Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 3
Let’s Look Inside an Amazon Facility • Coppell Has a Second, Ill-Defined ZIP Code • Trustees Discuss Tax-Ratification Election • How Did Coppell Vote in Primaries?
Let’s Look Inside an Amazon Facility
Did you know Amazon offers tours of its facilities to the general public? The corporate behemoth has four buildings in Coppell, and your correspondent recently toured the one known as FTW6.
Amazon’s facilities are named after airport codes. Our tour guide said the company avoids double digits in its designations, so even though FTW6 is within the DFW International Airport flight path, its name alludes to Fort Worth’s Meacham International Airport because there were already nine Amazon buildings named after DFW.
FTW6 boasts 1 million square feet of space and was the largest Amazon facility in the world when it opened six years ago, our guide said. It has 2,500 employees at the moment who can sort 1 million boxes during a 10-hour shift. She said their shifts are actually 10 and a half hours; they get two 30-minute breaks, but only one of them is paid.
The facility is open around the clock on every day of the year except Christmas and New Year’s Day. However, it was closed on Saturday for maintenance. Anybody who was scheduled to work yesterday — including our tour guide — got a paid day off. According to Indeed, most Amazon employees in Coppell make between $15 and $17 per hour.
Although Amazon has battled organized labor, the company promotes clubs for its employees who are Black, Latino, Asian, LGBTQ, military veterans, hard of hearing, or physically disabled. We were taken through a hallway highlighting entry-level employees who have been promoted to management positions. As we walked along the mile-long tour route, I noticed a series of Mamava lactation pods for nursing mothers. Nearby, there were several prayer mats hidden behind wicker screens, affording a lesser degree of privacy to Muslim employees.
There’s a designated drop-off area near the front door for visually impaired employees. In the middle of the parking lot, there’s a covered shelter where people without vehicles can wait for rideshare services.
(See “Coppell to Keep Helping Commuters via Lyft” in Vol. 3, No. 29)
I spied a few vending machines along the tour where employees could buy drinks or snacks, but they were outnumbered by the vending machines offering supplies such as safety vests, safety goggles, earplugs, and box cutters. The fulfillment center is filled with high-speed conveyor belts and slides, and our guide said it’s tempting to take a ride on them. However, she said doing so would be the quickest way to transition from an Amazon employee to an Amazon customer.
The center of FTW6 is split into four levels. Our guide took us to one of the open-air areas on the facility’s edges, and that was the only place where photos were permitted. Another person on the tour tried to snap a picture of what I’m going to describe next, and our guide kindly reminded her that photography was not allowed.
The bulk of those four levels are off-limits to humans. Behind a chain-link fence, a small army of robots that resemble Roomba vacuum cleaners zip around the floor while carrying soft-sided shelving units. Each set of shelves appeared to be four columns wide by 11 rows high, and they were filled with small items that Amazon customers had ordered.
(Our guide said FTW6 doesn’t handle anything larger than a microwave oven. FTW2, which is one block to the east on Bethel Road, is devoted to bigger items.)
The robots would zoom up to an opening in the chain-link fence, where an employee stood on a raised platform. A computer told him where to find a particular item on the soft-sided shelf, and then it told him which of five bins to place it in. He punched a button after completing each task, and the computer told him what to do next; it sometimes told him to take a break. A separate screen turned his work into a video game, allowing him to compete with his peers if he chose to. Although the employee we observed was working quickly, he did not seem interested in the competition.
The operation temporarily ground to a halt as soon as we approached his station. A technician stepped behind the fence to repair something, after suspending the robots’ activities for safety’s sake. They would not have been able to avoid him because they navigate by scanning QR codes on the floor.
I was one of a dozen people on my tour, and that group included four children. Click here if you’d like to take your own tour, but please note that Amazon believes FTW6 is located in Grapevine. That discrepancy provides a good segue to the topic of my next article.
Coppell Has a Second, Ill-Defined ZIP Code
I recently received a package with a return address that included an odd ZIP code: 75099. I initially assumed this was a typo and that the address should have been Coppell’s 75019, but it turns out our city has a second ZIP code. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you exactly where it is.
According to Google Maps, 75099 encompasses the southwest corner of town, west of Royal Lane. However, Google Maps also says that Amazon’s FTW6 is entirely located within Coppell. In fact, the building straddles the boundary between Coppell and Grapevine. It’s listed on the tax rolls in both Dallas County and Tarrant County.
