the inserts that go into the bills if they're going to include those.

They charge more for using the City of Killeen emblems on our envelopes because they'll be ordering those in bulk. There's a $2.00 $5 an hour setup fee that gets factored in to our costs over the years. So we end up paying extra for that. I'm going to skip over a bunch of this, but there's a bunch of additional costs, including print image, archives, fees to send out the e bills, no archives for e billing for customers. Will the auto pay transfer over?

Because now they're going to be managing all of that apparently. And does this give my payment information to a third party that I didn't authorize? We're not saving $70,000 a year. We are not saving any money a year because if we're not actually getting rid of employees or cutting down hours and I don't think we're breaking lease agreements, which would actually cost us more, then at the end of the day, this adds $25,512 onto our bill every year for what we would be paying for water billing and printing rather than doing it in house, because we still have to pay those other costs. We are not going to break a lease a year or more early just so that we are not using it for that.

That is still going to be equipment that is used. To talk about the parks master plan just very quickly, we're continuing to add more trails that people are not really using. We want to make things bigger, better, prettier. But how many times has this splash pad at Long Branch been shut for maintenance issues? Now we want to pay all the money to add another splash pad over at Heritage Oaks. I live in that area. I'm over there quite frequently. It is not that popular. Is not that used. And there's a playground just down the street of the elementary school that if people are going to a park, they typically just go down there and use that playground.

So why pay the extra money for that? Why do we keep adding all of these big parks when we have more important priorities in the city? Every $1,000,000 and $2,000,000 and $10,000,000 and $30,000,000 we put into that is money that we don't have for other necessary projects and for infrastructure. And we really need to reevaluate the priorities before we continue to move forward with building all of these additional parks. But again, we need to look at the long term cost of outsourcing and $25,000 a year in extra costs, not $70,000 in savings.

Susan comments a close. There's no miss Lorraine. Would you please come up. Thank you. You heard the citizen comments. You can pick up anywhere you would like. I know she was shaking your heads and your head, and I wanna give you the opportunity. There's no questions for me. I just want to recognize you acknowledge something was wrong, so that's why. You did nothing wrong. I just wanted to Yes. Understand why you were shaking your head.

So, first thing I'll address is that the, actual mailing of the bills will not come from California. It will come from the office that's, based out of Fort Worth. And, the postage as well will not say California or Fort Worth. So this is just an example that I have here, and it's just a generic

Can I see that, please?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

So it's just a a generic presorted first class mail in the corner. So a citizen's not going to know where it came from. There's no indication that it's coming from California or Fort Worth or anywhere outside of Killeen. Also, implementation will take about ten to twelve weeks, and so internally, we will make sure that citizens are aware, that we're outsourcing this. So we'll put it on, all, you know, our study website and social media.

We also can provide inserts of, hey, this is what we're doing. We're switching to outsourcing. This is what your bill will look like. This is how you can read your bill, etcetera. So we will make sure that, we get that information out there so people, like I said, people get in like, hey, what is this? I'm gonna throw it away. There are also some other, creative things that we can do with the billing to get information on there as well. When it comes to pricing, so, let's see. What are the things they asked as far as the equipment? We do have, plans in place with equipment.

So we currently have a mail machine and a printer at, utility collections that does the billing, the printing and the billing. However, we have other mail machines within the city. And so some of those leases fall off first, we'll get rid of those, we'll have that one. Once that one falls off, we'll get rid of that. So it's we're not going to keep it, we're going to reallocate it with another reallocate the mail machines within the city, so we'll save cost there.

Let's see. Another question as far as the cost savings and personnel. So we also do have another, employee at Print Shop, or we had two employees at Print Shop. Now we're down to one. So the one employee that did do all of our envelopes and our billing on that person is now retired, and we're no longer running that, press machine. And so we've saved a lot of costs from that machine, as far as monthly maintenance there. I also have Tim from InfoCen. He can answer some of that billing additional billing questions.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you for that clarity, but there was one more question. Their personal information, will it be compromised?

No. No, ma'am. And I can have Tim talk about the security. So the actual billing is not coming from InfoCen. So the way that the citizens can pay, the bills now, that's still going to remain the same. What we're doing with InfoCen is we're essentially linking a link within our, internal our our existing portal now. So they're still going to be paying the exact same way. That's not changing. We're just sending the data file, through secure site to InfoCen, who will do the billing, the mailing or the stuffing and the mailing of the, bills.

