Coppell Chronicle Vol. 1, No. 17

What the Heck Was That? • The Mark of a Championship • Let It Shine Aims to Stand Out • Wait, That’s in Irving?

Jun 20, 2021

Happy Father’s Day to all of my fellow patriarchs! If you still haven’t figured out what to give your favorite Coppell-area dad, I have a last-minute suggestion:

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What the Heck Was That?

The headline on this article has a dual meaning. It represents what residents of northeast Coppell must have been thinking on Thursday morning, when federal agents used flash-bang grenades and at least one helicopter to raid a house on Ashford Drive. Unfortunately, the headline also represents my understanding of the incident.

I’ve been in contact with a woman who lives next door to the targeted house, and she said the flash-bangs were deployed right under her bedroom window. What a wake-up call! I found an informative article about flash-bangs that was published on the website of Prevention magazine, oddly enough. It includes video of an NBC correspondent being hit by a flash-bang during last year’s protests in Seattle. The article says the best way to avoid injury from a flash-bang is to “avoid them entirely.” Noted!

This neighbor told me the Drug Enforcement Administration was involved in Thursday’s event, so I called the DEA’s Dallas office on Friday and spoke to Special Agent Jeff Himes. He confirmed that DEA agents were on the scene, but he said I’d have to contact the lead agency: Homeland Security Investigations. According to its website, “HSI has broad legal authority to conduct federal criminal investigations into the illegal cross-border movement of people, goods, money, technology, and other contraband throughout the United States.”

As you probably know, President Biden on Thursday signed a law that made Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth was Saturday, so many federal employees took the day off on Friday. Consequently, I was not able to reach anybody at HSI’s Dallas or Washington offices.

Mayor Pro Tem Mark Hill commented on a Nextdoor post about the incident, so I emailed him to see if he had any insight. He said the City Council was made aware that federal agents, assisted by the Coppell Police Department, served a warrant at a Coppell home, but I broke the news to him that HSI and the DEA were involved. I was not able to reach Officer Paul Gonzales, who frequently speaks for the Coppell Police Department on Facebook.

So I don’t know if anyone was detained on Thursday or what they might have been charged with, but I do know the home in question is one of the few rental properties on Ashford. The best method for assessing whether a home is rented or owner-occupied is to knock on the front door and ask, “Hey, do you own this place?” But if you’re a sane person, the simpler method is to look the home up on the Dallas Central Appraisal District’s website and see if the owner has a different mailing address.

There are 23 homes in the 700 block of Ashford, and the house that was raided on Thursday is one of only three whose owners have different mailing addresses. On Saturday morning, I sent a Facebook message to the Coppell resident who is listed as the owner of the targeted home. By the time I sent this to you, she hadn’t replied.

The Mark of a Championship

There’s a silo next to Local Diner in Old Town that lists various state championships won by Coppell High School, from baseball in 1995 to boys soccer in 2016. But there’s no mention of the lacrosse championship from 2011 or the hockey title from 2020.

That might be because lacrosse and hockey are not sanctioned by the University Interscholastic League, the governing body for competition between public high schools in Texas. It sanctions various sports such as football, basketball, and baseball, as well as contests for artistic and academic pursuits ranging from music and theater to journalism and robotics. However, lacrosse and hockey are not on the list.

This may be news to the casual sports fan. Although Coppell’s high school lacrosse and hockey teams are not officially part of the Coppell ISD athletics program, they wear the same colors and logo as Coppell High School’s football, basketball, and baseball teams. Both programs have had trophy cases inside Coppell High School, and both programs have new trophies to display.

The Coppell Lacrosse Association’s team for high school boys won a state championship awarded by the Texas High School Lacrosse League in May, 10 years after winning its previous title. In March, the Coppell High School Hockey Association team earned a Texas Amateur Hockey Association championship for the second year in a row.

Because the Coppell Lacrosse Association practices on fields owned by the city, the organization’s president gives an annual report to the Coppell Parks and Recreation Board. During his June 8 presentation, Brooks Carter couldn’t help but bring up the Old Town silo.

