Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 4
Sales Tax Lawsuit Delayed Yet Again • Library Will Offer Menstrual Products • City's Dirtiest Workers to Get New Digs • Firefighters Specialize in Technical Rescues
My Facebook memories recently reminded me of a conversation my wife and I had with our then-6-year-old son in 2015:
Him: “What is St. Patrick’s Day?”
Me: “It’s a holiday.”
Him: “What’s it for?”
Me: “Getting drunk.”
My wife: “It’s also a celebration of Irish heritage.”
Me: “But millions of people with no Irish heritage celebrate by getting drunk.”
Happy St. Patrick’s Day, everybody!
Sales Tax Lawsuit Delayed Yet Again
In July of 2021, Coppell and a few other warehouse-heavy cities sued Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar over his proposed changes to the distribution of sales tax revenues for online transactions. The trial has been delayed many times; last November, it was pushed back to May 6.
I had a good feeling about the proceedings starting on that date. The docket for Travis County’s 250th Civil District Court says the trial is expected to last four days, so I turned in a vacation request at my day job for the first full week of May. I reserved the guest room at my brother’s house in suburban Austin. I had all my ducks in a row so I could be there from the opening gavel, taking notes on your behalf.
Then, as has become my habit, I checked the docket again on Thursday morning. That’s when I discovered my ducks had been blown out of the water. The trial that was originally scheduled to begin in May of 2022 has been postponed until October of 2024.
After learning of this latest delay, I requested copies of some of the case’s most recent filings. On March 1, the attorneys for Coppell and its fellow plaintiffs — Carrollton, DeSoto, Farmers Branch, and Humble — turned in a fourth version of the suit. I won’t try to discern everything that has changed since the original suit was filed, but one difference jumped out at me.
The original suit said Coppell made $26.7 million annually from sales taxes on items associated with distribution centers and warehouses, which accounted for 18.6 percent of the city’s total revenue. This month’s version says Coppell now makes $19.1 million annually from sales taxes on such items, representing about 16 percent of the city’s total revenue.
Regardless of the exact amount, Coppell will lose tens of millions of dollars if Hegar’s proposed changes are allowed to take effect. The Comptroller wants the sales taxes for online transactions to shift from the sellers’ cities to the buyers’ cities. The suit says such a shift would harm Coppell and its fellow plaintiffs because “distribution centers, warehouses, and fulfillment centers all require city-supplied infrastructure and services that are more expensive than the cost of infrastructure and services provided for residential and retail development.”
The lawsuit says Hegar’s proposals “represent an inadequately explained deviation from the Comptroller’s own past guidance that is traced to the Comptroller’s incorrect understanding of e-commerce.” (My incorrect understanding of e-commerce leads me to repeatedly interrogate my wife about items on our bank statement.) The suit goes on to list 16 “incorrect factual presumptions” on Hegar’s part. Here are a few examples:
“The Comptroller presumed that website orders are ‘forwarded.’ They are not.”
“The Comptroller presumed that fulfillment centers do not ‘receive’ ‘orders.’ They do receive orders.”
“The Comptroller presumed that every computer connected to a seller’s e-commerce program receives an order for an item. They do not.”
The good news for Coppell and its allies is that Judge Karin Crump has ordered Hegar to put his proposed changes on hold “until a final hearing on the merits” of the lawsuit. The earliest that hearing might happen is mid-October, assuming there are no more delays. At this point, that’s not a safe assumption.
Library Will Offer Menstrual Products
Everyone knows you can borrow books and DVDs from the Cozby Library. And some people might be aware that its collection includes a Library of Things, ranging from a pair of binoculars and a bocce ball set to a metal detector and a microscope. Soon, the library will also offer menstrual products.
This effort was initiated by Carla Madrigal, a member of the Library Advisory Board. During the board’s December meeting, she mentioned that she had read an article about Dallas libraries and recreation centers offering free tampons and pads. Library Manager Alexis Wellborn encouraged her to get more details.
Madrigal discovered that the Dallas City Council opted to spend about $200,000 worth of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds on menstrual products. Meanwhile, Coppell High School’s student newspaper, The Sidekick, published an editorial about “period poverty,” which the National Library of Medicine defines as the “insufficient access to menstrual products, education, and sanitation facilities.”
