Killeen City Council to consider using additional $50,000 for marijuana ordinance lawsuit

KWTX
By Alex Fulton
Published: Jun. 26, 2023 at 4:30 PM GMT-7

KILLEEN, Texas (KWTX) - Two months after Bell County and the state of Texas served the City of Killeen with a lawsuit over their marijuana ordinance, their bill to cover legal expenses is starting to rack up.

That’s why on Tuesday the Killeen City Council is set to vote on approving an additional $50,000 dollars for legal expenses.

Currently the City of Killeen is paying Dallas-based attorney Philip Kingston $450 per hour to retain counsel.

The City of Killeen has already allocated $246,907 tax-pay dollars to cover defense for the lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, the city “blatantly” violated the state’s constitution and created a difficult dilemma for municipal police officers.

Councilman Jose Segarra said the city council is not sure how much this could ultimately cost taxpayers once it’s all said and done because they don’t know how long these legal proceedings will last.

”It could be short or it could be long,” councilman Segarra said.

With no end in sight, Bell County residents like Anca Neagu worry that the city council could end up pouring an endless amount of tax-payer money fighting this.

”It could be another half a million, it could be another 300,000. The number is unknown, so that part concerns me greatly,” Neagu said.

It’s a battle that the City of Killeen may or may not win trying to defend the voter-approved marijuana ordinance that decriminalized possession of four ounces of marijuana within city limits.

”We’re using all this money and all of this time, but in the end the likelihood of what the voters wanted going through with the lawsuit is very small,” Neagu said.

Through this though councilman Segarra said he’s in favor of increasing the budget because he doesn’t want the city left in limbo.

”Because we have to go down this route, I don’t want to just leave the city hanging with no kind of defense,” councilman Segarra said.

The City of Killeen could still request additional funds if deemed necessary at any time. Any decision to use additional taxpayer dollars for the lawsuit would have to go through Killeen City Council for approval.