City Council - Regular Meeting

2026 i call the special meeting the special city council meeting to order let the record reflect that all council members are here with the exception of council member of every national

We will pray in your own faith as you are so led. We stand before you today in just sincere thanks as we move forward with our business for the city. I pray that we continue to move forward in the spirit of unity, harmony, and progress for our overall growth and development. We thank you for every opportunity and for every person here who cares about the people and this town and the city and the job that we have to do today. Let us work peacefully, peaceably, and in pure progress. Thank you. In Jesus' name, amen.

of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

So is the two minute, two time rule in effect? Okay, it is now the time for citizens' comments. Citizens will have two minutes to speak, with one minute to talk about it, or City Council to respond with statements or explanations without engaging in dialogue. Madam City Attorney, please go ahead.

Can I have votes tonight? The first speaker is Dr. Sue Nisi-Crime.

Yes, you can stand there. I don't see a clock. We're talking.

Good evening, Mayor and Council and honored guests. I'm here regarding your legislation. We are facing massive budget strains and our number one priority, veterans exemption reimbursement, remains completely stalled. We have been told this firm's value is defensive and happens behind closed doors. But as taxpayers, we deserve a paper trail, not passive rhetoric. If this firm wants to earn our trust, even at a $1 rate, they must provide concrete documentation of their labor. Moving forward, the city of Killeen must demand standard government relations proof of work. I ask the council require the firm to document their process using these five industry standard metrics. Show us official bill authorship for our military impact and municipality priorities. or filed committee amendment providing they successfully altered a pre-exemption bill. Provide the council with copies of their official Texas Ethics Commission and Texas Legislature online registration providing they formally testify or register for or against bills affecting Colleen's revenue. Mandate a professional meeting log showing exactly which state representatives, senators, or committee directors they met with on what day and for how long. Show this council the copies of the date, heavy white papers, and physical impact reports they created and physically handed out to state lawmakers to pitch Colleen's need. Require monthly or weekly written milestone matrices detailing bill movement rather than waiting for an annual presentation. Tracking 2,000 bills on a computer screen is a passive administrative test. It is not active advocacy. A professional firm tracking our tax dollars should have zero issues provided as paperwork. If the Shuler Group cannot produce these five items They are not providing a service. They are providing an excuse. I urge council to tie any future contract renewals or proprietary approvals strictly to these transparent deliverables. I thank you for your time in the 494th action. Thank you, Madam.

Madam Secretary.

Yes, our second speaker.

I'm here today to show my support for canceling the contract for the Sleary Group legislative consulting firm. Let's begin with the term sole sourcing and a no-bid contract oversight. The Sleary Group and the city manager initially entered into a legislative consulting agreement 2015. Since then, the Sluder Group has held a monopoly of the city's potential growth and the city's decision-making abilities. Let's next review the legislative agreement between the city and the Sluder Group of what recently occurred. August of 2025, a new contract was signed. The agreement was a three-year contract from August 2025 to August 2028. This agreement has the option to be extended until 2030. So from 2015 to 2030. Those contracts over the years have also included a notice that you can cancel at any time. Just give the student group 30 days notice that you intend to cancel the services. Again, I recommend the city immediately move forward with canceling this contract. Why? Again, sole sourcing and no-bid oversight is a problem for the city. I want to remind the city council a single legislative consulting company has the potential for serious legal concerns. This includes a potential lack of transparency, Fairness and flexibility, and in this case, multiple years of the lackluster performance given to the city. The contract has continued beyond 2026 to 2030. Where's the fairness? Where's the self-sourcing contract ability? Where's the competitiveness? Again, I'm here today to show my support for canceling the contract for the scooter group. Thank you.

Before we move into discussion, I would like to move to suspend our rules for discussion so that we can have one or two minutes to address the lobbying group.

I second that.

Madam Attorney, is that in order? If the council votes to approve the union's suspension. Any discussion? Yes. House Member?

Based on the motion on the floor, will there be any rules? I mean, because it's been ruled that many people can just talk about what they want to and how many times they want to. Or are we going to have the standard where we have one person to speak, let everybody else speak? It's up to Council.

You can suspend your rules and make certain rules apply to this.

May I clarify? May I motion that?

Excuse me?

May I clarify the motion? So the suspension is limiting the two times each, so allowing us to have more than two opportunities to speak during this discussion.

My discussion is we should still limit it. I'm willing to go three times two minutes, but not no time limit because we'll be ahead a very long time. So that's my motion to go two times three minutes to amend the motion that was placed on the floor.

Okay.

The motion to amend was for three times at two minutes each?

No, that's... You're discussing that. That's not a... Well, I would like to amend the motion. You'd like to make the amendment.

Okay. I'm amending the... I would like to amend the motion two times three minutes. And that's the way we're going to speak today. Two times three minutes. Amend the motion two times three minutes. Yes, sir.

So you want to make the motion?

Yes, sir. I just made the motion. I want to amend the original motion. I move to amend the previous motion to where the motion now is to speak two times three minutes during this session.

Okay. Is there a second? Second. Second. Any discussion on the amendment? Okay, no discussion. All in favor signify by raising up your hand. Which one am I voting on? In favor? Amendment. All opposed? For the three minute, for the three time but two minutes. Two times. Three minutes. Two times. What is it?

Two times for three minutes.

Okay.

Okay, so all opposed? Okay, the motion carries 5-1 on the amendment. Passes 5-1.

So that was to amend the motion, so now we need a vote on the motion as amended. So if you'd like to, so now the motion to amend it is to suspend the rules and allow council members to speak two times, three minutes at least.

Okay, so we need a motion for that. I would like to make a motion. No, no, there's already a motion.

Now you're voting on that motion as amended.

okay so we're voting on that motion so uh all in favor okay that is five to uh one all opposed okay motion carries five to one okay so we will now speak I vote. I can speak. Yes sir. Is it on the discussion item or is it something else? We haven't even called the discussion item yet. Okay. Madam Secretary.

