Coppell Chronicle Vol. 2, No. 27
Coppell ISD Assembles Bond Committee • Districts Approve Tax Rates and Budgets • Grapevine Welcomes Our Prisoners • City Selling Some Surplus Stuff
There’s so much information in this week’s edition, I had to go take a walk on a nature trail after sending it just to let my mind decompress. I hope you don’t feel the same after reading it.
Coppell ISD Assembles Bond Committee
For the past several months, the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees has been briefed on how a multi-million-dollar bond package could benefit areas such as fine arts and athletics. Last week, the board named the committee that will shape that bond package.
The 60-member Bond Steering Committee includes many district parents, some of whom also fall under these labels:
Elected officials: Coppell City Council Member Don Carroll, Coppell Mayor Wes Mays, and Irving City Council Member Al Zapanta
Would-be elected officials: Carrie Clark (a candidate for the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees in 2012), Carol Lacey McGuire (a candidate for the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees this year), and Jim Walker (a candidate for the Coppell City Council in 2020)
District administrators: Director of Facilities and Maintenance Genaro Lopez, Coordinator of Fine Arts Gerry Miller, and Director of Science Evan Whitfield
Principals: Cynthia Arterbery of Valley Ranch Elementary, Greg Axelson of Coppell Middle School North, and Cindi Osborne of Victory Place
Teachers: Alejandra Camarillo of Denton Creek Elementary, Natalie Cuccia of Pinkerton Elementary, and John Kelder of Coppell Middle School West
The committee also includes five students, plus a few district critics. Monday’s meeting was the second this summer featuring “Open Forum” commentary from Kellie Fishpaw and Urmi Subramanian, both of whom were named to the committee.
Subramanian was a member of the committee that shaped the $249 million bond package approved by voters in 2016. (The only other returning committee members, as far as I can tell, are Clark and Vandana Nayak.) That package barely passed, with 50.2 percent of voters supporting it and 49.8 percent opposing it.
Due to cost savings and projects that were put on hold, the Board of Trustees has been able to reallocate some of that $249 million to other projects, such as new turf and locker rooms at the Baseball and Softball Complex. On Monday, Chief Operating Officer Dennis Womack updated the trustees on the leftover funds.
(That $6.13 million came from selling land on Sanders Loop to DART and on Olympus Boulevard to Billingsley Company.)
“The big story here is, you know, the big picture item, is that this money was supposed to have been spent and used a year ago based on that 2016 fund,” Board President David Caviness said. “So the fact that we’re six years into this and still have some funds is a great thing.”
Caviness thanked Womack and his predecessors, Axelson and Sid Grant. Trustee Tracy Fisher added that the Bond Oversight Committee deserves credit as well.
Later in the meeting, the board approved spending $4.2 million of that $21.8 million in the following areas:
Technology: $3,000,000
General maintenance/safety and security: $400,000
Furniture and equipment: $300,000
Musical instruments: $300,000
Library books: $175,000
Districts Approve Tax Rates and Budgets
Coppell ISD trustees on Monday approved a new tax rate of $1.2173 per $100 of valuation. That’s 6 percent lower than the current rate of $1.292 and 18 percent lower than the tax rate for 2017.
Of course, with rising property values, many homeowners will pay higher tax bills. Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar said the average value of a home in Coppell ISD is up to $463,756 this year from $426,542 last year. Consequently, the tax bill on that average home will go from $5,511 to $5,645.
The trustees also approved a budget that includes a $9.7 million deficit. Later in Monday’s meeting, the trustees voted to cover that deficit with money from the district’s fund balance, which would hold $63.3 million after the transfer.
Some trustees couldn’t help but laugh when Sircar reminded them that Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar recently announced the state has a surplus of $27 billion.
“It almost brings me to tears with frustration when we’re trying to take care of our people and take care of our kids, and you see that gap widening and widening,” Trustee Leigh Walker said.
About 26 percent of the expenditures in Coppell ISD’s approved budget — or $46 million — will go to the state government in the form of recapture, otherwise known as Robin Hood. Trustee Tracy Fisher pointed out Robin Hood payments originally went to other school districts with lower property values; now they go into the state’s general fund.
“We don’t know how many of those buses that are being sent to Washington might be being supported by that, because we can’t see the transparency of the general fund,” Fisher said. “So we don’t know where that money’s going, but we do know that lots of school districts are hurting across the state.”
In other news regarding local tax rates:
The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Board of Trustees approved a tax rate of $1.1429 on Aug. 18. That district’s Robin Hood payment of $36.3 million represents nearly 12 percent of its budgeted expenditures.
