Coppell Chronicle Vol. 3, No. 19
Information Flowed During Water Crisis • Parks Board to Get Priorities Straight • Victory Shops Trigger New Traffic Signals • Those Who Get Busted May Also Get Bussed
How about one more round of applause for The Spazmatics, folks? I can still hear that high note the lead singer hit during their medley of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and “Seven Nation Army” after last night’s fireworks show.
Information Flowed During Water Crisis
If we learned nothing else from last week’s power and water crisis, we learned this: Signing up for Notify Coppell alerts is a good idea. The city staff did a great job of keeping residents informed about the need to initially conserve and subsequently boil our water. If you’re not already receiving these alerts, you can register by clicking the link above.
Most of the following timeline is based on the emails, text messages, and phone calls I received from Coppell Town Center last week.
3:30 a.m. on Wednesday — Residents who live near the Village Parkway Pump Station heard a boom that sounded like a car accident.
6:15 a.m. — The first alerts were issued. This was the entire email that landed in my inbox: “Due to power failure at the City of Coppell's water pump station, we request that residents and businesses use water only in emergency situations.”
The text message I received at about the same time ended on the word “only,” which made me think, “Use water only? As opposed to what? Water and soda? Water and bourbon?” A complete version of the text arrived just a minute or two later.
8:40 a.m. — The city began issuing boil water notices. I received multiple versions, and I assume that’s because I subscribe to the city’s weekly “Coppell E-News” newsletter in addition to Notify Coppell. I knew the second such email I received (about five minutes after the first one) was an important message because it was preceded by this image:
This was the entirety of that second email:
“Due to a power outage at the Village Parkway Pump Station caused by a fallen power line, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has required the City of Coppell public water system to notify all customers to boil their water prior to consumption (e.g., washing hands/face, brushing teeth, drinking, etc). Children, seniors, and persons with weakened immune systems are particularly vulnerable to harmful bacteria, and all customers should follow these directions.
“To ensure destruction of all harmful bacteria and other microbes, water for drinking, cooking, and ice making should be boiled and cooled prior to use for drinking water or human consumption purposes. The water should be brought to a vigorous rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes.
“In lieu of boiling, individuals may purchase bottled water or obtain water from some other suitable source for drinking water or human consumption purposes. When it is no longer necessary to boil the water, the City of Coppell will notify the community that the water is safe for drinking and human consumption purposes.”
9:45 a.m. — The city sent the same email again with one edit. This sentence was now bolded and underlined for emphasis: “The water should be brought to a vigorous rolling boil and then boiled for two minutes.”
11:35 a.m. — The city sent an update that said, among other things, “Oncor has assured the City that power will be restored today.”
2:50 p.m. — The city announced that power had been restored at the pump station, so the water supply was being replenished. However, the boil notice was still in effect. Consequently, that announcement also said free cases of bottled water would be distributed at the Cozby Library and Community Commons until 8 o’clock that evening.
Despite the intense heat on Wednesday, staffers from various city departments helped distribute the bottled water. Library Advisory Board member Anne Diamond was one of the residents who took advantage of this offer, and she sent me photographic evidence of her experience:
10 p.m. — Our water crisis was covered on TV, which led to a friend of mine referring to Coppell as “that dirty water town of yours” in a text. Channel 8 interviewed a couple of restaurant owners, and Channel 11 talked to a few of the residents picking up free cases of bottled water. One of the grateful residents said this to Channel 11: “Coppell really takes care of us, you know, and it’s just really great that we can trust them and count on them.”
6:30 a.m. on Thursday — My sleepy wife brewed a pot of coffee without remembering that the boil notice was still in effect.
7:30 a.m. — Her sleepy husband finished a second cup of that coffee without remembering that the boil notice was still in effect.
9:50 a.m. — The city reminded us that the boil notice was still in effect.
11 a.m. — The boil notice was rescinded. People who were thirsty and/or in dire need of a shower rejoiced across Coppell.
2:50 p.m. — With our crisis concluded, the city announced on social media that its leftover bottled water would be sent to Commerce, a city in Hunt County, which is “expected to be under a boil water notice for DAYS.”
