Last minute delay halts stop sign intended to increase safety near Chaparral

After Killeen resident, James Sills, got a notice in March that a new housing project might go up next to his neighborhood of Featherline Road, he started fighting for improvements to the road.

"I started the initiative for Fix Featherline but we’ve had a lot of to push as well to get some changes here,” Sills said.

That started with raising their concerns about increasing traffic and safety risks at the Featherline and Chaparral intersection, just down the street from Chaparral High School.

"When school is in, this all the way from the high school, all the way down Chaparral and almost to Prairie View Estates, it will be completely backed up,” Sills said.

Chaparral High isn’t the only school there now.

Jimmie Don Aycock Middle School opens this year and that will increase traffic, so plans were put in place.

”We were trying to put stop signs out here at this intersection,” said Bell County Commissioner, Louie Minor.

“Obviously to stop traffic prior to school starting.”

Now, there is just a hole where a stop sign was supposed to go.

”We had an eight-day window for citizens to request a public hearing and at the last minute, a public hearing request came in,” Minor said.

The process is delayed past the beginning of the school year and the number of students in the area just went up.

”Chaparral High School and yesterday they just had a ribbon cutting for Jimmie Don Aycock Middle School,” Minor said.

“That will be an additional 1,300 kids going over there to that middle school.”

The public hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. August 12, at the Bell County Courthouse in Belton.