That Google Maps diagram says the United States Postal Service’s North Texas Processing & Distribution Center is not within 75099. But this massive sign posted outside the center at 951 W. Bethel Road clearly disagrees:
I have a friend whose mother has worked at that processing center for years. When I asked her if she knew where I could find an official USPS map of 75099, she told me I should ask Carol Hunt, the Postal Service’s regional media contact. I followed my buddy’s mom’s advice, and Hunt pointed me to a website that answers several frequently asked questions about ZIP codes.
However, if that website includes a map of 75099 — or any ZIP code, for that matter — I’m missing it. I’ve sent Hunt two more emails, asking her to help me locate a map of 75099’s boundaries. She hasn’t replied to either of them.
Trustees Discuss Tax-Ratification Election
Before we dive into this next topic, here’s a brief lesson from School Finances 101: Each school district has two tax rates — an interest & sinking rate and a maintenance & operations rate. This slide that Coppell ISD created in advance of last year’s bond election did a good job of explaining the difference, in my opinion.
Because a majority of voters approved all four bond propositions on the ballot last May, Coppell ISD was able to increase its interest & sinking rate. Now the Board of Trustees is discussing the prospect of increasing the district’s maintenance & operations rate. That can only be done by a voter-approved tax-ratification election, which is abbreviated as VATRE and pronounced like this guy’s name.
During Monday’s budget workshop, Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar briefed the trustees on the timeline for calling a VATRE. They can happen only in November, which means the trustees would have to call the election by August. Before they could do so, the district would have to hire an outside firm to perform an efficiency audit.
“The intention of the efficiency audit is to make sure the board is comfortable that the district has done everything it can, prior to asking taxpayers to increase the tax rate,” Sircar said.
Sircar said a successful VATRE could provide the district with an additional $2.3 million after the state takes away its portion via recapture, aka Robin Hood. Trustees Nichole Bentley and Manish Sethi wanted to know what the impact would be to the average taxpayer’s bill. A few minutes later, Sircar said the worst-case scenario for the owner of a $500,000 property with a homestead exemption would be a hike of about $126 per year.
Coppell ISD’s most recent VATRE was in 2010, when 58.5 percent of voters approved a higher tax rate.
The school board’s next budget workshop is scheduled for April 8. In advance of that date, the district plans to conduct a community-wide budget survey to gather your feedback.
How Did Coppell Vote in Primaries?
In case you missed it, I published a bonus edition on Wednesday morning that reported primary results in the Congressional and Legislative districts that include Coppell and Coppell ISD.
Coppell Chronicle Bonus Edition: Super Tuesday
Good morning! I hope your Super Tuesday was … well, super. I didn’t want to wait until Sunday to report on the primary elections’ results, so I put together this bonus edition of the Coppell Chronicle. Vol. 4, No. 3 of the Chronicle — which will be sent to only paid subscribers on Sunday — will include a look inside one of the Amazon fulfillment centers …
I have since pored over the election results from Coppell’s 13 precincts — 11 in Dallas County plus two in Denton County — to take the temperature of the city’s primary voters.
PRESIDENT
Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House was supported by 59 percent of Republican primary voters in Coppell; statewide, he got nearly 78 percent. Nikki Haley was the second-most popular choice in town with 35 percent. Each of the eight Republican candidates for president got at least five votes in Coppell, but “Uncommitted” received 63 votes, which amounted to 2 percent of the city’s total.
President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign was backed by 87 percent of Democratic primary voters in Coppell. That was better than his statewide result of 84.6 percent. Cenk Uygur was a distant second locally with 4 percent. Each of the eight Democratic candidates for president received at least six votes in Coppell.
CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT 24
Sam Eppler advanced to a November matchup with incumbent Rep. Beth Van Duyne by capturing nearly 59 percent of Democrats’ votes across this district, which stretches from the Mid-Cities to the Park Cities. But his margin of victory over Francine Ly was narrower in Coppell. He was the choice of 50.6 percent of the city’s Democrats.
HOUSE DISTRICT 115
Cassandra Hernandez’s victory in the Democratic primary sets up a November showdown with Coppell Mayor Pro Tem John Jun. Although Hernandez avoided a runoff by earning more than 58 percent of the votes, she was the choice of only 49.9 percent of Democrats in Coppell. Runner-up Kate Rumsey of Coppell did better in her hometown (39.7 percent) than she did districtwide (30.5 percent).
GOP PROPOSITIONS
Republican ballots in Texas included 13 propositions. All 13 were supported by a majority of GOP voters statewide and in Coppell as well. These were the three most popular propositions among Coppell voters:
92.8 percent said the Texas Constitution should be amended to require proof of citizenship before any individual can be registered to vote.
91.3 percent said Texas should ban the sale of Texas land to citizens, governments, and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.