KETR, the public radio station in those parts, interviewed Commerce’s city manager, who has a handle that’s right up there with such colorful names from Texas history as Pappy O’Daniel, Ma and Pa Ferguson, and Kinky Friedman. Commerce’s city manager goes by Howdy Lisenbee.
Lisenbee told KETR that Coppell donated 45 pallets of water to his city.
Parks Board to Get Priorities Straight
If you have strong feelings about Coppell needing a skate park or a new trail or shaded tennis courts, circle Aug. 7 on your calendar. That’s when the city’s Parks and Recreation Board will debate their priorities list, and the meeting will include an opportunity for public input.
“There’s often times where a ‘Low Priority’ project can all of a sudden shoot right up to the top of the list or be identified for funding immediately,” Director of Community Experiences Jessica Carpenter said during the board’s June 5 meeting. “And how does that happen? Well, we got a whole lot of public input all at once, or City Council says, ‘We need this.’ It’s within their purview to do that.”
Until that June 5 meeting, the board’s most recent discussion of the priorities list happened in May 2022. (See “Parks Board Finalizes Priorities List” in Vol. 2, No. 11.) Only two changes have been made since then: A veterans memorial was moved from the “High Priority” section to the “Projects Currently Underway” section, and a cricket pitch was removed altogether because it was completed at Wagon Wheel Park.
Carpenter showed the Parks and Recreation Board her edited version of the list, but I don’t want to show it to you, for two reasons.
Reason 1: The latest version of the list includes cost estimates that are still out of date.
“As a rule of thumb, the costs here — not applicable in today’s current economy,” Carpenter said. “By the time you see this list again in August, when y’all are actually ready to make your prioritization changes, we’ll have updated costs.”
Reason 2: Any numbskull with a keyboard and Wi-Fi access could provide a link to that document; we’re doing journalism here!
Here’s my summary of the items on the list, with the “High Priority” items augmented by Carpenter’s comments from June 5 plus a few photos. No item should be considered a higher priority than the other items in the same section.
High Priority
• A trail around the Allen Road Park pond, plus a bridge over the canal: “You could get from one side to the other, so folks don’t have to walk all the way around. So it’s sort of a cut-through pathway. It also would help from the staff side, from a maintenance standpoint of getting equipment back and forth.”
• Spectator shades above the concrete pads near the soccer fields at Andrew Brown Park West: “Those were built knowing that one day we were going to want to put a shaded structure over them. That was just not part of the original project. I believe that was probably value-engineered out at the time.”
• Fencing around the soccer fields at Wagon Wheel Park: “This has been requested by [the Coppell Youth Soccer Association] many times in the past, and the Sports Council. So this gives us the opportunity to really lock and protect all of those fields [and] keep balls in as well — keep them from going into the street.”
• Trail lighting at Wagon Wheel Park: “This area gets pretty dark at night, and this is an area that’s traversed during tournaments, during games, so parents and athletes especially use this trail quite a bit.”
• Trail amenities, including additional benches, additional shade, potential workout equipment, etc. “Our Andy Brown trails are in pretty good shape. There’s a lot of amenities. The rest of our trail system? Not so much.”
• An accessible replacement for the MacArthur Park playground: “We would be definitely wanting to look at families with all varying types of needs — sensory needs to physical needs to intellectual needs. What could this park include that their children could utilize?”
• Additional pickleball courts: “What we’re looking at in terms of pickleball, community-wide, is more than likely a feasibility study. That’s where a consultant’s going to come in, and they’re going to be like, ‘Where can we put pickleball courts?’ And they’re going to look at a lot of different options.”
• A splash pad at Andrew Brown Park East’s arrival court: “This is the ideal place to install a splash pad. It’s got built-in restrooms [and] parking. It’s accessible. It’s near pavilions. It’s near The CORE. It’s near Kid Country. So that whole oval area could become a splash pad. It would need to be covered as well.”
By the way, the amenity by the Farmers Market in Old Town that most people call a splash pad is really an interactive fountain. “It is not an actual splash pad,” Carpenter said. “This would be more so a classic splash pad.” If you’re not seeing the difference, imagine a playground with water features.