Discussion item. Discussion item number one, DS-26-073, discuss legislative properties with the Schroeder Group.

Mr. Cable? Yes, sir. So, Mayor, my view, before there's comments, that's a short presentation, and it's a good Would you like to make a short presentation first, or do you want to respond to comments?

Okay, a short presentation on the legislative stuff. I mean, we've got several things to talk about. I mean, I've got pages. Yes, sir. So I'm just trying to figure out what it is you want to hear first. I mean... Well... I'm sorry, go ahead.

First of all, we usually discuss the legislative...

priorities so what we already have i really want to talk about what we've already okay first of all i appreciate you having us here secondly i apologize because we came here several months ago to give a summary of what had happened in the last session of the legislature. And I think y'all ran out of time. You'd gone past the time you could. So we didn't get to make our presentation. So I'm sorry. That wasn't our fault. I mean, we were there for like seven or eight hours. And I recall sitting in the back room. And y'all were there at the same time having a good time, I can tell. But because there's so many new members of the council who we have not really interacted with before, I just want to talk a little bit about my history. You know, my family moved to this town in 1948, 49, not 1848, but 1948, 49. And Killeen's population is around 4,000 people, I believe. Tampa, as they call it, is 3,500. And we opened up two hamburger drive-ins. That's the business. This was my stepdad that we started. But I attended East Florida Elementary. Went to Branshire Junior High. Graduated from Cleen High School, which is the fairway. I just became fairway and now it's not even anything anymore. And went to Baylor. Got my degree in North Texas. All in business. Ran against an incumbent in the 70s. from burning, defeated him, and had served seven terms and never had an opponent. And in that seven terms, I passed three tax bills. Now, he passed tax bills in Texas, and you don't have an opponent. You know, I'll just speak for myself. I know tough times. And I'm sorry to see where you are. And I sent you all some clippings here the last couple of days so that you know many Texas cities are in the same problem, right, or have been fighting the same issues as you are. Some are more critical than some of the things you're dealing with. You really have a narrow range as opposed to them having millions of dollars. I have been there. I've had to cut dialysis machines. I served on the LBB, which is the Legislative Budget Board, for six years. That is the organization that puts together the budget before the legislature comes into session. They have hearings. They're having them right now. And we had to make those decisions. I mean, I've cried in several hearings listening to people testify about the things they need. They're life or death decisions in their minds. But anyway, having said that, I know there's some very negative things that have been said about me and my company and what we do. I'm not going to spend any time on that, frankly, because it's not fruitful and they're not true. That's all I can say. It's been suggested by some that you hire someone on the success feed. Hire somebody based on if they perform, they get paid. In Texas, folks, that's a third-degree felony. Two to ten in the slammer. You cannot be hired based on your performance to lobby the legislature at all. I mean, it is a no-brainer. I mean, you go and I go. We both go. So you can't do that. You want to hire a consultant. I don't even know what a consultant... I mean, we're consultants, but I don't know what a consultant will be because once you start interacting with the legislature, if you are... Working on pro or con issues with them, handing out documents, all kind of registered. You're a lobbyist. That's just the way it works. The biggest joke of all I have heard is that we only work five months. Any of you who have spent any time in Austin know that that's a bunch of bull. It is 365. I mean, we're getting calls. I mean, just today on our way here, we stopped off to see Brad Buckley and talked to him for a little while. Brad, my son, had to go to a hearing this morning before we left. There are more hearings coming tomorrow. It's a constant barrage. If you want to be a lobbyist, bring it on. I mean, come on. Be one. But don't think that you can do it. going down there occasionally or going down there every day for the session even, if you can afford to do it, you don't have a job, so you go down there for the 140-day session, fine. It'll take you about six or seven of those to get to the level where they will talk to you about it. But, I mean, they're busy. They're going to talk to the people that they need to talk to first. and not new people that they've never met before. It's just the way it works. That's why after 50 years, even if I was totally stupid, I mean if I had no brain at all, I would assimilate a little intelligence about what goes on in Austin. I would know people because I've got as many friends in Austin as I have in Galena. I've got a bunch of family friends in Galena because I've been here all these years. If for no other reason, if I wasn't even getting paid, which I'm not now anyway, I would agree to that, I would work for Colleen because it's my home. And the people here expect me, I mean, I'm telling you, my friends call me up from here and say, what are you going to do about that? And I work on it because I care. Now, like I said, whether you hire, I'm not trying to get rehired, okay? Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to say that I'm the best. I am.

Excuse me, is this or is this not Citizens Commons at 3 p.m. for City Clean?

