Tuesdayâs Killeen Council meeting, which should have had a relatively full agenda, in fact lasted only 20 minutes, with over a third of originally scheduled items pulled from discussion.
As the 5 p.m. meeting got underway, Mayor Pro Tem Shirley Fleming made a motion to pull all discussion items â nine in total â plus the public hearing from the agenda.
The council unanimously agreed to Flemingâs motion.
This left only the consent agenda items, which were then approved unanimously. A request for a future agenda item, regarding the mayor usurping his authority, was also not discussed.
Mayor Jose Segarra said the items were pulled because 72 hours notice is required between when an item is discussed and when it was voted on.
Nick Bezzel, of the Elmer Geronimo Platt Gun and Rifle Club, spoke again to the Killeen City Council at its Monday workshop, expressing his opposition to the police departmentâs use of no-knock warrants.
He called for the city to find an alternative to such warrants, citing the case of Marvin Guy, the Killeen man facing murder and other charges following a 2014 no-knock narcotics warrant served on his home, in which a Killeen police detective was fatally shot.
âThatâs a failure of law enforcement,â Bezzel said, noting that this is not just a local but a national issue.
Later in the workshop, the council unanimously passed a motion of direction on this matter. Specifically, it directs Killeen Police Chief Charles Kimble to make a future presentation on the issue, and that KPD policy be updated into the form of a city ordinance.
Thatâs apparently not the case â at least from the viewpoint of local candidates.
As the filing period closed Friday for the upcoming May 1 municipal and school board elections, all eight races in the Killeen area are contested.
Moreover, the three local elections â Killeen City Council, Killeen ISD school board and Harker Heights City Council had drawn a total of 25 candidates for eight seats.
Six of those candidates are seeking a single seat â District 1 on the Killeen City Council. With incumbent Shirley Fleming finishing her third term and ineligible to seek reelection because of charter restrictions, a half-dozen hopefuls are campaigning for the seat.
Killeenâs leaders need to take a closer look at how theyâre governing.
In the space of just a few hours last week, a city council memberâs key vote was negated by a technical problem on a Zoom conference, a council member who has consistently opposed a proposed housing development was named president of the board overseeing the project; and the council member who nominated the board president put his own name in nomination for the board vice presidentâs position.
When taken together, the developments reflect a lack of oversight, planning and governing standards.
In the first instance, the council was considering bringing back for discussion a proposed city camera surveillance system. Members were split on the merits of the nearly $1 million system, with three members voting to end discussion and two voting to bring the subject back at a future meeting.