Medium Priority
Establishing a trail along Denton Creek’s north levee, east of MacArthur Boulevard
Establishing a trail between Coppell High School and Minyard Drive
Establishing a trail between Dallas College’s Coppell Center and Wagon Wheel Park
Installing LED lights at six baseball fields and five soccer fields in Wagon Wheel Park
Installing artificial turf at two baseball fields and two soccer fields in Wagon Wheel Park
Addressing erosion and drainage issues at Andrew Brown Park East
Shading some of the tennis courts at Wagon Wheel Park
Adding parking spaces near the Biodiversity Education Center
Low Priority
Establishing canoe/kayak access to Denton Creek
Expanding the Coppell Senior and Community Center
Expanding the Wagon Wheel Tennis and Pickleball Center
Building a skate park at MacArthur Park
Adding a playground to Villawood Linear Park
Improving the disc golf course at Andrew Brown Park East
Establishing a trail through the Oncor easement east of Riverchase Elementary School
Victory Shops Trigger New Traffic Signals
Whenever South Belt Line Road fully reopens, drivers will have one more set of traffic lights to commute through. A new set of lights will be installed at Hackberry Drive, due to the Victory Shops at Coppell development that’s being built nearby.
On June 13, the Coppell City Council approved an amendment to the city’s design services contract with Halff Associates. The amendment involves the changes to the Hackberry intersection, which will “improve turning movements and traffic flow,” according to a memo from Director of Public Works Mike Garza. The amendment also covers a complete redesign of the median landscaping, which will feature less turf and more drought-tolerant plants and hardscape.
The amendment increases Halff’s design fee for the South Belt Line project by $132,000, bringing the total to $1,553,000. In his memo, Garza said a reimbursement agreement with Victory Real Estate Group, which is developing the new shopping center, will be presented to the City Council soon. Mayor Pro Tem John Jun asked how much of a reimbursement the city could expect; Garza replied, “We’re still working on the pricing.”
The plans for the Victory Shops at Coppell call for seven buildings along Belt Line between Hackberry and Dividend Drive, with three more buildings to the east. Most of the buildings fronting Belt Line are zoned for restaurant uses, and the leasing brochure indicates two of them will be occupied by Dillas Quesadillas and Piada Italian Street Food.
Those Who Get Busted May Also Get Bussed
If you think you paid too much for your last vehicle, this next piece of news may make you feel better about your purchase: The Coppell Police Department just bought a shuttle bus for $153,775.
As some of my longtime subscribers may recall, Coppell rents jail space from the City of Grapevine. (See “Grapevine Welcomes Our Prisoners” in Vol. 2, No. 27.) Any Coppell arrestee who hasn’t bonded out of Grapevine’s jail within 48 hours gets transferred to Dallas County’s Lew Sterrett Justice Center, which is about 30 minutes away on the western edge of downtown Dallas. Coppell officers have had to chauffeur these prisoners to Big D one at a time, due to the lack of a big vehicle.
“If multiple prisoners must be transported to Dallas County, on-duty police officers have to either make multiple trips in one day or multiple on-duty police officers must transport these prisoners, which takes them away from their other duties within the city,” Police Chief Danny Barton said in a memo to the City Council.
That particular waste of time and resources has been rectified by the purchase of a 2022 Starcraft Starlite bus, which the council approved on June 13. It was sold by the Irving location of Model 1 Commercial Vehicles, a nationwide chain formerly known as Creative Bus Sales. A video on Model 1’s YouTube channel highlights some features of a 2020 Starcraft Starlite, but it doesn’t explain how the driver would be protected from passengers with bad intentions. However, a letter of intent attached to the council’s June 13 agenda mentions an “inmate conversion” package.
The $153,775 comes from the city’s Crime Control and Prevention District budget, which the council also approved on June 13. The district’s budget is primarily funded by a quarter-percent sales tax that Coppell voters authorized for 10 more years last November. That sales tax revenue is projected to top $3.5 million in the upcoming fiscal year.
Chronicle Crumbs
• A 65-year-old man from Coppell drowned on June 22 while swimming near northwest Florida’s Blue Mountain Beach, according to a press release issued by the Walton County Sheriff's Office. I contacted that office in an attempt to find out the victim’s name, but they declined to provide it. He was among at least 10 people who drowned in the Gulf of Mexico due to rip currents last month, per data compiled by the National Weather Service. Keep this trend in mind if your summer vacation plans include a visit to a beach.