time. That means you can't lie to them. Anyway, the taxpayer-funded thing, if you truly feel that way, I understand. I agree with you. If that's what you feel, then you're entitled to your opinion. That is part of the Republican platform. It's part of the conservative group's platform because they think they're upset more because we've been classified in cities as large cities, and we're not a big city. We're not even in that range. There's like 10 of them, urban cities. Because they get involved in social issues. They get involved in abortion. They pass bills about who you can hire. I mean, they get involved in all of that. I've never seen anything come out of this city council in all my years that even gets into those things. You deal with fiscal issues and issues that are meaningful to the people of Killeen. Up in the big cities, they have time to do all that other stuff. And they spend a lot of money doing it. Austin is a bellwether. by far the most liberal city council in the state of Texas. What do they call it? They call it the, not the Republic of... People's Republic. People's Republic. People's Republic. And we believe it. I mean, because I live there. I mean, that's what they do. They just think up ways to spend money. You would never spend money like that. Never. And so the legislature, because they can't, they don't want to address A specific problem, they just bring us all into the problem. And that's like the disabled vet deal that we're going to talk to in a little bit. We are being treated like we're everybody else when we are. And I have invited the chairman of the committees, come to clean and look at my gold-plated streets. Come and look at, boy, everything. There are no overhead wires. Look down Ransier. Look down Ransier Avenue down there. I used to drive to the mall shop every day after basketball practice. look down that street you can't see anything but wires i mean they're just it's just everywhere and i said the city doesn't spend them they don't have the money of course they would like to clean that up but they don't have the money to do that so i'm telling you that if for the reason having been raised here and growing up here and the people that i care about here i can deliver the message better than anybody you want to have you want to have a bidding process fine have a bidding process you're gonna find out that most consultants representing most of the cities around us are making a lot more money than we are. Most of them are. They don't have a bidding process either, by the way. But that's fine, fine. If that will help you with the people that elect you, that's fine. Other than that, the interim issues that I wanted to mention just because we were talking to Brad Buckley about those. If you don't think anything goes on in the interim, think about writing a $1,000 check every day for every fundraiser you had to go to. How many weeks are there? Fundraisers? Yeah. 15 this week. Just 15 this week. They started 1,000. Maybe some of them started 500, 5,000, 50,000. I mean, most of these House members that are anybody that are chairmen, they've got a million dollars in their campaign accounts. Money is the driver in all this. So I write personal checks to people, and that's where a lot of my money goes. I write personal campaign checks. And if you're from New York originally, you know campaign money up there is a big deal, right? Yes, sir. And it's the mother's milk of politics in Carolina. But amongst all this stuff that's going on, we've got all these fundraisers. We just had a school finance lawsuit. And I'll sit that out. It's in a big pile of paper. Press releases. Midland is suing the state of Texas on the educational system. I think they're going to prevail. That's going to take down the education system and it's going to have to be rewritten. There's a thing called Robin Hood. That's where the big cities that have a lot of money, they have to send to the smaller cities. It was a bad system when it was designed, and it's even worse now. Austin has to spend six or seven, six or seven hundred million? That's about a billion dollars. A billion dollars a year. They send out, they collect the money, and they have to send it to other schools. I'm not defending Austin. I'm just saying there's something a little wrong with the system that takes local tax dollars and sends them someplace else. So that's one of the things. The governor wants to abolish local energy counties. Did you know that? He's taking on local energy counties. And, uh, They're saying that's going to drive up utility prices. Well, I don't know about that. We'll find out where they have the hearings. AI, the craziest thing going on. I mean, this is things going on right now. AI, this is the interim. This is done with the legislature about the session. Everybody, the country folks, I mean, even the Republicans and the liberals have gotten together on this issue. They don't like AI. And it's because it's destroying their homes. It's destroying noise, light, driving up water prices, going to use all the water, energy. It's crazy, and it's now nationwide. Land use is going to be debated this session for sure. Land use out in the county. The county government does not have the authority of the city's new zone. I think they're going to have to have some of that if they're going to do anything about AI, but land use in the county. Brett Buckley has been fighting on the electric grid. Electric grid sufficiency. Are we going to have enough power to take care of all of these new companies? How fast do we have to build it? And who's going to pay for it? My gut tells me we are. The governor says, no, we're going to make the AI people pay for it. Seeing is believing. I'm for it. I think they ought to pay for it. And I don't think we ought to be shipping our power to West Texas. That's me. Me stands for it. I'm not telling you to have that policy. That's just me. They're going to increase the highway funding. That's before we get into our highway deal. I was told by one of the leaders of the Senate the other day, they want to come up with a whole lot more money for highways because the cost has gone up. I said, oh, really? I said, how about cities? How about giving them something for their costs that have gone up? Well, you know, that's kind of a different issue. But vouchers, a voucher program, you know, was passed last session. There's been some problems. Some of the poor people that thought they were going to be able to go to those private schools are not getting to go to the private school. I think 28,000 vouchers were turned back because they couldn't find a school. Something like that. Governor says he wants to lower home and health insurance costs. That's another thing that we deal with is the insurance stuff. Once again, all of these things impact Colleen. Every one of them impacts Colleen. Trust me. it's going to be this session is going to be unbelievable gunner wants to totally overhaul the tax system instead of getting a majority vote if you want to exceed the break-even point on taxes you want to get 60. no new revenue grade i'm sorry he wants you to get a two-thirds vote in other words even you can't get a simple majority navigated two-thirds once again i'm not arguing for or against it well i'm When you say, if you come up and decide, which I'm sure somebody's going to ask you, you want to support the governor because he's going to give us more money back, you need to understand what is in that. He also wants to lower the 3.5% rate also. He wants to tie it to population growth and inflation, whichever is less. So in other words, they want to even reduce the 3.5% down. All they're doing is tying your hands because, I'm sorry, in my judgment, The larger cities don't deal with these things the way you do. I mean, you actually see the people every day. That's the thing about a small town. You see them, and you know how they feel, and you know how these things are going to impact them. So whenever they start talking about debt and spending limits, two-thirds vote, all these other things, and in addition, they're going to cut spending, say, spending 3%, and when all the agencies cut 3%, I don't know why, because I know they have the money, but supposedly they're going to give more tax breaks to homeowners, which sounds good, but somebody somewhere has to pay the taxes. I mean, I chaired the Wage and Minutes Committee for eight years, and it's real nice to say, I'm going to cut your taxes, but that means I'm going to increase somebody else's. Because all you're doing, if this home, as you talk about when you talk about disabled vets, If that home is not taxed, and you say there's one subdivision one day that you looked at, and every other home was tax exempt under Disabled Vets, somebody's going to have to pay for those services. And that doesn't mean we're opposed to Disabled Vets. It just means, what are we going to do? They need to give you, the city, the resources to be able to take care of it. And now I sound like I'm running for public office. I'm sorry. That's all I got. All I know is I can tell you my heart's in it. I understand the issues because after 50 years, like I said, even an idiot can absorb a little bit. And I understand them and I know what the problems are. It's just nobody wants to hear the solutions because they're too tough.

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you all for being here. I strongly disagree with many things you just said, but we're not here to debate. I'm very much looking forward to working with the Schleter Group during the 90th Texas Legislature to increase funding for our veteran property tax exemption budget issue. I've worked at our capital in Austin every legislative session since 2013, advocating for veteran issues. Now I have a new issue to work on. I see this as a two-prong effort in 2027. First, convince the legislature, especially the Senate, to increase funding for the property tax exemption reimbursement. Second, work with Representative Hicklin to convince our legislature to establish a permanent state investment fund from which affected cities will receive proceeds to make up for the Veteran Exemption Property Tax Fund. I have three questions for the Schmieder Group. First, what strategy do you suggest to convince the legislature, especially the Senate and Lieutenant Governor Patrick, to increase funding? What is your opinion of Representative Hicklin's idea of a state investment fund focused on veteran property tax reimbursement for affected cities? Third, how can we council members participate in the 90th Texas Legislature on behalf of our city? Can we rely on you to coordinate with our city manager to set up meetings with key legislators and get us in front of committee hearings to testify about the property tax exemption? Again, thank you for being here. Thank you for meeting with us. Thank you for all you've done for Colleen. Thank you.

All right, so the DV exemption, yes, the holdup continues to be in the Senate. And we just spoke to Greg Buckley about that. We really need our senator to lead and advocate to the lieutenant governor.

And anything you can do to get that done would be wonderful. You understand that we passed, through the House session before last, a billion dollar, we reimbursed with one bill every tax entity in Texas. It passed the House with 130 plus votes. went to the Senate and died. I mean, you know, and if you were listening, if you watched the hearing we had on the bill that Hillary Hickman passed this last session, both Mr. Cagle And the county judge spoke eloquently about, we are all in support of blah, blah, blah, but please do not add any more cities or any more entities without more money. And that's precisely what they went ahead and did. And our senator looked at us in the group and he said, the Senate does not have an appetite This is a quote, an appetite for any more money. The chairperson of the committee said we need to have guardrails on this program. What she meant by guardrails was that there needed to be a limit either to the amount of cities or the amount of money. or both and understanding that there's no limit to the number of disabled veterans that will continue to move to texas i mean that's that's just the way it is the numbers keep going up i understand it slowed down a little bit but not much but that is the attitude of the senate as to miss hicklin's bill we don't know much about it we've basically heard about the framework of it a permanent fund that generates money to take care of the current number of people is a wonderful, great idea. And I think we, Colleen, would support that. I think we, the group, would support anything that gets more money into the program and shores it up so that we do not have to deal with these losses on account. The thing most disturbing to me is the fact that the Constitutional Amendment passed with a fiscal note attached to it that said, no fiscal implication. It's BS. The fiscal implication, nobody – anyway. So that's what we're dealing with. And the House has always been – the House members have always been willing and most supportive of what we've been trying to accomplish. The Senate is just like – they're not listening to us. And so I think you had an idea.

I think you have multiple questions, but this ties into this first question.

No, we'll answer the third one in a second. The third one about engagement. Yes, we can coordinate. We'll be happy to coordinate your coming down to speak on any issue.

Okay, but what I did not just hear is a strategy. Is what? I did not hear a strategy just now. I heard a lot of words, but I did not hear a spread.

Okay. We do not have a bill concept right now. In speaking with our legislators on how a bill might fix this, right now the most practical method is the budget play that we worked on last session, that your reps work on all the time. This is their number one issue. They know it. And it didn't happen to our liking. But the budget play to get that one line item. You know, one thing you have to understand is It's a two-year budget. Every year, it's zeroed out. I know it seems like we've been getting the money since 2016, but it's not a sure thing.

We have to earn that money every two years. And it's got a lot of enemies. It's got people trying to cut it, just like here. Well, let's cut the Schlierger. Well, let's cut the money that we send to the Chamber of Commerce to attract new industry. Everybody's got ideas about how to cut things, but they don't ever think about the severity of what might happen when you do some of those things. But as far as strategy, the last thing we would ever do is discuss strategy in a public meeting. I've watched city councils demand that their lobbyists stand up and tell them what they're going to do. And what I like about that is that if I'm an enemy on the other side, I got it. There are a thousand ways, and this is the phrase from the legislature, a thousand ways to kill a bill. There's only three or four ways to pass a bill. And you don't talk about that. You just, I'm going to put an amendment on this bill, I'm going to put an amendment on that bill. But the strategy is, you work the members, you work the members, because like I said, every session, it is, somebody's going to carry the amendment on the floor of the House, one of the central Texas leaders, Ms. Hicklund, but last time it was Ms. Hicklund, but like five different members carried an amendment to the appropriations bill to put the money in the appropriations bill. And it got in, I mean, it got in. But it's put in on what they call the wish list, because the bill, by the time it gets to the floor, it's already been pretty much determined. We had a basic number in there. We got our basic number in the basic bill. But they put more money in it. That money never came to fruition to fund the bill that passed this last session. But the strategy is always the same. It's work like hell to get it done. I'm sorry, it's elbow grease and shoe leather, just like if you're running a campaign.

Well, I'm astounded that we're going to say that our strategy is so top secret, we cannot discuss it with the city council. I'm astounded because I do not believe there is a spread.

Thank you.