The connections between the library and the high school on this topic didn’t end there. The school has a club called The EmpowerHER Project. Last October, the club solicited pads that could be donated to women in El Paso who lack access to menstrual products.
Apparently, the drive was so successful that the club ended up with a surplus of pads. Wellborn got a call from Wendy Le, one of the club’s student leaders, asking if the library had any use for the extras. Wellborn and Madrigal met with Le on Thursday to discuss placing the pads in the library’s restrooms for a one-month trial.
“She mentioned that she reached out to a lot of different organizations, and no one got back to her,” Madrigal said during Thursday’s meeting of the Library Advisory Board. “We were the only folks who got back to her.”
Board member Frank Gasparro asked whether library patrons ever inquire about the availability of menstrual products. He was assured that they do.
Madrigal hopes to gather data from the one-month trial to demonstrate a need for free menstrual products. She envisions soliciting funds from the City Council so the program could be expanded to other facilities under the Community Experiences umbrella such as The CORE and the Biodiversity Education Center. And if there’s no room in the city’s budget for such purchases, Madrigal suggested placing a donations box at the library so patrons could contribute.
“This is so cool,” Board Chair Martha Garber said.
City's Dirtiest Workers to Get New Digs
Last year, the Coppell City Council approved spending $12 million on a renovation and expansion of the Service Center on South Coppell Road. This facility is the home base for fleet, parks, public works, streets, and water utilities workers.
The plans call for a new 8,700-square-foot building that will house office space, collaboration spaces, a meeting room, restrooms, and a breakroom. Moving these functions from the current Service Center will allow it to be remodeled to accommodate locker rooms, crew facilities, traffic management facilities, and storage areas. The renovations will also create flexible staging/sleeping quarters for staff during emergencies such as Snowmageddon.
“I think about how hard our team worked in February of 2021,” Council Member Kevin Nevels said last October. “They’re out there taking care of citizens, taking care of their water, you know, out there in the cold, and I want to make sure they’ve got a good place to come back to, where they have proper facilities, and make sure that they feel like they’re treated with dignity and respect, and they have a good place to work out of.”
Even though this is a municipal facility, the plans were still subject to a public hearing before the Planning and Zoning Commission last month. The most interesting part of that meeting — from this reporter’s perspective — happened during the work session, when Senior Planner Mary Paron-Boswell mentioned the need for more lockers. That prompted Commissioner Sue Blankenship to ask, “What do they need lockers for?”
Paron-Boswell said the employees who work out of the Service Center already have a locker room. Vice Chair Glenn Portman tried to help by saying, “Clothes. Plain clothes.” Blankenship turned to Portman and said, “Do you have lockers at your office? I don’t have lockers at my office.”
Director of Public Works Mike Garza chimed in to say many of the employees in his department take showers and change clothes at the end of their shifts. This was Blankenship’s response: “I usually just wear the clothes I go to work in and come home in the same clothes.”
Blankenship’s lightbulb moment happened when Garza offered this clarification: “They work in wastewater.” In other words, sewage.
“Fair enough,” Blankenship said. “I’m clear now.”
The Planning and Zoning Commission will meet again this Thursday, when they’ll consider the plans for another municipal facility: Fire Station 5 on Moore Road. I’m sure everyone will understand why those plans call for a kitchen, a dining room, a laundry room, sleeping quarters, and lockers.
Firefighters Specialize in Technical Rescues
Nearly a year ago, during a town hall meeting regarding the city’s budget, Coppell Fire Chief Kevin Richardson discussed the need for a fifth fire station. Richardson’s comments that night also included this:
“We are the region’s technical rescue team,” he said. “What that means is we share resources with our neighbors.”
Those statements made me curious, so I put “technical rescue team” on my list of long-term projects. It wasn’t until December that I finally contacted Richardson for more information. I was prompted to call him by this dramatic photo that appeared on the Fire Department’s Facebook page.
The Facebook caption said Coppell’s bravest helped rescue three people whose vehicle had flipped on Interstate 35 in Carrollton. As we discussed that photo, Richardson talked about the challenging aspects of technical rescues.
“It’s usually under adverse conditions,” he said. “It’s dark. It’s wet. It’s cold. It’s rainy. There’s gas leaking, you know, or you’re on a construction site. You’re not on level footing. You’re above ground. So, I mean, there’s all these factors that make it even more hazardous.”
