The Louie Minor Show
Texas politics from Killeen to Belton to Austin and beyond. Join the conservation with Bell County Commissioner Pct 4 Louie Minor as we dive deep into local government. Interviews with community leaders and the public.
The Louie Minor Show
Traffic Lights, Turn Lanes, and School Boards: Democracy in Action
Traffic congestion and local education take center stage in this revealing look at Bell County's infrastructure challenges and the future of Killeen ISD. Commissioner Louie Minor pulls back the curtain on the Chaparral Road improvement project, sharing exclusive audio from a Commissioner's Court workshop where officials debate the merits of a $1.2 million investment in traffic signals and turn lanes. The discussion highlights the real-world complexities of local governance as commissioners wrestle with limited funding, engineering requirements, and competing priorities while trying to address intersections currently rated "F" for traffic flow.
The episode then shifts to education with a compelling interview with Lan Carter, candidate for Killeen ISD Board of Trustees. A former teacher and mother of three, Carter brings a unique perspective to the challenges facing the district. She articulates a clear vision for tackling budget waste, improving school safety, and addressing the critical issue of teacher retention in a district serving over 44,000 students. The conversation doesn't shy away from difficult topics, including the recent tragic stabbing at Roy J. Smith Middle School and the district's controversial cell phone policy.
Carter also provides thoughtful responses to pressing education policy questions, including her opposition to school voucher programs that could potentially drain $17 million from Killeen ISD. As she notes, "We need to figure out what can we do to keep teachers within KISD," highlighting her focus on creating better working environments for educators rather than expanding administrative positions.
Whether you're concerned about your daily commute, your child's education, or how your tax dollars are being spent, this episode delivers valuable insights into the decisions that affect Bell County residents. Listen now and be better informed before early voting begins on April 22nd for the important May 3rd school board election.
Welcome to the Louie Minor Show. I'm your host, bell County Commissioner, Louie Minor. Today is April 13th 2025. Welcome. There is no Commissioner's Court meeting on Monday. It's not the first or third Monday of the month, but there are some meetings, so let's see what's happening.
Louie Minor:The Bell County Elections Commission will be meeting on tomorrow, the 14th, at 1.30 pm and it's established an order and call the meeting to order and establish a forum. Consider approval of the minutes of the March 18th 2025 election commission meeting. Then close session pursuant to section 551.074 of the Texas government code to discuss and deliberate the officers and employees of the governmental body Code to discuss and deliberate the officers and employees of the governmental body relating to the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassessment, duties, discipline or dismissal of a public officer, to wit, election administrator. Then, item four consider evaluation for election administrator. Evaluation for election administrator. So the election commission consists of the county judge, the county tax assessor, collector, the county clerk and then the chair for both the Republican and the Democratic party. So those will be tomorrow for that. Then, on the 15th 2025, at 1 o'clock, we will meet for a workshop.
Louie Minor:The Bell County Commissioner's Court. Item 1 is a closed session pursuant to Section 551.074 of the Texas Government Code to discuss and deliberate about officers, employees of the governmental body, relating to the appointment, employment, evaluations, reassignments, duties, discipline or dismissal of public officer, to wit, commissioners court direct reports. My only issue with that is that no one knows who are the direct reports to the county commissioners. So let me see if I can rattle them off the top of my head. We have the tech services director, we have the facility services director, we have the truancy officer, we have the county engineer, which is vacant Road and bridge, what else? What else I want to say? There's like close to 10 of them, uh contracts manager. Then we have, um, let's see, I think that's uh HR HR director and the museum director for the museum, and then I think there's a couple of more in there, but I can't remember. Just off the top of my head. So, anyways, that's that's what we're going to be doing this week. That's what we're going to be doing this week.
Louie Minor:As mentioned last week, I wanted to play a segment from the Commissioner's Court meeting where we were discussing Chaparral Road. I'll play that. And then also I was able to do an interview with Lan Carter, who's running for a clean ISD board of trustees. Early voting starts on the 22nd, so we will play that for you in its entirety. So, please, a lot of information. You're about to get on Chaparral Road that will be on the agenda for the 21st of April for us to vote on. So get educated. On Chaparral Road you can hear what the commissioners were thinking and talking about during the workshop so you kind of have an idea of how things will go in the meeting, and then you'll enjoy our conversation. Interview with Lan Carter, candidate for Killeen ISD School Board. So enjoy these two segments.
Judge Blackburn:Next item on our agenda is to discuss Chaparral Road improvements and potential recommendations for engineering services. Mr Minor, yes.
Louie Minor:Judge. Thank you and the court. In December of last year Fraser Nichols and we have some representatives here if you want to come forward Fraser Nichols performed a study for Bell County in making some recommendations for improvements of traffic flow and potential measures there. Improvements of traffic flow and potential measures there. Based off of that we put a multi-way stop there at Chaparral, at the intersection of Chaparral Road and Featherline. That's also the boundary between Precinct 2 and Precinct 4. Based off of this recommendation there was recommended to improve traffic flow, to put a traffic signal there and to do a turn lane turning. I guess that would be north onto Featherline. So with that there's some engineering and everything involved. They gave estimates of how much it should cost for the buildout of that intersection. This will be the first traffic signal in the county that the county owns and operates and maintains. So it's definitely, I think, something significant for the county on how we operate.