So, sir, if you would like to add anything else, because I know even if you have a credit card, whether it be from enney's dealer dealers, they have your personal information. We really don't know what our information is. We get our bill from somewhere. I'm seeing it being this not the same way. Correct? Correct. So This is much more secure.

So the billing is not actually through InfoSend. The billing is going to remain the same way that they pay their bill now. We're just linking the actual bill itself so you can see the data of your bill, the data of the city inserts into that portal.

Correct. But I was just giving an example that our people receive that, and that's less secure than what we're doing. That's what I was just doing. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Well, anyone have any questions of him? Mayor Pro Tem?

The one of the other questions was escalating costs over a period of time. So

the the goal is, as far as the costs that you see, so in the estimated 38,000 to 40,000, prints a month, that does include the city inserts and any additional costs. So, I don't know if I can pull up my presentation. Let's see.

Thank you.

So in that, the first column or first row, I'm sorry, for the 38,000 monthly bills, that includes the inserts and return envelopes, and any of the extra fees is within that 28,000. That's not anything extra. Now, costs will fluctuate, more paper bills or less paper bills. Our goal is to reduce costs over time. So by encouraging more electronic billing.

Because with electronic billing moving forward, I can give a lot more information than I'm able to do now, and, we do have some citizens that get a paper bill and an electronic bill because they don't get the inserts when they get the e bill, But now moving forward with the e bill, I can give you all the city information, you know, that we put out there.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Most companies now, like I go back to Dillard's and Macy's, I receive option to opt out of paper. So what you're doing is no different than anyone else. Matter of fact, I love it that you're giving them option, and in the long run, it will save us money.

Yes, ma'am.

And if any new system come into place, you always have the concerned. We all are concerned. But it's just like Novocaine, give it time, it'll work. And that's with any program that we have ever brought new to this city. We can honestly say that program has done better work for us now than the old program we had. So I commend you and your staff for looking at new, innovative ways to make it cost effective and still keep your employees. So I commend you all. Sir, thank you Thank you. For being here too. You're very welcome.

And one more thing. The one thing you missed, I think we could have fixed it right then and there, but you called it. You said it, but people missed it. You're gonna let the people know in advance anyway.

Yes.

But you did say that Yes. And you came back and said it again that you were gonna allow people to know we're gonna make a change.

And I think there was a concern too about, receiving your bill late. That is, we're pretty confident that's not gonna happen. If anything, we would change our internal timeline as far as when we would get the files to InfoSend so that that is not a delay on the citizens. And so that's something that we'll work out within our implementation as well of do we need to push back a couple days to ensure that the citizens get their bills on time. We won't have any delay or lag in your monthly billing cycle when we go live.

Once again, thank you for catching it. You said it, but then you remember what they asked, and you came back and repeated it again. That the public will be aware of the changes way in advance. Correct?

Yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Excellent job.

You're welcome.

Thank you. Anything else, counsel? Great job. Great job.

Thank you.

Alright. Consent agenda, madam city of secretary.

RS twenty five one nine zero, RS twenty five one nine one, and RS twenty five one nine two.

Mayor Pro Tem, can I get a motion to approve or deny accounts Mayor Pro Tem Adams? I move

to approve the consent agenda.

Council members

Kendrick. I see.

All in favor? Yes. All opposed? No. Councilwoman Pop, yes. Oh, you said yes?

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you. Motion carried five to zero. Public hearing. Counsel, missus Measure went through the slides. Would you like for her to go back through it? Okay. Madam secretary?

PH 25075. The caption of the ordinance reads, an ordinance amending the city of Killeen zoning ordinance by changing the zoning of approximately 390.72 acres out of the MJ Pleasant survey abstract number 652 and the SD Caruthers survey abstract number 177 to amend the planned unit development, PUD, providing a savings clause, providing for the repeal of conflicting provisions, providing for an effective date.

Thank you. Is the applicant here? If so, would you like to speak? Is that oh, Would you please state your name for the record?

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, sir.

Chris Dossi, Front Rock Builders. How are you?

Oh, yes, sir. Bye.

Good. Yes. So we negotiated this planning and development three years ago with City of Clean, Wallace and her staff. The market was in a different state than it is today. And so we went back to Wallace and her team and Mr.