“I’ve got a lot of parents that would love to paint something on Old Town, to update that state championship,” Carter said with a chuckle. “That would be the only request some of you guys may see coming across your desk.”

That comment prompted me to ask who decides what gets painted on the silo. Mindi Hurley, the city’s Director of Community Development, informed me that the silo is controlled by the Main Street Coppell Property Owners Association.

Frank Brightwell, who owns Local Diner, is the vice president of that association. He told me the championships were painted on the silo before his group took over responsibility for it a few years ago from the neighborhood’s developer. Brightwell said he’s open to adding more recent championships; since I started sticking my nose into the matter, he told me to figure out who’s missing. (He sounds like a man who knows how to delegate.)

Well, aside from the aforementioned lacrosse and hockey championships, the silo is missing the girls cross country title from 2017. That one’s listed on these signs that are posted at the city limits as you enter Coppell from the south via MacArthur Boulevard or Belt Line Road and from the west via Sandy Lake Road.

The lacrosse and hockey teams don’t have a shot at being added to these signs, because the City Council approved a resolution in December 2009 that limits recognition to UIL-sanctioned teams. I doubt the lacrosse and hockey teams will complain, though. Given these signs’ size and the speed at which most drivers pass them, I’m betting the photo above is the best view you’ve ever had of them.

(By the way, I had to trudge across some treacherous terrain at the Dallas College Coppell Center – formerly known as North Lake College’s North Campus – to take that picture, at great risk to my personal safety and dignity. You’re welcome.)

No, the silo is the brass ring that everybody’s reaching for. Duane Masengill, the president of the Coppell High School Hockey Association, told me he’d love to see the hockey team’s 2003, 2020, and 2021 championships added to the silo.

“But what about other club sports in Coppell?” he asked, citing the shooting (as in guns) team and ultimate Frisbee team that have competed in Coppell High School’s colors. “Where does it end?”

Well, that’s for the Main Street Coppell Property Owners Association to decide. And the association’s president, Joel Busby, told me its board of directors will discuss the matter at their next meeting, which will be in a couple of months. Perhaps the silo will eventually end up looking like this billboard outside the baseball field at Grapevine High School. Click the image for a closer look at some of the more obscure championships.

I like to imagine that the Grapevine alums who won the state championship for prose interpretation in 1997 have annual reunions so they can swap stories about the glory days. I also like to imagine that one or two of them delivered an inspirational speech before Grapevine reclaimed the prose interpretation championship in 2017.

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Let It Shine Aims to Stand Out

In the May 23 edition of the Coppell Chronicle, I reported that the city is selling a vacant Main Street lot to the owners of the Let It Shine boutique so they can build a bigger store with a residence on the second floor. On Thursday, the Coppell Planning and Zoning Commission considered the site plan for the building. Here’s what it will look like:

To my untrained eye, those two renderings by architect William Peck indicate that the owners of Let It Shine — Gary and Michele Cramer — haven’t chosen a predominant brick color. But the report prepared for the commission by the city’s staff says the main color will be Acme Glacier White, with accents in Acme Dove Grey. The brick color was the commission’s main concern, and it really concerned just one commissioner.

“I really love the architecture, and I like the design of the building,” commissioner Sue Blankenship told the Cramers. “I think it’s going to really fit in well in the Old Town Historic District, with the exception of your brick color,” which she termed a “trending” color. “If you put that on your building, in about 10 years, it’s going to look very dated.”

Mr. Cramer replied, “We really like that color. We would really prefer to keep it.” Mrs. Cramer then asked Blankenship what color she would prefer. Blankenship said a red brick would be a better fit with the neighboring buildings; absent that, she said she would prefer a whiter color, such as Acme Winterstone or Acme Oyster Bay.

(This article caused me to fact-check the names of brick colors for the first time in my career.)

“I could see going a little bit whiter,” Mrs. Cramer said. “The red — it just seems like there’s a lot of it. And I don’t know that that’s the vibe or the look [we’re going for].”