Louie Minor:But to get all that we need to get a set of plans and Fries and Nichols, they've already been doing a lot of work with Chaparral Road in the city of Killeen. I think you're the lead for the final design for Chaparral Road, but in the meantime we don't know exactly when that's going to occur and at least at a minimum, 2029 is what we've been told. So, staying four years, we're only going to continue to grow. Traffic's going to increase on Chaparral Road. So I want to go ahead and make this, get this going, to get this traffic light put in and the turn lane. I have a quote from Professional Services and I'll let Colton go into it a little bit further, but what we're getting in kind of an anticipated timeline and I will be seeking ratification on the 21st or next meeting for this, just because I want to try and get this out as fast as possible for bid to try and professional services and for the actual work to be performed for the contract.
Colton Fisher:So I'll turn it over to Colton Sure. Yeah, thank you, commissioner Reiner, thank you, judge and Commissioners for listening to me. This project has a lot of background. Go ahead and introduce yourself, just so she's got. Oh, yes, my name is Colton Fisher. I am a project manager with Freestone-Nichols. Thank you, this project has a lot of background and I won't get too in the weeds as y'all are probably familiar with a lot of it.
Colton Fisher:But Chaparral Road overall is a little over six miles and the City of Killeen, parker heights and bell county entered an interlocal agreement a couple years ago to design a schematic level design for chaparral to basically expand it from two lanes to a four lane divided road. And that schematic design is complete. But the the funding to proceed to more detailed design for individual pieces has not been identified to cover everything yet. So all of that said, as commissioner minor said, the the portion by the high school here and by the middle school, that that won't start at least until 2029 construction-wise. There is a chance it could even be longer if funding becomes an issue later on. So it definitely seems in the best interest of the county to address some of these traffic issues now. As to what those improvements are, or ultimately up to the county.
Colton Fisher:We did a traffic study last year on the Featherline intersection and then the high school intersection. So those two combined Traffic studies look at intersections and give them a letter grade rating depending on what their traffic looks like. So A is traffic is flowing super smooth, f is traffic is at a standstill for more than a minute and both of these intersections are currently at an F right now. If you go there during school hours and I'm sure you can understand why traffic tends to back up past Featherline quite a ways, which is bad for people dropping off and picking up kids and also for people trying to go past the school to keep going on. Chaparral and the middle school is set to open this fall, so traffic's only going to get worse at these two intersections. So we conducted a traffic study of the middle school's already open.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Do what the middle school's already open.
Colton Fisher:For students it is.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Oh yeah, it's been open for a year. Well, last year, last year, last year, that was it, that's right. Yeah, it's been open for this past school year. Okay, well, that's good to know.
Colton Fisher:So traffic is getting worse consistently as more students come to those schools. So we looked at which improvements would be needed to help traffic at those two intersections and came up with a plan at Featherline it would require an eastbound left turn lane, a traffic signal and a westbound right turn lane, and at the high school driveway it would require a traffic signal and an eastbound right turn lane. So what we've talked about in this contract involves that the traffic signal and the eastbound left turn lane at the feather line intersection, which would certainly help, but to ultimately fix all of the traffic issues at both intersections would require those three turn lanes and two traffic signals.
Louie Minor:And when I spoke with Spencer, no additional right-of-way will be required. Correct, and no utilities will have to be moved. Correct, correct.
Colton Fisher:Yeah, and the goal would be to get everything designed so that construction could take place during the summer and ideally finish before school starts. We obviously have to work with the contractor once we get to that point to make sure it could happen, but that's the plan for now.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:No new right-of way, no utilities being moved. Is that for the ultimate build out on the city's whole plan or is that just for a temporary construction now?
Colton Fisher:Just for this temporary solution. Yes, there will be right of way needed for the ultimate section.
Louie Minor:And I plan to working with Matt with the road and bridge where this construction and this bid will end. To go ahead and redo the county portion of Chaparral Road with all of this will be a little over $1.2 million that we'll be putting into Chaparral Road this summer.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Is that portion of Chaparral Road going to be redesigned or just chip seal, just chip seal?
Louie Minor:They'll just do level up chip seal.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:I think all the Chaparral is on schedule this year to level up and chip seal. We do it about every three years anyway now because of the traffic.
Louie Minor:And striping as well. So it'll be, I think, matt, how long did you say it would take? About a month to do all that, the portion that we've talked about and discussed.
Colton Fisher:Just your section please.
Louie Minor:Now, this is only going to improve that section. I think the design was initially for everything to make that improvement, and by everything I mean right there at that turn by the high school for it to flow correctly. Do you have what it would be graded at? If we just do the Featherline section, what would that improve to?
Colton Fisher:If we just did the left turn lane at Featherline and the traffic signal, the high school driveway intersection would still operate at an F. It wouldn't help at all with that one. The Featherline intersection would come down to about an E, so it would help a little bit, but it certainly wouldn't address the overlaying issues address the overlying issues.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:I think your study really is almost. I mean, from what I understood, the study that showed two traffic signals, or that section said that without two traffic signals nothing was really going to get it past the needy at all. That needed to be an all or nothing kind of deal, because the stacking traffic between those which we were told years ago when we were initially looking at all this, the stacking traffic between those two intersections, would not work properly if you didn't have those light signals tied together. Correct, yes.
Colton Fisher:To fully fix the two intersections. We highly recommend doing both signals and all the turn lanes included. But you know, it's ultimately up to what the county thinks is best.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:But what you're proposing today is just to approve that one side. I don't know if that fixes our problem, correct?
Judge Blackburn:So, just so I'm clear, the project, the deliverables are a signal at Featherline and chaparral and a northbound turn lane correct.