Kagle and sat down and worked through this plan. It represents an increase of density of 7%, But what it really does is puts about 100 more homes in the reach of affordability. And that was sort of the goal as how do we get these homes to remain the high quality, the high standards that we've agreed to in the PUD, but make them affordable. And so this amendment represents that.

Yes, sir. Anything questions of hearing, counsel? Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you. We will now have our public hearing. Did you say some? Michael Fonino, you have three minutes.

Let's dial back and there he starts. Let's dial back the clock on this issue. If you recall, and I know that many of you don't, the night this was voted for approval, citizen comment on this item took about an hour, overwhelmingly against having this many houses. Now we're doubling down and we're going to increase density. When we objected before, hey, I wonder why there's not so many people here again.

Oh, 03:00 meetings start, most people can't attend, and voice their opposition. Now we're going to increase density. How is this a good idea? Going to stretch police, fire, solid waste, road maintenance, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. What is this? The only people who are going to benefit is tax farming and those in the real estate game. And don't tell me, oh, we don't benefit. Nothing we do up here do we benefit. I'm sorry. If you got a real estate license and you got inventory increase, you're going to have your fingers on it, if not immediately, eventually.

This is nonsense. Stretching city services, what are going to have to do? Outsource more stuff? Where does it end? At some point, we're going have Chief Kobinsky or whomever follows him. We need another fire station. We need more police, etc. Every time this town gets even close to having just enough to where we can maintain, you want to expand. There's never any thought, plan ahead. Like buying a kid's shoe, you buy the shoe bigger than what you need so you can grow into it.

We never get that. This is something that a five year old can understand, but we don't do this time after time after time. I also find it rather convenient that we have a council member who has a family connection to this deal. At least he's not here, so that's recusal by absence or on purpose. At least there's some honor in that.

But why do we need to have more and more houses with less and less resources and less and less jobs? This is nothing new. The principle doesn't change. When we objected en masse the night that this was first brought up here, what were we met with? The reply was, and I quote, We have heard you. We appreciate your passion. No, you don't. Start asking yourselves. It's coming up on campaign season. Who do you represent?

The people who come here, write you emails, etcetera, or contractors, the builders, and etcetera, etcetera? Enough. Right? If you haven't read the paper, you lost one of your biggest supporters when it comes to, letters to the editor. He's dumped you. Are you not seeing the writing on the wall? You're going in the wrong direction. We don't expect to get everything we want.

Melissa Brown, you have three minutes.

A 7% increase in population density is not small, especially in this part of the city in this area. I will let you know that I walked all the way through Spanish Oaks. Most of the residents there who are going to be affected by this because they're directly across East Premier were not notified about these changes. They didn't know that there was a meeting today where council was going to vote on it, and I can tell you that they are not supportive of it. This is a PUD, so it doesn't fall under the state law because we negotiate what it is, so we don't have to give them 3,000 square feet, and it was approved before the law was passed.

Why would we want to separate kids from dogs? That way parents can decide they either go and take their dogs to the dog park or they're going to take their kids to the playground. Every dog park that we have in the city has a playground near it. Citizens in the survey said they want larger lots, not cram in a bunch of smaller ones. So now we're going to get rid of 256,000 square feet lots in order to add three twenty five lots that are either 5,000 square feet or smaller.

Let's go ahead and look at my slide real quick, which is a page out of the 2,040 plan, where it shows where population density is growing, where we're adding more density. So if you look at the map, you can see that the only thing that's really got density there is Yowl Ranch, With a 4,500 square foot lot, that will be smaller than those lots on the backside of Yowl. Smaller than that. That's ridiculous. This is not a neighborhood infill development area.

This is actually in a controlled growth area even though that's not what it was labeled. It was named what it was because this project was going to come up to the council and they wanted to make sure that it didn't interfere with the flume. I do have another question, though. Why is it that the AR-one lots are going to have their own private and exclusive drive? So, not only do we now have the fact that, well, we're going to put the dog park closer to the lower density, more affluent area, put a playground over on the other side, but now we look and if you see where all the lines are on the map, there is an exclusive road to go into and out of the area of AR1.

So we're already separating that. We're segregating people based on that. And by the way, Ms. DeBry did not just cite the traffic. Ms. DeBry said that she was against it because she lives in that area. She sees how much this growth is detrimental to the character of what that part of South Killeen was, and that she felt it would be best to just leave it the way it is already approved. And I would say that I agree with her and probably so should the council.