The Coppell City Council has scheduled votes on their budget and tax rate for Sept. 13. The proposed tax rate of 51.8731 cents would be the city’s lowest since at least 1985.
The Irving City Council has scheduled public hearings and votes on their budget and tax rate for Sept. 15.
Grapevine Welcomes Our Prisoners
If you got arrested in Coppell today, you’d spend time in a Carrollton cell before being transferred to a county facility. But anyone who gets arrested in Coppell this fall will get to visit Grapevine’s jail.
Carrollton has provided jail services to Coppell for a decade. But Coppell Police Chief Danny Barton was informed last December that Carrollton wanted to terminate the agreement effective Sept. 30.
“I didn’t get a reason,” Barton told the Coppell City Council on Aug. 9. “They didn’t really have to give us a reason, but they did give us adequate time.”
Barton said he contacted several nearby cities to inquire about jailing Coppell’s ne’er-do-wells before landing on neighboring Grapevine as the best option. He said Grapevine Chief Mike Hamlin was more than willing to lend a handcuff.
“Before I had even made the ask, he said, ‘Danny, if you need a jail, I’ve got one,’” Barton said.
The massive Grapevine Public Safety Building, which was built in 2017, has a jail that includes 38 beds. Barton said Grapevine’s police use only about 15 percent of its capacity on an average day.
On Aug. 16, Hamlin asked the Grapevine City Council to approve a pair of agreements with Coppell and Addison — which is also being booted from Carrollton’s facility — because his jail has plenty of room for both cities’ prisoners. Addison, Coppell, and Grapevine combine to arrest 2,710 people in an average year, he said. That equates to about eight people per day, which would represent just 21 percent of the Grapevine jail’s capacity. Hamlin even drilled down to the spike in arrests on Fridays and Saturdays, and his jail would be only 29 percent and 37 percent full on those days, based on three-year averages.
Carrollton’s jail, by contrast, could get a bit crowded. Barton cracked up the Coppell City Council when he told them, “It was not unusual for it to get full, and they would call us and say, ‘Don’t arrest anybody else.’”
Carrollton charged Coppell about $100 per prisoner per day, but Grapevine would rather collect an annual flat fee. Hamlin said his team started looking at unit costs such as mattresses and sandals, but “it became a pretty lengthy Excel spreadsheet, and it was pretty convoluted. You had to really think your way through it.”
According to the agreement unanimously approved by both city councils, Coppell police have arrested and booked 428 people annually for the past three years. Based on that, Grapevine is going to charge Coppell $122,000 for the first year of the agreement. Addison, however, is going to be charged $324,000, because their cops apparently make a lot more arrests. Each city’s fee may increase or decrease in the second year, based on how their arrest numbers fluctuate.
Barton said $122,000 is well within his department’s budget for jail operations. Before the pandemic and other factors caused a dip in arrest numbers, he said, Coppell was paying Carrollton about $150,000 each year.
“They’re not trying to make money off us,” Barton said of Grapevine. “They’re trying to do us a favor.”
City Selling Some Surplus Stuff
If you got arrested in Coppell today and the cops seized your property, it would eventually be sold at auction. The city periodically sells such items along with furniture and equipment that it no longer needs, as well as unclaimed stuff found in municipal facilities and parks.
Hannah Cook, Coppell’s Chief Communications Strategist, told me these auctions are scheduled whenever the city’s storage areas fill up. There happens to be an auction underway right now, and its 41 lots include dozens of chairs, a few refrigerators, and a pair of pool lifts. If you’re interested in any of that, bidding is open until 10 a.m. on Sept. 6.
The lot I found most intriguing was the quartet of youth all-terrain vehicles made by Polaris. The manufacturer’s suggested retail price for such vehicles is more than $6,000 apiece, but the current bid for this group of four is just $60. Maybe that’s because the description of this lot, like most of the others in the auction, begins with this: “AS-IS; Current condition UNKNOWN. This item is used and may contain defects that are not immediately detectable.”
The item with the highest bid so far is a Generac diesel generator that’s going for $1,500.09. (Why the 9 cents?) In second place is a Kohler gas generator with a current bid of $850 even. A pair of abandoned or impounded duffel bags that contain phones, sunglasses, and costume jewelry have each drawn about a dozen bids. They were up to $276 and $266, respectively, this morning.
The city’s online auctions are run by René Bates Auctioneers in McKinney, which keeps a commission, of course. Cook said the remaining proceeds from the auction of a city-owned item get recorded in the fund that originally purchased it. Any money made from the auction of seized or found items are recorded in the Police Special Revenue Fund.