Colton Fisher:Yeah, eastbound on chaparral to turn north on featherland yeah, eastbound north and a signal at that location.
Judge Blackburn:And what's the? The cost for the, the cost for the engineering services?
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:$120,800. What's that cost based on? Is that a percentage of your build-up project?
Colton Fisher:Correct. We worked with the county to put together a detailed scope and fee for the traffic signal design and the turn lane improvements and we broke it down by hours for each task. So that covers how we got the actual number and it was also based on a percentage of the overall cost estimate, which is what They'll have design and then they're going to help with a bid package and then some construction oversight during the construction part.
Judge Blackburn:So what's the overall project cost?
Louie Minor:It should be around $800,000.
Judge Blackburn:That's for signal and the turn lane, turn lane. Okay.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:When we started on this, we had a price and the turn lane. When we started on this, we had a price for the whole thing, though. Right, what was that price? The design model price.
Colton Fisher:The design would be. Let me get that number If they were both combined it would be about $220,000 to $230,000. We think we could get that number down if they were both done at the same time there's some redundancy in tasks, but if they were done separately, it would be around $230,000 total and what was the cost for the total project? I believe it was around $1.6 million For each intersection Total For both intersections Right.
Louie Minor:Were you not working with? I know we're short of engineer, but working on the turn lane there.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Well, we were just doing that turn lane in-house.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:We were going to do a temporary and we can do that on our own but didn't include the signal or anything. It was just the right-hand turn lane to go south on Chaparral, was just the right-hand turn lane to go south on Chaparral and then the right-hand turn lane to go north on Featherline within our existing right-of-way with no signaling. Yet the concern that I had about signaling was those signals need to be synchronized, and so we talked about putting temporary signals in, or relatively temporary signals in for five years, six years maybe, maybe end up 10 years, because if we put both signals in and synchronize them, then that cost was I don't remember the number now, but significantly higher um to buy those traffic signals and then they would no doubt be torn out and replaced when the final build-out occurred. So we're just trying to not spend a tremendous amount of money for a relatively temporary solution. But if that solution is filed, maybe realistically 10 years from now it might need to be a more permanent solution. It's just an issue of funding. How do we pay for it?
Louie Minor:What type of light is going to be there that you're going to spec for?
Colton Fisher:Yeah, I'm not a traffic engineer so I can definitely go back and get some more of those details, but I believe they just modeled them as individual traffic signals. I don't think they modeled them as individual traffic signals. I don't think they modeled them as synchronized. So from my perspective, we were just planning to put in like they would be permanent but they would be span wire signals, so they wouldn't be a steel pole with an arm, it would just be the string in between, essentially to reduce that cost, because we do know eventually the ultimate section will come in and get rid of it, so it doesn't make sense to do the more expensive ones.
Judge Blackburn:Okay, and, commissioner, did I hear you say this is a precinct for funds, road bridge funds, for that would be about $920, a little less than a million dollars, not counting the chips that work. Yeah, the chips that work.
Louie Minor:Right, I think the chips that work is $275 is what we budgeted for. We're doing the chips that work.
Judge Blackburn:Any questions.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:I guess, or comments, I guess my only comment, and I don't know the involvement of your project management when we actually build it out, and the bidding and all of that. I'm all for that because I think Amy's pretty well stacked up right now. So I'm fine with having that done. But in projects we've had done before, the cost seems pretty high, at least as a percentage of the job. Now, project management, all that we've not done before. So I'd like to kind of see that break down a little bit better. But I also would like to see this done as one project, not split into two, because we can make that Featherland-Chaparral intersection really, really nice and still stack up traffic in that light that people won't be able to cross if we don't have that traffic moving out on the east side and that signal basically does no good at all. By the way, there's an elementary school coming in a couple of years down that same road, so I don't see the logic in just doing one corner.
Colton Fisher:Yeah, we would highly recommend doing all of them, for sure.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Yeah, we would highly recommend doing all of them for sure. Is this a fast growth area? It's already a grown area. It's not only a fast growth area, it's a grown area. There's already more people than it's an old man area.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:I kind of line with you, commissioner, that if we're going to go do this thing, let's get it, if we can get the money. The question is, where can we get money? Is there a grant we can get or anything like that? Well, I think the answer to that is yes. I think the answer to will we get that before the summer is absolutely no. Yeah, so doesn't mean we're going to hurry it. It's something that's what we're here for. It's something that we've got now we can piggyback the rest of it on.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:So, in talking to Road and Bridge over the last several months, that's why we had talked about putting the temporary right turn lane in at Chaparral. I'm calling it temporary until we can do the signaling and all of that which we definitely need to vet out, not only the process, but we'd hire a contractor to do that, because our guys don't have the depth to do all of that. They've got too many other projects going on already. So to do it this summer we could do in-house the turn lanes and release some of that traffic for this summer. But over the next course of a year or two years get K-Tempo funding that's already kind of in line there, knowing that Colleen's not going to do the whole job for 2029 at the earliest. Potentially get some things that we could even do the ultimate build out with those funds as just the county and K-Tempo or federal funding and get that section done without having Colleen be involved in that at all, so they can still do their 2029 schedule. But then we wouldn't just like the schools built out there at the north end of the school. We can build out that section as well with some additional state funding.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:But that's not going to happen this summer. So I agree we need to get something done this summer. But we can put a turn lane and matthew correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we have the bandwidth to put the turn lanes from east of feather line. Widen those shoulders a little bit, get a middle lane stuck in there to go north on feather line, run that turn lane down, um, or run that third lane down and shift them right and left as you come to the ends between Featherline and Chaparral South to put right-hand turn lanes on that section of road as well. That's just us cutting because we're not going to get any more right-of-way or anything. That's just us cutting in some base and chip-sealing it as well, and do that until we can get to the point where we can put some signals in, because the signals are the biggest part of this cost. Signals cost.