Public hearing, Ms. Coles. Can I get a motion to approve or disapprove pH dash 25Dash075? Can I get a motion to approve or disapprove PH dash twenty five dash zero seven five?

Mayor, I move to approve.

Thank you. Councilman Sagar.

I second.

Mayor Pro Tem Adams.

I second.

All in favor, yes. All opposed, no. Councilwoman Cobb is up or down? Councilwoman Cobb, is it up or down?

It's up.

Motion carries. Five to zero. We will now have discussion items, madam secretary.

DS25056, Parks Master Plan progress update. Antonio Murphy.

Thank you. Good afternoon, mister Murphy.

Good afternoon, mayor. Good afternoon, council members. It's my pleasure to come to you and discuss our master plan updates from 2022 to 2025. While we're here, in 2022, the master plan adopted a guide to ten year park system improvements. Plan goal complete parks for all are safe, connected, equitable, and sustainable. This update reflects a three year progress reporting investment in our in our partnerships. Here's a snapshot of our system wide industry. Since 2022, we've increased our park acreage by a 101 acres from 508 to 610.

Thank you for being here. What a delight. And dementia are caused by what these two

Councilwoman Cobb, is that you or someone in the audience?

Yes, ma'am. It's it's all.

Thank you. So I apologize for that.

In 2022, it was found that 10 of the parks were rated in poor or fair condition. Since 2022 to 2025, we made improvement in several of these parks which continue planning improvements for the additional three parks. Outside of the 10 parks that were rated poor or fair, we have 23 parks in Killeen that were rated moderate or adequate. We have improved 19 of those and have slated improvements for continue in 2026. We've increased our trail mileage by 2.23 miles from 8.9 miles to 11.13 miles.

The operation and mowers and maintenance. Our traditional mowing repair with such rapid growth and incremental increases in acreage tended our growth so we got created. The implementation of grow zones to prevent the maintenance and provide a natural growth area for inhabitants was implemented as well as we have contracted out some of the services for areas to be maintained. In addition, we were able to add a park planner which is significant to aid to the design growth and development of our park spaces. Here's just a map overview of where we've had improvements in the areas that are designated for future improvement.

As you can see, we have 27 areas that have been seeing some type of touch or love since 2022. Just about different locations, the improvements at Conda Park. In 2022, there was a restroom building, playgrounds with shades, field lightings, a multipurpose field was added, resurface of the parking, curbstops, striping, picnic tables, and grills. This funding was covered by ARPA, our CIP, our CDBG, as well as our park operating budget. In 2023, we added an additional restroom, skate park renovation, drainage enhancements, and a pedestrian bridge, which was funded through ARPA and our CDGB.

In 2024, there was solar lighting, resurface basketball court, new basketball goals, shade over the bleaches, and we planted 20 trees with irrigation that was funded between ARPA parks and the c d g b. 2025 saw the fencing of our soccer field with backstops soccer goals trails renovated to additional mile distance. And it was funded by operating our parks operating budget. Future projects. The South Playground will have a shade structures of 12 additional trees added with benches and a water fountain for the future 2026 as well as our much awaited park maintenance facility update and renovate building.

That was what councilwoman Cobb wanted. Correct?

Yes, ma'am. Ain't good enough.

Okay. Great.

Mhmm. Here's just a few pictures

of the I

love it too.

Here are a few pictures of the renovations that have taken place and the upgrades that have been made at Condor. Let's move on to Long Branch. In 2022, we installed a restroom, splash pad renovation, shade structures, and 20 trees planted with integrations, which respond was funded by ARPA and our parks operating budget. In 2023, we saw a renovated pavilion, replasted the pool, replaced picnic tables, and planted 20 additional trees with irrigation, again, funded through ARPA, our CIP, and our parks operating budget. We had almost a mile of trail installed with solar lighting in 2024, funded by ARPA and our parks operating budget.

2025 saw some of our major most noticeable improvements with the addition of a new pool house, a new maintenance shed, painted picnic pavilion, picnic tables, benches, shade structures. We took one of the tennis courts and renovated it to four pickleball courts conversions, and we added 25 trees with irrigation. Still to come in 2025 before the year ends, we will see the installation of a new pool slide as an additional feature at Long Branch Pool. And, again, here are some pictures of the marked improvements in that short three year span. Next is Lions Club Park and Family Aquatic Center.