So the owners of a boutique called Let It Shine don’t want to blend in with the surrounding buildings? Makes sense to me.

In the end, the commission recommended approval of the site plan, with these three conditions, none of which address brick color:

Detailed engineering review to take place with engineering permit submittal.
The Director of Community Development shall have the authority to administratively approve the proposed signage for this development in accordance with planned development regulations for PD-250R8-H and the Historic District.
The second-floor residence shall be developed in accordance with local ordinance and building codes; and shall be used for residential purposes only.

The site plan must still be approved by the City Council; that hearing is scheduled for July 13.

Wait, That’s in Irving?

Because there’s a big chunk of Coppell ISD that’s also in the city of Irving, I’ve made a habit of scanning the agendas for Irving’s public meetings to see if the powers-that-be will discuss properties in the 75063 ZIP code. I’m familiar with many of its street names, due to the time I spent block-walking there while running for office three years ago, but I recently encountered one that was unfamiliar: Duckling Drive.

Duckling Drive is part of the South Haven subdivision that’s sprouting on the south side of Belt Line Road, just west of Mockingbird Lane. Given that new neighborhood’s proximity to Cypress Waters, I assumed its houses were in the city of Dallas, like all of Cypress Waters’ office buildings, apartments, and restaurants are. It turns out that South Haven houses are in Irving, although Google Maps sometimes (but not always) indicates they’re in Coppell. When I drove into South Haven for the first time, this sign made things pretty clear.

You know who has no doubt that South Haven is in Irving? Sibaranjan Mohapatra, who owns a corner-lot home that was built in 2020 on Duckling Drive. He wants to replace a wrought-iron fence along his property line with a wooden privacy fence, but that plan runs afoul of Irving regulations. Mohapatra was told no by the city staff, the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission, and the Irving City Council earlier this year, but he recently asked them all to reconsider his request. A house is being built directly behind his, and that house’s garage is as far from his property as possible. In Mohapatra’s view, the garage’s location should nullify any concerns about a wooden fence affecting his neighbors’ sight lines as they leave their driveway.

(Any Coppell Chronicle subscribers with photographic memories may recall that the May 16 edition included a story about my friend Dibya Mohapatra, who asked the Coppell Board of Adjustment for permission to erect a wooden fence along the property line of his corner lot. I asked Dibya if he and Sibaranjan were related, perhaps descended from a long line of fence-loving Mohapatras. Dibya assured me that the identical surname is just a coincidence.)

Since his plans were first rejected, Sibaranjan Mohapatra has secured the support of his homeowners’ association. He brought three fellow South Haven residents to Irving City Hall on Thursday, plus a fourth supporter who’s about to buy a house in the neighborhood, and each of them testified on his behalf.

The City Council was unmoved.

“I didn’t support it last time; I’m not going to support it this time,” council member Allan Meagher told Mohapatra. “You’ve got a good-looking fence, and if you want to change it, you’ve got to follow the guidelines of the city.”

No other council members spoke before Meagher made a motion to reject Mohapatra’s request. The motion passed on a 6-3 vote.

Speaking of votes, Meagher occupies Place 2 on the Irving City Council. That’s an at-large seat, which means all Irving voters have a say in who wins it. That seat will be on the ballot in 2022.

Community Calendar

Celebrate Coppell: The city’s major Independence Day activities, the Parade Down Parkway and the Party in the Park, are scheduled for July 3. The deadline to register for the parade is June 25.

Red Cross Blood Drives: I received a couple of emails last week from the Red Cross, touting a “severe blood shortage.” If you’re so inclined to roll up your sleeve and donate a pint or two, you can do so at the Coppell Family YMCA on June 28, Rejoice Lutheran Church on July 20, or First United Methodist Church on Aug. 9.

AMON! The Ultimate Texan: Theatre Coppell will produce this play by Dallas Morning News columnist Dave Lieber at the Coppell Arts Center on July 16, 17, and 18.