Q&A with Theresa Deans, candidate for Copperas Cove city council Place 6

Bio

Theresa “Terri” Deans and her husband moved to Texas from North Carolina with their two daughters in 2003 when Deans was offered a job at the U.S. Army Operational Test Command at West Fort Hood as an Education Development and Training Specialist. Deans worked at USAOTC until 2011 before transferring to a temporary assignment in Kuwait as a civilian personnel actions liaison. She returned from Kuwait in 2012 and resumed at USAOTC. She retired with 37 years of federal service in 2014. 

Since her retirement, Deans and her husband have become active members of Central Texas Disaster Action Response Team (CEN-TX DART) and are certified instructors for Community Emergency Response Training (CERT).  

Campaign Social Media/Website: 

TERRI DEANS FOR COPPERAS COVE  https://www.facebook.com/TerriDeansForCopperasCove/

What do you believe the City of Copperas Cove should do to enhance and improve the quality of life for residents, and how should the city fund these improvements? 

Quality of Life in Copperas Cove can be improved in many areas.  For example, a grocery store, pharmacy and urgent care clinic on the North side of town is a MUST.  Small neighborhood parks for the children.  Clean up or remove dilapidated vacant buildings.  Adopt an aesthetically uniform façade for the businesses lining Business 190.  Improve the downtown area for either better traffic flow OR develop a pedestrian center with shopping and restaurants.  There are so many things our City needs to work on to become "the place" people want to move to and stay to raise their families.  There are grants available for just about every need a city has, including grants to revitalize downtown areas.  We just need to tap into our citizens talents to find the right people who can and are willing to write those grants and send them forward for approval. 

If elected to office, what initiative(s) would you set in motion to improve the city during your term of office?

Committees already exist to improve our City such as Economic Development Corporation, Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful, and Quality of Life Board.  Maybe its time every committee sat down and worked together to come up with comprehensive plans to improve our City and then follow through with those plans.

Copperas Cove has been described by some as not being “business-friendly.” What are some solutions to remedy this perception?

That is a loaded question.  Copperas Cove at present isn't very business friendly.  Smaller businesses that want to come into Copperas Cove are discouraged by the ridiculously high rents that are charged by the commercial property owners.  Some that move in because the initial rents seem reasonable  wind up losing their businesses when their leases come up for renewal because the rent is raised too high for them to make a profit.  It’s time the owners of these commercial properties stop with the greed for more money and start looking at what is truly best for our city and not their bank accounts.  Larger industries are not impressed with our tax base and seeming unwillingness to work with them on parcel space, spec buildings and reasonable tax incentives.