Coppell Chronicle Vol. 1, No. 1

Dan Patrick Won’t Like This • Smooth Sailing So Far for Smoothie King • Snowpocalypse ’21 by the Numbers • Does Anybody Else Want to Help Run Our City? • Superintendent Wants Students Back in School

Welcome to the first edition of the Coppell Chronicle, a weekly newsletter that aims to be a resource for residents of Coppell as well as the neighboring cities within the Coppell Independent School District.

My name is Dan Koller, and I’ve lived in Coppell since December of 2012. I moved here with my wife and two sons after we determined that Coppell ISD was the best school district for our older son, who has special needs. At the time, I was the managing editor of Park Cities People and a few other hyperlocal weekly newspapers in Dallas.

When I had that job, I would tell new reporters that our ideal stories were ones that were really important to residents of the Park Cities but utterly meaningless to people who lived elsewhere. We wanted to provide news that our readers wouldn’t find anywhere else. One week, our lead story was about a temporary closure of the Highland Park Middle School cafeteria’s kitchen, which meant Park Cities moms would have to pack lunches for their tweens every day for at least the first two months of the school year. That one was a real barn burner.

I was reminded of that news-gathering philosophy recently when I read a Bloomberg profile of Judd Legum, who makes a living writing a Substack newsletter about national politics called Popular Information. Legum told Bloomberg he looks for angles that other media outlets are unlikely to pursue. “My guiding principle is to find something that’s so monotonous and boring that it’s unlikely to be duplicated,” he said, which made me laugh out loud.

And that’s how we ended up here, in the first issue of my Substack newsletter about Coppell. I intend to bring you information that you are unlikely to find in other media outlets.

The first few editions will be free for anyone to read. After that, I’ll be asking you to pay a modest fee: $24 for a year’s subscription. For only $2 per month, or less than 50 cents per newsletter, I think you’ll be getting your money’s worth.

OK. Let’s get to it.

---

Dan Patrick Won’t Like This

By “this,” I don’t mean the Coppell Chronicle. (Although Texas’ Lieutenant Governor may very well not like my newsletter either. Time will tell.) No, I’m referring to a resolution unanimously approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

Two years ago, the Texas Senate passed a bill that would have prevented cities, school districts, and other local governments from hiring lobbyists to represent their interests in Austin. That bill died in the House, but similar bills – SB 234 and HB 749 – have been filed in both chambers this year.

In fact, a ban on “taxpayer funded lobbying” has been branded one of Patrick’s top legislative priorities for 2021.

“Given everything that’s going on in the state, I find it interesting that this is a priority,” City Manager Mike Land told the council on Tuesday, before asking them to approve the aforementioned resolution, which “opposes any legislative attempt to limit or prohibit the authority of Coppell to use public funds to communicate with legislators and state agencies, including any restrictions that would prohibit the use of public funds to pay membership dues to organizations that hire lobbyists.”

“This idea that we would not have a voice, while everyone else would have a voice, is troubling,” Land said during a discussion that was largely devoid of the word “lobbyists.” Land called them “advocates.” Mayor Karen Hunt called them “individuals we call on as experts.”

In response to a question from council member Biju Mathew about how much Coppell spends on such advocates or experts, Land said the city’s budget includes $150,000 for “legislative services.”

Council member Gary Roden argued that was money well-spent.

“There are six or seven thousand bills filed every Legislature,” Roden said. “Somebody’s gotta go through each of those bills – determine their effect on cities, determine how they change previous legislation – and that can’t be done by volunteer council people in their spare time.”

Although the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees has not passed a resolution on this topic, a similar sentiment is expressed in the school district’s 2021 Legislative Agenda, which calls upon the Legislature to “preserve the right of public school boards to associate and collaborate with each other and to communicate the needs of their students and schools, both directly and through representation organizations, and with lawmakers.”

---

Smooth Sailing So Far for Smoothie King

The 200 block of North Denton Tap Road may soon be the smoothest block in town. We already have a Smoothie Factory on the east side of the road, and there’s a plan in the works to put a Smoothie King with a drive-thru window directly across the street.

The Smoothie King would go in the spot formerly occupied by Mulberry’s Garment Care, in the building due north of Sonic that also houses Donut City. Assuming everything goes as planned, it will soon look like this:

That rendering was attached to the agenda for Thursday’s meeting of the Coppell Planning and Zoning Commission. The commission had to conduct a hearing on the matter for two reasons:

1. At some point in the future, the owner may install two parking spaces that would encroach on the property’s perimeter landscaping.

2. City approval is always required before a drive-thru restaurant can open on a property next to people’s homes.

Regarding Reason 1: Those two parking spaces would bring the property’s total to 27, which is what city code requires for a building of that size with the proposed uses. But the city staff recommended allowing the owner to get by with 25 spaces for now, because A) Smoothie King said 80 percent of its business would be via the drive-thru and B) Donut City is never open past noon.

Regarding Reason 2: The city sent notices of the proposed zoning change to 18 properties within 200 feet. They received only one response in opposition.

As you might expect, the opposed homeowner lives directly west of the property and has a not-so-great view of it from her bedroom windows. During Thursday’s hearing, she highlighted three issues: noise, lighting, and trash. The homeowner said she already has a problem with mice at her house, which she attributed to Sonic’s dumpster.