Colton Fisher:How much again, signals are around $400,000 each. So half of this is just sticking a signal in there. That actually sounds like a really good plan to do the turn lanes separately, Because the signals are not going to interrupt traffic but the turn lanes will. So if we can at least get the turn lanes done before school, the signals can get put in at any time.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Right, that's what I thought the study had shown us earlier this year.
Colton Fisher:Yeah, yeah, and we had originally talked about the three turn lanes and the two signals, and I think there was some debate about which one should be done or not. So we recommend all of those. But if we have to do it in pieces, I think that's still a lot better than not doing it at all.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Do you have a recommendation of the sequence of the pieces that we can get done with the money we're throwing around? You know we've got some money to spend and what would be your top steps to?
Judge Blackburn:do in order.
Louie Minor:Well, we have Precinct 4 money to spend and that's what we're spending is Precinct 4 money. So this other section right there where the school, that's Precinct 2. So I don't know how one body's thinking about doing the, the turn or the traffic light, but where I'm getting my money from is is diverting some of the maintenance on some of the roads. We'll be able to make those up in this year's budget because we don't have a lot scheduled for the silco program, so we'll be able to. Whatever we defer this year, we'll be able to. Whatever we defer this year, we'll be able to pick up next year. So that's how I'm making that money available.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:You've got a little over $2 million in fund balance Right yeah, but I'm not able to divert a lot of those funds. You might be able to in your precinct, but I've got a lot of roads that need seal coding very badly right now. We're talking about that now. It might even be one of the worst just because of the increase in traffic within my precinct Coming up by 35, and all that around Salado. Those roads are very small, very narrow. We've got big Salama Ranch subdivisions and big Gooseneck subdivisions going in that I'm going to have to build roads.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:I don't have the same available funds as you do going into the next year to two years, and so that was my concern to try to piece this as we could to make it keep it safe, get something done this summer so that it's better than it is at least. And I want the traffic lights up as quick as possible as well. I just think if the traffic light as quick as possible as well, I just think if you put your traffic light you can do whatever you want in your precinct. That's great. But if you put that traffic light up on Featherline and the traffic just stacks up between Featherline and the South Chaparral area, then your traffic light can be green all day long and traffic can't move through it anyway. So I think it needs to have both traffic lights down at the same time. So traffic moves, traffic stops. Traffic moves the other way traffic stops.
Louie Minor:Well, we can always go to the fund balance for it.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Well, that's a us decision, not a me or you decision.
Louie Minor:We might have two out of three votes already, but so yeah, I guess the main thing is might have two out of three votes already, though, but so, yeah, I guess the main thing is, you know, getting with Amy on purchasing and see what bid documents. Amy, have we done this before, I guess to bid out a road project like this?
Lan Carter:We've bid out road projects before, so there's a lot of stuff I need to be able to make this, but I thought we're going to ask frieza nichols to do the big process well well, they say that they'll get the bid package together they can't beat it.
Louie Minor:I have to yeah, okay, yeah, she'll still have to put it out. They'll, they'll present everything, they'll give everything to her and, uh, from from what I told, we should be able to have something ready to go within 45 days.
Colton Fisher:It's a small project so we can have it done really quick, and I don't know how long county usually likes to bid projects, but we can make that pretty quick too, if need be.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Usually, 30 days right.
Colton Fisher:I don't know. That's pretty normal 30 days yeah.
Judge Blackburn:I think the action this workshop today, but the action that's coming forward is a request again from the commissioner from Precinct 4 to engage Friesen Nichols to start the engineering work in essence on the project, with an anticipation that he's also going to spend Precinct 4 money for that, as well as the construction cost for the signal and the turn line, and to do that regardless and again I realize there's a debate going on about whether or not that helps the situation or doesn't help the situation. But that's the next action item I think that I'm hearing is going to hit the dais is your request to approve the professional services agreement so that this can get launched, correct and spend Precinct 4 money on that.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:The children's request is just for the Featherline Chaparral corner correct, which is an engineering cost of 130 120 800 which I kind of agree with commissioner whitson. That's a pretty high percentage of the what we say. You know the project for that scope is $800,000, $900,000. We were anticipating that, since you've already done that entire corridor I know that's not construction plans, but the scope of that corridor that we kind of thought you'd have a leg up on somebody else getting that done both quicker and hopefully cheaper. Right.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:And we can always look at it again.
Colton Fisher:We've already reduced it quite a bit. We don't have to go out and get any surveying because we already have that, but the traffic signals themselves take a bit of effort to get them all in the right spots.
Judge Blackburn:Okay. Well, kind of what I'm hearing is it will be an agenda item next meeting that you're bringing to it?
Louie Minor:Well, I was going to say gratification, but I mean, is it?
Lan Carter:A contract needs to be put in place, a PO issued and a notice to proceed issued as well.
Judge Blackburn:To engage the engineer yes, yeah, I would tend to think that it's next meeting agenda item is what I would think based on the discussion and for your benefit.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:next meeting agenda item I'd like to have figures for the whole thing. To engineer the whole thing, Engineer the whole thing. Lights on both ends, Just the light or the turn lanes too.