Thank you. So we've had this conversation when it comes to the, especially the Disabled Veterans Tax exemption and how we can approach this. Obviously, this conversation is happening all around the United States. Going to National League of Cities has been instrumental in hearing from other cities our size that are dealing with the same challenge and the same problem that we're facing. Again, not with the veterans, not them, specifically the state-funded mandate that is not funding that order. I think, and this is just me, Mr. Cagle, you can tell me what your thoughts are, but what I'm thinking is I believe that you put a face with the situation. And so similar to what we've done with the water coalition and all the water cities getting their water lines, excuse me, I think it would be important to form, I don't know if it's already in existence, but I think it would be important to have a coalition of cities that are experiencing significant losses as it's related to tax for us to come together. I haven't heard of anyone having conversations as far as like us, El Paso, or anybody that's been negatively impacted. I don't know if that's happening across the state, but I think it would be an important coalition to build because then we can express the actual, maybe, this is what I'm thinking that we can express, the actual impact of what's happening with us on the ground each of these our city's needs but also the flip side of this what happens when we don't get the funding um and so i would like to know the council's thoughts on that because if that's something that we can form um again this coalition of the cities that are impacted maybe this letter or this statement or this coalition can then assist in the lobbying efforts when it comes to sitting down with our governors, sitting down with the responsible decision makers to put the face to this problem and see if we can nudge a resolution. I mean, it's a little different. I don't know. I just, I'd like to know what y'all's thoughts are on that.

Who's your list? It's right here. And to answer your question, that is a strategy. And I don't list it. I don't talk about it. But that's a strategy. We get all the bases. I have tried to get the commanders of the military bases to send letters. They cannot get involved in politics. You all know that. You tried before. I've tried to visit with the commanders. I mean, this affected their troops more than anybody. I mean, this is the quality of life. This is a transfer of no tax for the disabled vet to the active duty person who lives in town. It is a transfer. It's an expense that they absorb. And so the strategy, like I said, I don't talk about those because they're just plans to face. I mean, yes, we engage. We talk to other people in other places. Yes, we talk to other bases. Yes, we engage those people. That's a strategy. If you want to get into a letter writing campaign, fine. Get your disabled vet friends to, or how about, I thought about this the other day, how about, I mean, how many people do you know that use a disabled vet exemption?

Hey, you're the lobbyist.

Well, I'm asking you. You're the lobbyist. Tell us the strategy. What I would do, if I were you, is I'd go and talk to my disabled vet friends and say, well, why don't you reduce your vet exemption from 100% to 50%?

How about if you tell us the strategy for 2027? Okay, Mr. Mayor, anyone else want to speak on this or where he's going?

No, no. visit with every member and talk to them on a regular basis, and then we'll try to get the senators to help us. And we have not been able, whenever your hometown senator is not out there beating the drum, you've got a problem. So I'm... Senator Flores. So I'm... He's won it. He just won. I mean, Senator Flores needs to know how strongly Killeen is committed to this problem. Not just Killeen, but Bell County. Not just Beller County, but Correale County. Which is what you're talking about. That's my reference. That's where I'm going with that.

Because to this point, not just throwing everything on the lobbying firm, I think it's important that we get more done collectively when you have a louder, unified voice. So I think that if we led the charge, because our proximity to base, our proximity to everything else, I think that if we led the charge to draft this coalition or draft this, start this conversation with these other communities, maybe then we would have a different reception when we're sitting at the table when you've got El Paso, Colleen, all of these other places that are really harshly impacted. I think that we would collectively, using our voice, have a bigger impact because right now it's all piece milled and they're hearing things differently. Unfortunately, the spin is being spun that we're against veterans and that is not the case. And I say it a thousand times for the record, it's really not what it's about. It's about funding the mandate from the state. I just think we can get more done together. And that's my recommendation for us. I would take it seriously. We unify here, we lead the charge across Texas for the cities that are most negatively impacted by it, and then we hit the ground running to our governor.

And once again, I agree with that. We have talked about this. I think that's a great strategy. Remember that the people who are going to get left out that aren't on this list, they're going to be working against us. That's a problem. Well, the other entities who are approaching the number where they can get into the fund, they're going to be for a bill that funds it all. But whenever we start defining what an impacted place is, then they're going to probably fly the other way.

And just something else to think of, especially as homes. I'm sorry. So as we start to look at other things that are also impacting this particular subject that people will talk about, and I'm just because I'm a property manager. I'm sorry.

I just wanted to jump in. Your first time, three minutes. That was your first time. It was. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

So we...

I like that idea. I think that's something maybe we can talk about, co-sponsor an agenda item request form, and then do a committee. I don't think that's something that necessarily we need lobbyists to be doing. If we're going to leave that charge, we'll take that one by the range. A couple things. I've heard me done wrong, Mr. Kegel, this year. One of our bigger impacts that we had not been anticipating, that we haven't been plan for, because it's brand new, is the business personal property tax exemption. And so that one, I don't think anybody knew how much that was really going to affect budgets, but that was several million dollars for us.

About a million.

So in a budget as tight as ours, about a million dollars is huge. I know we can't go back and just undo that. That was a constitutional amendment.

That's supposed to be going to end this year, right? 20%?

No, this is 125,000. Oh, that's 125,000.

That's another 20% that they're not going to tackle this next time.

I believe that was an ongoing constitutional amendment.

Yeah, the first part was. Yeah.

So, I mean, that is something else that we have to start worrying about. That's been one of the things that when you bring in business, that's an added component of the revenue you get. You get your property tax, you get your sales tax, but you also get that business personal property tax. So now, well, it helps our smaller businesses because they don't have to pay that. That hurts all of us in Lamar County. And we need to find out, we're going to be looking for how can we be reimbursed and be invested in. We have to look past just the military exemptions. We have to look at, we have an aging population in Killeen. We have more people in that 65 up property tax freeze. That's why one of the priorities with our guiding principles is anything that would help assist with senior funding because that is an area where those taxes are frozen as a revenue generator that we no longer have. Is there, have you heard if anybody is picking up on the Texas Public Policy Foundation recommendation to include fee increases into those calculations with property tax increases.

I've not heard that specific recommendation but it sounds like something that they might get behind. I believe the Senate Local Government Committee just posted two hearings in a few weeks and one of them is examining city fees In addition to the increase in the homestead exemptions.

