Killeen City Council unanimously adopts new comprehensive plan

In a unanimous decision Tuesday, Killeen City Council members adopted a new comprehensive plan with no debate.

“I just want to point out this is comprehensive plan has been talked about a lot as far as our downtown,” Councilman Jose Segarra said. “I just want to say this comprehensive plan encompasses the whole city.”

On Aug. 16, Verdunity of Dallas CEO Kevin Shepherd told council members that adopting the plan wasn’t enough — that it must be implemented if they want to avoid a budget crisis. His remarks came after Councilman Michael Boyd asked what the city would “stand to lose” if the comprehensive plan went the way of the one adopted in 2010.

“Fiscal insolvency,” Shepherd said. The city would become “financially insolvent — not having the money to pay for the things that you need.”

Boyd said during that Aug. 16 workshop that the 2010 comprehensive plan “more or less sat on the shelf.” On Tuesday, he called the adoption “a significant day for the city of Killeen.”

“This document … is going to guide Killeen,” he said.

In November 2020, council members agreed to pay Verdunity $349,140 to develop a comprehensive plan. Following public meetings, data gathering and stakeholders’ input, including from the Comprehensive Plan Advisory Committee, the plan was approved by the Planning and Zoning Commission.

Central to the comprehensive plan are funding gaps “between needs and revenues, a lack of alignment between your values, your plans, your policies (and) your projects and culture of apathy,” Shepherd said last week.

And while apathy “is a little bit of a tough word” to describe residents’ involvement in redeveloping Killeen, the consultant said, the primary obstacle to implementing all of the comprehensive plan’s guidelines over the short term is money.

“Everybody wants stable service. We want public safety. We want education. We want a clean community. We want a good and safe transportation system. We all want low taxes — or most do — and a lot of folks want low density, too.”

Shepherd did not address the council on Tuesday. But last week, he called the process to provide low taxes, low density and adequate, stable services “managing trade-offs.”

“It’s very, very hard to have all three of those,” he said. “You want a mix of those across the whole community. (But) the development pattern ... after 1960, you can see how much Killeen expanded.”

KAC grant funding

As part of the consent agenda on Tuesday, council members approved $259,668 in grant funding $259,668 for eight Killeen Arts Commission applicants.

“One of the primary responsibilities of the Arts Commission is to make recommendations to City Council regarding the allocation of hotel occupancy tax funds that are designated for grants to the arts,” Interim Executive Director of Finance Judith Tangalin wrote to City Manager Kent Cagle in an Aug. 16 staff report. “Texas Tax Code Chapter 351 governs the use of municipal hotel occupancy taxes. Section 351.101 requires two criteria be met to expend municipal hotel occupancy tax revenue.”

The criteria: Expenditures must promote tourism and the convention and hotel industry, and they must meet one of nine statutorily provided categories, according to the staff report.

“The encouragement, promotion, improvement, and application of the arts is one of the nine categories. Section 351.103(c) limits the amount of hotel occupancy tax revenue used for the arts to 15% of total hotel occupancy tax revenue collected.”

In June, nine organizations provided their grant applications to the city’s arts commission, Tangalin said in the report.

The approved applicants are Armed Forces Natural Hair and Health ($92,245), IMPAC Outreach ($46,691), Vive Les Arts Societe ($41,226), Songhai Bamboo Roots Association (29,407), Vive Les Arts Children’s Theatre ($20,772), Killeen Sister Cities, Osan, Korea, Committee ($12,295), KZamore Foundation ($5,554) and Artesania y Cultura Hispana ($4,478).

The grant applications total $259,668 for 27 events in fiscal year 2022-23. But when the organizations submitted their requests, that figure totaled $455,763.

It was reduced by application evaluations by members of the KAC board — at least two of whom are involved with a pair of applying nonprofits. They are Luvina Sabree of Armed Forces Natural Hair and Health and Darlene Golden of Songhai Bamboo Roots Association. Golden is chair, and Sabree is vice-chair.

City attorney

Also on the consent agenda, council members confirmed the appointment of Holli Clements as city attorney to succeed Traci Briggs.

Clements was one of 15 candidates to apply for city attorney. The position pays $194,000 — up from the $170,568.11 salary Briggs received until her retirement to take a job at Central Texas College.

Clements started her career in public service in 2003 as an assistant county attorney and district attorney in Milam County. In 2005, she was hired in Killeen as assistant city attorney (courts) and remained in that role until 2013, when she became deputy city attorney (public works).

Seven years later, she was named Killeen’s deputy city attorney.

Developer request tabled

In other agenda items on Tuesday, council members approved the rezoning of just over 5.8 acres from agricultural single-family residential district to single-family residential district at 6600 S. Fort Hood St.

However, the council tabled a request by Killeen Engineering and Surveying for JOF Developers to amend planned-unit development standards to allow for smaller setback requirements at the same address for about 110 of 173 acres.

Before tabling the request, however, council members in separate motions voted against approving the request with a recommendation from the Planning and Zoning Commission to do so consistent with the city’s architectural design standards, as well as without applying the new design standards.