Judge Blackburn:Well, I thought we were doing the turn lanes in-house.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Well, that was my plan, but this is. You know, this would be different. What we were going to do on turn lanes is just build a basic county road, put our base out there in Chippsville. I don't know if your design is calling for asphalt, is calling for geotech setting up, what your base is going to look like, if you're putting geogrid in it or you're going to line it. I don't know any of those details. That's what I'm saying. I would like to know what that detail would be, and maybe you can't do that to obviously be a plant. But if it's just lay another 10, you know 10, 12 feet of asphalt next to the road and make two turn lanes at the end, we could do that.
Colton Fisher:Yeah, the original plan was to do a full asphalt section. So if the county just wanted to do base and a quick chip seal, then that would reduce the cost on our end for sure.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:Matthew, how much design do we need for that? Do we need an engineer spec to widen that county road? Really, it would be nice to have someone come out there and survey the market. We've already got the survey done. We'll have to market where it goes, but the survey for fence row to fence row Quicksilver's done that and we cleared out the bar ditches and everything already. I know y'all trimmed all the trees back, but basically I was anticipating Whatever the current road base is, which has been fine. We were just going to cut down and Add to that another lane On that south side Because we've got room on the south end. So the only addition to the professional services would be for signals, signals, yeah, and I.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:But that was between Featherline and Chaparral. I'm assuming you can continue to go down west of Featherline to put the turn lane in at least. Yeah.
Colton Fisher:Even if he just did his on his side, something would have to be done over on the precinct 2 side.
Commissioner Bobby Whitson:That's what I'm assuming.
Judge Blackburn:I agree, and I guess what I'm hearing is bring kind of two back, I mean one, that's just what Louie is proposing, I think, and one that has this, so that they're separable. Because I don't know, again, I don't know from everybody else's chair, but I don't, you know, I'm not sure I want to spend general fund money on this. I recognize you've got priorities, so that's that. But we've got road and bridge funds and that's what those are for, and so if y'all got different priorities, that's fine, but I don't know that really want to start dipping into general fund to pay for stuff like this. So I would separate those out because there might be a vote that goes one way on one and the other way on the other. Yeah, we can do that, okay. Okay, thank you, sir. Thanks for being here. Thank you, thank you, sir. Thanks for being here. Thank you very much.
Louie Minor:So I hope you enjoyed that workshop clip so you kind of have a good understanding of how we talk things through and try to come with solutions on how to address issues in our community. So, anyways, now let me pull up my interview with Lan Carter. So hope you enjoy. Okay, so now we are here with our special guest, Lan Carter, who is running for Killeen Independent School District. Trustee board of trustee for place three. Lan, Thank you for taking time out of your day and coming on the show.
Lan Carter:Thank you for having me. I appreciate that.
Louie Minor:So I started this podcast a little bit before, maybe a month before I took office, and it was a way for me to break through some of the media, get my message out there of why I'm running and what I'm doing as a county commissioner, and it's already been three years now I've been doing my show, have over 60 episodes, have over 60 episodes, and whenever we have elections, I try to bring in people that are running for office, people that I want to support, and so that's why I invited you to come on. So if you would, I guess, tell us about Lan Carter. Who is Lan Carter?
Lan Carter:Okay, well, thank you for having me. Lan Carter is a foremost mom. I'm really proud of being a mom. I'm a mom of three. I am a former public school teacher. I taught for eight years. I taught kindergarten, fifth grade in high school. I'm a military uh, spouse. I've been retired military for 20 years. Um, I currently work as a child therapist. Um, let's see, who else am I? What am I? I'm just really passionate about education.
Louie Minor:And so your kids went to Clean ISD, I'm assuming.
Lan Carter:Yes, and I am actually a product of Clean ISD too. I graduated from Clean High School.
Louie Minor:Okay, okay. So what I guess you know, what I've always admired most about you is you've always felt like you could make a difference and give people a choice, and I admire that because I ran for office for over a decade before I got elected to office. I started in 2013,. 2014 election cycle, 2013, 2014 election cycle. Obviously, I didn't win because I ran for Congress, but I always stayed with it because it's not just for me, it's about helping people and a passion to help people. So why Colleen ISD?
Lan Carter:Well, again, because me being a public school educator, but also because I had issues with my own children going to school with the kisd, and that's when I started seeing that there was a disconnect in the community in the education system and clean, and I thought about, okay, well, someone needs to step up. If you see the problems, you have to come up with solutions. And I felt passionate enough to do that because I saw there was a lot of issues within CLEAN that needed to be improved upon, and I think that all kids deserve the best education possible that we can give them, and so that's why I keep sticking to it, and I think that it takes a specific board member to do that, and I think that that's me, because I'm not afraid to ask the hard questions and do the research to get the job done.
Louie Minor:Okay, so explain to our listeners that may or may not know about Killeen ISD. Can you kind of explain Killeen ISD?
Lan Carter:Well, it's one of the largest employers in this area. Um, let's see specifically about clean isd. It's got some really good programs, or do you want to know the the issues within clean isd?
Louie Minor:well, I um, I think I remember hearing somewhere I forgot where I heard this, but clean isd has about 44,000 kids enrolled. Does that sound about right to you?
Lan Carter:Yes, 44,000, 45,000. Yeah, it's a big school district.
Louie Minor:And I do know the superintendent is very well paid, very highly paid. In this area we have a lot 340,000, I believe. Say that again 340,000,.
Lan Carter:I believe.
Louie Minor:Something like that Over 300,000. I know, yeah, that's that's uh, that's a lot of money, that's a lot of money. So, um, for for me as a as a County commissioner, I always hear people complaining about property taxes and I mean it's number one, without a doubt, number one thing people complain about. But what I have to explain to them is that, relative you know, special districts, cities and counties are, you know, a very small portion of your property tax bill. The the main culprit is your school board property taxes. Can you kind of explain why that is?
Lan Carter:um, I'm going to be honest and tell you I don't know a lot about the property tax. I just know that they can't set the rate for the property tax. I don't know exactly what the rate current rate is, or when it's the last time they rose the rate.
Louie Minor:Yeah Well, I don't know exactly what their their rate is either, but they are. You know the lion's share of property taxes that that people pay and and it's and it's not just in Killeen, it's all across the state Property tax for school districts are the highest bill on there and that's because the state is not fully funding public education. I think it was Representative John Bryant down in Austin that said here. John Bryant down in Austin that said here because and we'll get into vouchers but he said in the committee on vouchers that you know the state wants to tout. You know all this surplus, this budget surplus, is because all these great things they're doing with business you know deregulating this and that they have that budget surplus because they are underfunding public education. The last time the basic allotment had any changes to it was in 2019. So that's where that surplus comes from. It's not from anything great that Republicans are doing. It's because they're underfunding public education.
Lan Carter:Well, I knew that. I knew that it had been not fully funded since 2019. I know he held the budget hostage. As far as funding schools, Mm-hmm.
Louie Minor:So you know, with that said, what can you do to address some of these issues? What is your number one, number two, number three that you want to tackle once you get elected?
Lan Carter:It's the budget. The budget is extremely important. Make sure that our students are getting our students and staff are getting the resources that they need to be academically successful. The second priority would be, honestly, school safety, and you can ask me the same question two days from now and there's just so many different priorities, so it's really hard to pick down to three, but right now it's going to be the budget and school safety, and three would be that's a hard question. School staffing, I think, is really important. I think that we've got I mean, right now we've got supposedly there's a lack of school teachers. Teachers are leaving the profession, which is that's a fact. That's a fact all over the country. But we need to figure out. What can we do to keep those teachers within KISD? How can we recruit the teachers?
Lan Carter:to stay, and I think a lot of it has to do with the environment that they're working in.
Louie Minor:Yeah, and so we need to improve that, as well as the pay.
Louie Minor:Yeah, I've definitely heard. You know, teachers are leaving school districts across the state because of safety in the classroom, because of pay, and you know, let's face it, teachers have been under attack by Republicans for the last couple of years now. So, yeah, I can definitely see where that's an issue, that recruitment and retention for teachers. But I think it's more than just teachers, correct? I mean, we have support staff and and and I don't know what, all, what, what all staff is in school districts.
Lan Carter:I guess Bus drivers, nutrition workers, school teachers, aides. I went to a forum yesterday where one of the ladies an aide and she told me she made $12 an hour and I'm like you can't live. That's not a living wage. And I asked her why she did it and she said because of the love of the children. So it's just like it's. She was a bus monitor for special ed kids and she made $12 an hour and so I was like wow, that's impossible. And she said that her grandson, grandson, who works fast food makes more money than she does.
Louie Minor:Yeah, definitely we can improve that. We can improve that for sure, uh. So let's let's talk about vouchers. It appears to me that that uh vouchers will probably happen here in Texas this legislative session. $1 billion they have allocated to this voucher scam program. It's going to pull money out of public education and I'm you know because I did watch a lot of the public hearings and stuff online. But I heard somewhere that if 100 kids pull out of the school district, they're going to lose teachers, they're going to lose support staff, staff, and I think there's a website Don't Defund my School and you can put in your address and it'll pull up your school and how much your school is anticipated to lose. I think Killeen ISD had $17 million. If vouchers is approved, that Killeen ISD is going to lose. That sound about right.
Lan Carter:That's probably about right. Yeah, I did see that um that same website.
Louie Minor:And uh, so what? What do you think um clean ISD can do if we do have a lot of kids leaving? Because isn't that how schools are paid right now is is by enrollment in in. They go to school every day.
Lan Carter:It is, it's by attendance. Daily attendance.
Louie Minor:So what can you do? Because I mean you're going to go once you're elected, I mean you're going right into budget, and so I mean you're going to have to, and so I mean you're gonna have to educate yourself really quick on on the budgeting and the budget process and then, with the potential loss of, you know, hundreds of kids I'm just curious, you know what? What do you think you can do? I mean you would have to make cuts. Didn't, didn't clean ISD, just make cuts. Cuts last budget because of they were running into some revenue issues.
Lan Carter:Yeah, but they cut. They cut positions that were on field.
Louie Minor:Okay.
Lan Carter:That's how they helped um offset that. So just, I honestly think that they're just going to have to, because I I know from from what the current board members are saying they don't really want to cut positions, so they're going to be looking at cutting waste, trying to cut some waste as much as possible, basically looking at programs that don't work. I know they're talking about, like for summer school, but probably not having summer school or because they're saying it's not mandatory, things like transportation it's not mandatory, so they're going to be looking at cutting things that are not mandatory. Um, I personally believe in cutting waste. I think we're too hot, top heavy, so if positions had to go, I think that we had to get rid of some top heavy positions I mean you look, we have so many administrators doing.
Lan Carter:I mean we have to get rid of some top heavy positions. I mean you look, we have so many administrators doing. I mean we have administrators like six, six, six APs, and on top of that you've got Dean of instruction. What does the instruction do outside of the principal and the AP in your school? You know what I mean? We have several coordinators that we that were coordinators, now they're district directors from special ed and it's like what, why did we have to create those positions, right? So I would be looking at things like that. It's like not creating more positions in admin, thinking about reducing those positions, thinking about not duplicating positions that we already have. Um, cutting waste. As far as things like programs, I wouldn't look at so much as cutting programs, because I think we have kids that use those programs, utilize those programs, but I would just look at things like how are we wasteful and try to get rid of some of that first, before we think about cutting staff.
Louie Minor:Right, and this morning's paper it uh, sunday, april 13th. This morning's paper they they had uh talked about what happened last. Last month, colleen isd, and, for those that don't know, there was a incident at one of the middle schools where a student was stabbed and killed on campus by another student and that's been all over the news here locally, and rightfully so. A lot of parents are concerned. There's a lot of tension in the air with parents and clean ISD and one of the the paper said that they sent out a questionnaire to you know all the incumbents and our trustees and candidates and I think only two of y'all responded and you was one of them.
Louie Minor:Can you explain, I guess, what are your thoughts on the incident that happened at Roy J Smith Middle School, because I know it's definitely a touchy subject for everyone involved, including Colleen ISD, for everyone involved, including Colleen ISD. But, like I said, you were one of the only ones. I think the two candidates were the only ones that answered the questionnaire.
Lan Carter:Oh, that's disappointing. Well, obviously it was a tragedy for everyone involved, both the victim and the alleged perpetrator. So it was a tragedy for everybody in the community because in their mind it could have been them, it could have been their child that didn't come home that day. So that was an eye-opening experience, especially how to handle bullying within the schools. That is something that KISD hasn't done successfully. Parents have complained about that for years and up until recently, because of the tragedy, things hadn't changed. So since the tragedy, dr Fay has implemented some new policies and procedures to deal with discipline as far as bullying Okay. Discipline as far as bullying Okay. But unfortunately the aftermath bullying still occurs. From my understanding, I have clients that go to KISD and they're saying they're still being bullied. So there's no quick fix for the problem, unfortunately.
Louie Minor:Yeah, and I mean bullying has been around forever, I'm sure, in schools. I remember bullies in my high school, but I think the thing that's different is social media. Now kids are recording this stuff and putting it online and it's there forever.
Lan Carter:Yep, you're correct, and there's so many different types of bullying now. Before it was more physical, and now we have emotional bullying, we have sexual bullying, we have cyber bullying, like you said, and so I think it has a lot to do with educating the staff on the different types of bullying and how to handle the bullying. You know, simply just saying, okay, someone reports the bullying and you send them back to class. That's not okay. You have to investigate the bullying as immediately as possible, while it's still fresh in the victim's mind, and deal with the perpetrator the alleged perpetrator as well. You don't want to have them going back to the same class after the bullying happened. You know what I mean.
Louie Minor:It's traumatic. So, colleen ISD, they implemented a no cell phone policy and that was brought up during this incident because you know it was hard for parents to try to reach their child during this incident. What is your stance on the cell phone policy?
Lan Carter:I understand the no cell phone policy and, as an educator, I appreciate the no cell phone policy. I taught in a district that also had a no cell phone policy, but we didn't take it to the point to where we had spent money on pouches. I disagree with the spending on pouches. I thought that was a wasteful amount of money that was spent. I think they could have just used the policy that they had and enforced it throughout the district and I think that it's simply telling the students you know you can use a cell phone for academic purposes when a teacher tells you to. You can use a cell phone for academic purposes when a teacher tells you to, for instance. In that situation I would have wanted to hear from my student. I would want my student to have their cell phone available to call me and wake up a tragedy.
Louie Minor:So I don't appreciate the fact that the students have to have it unlocked in order to be able to be used. Yeah, so you know where. I hear a lot about clean ISD and juveniles, because the commissioner's court, we we support and fund our juvenile services and juvenile detention center, so and the we establish a truancy court for kids that do not attend school. So that's where I have my interactions with Clean ISD. I do know that, outside of truancy, one of the big issues is vaping, Because if it's a hemp or CBD or THC type product, that's a felony. A hemp or CBD or THC type product, that's a felony. So we have kids that are vaping, that are young kids, getting charged with felonies for vaping, and I do know that there's probably some legislation that might be coming down to address some of those things, but it's been very hard on our students because they're getting charged with felonies at a young age.
Lan Carter:Yeah, and I do think that's too harsh. You know, back in our day it was cigarettes, right, it was just okay, it's bad for you, but you, you didn't get charged with a, with a, a crime, so a crime. So, yeah, I think it's. It's ruining a child's life before they even get ready to start.
Louie Minor:On, also on Colleen ISD, not Colleen ISD Colleen Daily Herald. They had a poll and the I'll read the poll. It says do you think leadership changes are needed in Colleen independent school district in the wake of last month's fatal student stabbing incident? I'm going to assume you would say yes because you're running, but the poll was interesting. They have five options.
Louie Minor:Yes, blame for this incident goes all the way to the top. New superintendent is needed. This blame for this incident goes all the way to the top New superintendent is needed. And that got 15.4%. 25% people said yes. The incident reveals a lack of planning and oversight. Multiple changes should be made.
Louie Minor:7.7% said no. The focus should be on campus leadership, not the district's top administrator. And then 34.6% of the people said no. Even the best policies and procedures might not have prevented this tragic incident. So it sounds like the yes and no's are almost even a little bit. And then 17.3% of people are unsure, and then 17.3% of people are unsure. So to me I think that's a great poll.