So that is one that I personally would love if you'd be able to give us more specific updates on to be there as far as it goes with our guiding principles and our priorities. That is something that will drastically affect how our budget moves forward every year to come if that were to pass. I also heard that we are no longer this

area of the state whomever is no longer in the works of putting together a bullet train is that true the group is still viable texas central that's the houston to dallas right they're still viable they testified senate finance a couple of weeks ago um i think they're still working on funding uh that route does not envision clean at all there has been talk of the i-35 corridor i think texas just released a study for austin san antonio but it Especially now, going back to the 765KD lines, eminent domain is a sticky wicket right now. And what we were going to say when we get to that priority is that they've been trying for 10, 15 years, filing bills, conservatives, rural members, pushing back against eminent domain and trying to do things they can to stop the project some more. Democrats or moderates have been trying to get funding for the train, and it's just gone nowhere.

The bullet train started when I was still in the House. The Germans were trying to build a bullet train. I actually went over there and rode on a 200-mile-an-hour airplane. I mean, an airplane, not a train. It's a little blurry. But that fell through because the group that was trying to build that train were trying to get the state of Texas to finance it. And we legislators said, you know, you've got a private airplane that you can fly from Southwest Airlines, put out their money, they built it, then why are we going to subsidize a train? Now the next group that came along, the ones in existence now, is privately funded. and so you really can't tell them what to do but that line has pretty much been established between them and even the federal government and they can't get the funding from the federal government right now because of the what happened in california right you know what happened there yeah but it's it's it's designated of course to go on how would you say 45 45 it's all east texas and those people over there are doing everything they can to start with too But yes, I agree. If there's going to be one coming anywhere near I-35, Colleen, IE Fort Hood is the place I need to come by.

Well, if they're going to do that, we should just push for I-14 because we've got the north-south going right now. Yes, ma'am. There's nothing going east-west. So I think we might have more success if we push. I forgot east-west, and I-14 is right on that east-west corridor. Yes, ma'am. So it gives us our own unique stance versus Temple and Belton and Salado, everybody else that's normally considered on the 35 corridor. And then... Good time, sir.

Council Member Pickle? You say Kim?

Oh, sorry. Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, gentlemen. First of all, thank you for coming out this morning, this afternoon, My time is limited, so I'll just get right to my comments and questions. For people that, for the comments that I have heard that a lot of this isn't needed, or you only work 140 days a year, it's just short-sighted. I think, you know, having done lobbying on the federal, you know, on a very minute issue when it comes to veterans in D.C., you know, where we go twice a year, I mean, I can imagine having all these issues where you have to do it constantly in Austin, where we have to do it twice a year. So I just thank you for the work that you do and the value that you bring to the veterans and to the city here in Killeen. First question, Mr. Cagan, when it comes to bidding out, is the secret part of the bid services out only for a consultant? I don't think we are required to bid. They're prohibited. That's what I thought. So for people saying you have to bid them out, I thought I was clear about that.

Yeah, the law has changed with law.

You can do competitive RFP. or a request for proposals rather than a bid and would be required to do that in the future.

And to the Schluter Group, when it comes to data centers, there's a lot of talk. And when it comes to, again, we want to discuss strategy, but I think that whether you decide you're on it for or against this comment, I think that we're going to be hard-pressed for data centers not to come to town. So when it comes to strategy, I would like any research that you could bring to us, how we could take advantage of it, so we can make money. I think data centers are going to come, and then when the governor releases the moratorium, that clean these positions up, that we can maybe cover some of our debt, or what we're losing on disabled veterans with property value, property taxes from data centers. I think that's a smart move. I'd like to hear more, and we'll get a chance. When it comes to the DV exemptions, I think one of the strategies that we should consider is military readiness, because there's a housing crisis. And when we look at housing for our veterans, those numbers are going up constantly. And if those numbers keep going up, the veterans, that VAH, is a bitch that's not going to cover. So I would really like that when you look at that conversation, that you think about military readiness for our soldiers. I think that's one way to attack it. Then Senator Flores and Senator Pflueger, you know, particularly Senator Fluker, who's a veteran, I think will definitely get behind it when it comes to military readiness for our soldiers, for a place to live. They don't have to worry about, you know, when they're out deployed, they don't have to worry about rent and, you know, things being taken care of. Can their VAH cover housing and clean? So because that VAH, that exemption, somebody's going to pay for it, whether you're renting a place or you own a place. Because if you're renting, your rent is covering it. the tax bill and all that. So I think our strategy should be focused on military grants in addition to that.

And I will tell you, I'm sorry that I don't have a specific strategy right now, but I don't even know who the chairman of the committee is right now. So I can't develop a strategy until we can have it. Nobody's ever really wanted to get that involved before. We get people to come to Austin to testify all the time. It's not a new

Hey, how you doing? I like this book. I just picked it up. That is a good book. But I get what you said, what you said with the strategies and everything. I think, and I mentioned this to Mr. Cagle before, the state created the veterans exemption, but there is no checks and balances. And what I mean by that, we have people that don't live in Killeen but are receiving those tax credits.

And we've been told that. And we've asked... I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry.

And I just think we need to have checks and balances on that, create some type of matrix where it goes throughout the state where the person moves out of Killeen and they move somewhere else and we can Figure that out. Something needs to be put into place with that. And a lot of people fail to realize I'm a veteran, and a lot of the veterans say, like Mayor Pro Temp said, we're trying to cut the veterans. No, we're not trying to do that. I need everyone to understand that my kids and my grandkids are suffering. from this exemption. And what I mean by that is even the revenue that we have not been recruited, we could have had a new city hall. We could have had money invested in other places to have a community center on the west side of Killeen. And so that's what needs to be understood, that not being made whole is really hurting this city, and we had Hicklin say one thing, but when you go per capita on something, then it did, it may make it look like Hawker Heights has just as many veterans as Killeen, but when we go true numbers, it's not even close. Not even close, and these are tactics sometimes that are used as what I say, deception, camouflaging the real facts. And just basically, I don't think we would be in such a crunch. With that revenue, we wouldn't be talking about so much as balancing our budget right now. And that's all I have. Okay.