The trash and lighting were deemed moot points, because the application for a zoning change does not include any changes to the dumpster on the Mulberry’s/Donut City property or any additional lights – even though Greg Frnka, the architect and former planning commissioner who was representing the property owner, said he thinks the north and west sides of the building are too dark.

As for the noise, Planning and Zoning Commission Chair Eddie Haas asked whether decibel-level restrictions could be a condition of approval. City planner Matt Steer said no decibel restrictions were placed on the most recent similar case, 151 Coffee, and that restaurant wants to play music via its speakers. (He said Smoothie King has no such musical plans.) Steer said the only restrictions placed on 151 Coffee were positioning its speakers away from nearby homes.

Steer said the speaker on Smoothie King’s menu board would be aimed to the south, and Frnka said a shield could be placed on the west side of the speaker to further divert the noise. That seemed to satisfy the commission, who unanimously approved the zoning change with certain conditions, including the planting of a tree on the west side of the property. However, the whole matter is still subject to a City Council hearing scheduled for March 9.

One more thing: When Haas and the homeowner asked what recourse she would have if noise is a problem, despite the direction of the speaker and the promised shield, Steer’s answer was that she could call the police. If you’re planning to patronize the Smoothie King drive-thru, keep that in mind and try to keep your voice down as you order your [checks notes] High Intensity Workout Veggie Mango.

---

Snowpocalypse 2021 – By the Numbers

610 calls for service answered by the Coppell Fire Department between Feb. 14 and Feb. 19, which Fire Chief Kevin Richardson said was the most he’s seen for a six-day period in his nearly 30 years with the city. About 420 of those calls were water-related.

539 calls for service answered by the Coppell Police Department during that period. That included 15 car accidents, which Police Chief Danny Barton called “a really low number, but that’s probably because everybody stayed home.”

335 people used The CORE as a warming center, as did several animals. (Director of Parks and Recreation Jessica Carpenter said The CORE was one of the few warming centers in Dallas County to allow animals.) About 125 of those people made reservations to shower at The CORE.

800-plus wellness calls to elderly residents conducted by the staff of the Coppell Senior and Community Center at Grapevine Springs.

1 Coppell ISD school that remains closed due to storm damage. The district hopes to reopen Richard J. Lee Elementary after spring break. Until then, Lee’s staff and in-person students are guests of Valley Ranch Elementary. That’s possible because only 18 percent of Lee’s students and only 16 percent of Valley Ranch’s students are learning in person during this grading period.

18 severe weather updates emailed to about 8,500 Coppell E-News subscribers between Feb. 15 and Feb. 21. Chief Communications Strategist Hannah Cook said the average open rate for those emails was 40 percent. To put that in perspective, she said the typical open rate for the Coppell E-News is 25 percent, “which is pretty good for an online newsletter.” [Note to self: Let’s see if we can meet that standard.]

---

Does Anybody Else Want to Help Run Our City?

This is an unusual Coppell City Council election because all the seats are contested. Every other council election in this century has featured at least two unopposed candidates. (See the history here.) In fact, the 2015 election was canceled because only one candidate filed for each of the four seats that would have been on the ballot.

If you’d like to run for a seat on the City Council this year, you still have time to throw your hat in the ring. But you have to act fast, and your options are limited to one seat.

Council member Wes Mays, who was just re-elected to his Place 3 seat via November’s COVID-delayed municipal election, has decided to run for mayor, because Karen Hunt opted not to seek a fourth term. The filing deadline for the special election to fulfill Mays’ unexpired term is 5 p.m. tomorrow, March 1. If you decide to give it a whirl, this will be your competition:

Place 3

• Davin Bernstein

• Don Carroll

• Meghan Shoemaker

The filing deadline for the other four places that will be on the May 1 ballot was a couple of weeks ago. Each of those races has two candidates:

Mayor

• Rob Anderson

• Wes Mays

Place 2

• Brianna Hinojosa-Smith

• Raghib Majed

Place 4

• Amit Dharia

• Kevin Nevels

Place 6

• Biju Mathew

• Mark Smits

---

Superintendent Wants Kids Back in School

One more deadline to mention before I sign off: If you want your Coppell ISD student to switch from distance learning to in-person attendance (or vice versa) for the fourth and final grading period of the school year, you have to tell the district by Wednesday. Every Coppell ISD family should have been emailed a commitment form for each of their students last week.

Superintendent Brad Hunt said this in a message to parents last week: “I want to take this opportunity to encourage our families to send their children back to school for the final nine weeks. Though we are committed to offering a choice for the remainder of the school year, I truly believe that our schools are safe.”

For the current grading period, only about 36 percent of the district’s students are going to school in person. The campus with the highest percentage of in-person attendance is Wilson Elementary, at 71 percent. At the other end of the spectrum is Valley Ranch Elementary: 16 percent.

Full disclosure: My older son has been attending in-person classes since August, and my younger son switched from distance learning to in-person after the first nine weeks.

---

Dan Koller was an editor at The Dallas Morning News from 2000 to 2008, and he led the newsroom at Park Cities People and its affiliated newspapers from 2008 to 2014. During that time, he and the staff of People Newspapers were honored multiple times by the Texas Press Association and the Local Media Association.

Dan, his wife, and their sons moved to Coppell in December of 2012. Since then, he has been a Coppell Baseball Association coach, a Cub Scouts Pack 857 Den Leader and Cubmaster, a member of two Coppell ISD facilities planning committees, and a candidate for the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees.