Council gets look at Business 190 median project

By LYNETTE SOWELL

Before its regular meeting on Tuesday night, the Copperas Cove city council received the first glimpse of the proposed Business Highway 190 median project, which will be paid for with the $210,000 that Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful won with the Governor’s Community Achievement Award in 2013.

The grant funds will construct the first stretch of landscaped median on East Business 190, and will go from Constitution to Dewald Street. The initial plans include low water native plants for landscaping on the median, which will also have turning entrances to allow for turns into the businesses along 190. Native plants will also support local water conservation efforts. The project is intended to help improve the appearance of Business 190 through Copperas Cove.

City manager Andrea Gardner said this project falls in line with the Business 190 work group’s master plan.

“(The plan) was presented to council in February of this year. Even though the plan itself has not been adopted, staff decided it would be in the city’s best interest to go ahead and start working on a portion of 190, especially when TxDOT was wiling to complete the design for it, so that’s something of great benefit to the city,” said Gardner. Getting the Texas Department of Transportation’s assistance with the project design will save costs overall for the project, Gardner added.

‘TxDOT requires me to present this to the public. Tonight’s meeting is not going to suffice for that.” The city will hold a public hearing on June 15 at 5:30 at the EDC.Prior to that public hearing, Gardner said the city will be hosting a meeting with the Business 190 master plan work group members and will personally invite every business within that area to attend. That meeting will take place on June 2 at 2:30 p.m. in the Copperas Cove Entrepreneur Center.

TxDOT has asked the city to keep recorded minutes of all meetings, including Tuesday night’s workshop, which will help the project move forward.

Also at the council workshop, members of Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful were present to hear the discussion, as well as present $500 scholarships to Mikayla Miller and Delaney Browning. The two were selected from among five applicants, who had to fulfill a list of criteria to be considered for the scholarships, such as having at least a 3.0 grade point average, participating in at least two KCCB events, along with submitting two letters of recommendation, a current transcript, as well as a 500-word essay about how they would keep Copperas Cove Beautiful.

“As you can see from their applications and their essays, the tow of them have some great ideas on how to keep Copperas Cove beautiful,” said Silvia Rhoads, the city’s recycling coordinator and executive director of KCCB. “Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful strives to impact young people’s environmental consciousness, and these two young scholarship recipients are a prime example of this goal.”