So to your point, sir, I think that's very valid. I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the conversation was that

There is no mechanism, so I was going to go earlier. This was brought up years ago by people that were saying, okay, well, if you're going to put this in place, if we do this, we need a mechanism to track it. And unfortunately, there's not a mechanism that was ever put in place for this. Meaning, right now, as I'm in property management, I've got people that have multiple exemptions on multiple houses, even this area. Or if somebody goes to Georgia, they've got one in Texas and they've got one in Georgia. So I believe it would be the... The appraisal district would be the only place that makes sense.

Absolutely. And we tried to work that out last session. The appraisal districts kill the bill because they don't want to talk to each other. They don't have to share each other's information. It's pathetic. I mean, that's the state government and it's worse.

And this is where I get the fact that the faces with the challenges because they're hurting. They're putting on a silver platter. I say to them, you're sorry. We're going to have to cut services, to your point. We're going to have to cut all the things that are essential to our service members. In the end, if this continues down this path, it's going to hurt the people that we claim we are here to serve. That's it.

Thank you. You've got to share your stuff with some people that we know that need to hear you talk about multiple places, and they've got multiple locations, and they've got multiple exemptions.

That's what's happening. Council Member Brock?

If with that there are provisions within the state law that do allow veterans to claim exemptions on multiple properties, whether they're homesteaded or not. So that is a place where I think that you're going to get it once the 100% the 100% but you can see if I'm a veteran who's 100% rated, I can get 100% on property a I can take 30% on property B, C, D and E and I can get tax. um deductions on my business property also so i think that is some place where we can start making some some changes immediately i think another place we can do that and i've talked to multiple legislators about this it's in our approach it's in our garbage it's not always what you say it's how you say it We have to quit calling this state mandated because the legislature did not mandate this. This was mandated by the voters in a super majority election. The information was put out there. The voters overwhelmingly said, yes, let's do this. If we start putting that where it is and telling legislators from San Antonio and from Amarillo, you're voters. said, yeah, we're cool with this. You're voters, which means your voters want the veterans to support it, which means you need to come back and support the veterans, not just the ones that live in your precincts. I would love to see if we could get individual or small group meetings with you. So that way, when you want to talk about strategy, we can do that into smaller groups. They're not public, but we can have strategy. We can know what it is. And the council members can sit with you and understand that. Also the big one I see on here that we have that is not clearly defined because it's brand new is military impacted municipality. Gives us the opportunity to define it for ourselves in conjunction with you and then tell you what we think that is, how you give us the feedback on that. I think that is something to discuss in those small meetings. Because if you don't know what our explanation and definition of it is, you cannot properly lobby and advocate for us on that area. So I would love for you all to, if there's anything else other than that that is not clearly defined or that is open for scrutiny as to what we intended to meet, could you please make sure we get those questions as a group in an email or something so that you're going in with very clear directives. You can't represent us if you don't know what we want. Thank you.

All right.

I would use my second question. When you look at our action priorities, are there too many? Because I know you guys have a lot going on. And if we come to you with 11, 12 action priorities, we've had a big table discussion. Maybe it's too many. Maybe we need to get down to two or three. Everybody... Yes, are they important? Yes, but does it have more impact for you if we had, like, three? I know, we know DV exemption is going to be the top of this. There's other things on here that I don't think you need to be tiered or you work on as you, you know, as you get a change, you do an update on it. I'd like to hear your opinion on that. Secondly is that, well, I'm going to come back to AI because I think at the end of the day, it's going to be tax, it's going to be DV exemption, it's going to be AI. I really, you know, and we get the updates from you almost daily. It's in the news daily, Texas Tribune daily. We've heard Judge Blackburn speak on it very eloquently recently. But Colleen has a chance, I think, in the moratorium. that if we had a strategy in working on zoning to make sure that when it's implemented again, that we have a chance to put the data centers in a technology zone or whatever that case, whatever that zoning is, that we can take advantage of it. Because we don't have X amount of land to do it. And I think now that we get it zoned correctly with your, because there's a, West Texas probably has some of the best examples of how they've done it. that we can bring them to a smaller scale here and make sure we take advantage of it when there's a chance for them to help us back up.

Well, I thought I read some of these comments from one of y'all at the meeting where somebody said we just need to be prepared. We need to understand the water usage and electric usage, and that way we can identify locations. I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, that's not like tomorrow. That's like now. Because this... Despite the fact that he said he's closing the door, we're still opening new ones every day because there's a list of people out there that were in the office that they said they're going to turn loose in the controller's office. So, yes.

And I'm sure, you know, West Texas communities have whipped through this, and I'm sure they have some good and bad, some pros and cons of things they're not going to do. I would love for you guys to bring that back to us in the clinic. Yes, sir.

Yeah, the city has tools to decide how. what kind of engagement they want with data centers. That's why they're all going to the unincorporated part of the county. And I don't see this legislature granting counties more authority, maybe on one specific issue like data centers, but that's generally not something that they... That's right. That's right. So, you know, we didn't answer your question about the priorities. It's not too many. They're very good principles. Several of them are not... we can't you know the bullet train we kind of spoke through we can talk with you know uh uh central rail well that's the least important one talk with the people who have been advocating on this issue see what kind of see where the i don't i don't know where they are uh as far as funding and timeline um we talked about the military impacted uh community municipality and we gave us a lot of thought when we knew we were coming in um Well, let me, before I get into specifics, several of these are just increased funding for aquifer storage. Last session was a huge water session. This session is going to be a huge water session. We're about to start appropriating a billion dollars a year into the Texas Water Fund for 20 years. Not a ton of money. The state water plant said we need 174 billion over the next 50 years. And we found out that doesn't even factor in the data centers. Point being that the state plan has 27 ASR projects listed in there. There's only a couple operating right now. I think SAW is the only one operating commercially. It's not a bill. We can hop on. City managers come down and testify. We'll put in a card of support. We can offer written testimony and push those committees to do that, to increase funding. But as far as it being something we can act on, the initiative ordinances, it's on the ballot in November, we can talk with the attorney general's office or both state affairs committees where such bills might go through and see if someone's working on something. Maybe there could be a bill that bans this, but I think right now the current AG is content to just sue. But so it's not too long. It's just you know Councilmember best was talking about which of these were bills which these were hurting committee a lot of these are not Bills the the DB exemption could be a bill house 20 the hospital 2894 Last session was bill, but you know one thing to keep in mind Bill pre-filing starts in November only a couple months out as soon as you put a bill out there They have they advocates have had tools for 10 20 years. We use them keyword searches, statutory references. As soon as you put a bill out there that says local government code 140.0.11, our alarms go off. And so it does for all these other 14 entities. You get the payments and everyone else who wants it and everyone who makes it. So certain things strategically can be done later on in session. Bills can be amended. You can amend bills to other bills. There's a lot of ways to

