Conflicting meetings on Tuesday

There were two Killeen Politics-related meetings on Tuesday.  Both of them are covered, in part, in today's Killeen Daily Herald.  I think I went to the wrong one.

The City Council workshop (which I attended) featured two things of note: a brief and unsavoury pissing match between council members Okray and Rivera; and the announcement by Mayor Cosper that he intends to promote a review of the "Killeen Vision 2030" long-term plan that was approved in 2007.  Since I was there, that's what today's blog will be about.

The other meeting was a "Straight Talk panel discussion" at VFW post 9191.  That will be the subject of the next Killeen Politics blog post.

I don't think "straight talk" entirely describes Mayor Cosper's announcement of his new long-term planning initiative.  He expressed himself in general terms and didn't cite specific events that  require  a review, other than that one long-term goal, Texas A&M University-Central Texas, is now a reality.  But 7 years isn't a bad cycle for reviewing  these kinds of goals.  It's probably time,  or would be soon, and city government should use the Mayor's proposal to set up a process for periodically renewing a broad, high-level vision of Killeen's future.

I very much like City Manager Morrison's suggestion that the process should start with very wide participation.  In fact, if we should fail to get that kind of participation, it would suggest to me that the time is not yet right.  So get ready: the target date for the first public meeting is October or November.  Please review the current plan, and get ready to participate when called upon.