Killeen City Council makes more changes to their meetings

For years, the Killeen City Council has met every Tuesday at 5 p.m. but as of this week, that will no longer be the case.

”The charter requires that the city council meet twice a month,” said Killeen City Councilman, Jose Segarra.

“That’s the charter — so we’ve been kid of going a little bit above that by having weekly meetings.”

They are now going back to that, but that’s not all — the meetings will now begin at 3 p.m. instead of 5 p.m.

”Start the workshop first at 3 o’clock , nd I would say around 5 o’clock or so, that’s when we actually start the City Council,” Segarra said.

“We'll vote on those items that were discussed at the workshop.”

Citizen comments will happen after the workshop.

25 News asked Councilman Riakos Adams what he would say to people who feel like this is just another change to keep citizens from commenting —

”I didn’t think the other change was a way to keep citizens from commenting, because you can still comment on agenda items," Adams said.

“You can interact and be part of the business of the city.”

Speaking to Councilman Segarra, 25 News asked,

"Are you worried that is going to make it harder for citizens to attend?"

”No, because I looked at that and one of the things I took into consideration is how many people actually attend the meeting," Seggara said.

According to Segarra, Killeen City Council meetings have very few citizen attendees on a regular basis.

Councilman Riakos Adams says these and other recent changes can be revisited.

”I still want to give the changes that happened a chance," Adams said.

“The last change with removing citizen comments not on the agenda just happened last December — next December, if it’s still an issue, i think we should look at it.”

The new meeting schedule starts on July 16.