In 2022, we were able to add a shade canopy and a playground equipment installed funded through parks and CIP. We planted 20 trees with irrigation in 2023. We did landscape inside the family aquatic center to update the grassy areas and common areas in 2024. In 2025, we just completed back here at the October, a major slide refurbishment, renovated our meetings, added a maintenance shelter, and replaced the book nook in a park library. Let's go to a a lane, which saw some significant love and we'll continue to see love as we move In 2023, we're able to improve the drainage at a playground shake with shade structure.

2024, we did bleaches and renovated with painting for love my day love my park day. And in 2025, a pavilion renovation. At Fox Creek, we were able to improve our ADA access with sidewalk improvements in 2024. 2025 saw the addition of a new playground, shade structures, picnic tables, grill, and a basketball court concrete overlay. 2026, we're planning to bring on a butterfly garden and a Monarch Way station.

Maxdale, which is a partnership in conjunction with our school district, We were able to, in 2024, paint the pavilion, add new picnic tables, and planted 20 trees with irrigation. Marlboro Park, which is currently one of our projects that will come up, we were in 2025, we were able to add new bleachers, new picnic tables with things to come in the future of 2026, 2027, a playground replacement, basketball court resurfacing, 12 trees funded as well. Mhmm. Phyllis Park improvements, we added a multipurpose foil with irrigation in 2022, installing limestone blocks for road barriers, basketball court resurfacing, new goals will come in 2024 with additional shade structures, and we installed two tenths of a mile of a trail loop. Stewart Park improvements.

Again, we were able to install a multipurpose field with irrigation added in 2023, playground structures with shade structure, benches. In 2024, we did a playground border, surfacing replaced, and added ADA improvements as well as another two tenths of a mile in trail distance. Mickey's dog park. 2025 saw the fence replaced. 2026, we plan to improve and replace the plate equipment as well as add a paved access to the shelters.

Personal heritage and bike trail. 2023, we saw the installation of 27 disc golf tee boxes and holes. 2024 saw the installation of benches and a water fountain with a future growth plan for a playground, splash pad, and restroom to come 2026. Other parks improvements and ongoing. At Timber Ridge, we were able to install 20 trees with irrigation, continue renovations of the Rosa Heart Clean Community Center with pickleball courts and gym floor renovations are scheduled for 2026.

Additional field tops were able to be purchased to cover our athletic fields and maintain their playable status. We also were able to add in technology to improve our efficiencies by purchasing of automatic field painter, which is line of field and half the time of our human capital component, as well as we were able to protect staff resources by, again, outsourcing some contractor work for maintaining of additional park spaces that needed to be cut and installed. As well as we're planning on installing two waterfalls during the Fort Cabosso's regional trail. Again, highlighting the trails and connectivity and green infrastructure, as I said, 2.23 miles of trails have been added currently with another 2.5 miles additionally to be planted through new development. The total, we've planted 145 trees, 65 at Long Branch, 20 at Maxdale, 20 at Timber Ridge, 20 at Conder, and 20 at Lions Club Park.

You'll see something that we're leaning towards more innovation. We have seven acres of identified what is now a grow zone at our different community parks. We wanted to add some beautiful by plant natural wildfire seeds to add a little color. One of the things we discovered when we instituted this grow zone is once it gets high while it does include a natural habitat for native habits, it looks to be appearance of unkempt. So in a way to beautify the area and add something nice in another amenity, we decided to try this wildfire project to add some color to be more inviting and have more of our residents to be able to enjoy our parks.

In 2022, the parkland dedication ordinance was implemented. New subdivision will now dedicate land and fees for parks. Dedication and development coordination are underway at purse the preserve at Thousand Oaks, Casper Heights, Bunny Trail, and future development with a total of 103 acres of parkland to be dedicated. Not only did we make progress in the overall improvements of our parks, we made significant use in establishing partnerships. We continue an MOU with KISD for access to Maxdale, Oduma, and Timber Ridge.

We're exploring an additional MOU that will allow for added gym space as well as collective programming through our school system for our youth sports initiatives. We've developed the MOU with the Armed Forces YMCA, which allows us to have access to their pool to test and qualify and certify our lifeguards, as well as exchange for them. We give them a place that allows them to be able to run their soccer program during their soccer season. We've established a great relationship with the Rotary Club here in Killeen as they are excellent in adopting our parks to help them plant trees with a couple of a few projects. Again, as I mentioned, with a local disc golf club, we did the 27 hole layout at personal heritage, and we had a donation of 65 trees from trees of Houston.