I just want to make sure, you know, Councilman Vance is concerned about making sure that you have our priorities and update us that, you know, they have certain priorities and, you know, something just won't move as, you know, the bullet train probably just won't move as much as that seems.

Right. And the military impacted municipality, love the concept. Defense community is already defined in statute, and the Military Preparedness Commission, which does the DAG grants, refers to the defense community all throughout that statute. One thing to be leery of is if we do try to pursue some sort of special designation as military impacted municipality, which I love because some of our neighbors don't provide services and basic services to the military, like the city community does. But you start seeking this kind of designation, everyone else on this list is going to go, whoa, what's the lien trying to get that we can't get? So again, strategically, that's a sensitive priority to, it depends on how we approach it.

We are the ones who are complaining the most. We, Colleen, we, and when we lobby. So they watch what we do like hawks. And call it secret whatever you want, but I mean, I'm always looking for bills. When I say there's 10,000 bills that are going to be filed, I mean, some people go crazy. Well, I don't know. I'm not interested in 10,000 bills, but we're interested in all 10,000. I don't even know what's in them, but I'm going to read every one of them. And I'm going to be looking for places that I can stick an amendment that helps my town. That's what we do. And so like I said, once again, you start talking about strategy, find a place to put it. Find a place in the bill where you can. That's what they do in every state in the United States and in Congress. They try to find a little place for a loophole. And that's what we do. We do word . I mean, we get a turnout 450 pages long every day of where our words could fit in a bill. And I mean, it'll drive you nuts doing it right up to the end of the session. And that's what we do. It sounds simple, but it's not.

I just want to comment on there and what you were saying about being prepared even with the data systems, but there are very different kinds of data systems. You got from the small to the biggest data systems that they're operating. Even in Temple, they have the smallest data system. It's a matter of time that they will be in and clean. And you're talking about the area. They don't have to have a big area or a small area or whatever. They just need an area in order to put it, whether it be from the smaller or to the large data system. And so what would be, even in the area here in Kalini, that they would be as far as with the data system, they put it from the smaller to the largest? What would be the area here in Kalini?

I don't know. How big was that one that made the application and then dropped out? It wasn't very big, was it? No. Oh, no, that was five or six acres. Yeah, you go small to five or ten acres, and of course you've seen some of those in South Texas. There's thousands of acres. Mm-hmm.

a place big enough for one of those, for the biggest ones.

Senate, no, I'm sorry, House State Affairs is meeting tomorrow to beat up on data centers. They've already been through it in the Senate, and it's going to be an all-day affair.

So tune in if you'd like. Well, is the freeze still on? Well, not the freeze, but you know Abbott is having audits on the data system. So is this deal on? The moratorium? Yeah, the moratorium.

For the... New guys who were just starting, for the ones who had already, the control controller had been clearing these things. How many of you say they've got another 50 or 60 that they can turn loose tomorrow? But the governor, he's saying he wants them to be able to provide their own power and produce their own water. That's what he's saying. Yeah, the closed system, supposedly, is a whiz-bang deal with Iowa.

And not being residential area?

No, ma'am. Oh, no. Not whatsoever? No. The city can stop that in a heartbeat.

So the myth, then, about the data system being at my next door, my back door, is that still a myth, or is that... Well, it's a myth unless you live in a rural area.

Okay. That's what you're reading, is you're seeing these people in my backyard, you know, next to my ranch or my farm or whatever. But no, not in the city.

I think we'll know if it's back on the day after the election. I think so, too. I don't know how. I think so, too. The incumbents have a lot of headwinds.

I want everybody to understand, when we started talking about data centers, Councilmember Kim talked about it. It's going to happen. We just need to position ourselves to where we benefit from it. And what I mean by that, we can talk about electricity and everything, but Temple is actually moving ahead and they are light years ahead of us. And we talk about the electricity no matter what. whether it's in Temple or it's here, we're all on the same grid. So the electricity is being pulled regardless, and there's no need, just me talking, there's no need for us to continue to sit back and not leap into these benefits because these benefits are coming to where we can get these data centers to maybe build Help out with the parks. Build some stuff on the west side. Finish some stuff on the north side. Help out with the roads. These are the things that we can put into place. And we just, I think we, I think Council on Brown wanted to talk about data centers and start putting some things, some rules in place. I think that's good. But we need to be prepared. Not be left out. in the code because it's coming. Whether or not we put it here or not, we're all on the same grid. You let code get it, it's on the same grid. So we have to start looking out for the best interest of the city because it's a revenue base too.

So we have to start thinking about that.

I know we need to find a way to educate The constituents own the different types of data centers, but some data centers don't even use any water anymore. So that's out the question, the water piece of it. So we just need to look at things like that.

I know it's coming.

We've got the elections coming up, so November, they quiet things down, and then it's going to pan back up. That's all I have.

Okay. All right. Senator, I want to thank you all for being here. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate you coming down and just opening up some discussion. I really appreciate it. I really appreciate it. Anything else?