In case you’re not aware (I certainly wasn’t), technical rescues can include high angles, low angles, trenches, confined spaces, industrial accidents, and structural collapses. This month, Coppell firefighters were deployed to Lewisville after a 12-foot-deep trench collapsed at a residential construction site. Unfortunately, a man died in that accident.
Because Coppell’s firefighters specialize in technical rescues, they help their regional partners in such situations. In return, Richardson explained, Coppell can call on neighboring fire departments for assistance in their areas of expertise. He said the Irving and DFW Airport departments specialize in hazardous materials, Lewisville offers a dive team, and Carrollton boasts experts in swift-water rescues.
Richardson said Coppell’s technical rescue team is available around the clock: “Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year, if we get a technical rescue incident call, we can fulfill the role.”
Larger cities have their own technical rescue teams, but Richardson said his department provides them with backup and vice versa.
“If you’ve got guys who are functioning in a trench or below grade or in a confined space, you actually want a backup team, which is called a rapid intervention crew,” he said, “because who’s going to rescue them if they have a problem? There’s always redundancies.”
Fire Station 2 houses Coppell’s rescue truck, which Richardson said looks like a firetruck but features a set of specialized tools and equipment.
“There’s just a whole slew of things that these guys are equipped to take care of,” he said. “You know, when somebody calls 911, they’re expecting somebody to come take care of business. We can’t pick and choose what we’re going to be ready for. So we say ‘yes’ and then we make adjustments, and we have all these things in place so that we can provide that level of service to take care of that problem, whatever it is.”
Chronicle Crumbs
• The Cozby Library and Community Commons solicited designs for new library cards to marks its 50th anniversary, and the winners were announced last week. You can request a new card with one of the limited-edition designs while supplies last.
• A pair of Dallas County volunteer deputy registrars will be at Coppell High School on Monday to register new voters during the lunch periods. The same thing will happen at New Tech High on March 26. The voter registration deadline for the May 4 municipal elections is April 4.
• Texas Republican Party Chair Matt Rinaldi announced on Friday that he will not seek reelection because he needs to spend more time with his family. The Rinaldis reside in the Irving portion of Coppell ISD. He represented District 115 in the Texas House for two terms, winning elections in 2014 and 2016.
• 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 mentioned this in last week’s edition, and at least one subscriber ran into an odd error message. I’m told the solution is to scroll down to “United States” in the dropdown menu associated with the “Country” field. Using the default “US” won’t cut it.)
• The City of Coppell’s third annual Neighbors Helping Neighbors event is coming up on April 13. If you could use some assistance with a project on your property, click here.
• Somebody’s getting ready to open a bar on Denton Tap Road, just north of the Coppell-Lewisville border. The 1738 Lounge’s juxtaposition with its next-door neighbor made me chuckle. I wonder if the two businesses might align their hours so patrons can easily flow from one to the other.
Community Calendar
Assistance League of Coppell: Tanesha Riggins from Coppell Animal Services will speak at the monthly meeting scheduled for 11 a.m. on Thursday at Valley Ranch Baptist Church. Donations are requested of cat litter, Purina Pro Plan dry dog and cat food, laundry detergent, Dawn soap, and rabbit litter and food. After the meeting, members will scoot over to JC’s Burger Bar for lunch.
Family Reading Night: The Assistance League of Coppell presents this weekly series between 6 and 7 p.m. on Thursdays at the Coppell YMCA. Each Thursday through April 18, a local author will read from their books that are appropriate for young children. Rosie Pova will kick things off on March 21 by presenting two books, Sunday Rain and The School of Failure. The program is free, but books are available for purchase and autographing if families choose.
Sunset Socials — Movie in the Park: The Coppell Community Experiences Department will host an outdoor screening of Moana at 6:30 p.m. on Friday 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 Friday and Saturday 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 this Friday, and a mandatory parent meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening.
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.
Silver Line Breakfast & Coffee Community Update: Representatives from DART and Silver Line contractor Archer Western Herzog will be at George Coffee + Provisions between 9 and 11 a.m. on April 2.
Bohemian Queen: A friend of mine who is really into tribute bands tells me that $46 is too steep a price for such acts. If you disagree, you can catch these Queen cosplayers at 2 or 6 p.m. on April 6 at the Coppell Arts Center.
Loved the insight on the region's shared emergency response specializations.
Thanks for educating us about technical rescues and the great exchange agreements we have with the surrounding fire departments