We also continue to expand funding sources and explore those means. Confirm sponsorships agreement of First National Bank of Texas, which is 1,260,000.00 for a total of, seven years with two options to renew for additional seven years each option. We also have secured 375,000 in total commitment from Zener for sponsorship of our family aquatic center with a five year option with two additional five year options to renew. And as we go forward with those, we're still continuing to explore additional opportunities for funding as well as future partnerships. Community engagement and volunteerism.

From 2022 to 2025, we saw really explosion on the program side and getting our community involved and engaged. We've hosted four Love My Park Day events, 14 movies in the park, National Arbor and Texas Arbor Day in April and November with eight plantings throughout the city. We have about 27 park spaces. We have 22 adopted park by community stakeholders who take an interest in actively keeping it clean and friendly and inviting. And with our trail programming, we have the Syntex race series of which we produce five in house races that makes the most of our parks and trail system.

Looking ahead, our future projects. Thanks to your foresight and diligence, we were able to reallocate some funds from a seal bond that was passed in 2023 for the purpose of the purchase heritage hike and bike trail, additional construction, Goodnight Ranch Community Park design and construction, a Saddle Ridge Pocket Park for a neighborhood park, West Killeen Nature Trail, and Bonney Trail Pass to preserve recreation, and our park maintenance building construction. Looking ahead, we continue to wanna proceed among this incremental growth with improvements to parks considered poor affair, which are Hunt Club, Camacho, and Santa Rosa Park. Continue incremental improvement in planning of the 27 current and future parks in 11.13 miles of trails throughout our system. Evaluate inclusive play opportunities citywide for support from the park with with support from park the parks and rec advisory board, as well as on January 12, there will be a town hall meeting to engage our community as what they would like to see when we're talking about therapeutic recreation and inclusion.

So really excited about that. And we're continuing to explore opportunities for efficiency and assessments and the need for staff additional staff for park maintenance and program golf. With that, that concludes our update. I will gladly answer any questions that you may have.

Great job. Great job. One thing I just didn't see. Are we short how many more parks you may not have this data. You can email it to me. As I said, you continue to grow from your perspective as the director. How many more parks are we are in need of to meet our growing population? Well,

Ma'am, with the population explosion, that is a kind of hard estimate to provide. If we had to stop the numbers of where we are today, I would say the parks that we have planned will greatly enhance and probably additional, maybe not so much to parks, but additional facilities in the way of community centers or inclusive spaces to be used, but if we continue the rate of growth, I could see over the next ten to fifteen years where we will need an additional, at a minimum five, probably 10, more accurately for parks and open spaces.

And then more community partnerships

Yes.

Like Thousand Oaks.

Yes, ma'am.

Okay. Thank you. Excellent presentation. Council member Sagar.

Thank you, mayor. And great job, you know, it's always good to

excuse me,

to see the parks and all the people out there. I know that I go out there a lot and I see, in over the years more and more people. But my question was, I know we talk a lot about the trails and stuff and wonderful, you know, I love the heritage joke, I go out there a lot. But the other aspect of that is, you know, I know it's always a challenge to get those connected, but do you look at not just the trails itself, but all the connections? I know that you mentioned the Sentex race series and part of that, I mean, as we develop these roads, I know we're looking at, you know, developing roads and stuff and we put nice sidewalks and I always say, one of the best trails that we have here in Killeen is not even an official trail, you know, it starts at area of jokes and goes down all the way stagecoach and you go all the way to Tex A And M.

And I mean, that sidewalk is bigger than a regular trail, but do we look at things like that and maybe considering, you know, connecting them and saying, you know, these are not official trails but figuring out a way to make all that connected to other parts because someone like me that enjoys getting out there and running, that's that's probably one of the best areas that, you know, we have to be able to do something like that.

Yes, sir. Connectivity is a big topic of conversation with our park plan and our park maintenance division director. We are looking at the transportation challenges are rising as the city grows, ways of having that connectivity, whether it be a combination of trails and parkways, bike lanes, we are always having a conversation and is incorporated into our growth plan as we move forward.