84.7 percent said the State of Texas should ensure that Texans are free to give or to withhold consent for any vaccine without coercion.
These were the three least popular propositions among Coppell voters:
63.1 percent said the Republican Party of Texas should restrict voting in the Republican Primary to only registered Republicans.
63.8 percent said Texas should eliminate all property taxes without increasing Texans’ overall tax burden.
65.3 percent said the Texas Legislature should establish authority within the Texas State Comptroller’s office to administer access to gold and silver through the Texas Bullion Depository for use as legal tender.
One more note from Tuesday’s primaries: Judge Karin Crump is the presiding judge of the 250th District Court in Travis County. That court is the venue for the lawsuit that Coppell and other cities filed against Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar in 2021 over his proposed changes to the distribution of sales taxes generated by online transactions. Crump challenged incumbent Justice Thomas Baker for his seat on the Austin-based 3rd Court of Appeals, and she won Tuesday’s primary with 56 percent of the votes. Because there were no Republican candidates, the seat will soon be hers. Perhaps Crump will still be basking in the glow of her victory when the Hegar suit goes to trial in May.
Chronicle Crumbs
• Project Graduation is a safe party — free of drugs, alcohol, and tobacco — for Coppell High School graduates immediately after their commencement ceremony. It costs a bit of money to rent out Main Event overnight, so the organizers are raising funds via curb painting. Click here to place an order.
• I have previously reported that Irving City Council Member Dennis Webb was unchallenged in the May 4 election, but I learned last week that he has an opponent named Khaleel Ahmed. City Secretary Shanae Jennings told me Ahmed turned in his paperwork seven minutes before the filing period ended on Feb. 16, so it wasn’t approved and posted until the following Tuesday.
• If you reside in Denton County Levee Improvement District No. 1, you may want to attend the next meeting of that taxing entity’s board of directors. They’re scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. on Friday at 2951 Lake Vista Drive in Lewisville. Here’s a map of the district’s boundaries:
• If you reside in the Northwest Dallas County Flood Control District, you may want to attend the next meeting of that taxing entity’s board of directors. They’re scheduled to meet at 11 a.m. on March 26 in the clubhouse of the Oaks Riverchase apartment complex, which is at 777 Fairway Drive. Here’s a map of the district’s boundaries:
• The former home of Mattito’s on the eastbound Interstate 635 service road, due west of MacArthur Boulevard, has a new tenant. Simply South is a restaurant specializing in vegetarian Indian fare.
• Point West is the shopping center on the northwest corner of 635 and Belt Line Road. Its leasing flyer was recently updated, with the words “MEXICAN CANTINA” stamped on the north end of the building that includes Dunkin’ Donuts. I can’t tell whether that’s the name of a restaurant or just a description of it.
• By following Coppell-centric hashtags on Instagram, I recently became aware of Set Apart Grooming, Dontà Allen’s one-man barbershop within the Mattison Avenue suites on Sandy Lake Road. After getting my facial hair under control last week, he offered a $5 discount to Chronicle subscribers:
Community Calendar
Harry Potter Party: Wizards and muggles are invited to celebrate the Harry Potter series of books and movies between 3 and 4 p.m. on Monday at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
Perot TECH Truck: The Perot TECH Truck will be at the Cozby Library and Community Commons between 3 and 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday to inspire young scientists with hands-on activities.
Sunset Socials — Movie in the Park: The Coppell Community Experiences Department will host an outdoor screening of Moana at 6:30 p.m. on March 22 at Andrew Brown Park East.
Tipping the Hat: The Coppell Community Chorale will celebrate the music of Stephen Sondheim during shows scheduled for 7 p.m. on March 22 and 23 at the Coppell Arts Center.
Lariettes Tryouts: Coppell ISD students can audition for the Lariettes and Silver Stars drill teams on March 28. Applications are due by March 22, and a mandatory parent meeting is scheduled for March 19.
Still Life With Iris: Students at the Coppell High School Ninth Grade Campus will stage three performances of Steven Dietz’s family-friendly adventure that chronicles a girl’s quest to regain her memory and her home. You can see it at 7 p.m. on March 28, 29, or 30.
Alice in Wonderland: Ballet Ensemble of Texas will take you through the looking glass at 3 p.m. on March 30 at the Coppell Arts Center.
Four Way Test Speech Contest: The Rotary Club of Coppell is offering cash prizes to high school students. The contest is scheduled for April 4 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons, and the registration deadline is March 31. The field will be limited to 20 contestants.
Rumor this concept is coming to the NW corner of 635 & Beltline (Point West)
https://grainandberry.com/story/press/
Good stuff! 🙌