Killeen Council has no choice in extraterritorial jurisdiction disannexation due to state law

Killeen Daily Herald
By Kevin Limiti | Herald
October 4, 2023

A new Texas state law passed in May left some council members scratching their heads during Tuesday’s workshop meeting, as no matter which way they voted, it would have no effect on a resident’s request.

On Tuesday, the council discussed the petition of a resident who wanted to be released from the city of Killeen’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ.

State law says cities have the right to claim certain areas outside of their boundaries and impose their taxes and laws in those areas.

But due to a new state law approved by the Legislature in May, residents have the option to opt out of this ETJ in a process of disannexation. The state law was made effective as of Sept. 1.

So the Killeen City Council had no power in this matter. Whether they approved or disapproved of the resident’s request, the disannexation would take place.

“The bill basically requires for the council to make a decision on this,” Edwin Revell, director of development services, said during the presentation Tuesday of the petition for release from the city of Killeen’s ETJ. “And the decision has to be made as stated here within 45 days.”

Councilman Riakos Adams asked if there was any risk to saying no to the petition.

“Well, it’s still going to happen because state law mandates it,” Revell said.

“It only happens if we don’t make a decision,” Adams said.

“It happens,” Revell said.

“I’m confused,” Adams said.

City Attorney Holli Clements clarified the state law to Adams.

Councilman Jose Segarra said he didn’t know what point there was in bringing it to the council if — no matter what decision they made — it was going to move forward no matter what.

“We don’t even need to see this because it’s irrelevant what we do,” Segarra said. “And so maybe there’s something that we need to do to change in our codes.”

Segarra said this could open up the flood gates to more disannexation requisitions.

“I think what will happen is you’ll see a domino effect of a lot of people when they see that ‘wow, that’s easy,’” Segarra said.

In fact, Revell said he was already aware of a second request coming in.

Councilman Michael Boyd asked if Revell believed they were going to see a lot more of these requests.

“It’s just really hard to tell,” he replied. “And a lot of it’s just gonna be based on people’s awareness. As Councilman Segarra said, as people become more aware, that can happen.”

“Will this affect the future planning that we have as far as transportation and things like that? As far as alignment of the streets and things like that?” Boyd asked.

Revell said if there is not much of a concentration of requests, it won’t have a big impact, but he also said it depends.

City Manager Kent Cagle said that the city “knew this scenario” in regards to the city council not being able to change anything per the request.

“We wanted to bring this one in,” Cagle said. “It might be your desire just to say ‘don’t bring it back to us.’ It’s — you don’t have a choice. You don’t do anything, it’s out of the ETJ. So, however you want to do it, if you want to see a couple more of them to kind of see what’s going on at some point, you may want to tell us just stop. Stop bringing these to us.”

Adams said it was still important to know due to planning purposes in the future.