City council appoints volunteers to boards Tuesday night

By LYNETTE SOWELL
Cove Leader-Press

Four city boards and committees received new and reappointed members on Tuesday night when the Copperas Cove city council approved appointments to the Animal Shelter Advisory Committee, the Housing Authority Board, the Cemetery Advisory Board and the Quality of Life Advisory Board. 
Councilman Kirby Lack voted against one of the Animal Shelter Advisory Board appointments, he said, due to the fact that one of the applicants lives outside the city limits. This board member, Jeanette Shotwell, runs an animal rescue organization and fills that role on the board. Ann Slanis was also appointed to the board as a new member on Tuesday.
Of his vote against Shotwell, and later for the cemetery advisory board vote, Lack gave his reasoning.
“I don’t like people from other towns telling us what to do,” Lack said.
Three members were reappointed to the Quality of Life board, to include Cheryl Kielman, Marcie Lowery and Adam Redmond. Newly appointed members are Elizabeth Chrzastek and Dustin Phipps. This board gives input to the city’s Parks & Recreation Department as well as its golf course. 
Patricia Thomas and Virginia Flakes were appointed to the Housing Authority Board. Barbara Gividen, Ronald Viss and Jovita Castro were appointed to the Cemetery Advisory Board. 
The council also approved a list of “prequalified” engineers presented by the city administration, after it obtained requests for proposals. The list classifies engineers by type of projects to include street, drainage, combined, geotechnical services, surveying, traffic engineering, as well as water/wastewater projects. Project managers are now required to use firms for each type of project in the order on the list, explained City Budget Director/Deputy City Manager Ryan Haverlah.
The resolution also allows the project manager to request a firm out of order, and they have to justify their request to use a firm out of order, which would then need to be approve by the capital improvement committee. The firm will be presented to the city council for approval for each project, as usual. He said the city will still go out for bids for construction projects themselves. 
“This also assists us to make sure we can move forward with capital projects in a timelier manner instead of doing a procurement for each individual project within our capital improvement plan, and the process was reviewed and affirmed by TxDOT,” Haverlah added.
The council also ratified several actions of the EDC, to include approving the EDC’s participation in the DEAAG matching funds requirement, approving the Knight Law Firm to serve as the EDC’s legal counsel, and directed that the EDC’s bank depository services be moved over to National United Bank.
During the discussion, councilman Jay Manning questioned having items already approved by the EDC coming back to the council for approval. 
We keep ratifying things that the EDC has already done. State law allows the EDC to take care of this. The problem that we have, while we’re having to consider this, is the way the bylaws are written. I think we need to think of maybe in the future redoing the bylaws, so we don’t have to keep bringing things like this before us.”
Councilman Matthew Russell thought of it a bit differently. 
“Every great organization, every good city that is able to do routine things routinely has great checks and balances,” Russell said. “We don’t bind their hands, we just provide checks and balances.” 
The council gave the okay for Coryell County to use its former annex, located at 201 S. 1st St., from October 20 through November 8 for the upcoming November election.
Heather Bryant, the city’s information and tourism director, gave a report on the city’s first food truck festival, which was attended by an estimated 2,500, with a tally of 509 cars from Copperas Cove, 78 from Killeen, 24 from Fort Hood and nine from Harker Heights. 
Bryant said the event cost $12,023, with revenue of $9,745, which was lower than projected, giving the event a net loss of $2,278. She said the attendance was lower than expected, due to the weather, with July 29, 2017 proving to be the hottest day on record for the year at 104.5. Another barrier was getting food trucks to participate, as there are many unknowns for a first-year event. The city contacted 200 food trucks. Next year, the event is set for Aug. 4, 2018, with a goal of 20 trucks.