Yeah, no, it's great because it brings out a lot of the cities. I mean, you look at State Street, know, we just had that development there and it goes right in front of that development, it goes by a career center, there's so many things that we need to figure out how to promote that and say, you know, if you go down this road right here, it's safe and you'll be able to see a lot of the cities and stuff. But thank you, thank you for what you guys do. I just want to make that comment and figure out a way that, I know it's in the back of your mind, how to connect all of this stuff, not just with the trails, but all these great sidewalks that the city is putting in.

Yes, sir. Mayor Proctor.

Thanks, Mayor. I appreciate the discussion. And I've mentioned it to Mr. Cagle at one of the conferences that talked about parks and walkability, and even taking one of the tours that they're using, to Mr. Cigar's point, the the power lines.

They're building trails. I don't know what the effect that is. I'm not the guy to talk about that, but, taking advantage of the the lines that's already there to that can meet that connection issue, that's maybe something to come up with. And I know being on K Tempo, I don't I haven't seen any on the come up with a tip, but there's a pass I I think we should look into possibly submitting something so we can use state dollars or what have you to expand or to meet some of the requirements by putting it in our the transportation improvement plan.

Yes, sir.

Council member Kendrick.

Great job, mister Murphy. When we talk about the the usage request with KISD, how is that going right now? Because I know we talked about it a little while back.

It it is going well. It's ongoing conversation. Positive responses on both sides, we're just trying to fill it out, as you know, KSD fills a very robust youth athletic program that they have to schedule practices and everything for their facilities, but we're looking at some innovative ways, like I said, we're in the discussions of how we can incorporate our youth athletics program into the elementary school system to provide more opportunities for youth to be able to participate, as well as increase our pool, being able to bring in volunteers to help mold those young minds and introduce them to what sports will bring in the way of teamwork, socialization, camaraderie, the whole nine. So we're we're having those discussions. They're ongoing.

They will always continue to be ongoing because we all are serving the same body with our youth in the community, and we all have the same mission at hand.

Right. So so with that being said, when you say to bring the the youth in,

and I

I know how you feel about it, but I just want the citizens to know The more that we can acclimate these kids and get them out the house and doing something, it actually reinforces positive in everything in life that they are doing in everyday life.

Yes, sir. Okay.

That's all I got.

Well, mister Murphy, to sum up, I think the council's saying you're doing a great job, excellent job. I like the part with the you're following the comprehensive plan with the connectivity council member Sagawa and mayor pro tem, things that they would like to see happening with the master plan. But you're doing that, but it's also fall within the comprehensive plan. And with council member Kendrick, I wanna give you kudos. Missus Anjanette Wilkerson, that's who you work with in She had only good things to say about you, your professionalism, willing to be a team player, and bringing so many innovative, great ideas to her on how we can have that partnership to be even stronger.

So kudos on that.

Thank you, ma'am.

Anything else you would like to say, Kelsey? Anybody else? Yes. You that that triggered something. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because I said I

had alibi because it was something that you said earlier when they it was asked. I think the mayor yes. It was the mayor asked how many parks would we need? And you said you couldn't answer that. But just how many rec centers do you think we would, right now, would need without thinking about the growth of the city, but what we really need right now.

If we use current industry standards and projections, there should be within walking distance of which is about 2.5 miles or ten minutes, a facility or a park with every with every ten minute walk. Being as if we have two who are that are really not on a established walking trail, I would say initially three, just to be strategically positioned out of the center, and then we can work in from there and have discussions about whether we have small community centers that can host meetings and engagements and not necessarily have the full on athletic component, or we have full scale centers, but there also needs to be variation. We do not need while we need basketball courts, I'm gonna go on record and say we do not need 20 basketball courts and 20 facilities. We need to offer variety because not everyone's an athlete, and not everybody wants to excel that way. The other part that's not spoken about recreation a lot of time is the leisure component, and we are blessed to have cultural diversity here.

So including what the city of clean offers and engage in on multiple levels, having those spaces and opportunities available.

Thank you, Mister Murphy.

Thank you, And before we close on behalf of the city of Killeen, the city council and staff, we would like to wish you all a happy holiday. With that being said, mayor Proton.

Madam mayor.

Move to adjourn. Council member Gonzales. All in favor, yes. All opposed, no. Is that a yes or no? Council. Yes. Okay.

See you next year.

Secretary and it's okay. Thank you. I was getting ready to But I called that call 50.