Speaking of found items, I recently reported that the city had published a legal notice about a handmade Antonio Rubén guitar. If the owner didn’t come forward soon, the notice said, the guitar would be sold at auction. I asked Cook why this guitar merited its own legal notice, rather than just being sent to René Bates with the assorted duffel bags, cameras, and laptops. She said the city is required to publish such notices for any unclaimed item worth more than $500.
I found eight Antonio Ruben guitars for sale on a website called guitar-list.com. Their average price was $462, but the most expensive one was listed for $702. If you’re missing such a guitar, get in touch with Paula Donato at the Coppell Police Department. If you’re in the market for such a guitar, bookmark the René Bates website in anticipation of Coppell’s next auction.
Restaurant Roundup
• The inaugural edition of this newsletter included an article about Smoothie King making plans to open directly across Denton Tap Road from Smoothie Factory. In the third edition, I wrote about people predicting that the newer smoothie joint would negatively impact the older one. (When I published those articles, I didn’t know that Smoothie King’s corporate headquarters is in Cypress Waters, which means it’s in Coppell ISD.) Seventeen months after those predictions, Coppell’s Smoothie Factory is closing for good.
• Back in March, I reported that a banner for Chillicious Thai had been hung on the southeast corner of Sandy Lake and Denton Tap. This week, I noticed that the banner had been replaced by a permanent sign. However, the interior still looks like an abandoned Which Wich.
• On the opposite side of that intersection, a sign has gone up for a business called Phantom Kitchen. Some people on Facebook were speculating about what might be in the works, because Google wasn’t providing any answers. Deena Martin brought this debate to my attention by tagging me and writing “This is a job for Coppellman!”
That signal led me to contact US Property Trust, the Los Angeles firm that owns the Woodside Village shopping center. Vice President Matt Kaiser told me via email, “Phantom Kitchen will be serving ramen and other traditional Japanese cuisine, including sushi, for take-out.”
Chronicle Crumbs
• The City of Coppell has launched its Citizen Satisfaction Survey. Given that I jokingly suggested last month that the first two questions should be “What is your address” and “Do you live north or south of Sandy Lake Road,” I laughed when I saw that the actual first question is “Where do you live,” with Carrollton, Farmers Branch, and Lewisville being among the choices in the drop-down menu.
• Thursday is your deadline to submit audio to the Coppell Community Orchestra if you want to contribute to A Coppell Symphony.
• I showed up at the Coppell Chamber Bowling Classic on Friday as a single, hoping that one of the registered teams would need an extra player. As someone who counts The Big Lebowski as one of my favorite movies, I was delighted to roll some frames with these achievers from Coppell ER.
They deservedly won the tournament’s award for Best Dressed Team. The folks standing behind me are (from left) Christina Aponte as Maude Lebowski, Russell Kaiser as Walter Sobchak, Alexis Acosta as Maude Lebowski, Jennifer Christoferson as The Dude, Russ Carr as Donny Kerabatsos, Linh Huynh as Jesus Quintana, and Justin Wright as The Stranger. Based solely on my chrome dome, consider my Big Lebowski role to be either the title character or Da Fino the private snoop.
Community Calendar
Coppell Lariettes Spaghetti Dinner: The Coppell High School drill team will hold their annual fundraiser — which features an auction and a raffle — from 5 to 6:45 p.m. on Friday, before the Cowboys football team’s home opener against South Grand Prairie. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for children.
Coppell Women’s Club: Musician and humorist Jackie Payne will share little-known stories behind familiar songs at 10:30 a.m. on Sept. 7 at Church of the Apostles.
St. Ann Carnival: Coppell’s small-town version of the State Fair of Texas will take place from 5 to 11 p.m. on Sept. 9, from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Sept. 10, and from 1 to 6 p.m. on Sept. 11.
Coppell Lions Club SPOT Screenings: Lions Club members will conduct preliminary vision screenings for children 6 months to 5 years old — and any child with special needs — at 11:45 a.m. on Sept. 10 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
Organize Your Life – Travel Workshop: An expert organizer will share tips on how to prepare and pack for your next trip at 2 p.m. on Sept. 10 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
Cheer Bingo: The Coppell High School cheerleaders invite you to play bingo at their school at 6 p.m. on Sept. 16, when the football team has a bye. Admission is $15, and raffle tickets are $5.
Thanks so much for keeping us posted on the city auctions .
there’s always great buys but rarely do we know about them
Well said,
Trustee Leigh Walker & Trustee Tracy Fisher.🙌🏻