Louie Minor:If people that read the local paper, they're most likely going to be voters and if they're on Colleen Daly Harrell's website, they're looking for information. If they're taking this poll, they're probably going to vote so that that lets you know that you got 17% of the uh elect electorate, that you should be able to influence uh with uh, your, your policies and ideas. I know uh Colleen Daly did. Uh, I think they did an interview with your opponent and I watched that and I was surprised because, well, first of all, they didn't ask him anything about vouchers, but they did ask him about getting rid of the Department of Education and he supported that. How can you be a school board trustee and support abolishing the Department of Education?
Lan Carter:Yeah, I was surprised about that too as well. But yeah, he is actually in support of vouchers. He said that yesterday at a candidate summit.
Louie Minor:Oh, he did, Okay, okay.
Lan Carter:He is in support of the idea of getting choice and vouchers, but he doesn't agree with taking money from public funds that's what he said From public schools. So he did stipulate that. But yeah, I found it interesting that he said that too, as far as you know, which makes me think maybe he doesn't really know all the programs that fall under the Department of Education and how the Department of Education works.
Louie Minor:Yeah. So from my understanding of, I guess, the most interaction the Department of Education has with school districts school districts it's the special education programs and different like Title IX protections and all these special education stuff. Is that a fair statement?
Lan Carter:Yes, that's a fair statement.
Louie Minor:Okay, okay, and I'm assuming all those are going to go to the state.
Lan Carter:Yes, which is really sad because the state doesn't always get it right as well. So that's, and so department education would be the last step on the line, basically to get, um, to get it right, basically yeah, well, the state is doing a horrible you remember, our state for uh tea was uh tea was out of compliance for special education years ago.
Lan Carter:And so the Department of Education came in and did a bunch of listening sessions to provide oversight of basically why, and they decided, they ruled basically that TEA was out of compliance. They said that only 8% of special ed students, only 8% of students, could be considered special ed at that time.
Louie Minor:Yeah, no, it's definitely. It's not something I support. It sounds like it's not something you support. So there's a clear contrast to me with you and and uh, your opponent, that you know you support public education and you do not support the abolishment of the Department of Education and giving our money, our school dollars, our tax dollars, to private schools.
Louie Minor:That's something that I was at the NAACP event a couple of weeks ago and I talked to our state representative. He's the chairman of the education committee and wrote the voucher program and I told him about the property tax issue that I don't hear anyone, zero, asking about school choice or sending their kids to private schools. But what I do hear about is property taxes are too high and what can we do to fix it. And I told them that billion dollars that you're funneling to these businesses because that's what they are, they're businesses that that money could go to lowering property taxes. And he said, oh, yeah, we're doing all these things right now for property taxes and business taxes, which they are, and that's great, but you could put a billion more dollars in that type of relief. We're not going to get any relief zero relief for funding this voucher program.
Lan Carter:And not much of it's going to go to, even though I know he has two standalone bills basically where supposedly we're supposed to get additional money. I don't see it happening.
Louie Minor:Yeah.
Lan Carter:I just see it being a detriment to the public schools.
Louie Minor:Yeah, so, lan, we'll go ahead and start wrapping things up. I just want to let people know some information about the actual election. We already passed the last day to register. The last day to register to vote was April 3rd, so if you're not registered by now, it's too late for this election, but you can still help get people to the polls. Early voting starts April 22nd and then election day is May 3rd. That's all correct.
Lan Carter:Yes.
Louie Minor:Okay, and there's different polling locations that you could go to in the city of Killeen. Killeen ISD covers more than just city of Killeen. What I know it's like Nolanville and Harker Heights. Is that anywhere else Nolanville?
Lan Carter:Harker Heights and, of course, well, yes, you know Fort Hague, but Fort Hague I don't. The polling sites are everything clean?
Louie Minor:Yeah, so those uh, and then uh, if you wanted to know more information where polling locations are at uh for early voting, uh, that'll be at uh Killeen city hall, jackson uh learning center and lions uh senior park. That'll be at Killeen City Hall, jackson Learning Center and Lyons Senior Park. And then, I'm pretty sure, in Nolanville and in Harker Heights. They both have places to vote. It's usually their library or their senior center over there. So if someone wants to get involved to help you out, learn more about Land Carter, where can they go?
Lan Carter:They can go to my Facebook page. It's Land4CleanISD, or they can go to my website, which is boat4landorg. Okay, all right.
Louie Minor:Any last words Land that you would like to leave a parting message to the listeners.
Lan Carter:That I would really appreciate your vote. I think it's really important that we get some new faces in and make some changes within the district, because the district is very disconnected and I think that we can do it. I think that me being that voice can set a good example for the other board members where they need to step up to the plate.
Louie Minor:I totally agree with that. You have my support. I'm the lone voice on the commissioner's court and I do everything I can to push the narrative of things that we're doing right, things we're doing wrong, narrative of things that we're doing right, things we're doing wrong and try to invite the public in to help us figure it out, because it's not just me or my ideas, it's the public that I represent that these ideas come from. So thank you for running and we'll do everything we can to help you out and I'm sure the citizens listening if they're not convinced yet, they're probably convinced now to go out and support you. So thank you, lan Carter, for doing our show and we'll talk to you later.
Lan Carter:Thank you for having me, thank you for what you do All right.
Louie Minor:Thank you for having me, thank you for doing what you do. All right, thank you. Thank you. We'll be you next time.