• On Monday, the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees approved the district’s 2023-2024 compensation plan, which provides teachers with a $2,550 raise representing 4 percent of the market’s median salary ($63,800). Rookie teachers will be paid $61,150. Other employees’ raises will be based on 4 percent of their salary grade’s midpoint.
(If those figures sound familiar, then you must have read “Coppell ISD Salaries Deemed Competitive” in Vol. 3, No. 13.)
“We have few opportunities to put our money where our mouth is, and this is one of them,” Trustee Leigh Walker said Monday. “We love and support our educators and staff, and this is just one expression of that, but it’s a really important one.”
• Although “Approval of Chief Operations Officer” was the final item on the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees’ agenda on Monday, they took no such action.
• At least 60 people have already applied for the 19 openings on Coppell ISD’s Bond Oversight Committee, which means at least 41 people are going to be disappointed. If you want to join that crowd, click here before July 12.
• When Dennis Quinn resigned as Coppell’s Director of Library Services in April, he declined to specify where he was headed. As of June 20, he’s running the Bemis Public Library in Littleton, Colo.
• Jaffa BBQ lasted only four months in the suboptimal space behind the laundromat on MacArthur Boulevard that used to be a Burger King. The landlord posted a lockout notice on June 12.
• Employees of Greater Dallas Press got to preview two of the articles you just read, because they are included in this extra edition that I plan to distribute during the Parade Down Parkway on Tuesday.
Community Calendar
Sensory Sensitive Fourth of July Celebration: The Sound at Cypress Waters will offer an alternative to fireworks on Monday evening. At about 9:45 p.m., families can enjoy a patriotic laser show at the Rogers-O’Brien Amphitheater. The lasers will be preceded by a petting zoo, arts and crafts, and a performance from 1999, a Prince tribute band.
Parade Down Parkway: Coppell’s Independence Day parade will kick off at 9 a.m. on Tuesday. Participants will start in the Saint Ann Parish parking lot, travel north on Samuel Boulevard to Parkway Boulevard, then head west to Town Center Boulevard.
Sparks & Stripes: The City of Irving’s Independence Day parade is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Tuesday in the Heritage District. A fireworks show preceded by live music is scheduled for Tuesday evening at the Levy Event Plaza in Las Colinas.
Electronic Recycling Event: The Coppell Community Chorale will take any unwanted items off your hands between 9 a.m. and noon on Saturday at the Coppell Arts Center.
Teen: Kitchen & Food Safety: Chef Devon Temoney will teach teenagers how to cook safely between 1 and 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Cozby Library and Community Commons. This program is free, but attendance is limited to 35.
Cheese-tastic Afternoon with the Stiltons: The Cozby Library and Community Commons will offer a series of games and activities celebrating Geronimo Stilton and Thea Stilton — a pair of mice who star in a series of children’s books — between 2 and 3 p.m. on July 11.
Four Day Weekend: The improv comedy troupe will return to the Coppell Arts Center for a show at 7:30 p.m. on July 13.
Young Frankenstein: Theatre Coppell will stage nine performances of the musical based on Mel Brooks’ classic comedy. The first one is scheduled for 8 p.m. on July 14 at the Coppell Arts Center.
Silver Line Community Meeting: Representatives from DART and Archer Western Herzog, the contractor building the tracks for the transit agency’s Silver Line trains, will be at Town Hall, an event venue within The Sound in Cypress Waters, at 6:30 p.m. on July 18.
Next to Normal: Theatre Three will stage four performances of the award-winning rock musical about a family’s struggles with bipolar disorder. The first one is scheduled for 8 p.m. on July 21 at the Coppell Arts Center.
I think Coppell did an amazing job informing us. My only (and really only) hope is next time they remind us in the early morning. Completely forget like your wife did.
The 65 yr old Coppell man that died in a rip tide in Florida was John Carter, a long time trident if the city. He is survived by his wife Cathy, 2 grown daughters and their families. He lived in Northlake Woodlands on Candor.