Coppell Chronicle Vol. 2, No. 1

Coppell Football Begins New Era • Council Dissolves Conduct Review Board • Curfew Renewed for 3 More Years • DART’s Silver Line Taking Shape

After 52 weekly editions — plus a couple of extras — it’s time to begin Volume 2 of this little newsletter. Anybody who’s taken the time to read these scribblings has my thanks, but I’m especially grateful for my 475 paid subscribers, who have put a little walking-around money in my pocket.

Of course, money is not the only motivating factor behind this newsletter. I’m actually having a lot of fun reporting and writing it. I was recently reminded of a fitting statement from the late David Carr, who had a leading role in the 2011 documentary Page One: Inside the New York Times:

“Being a journalist, I never feel bad talking to journalism students because it’s a grand, grand caper. You get to leave, go talk to strangers, ask them anything, come back, type up their stories, edit the tape. That’s not gonna retire your loans as quickly as it should, and it’s not going to turn you into a person who’s worried about what kind of car they should buy, but that’s kind of as it should be. I mean, it beats working.”

Surpassing the threshold of 500 paid subscribers would be a great way to celebrate the Coppell Chronicle’s first anniversary. If you would like to receive this newsletter on a weekly basis — as opposed to the free monthly dispatches — click the button below.

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Coppell Football Begins New Era

Courtesy of the Coppell Cowboys Football page on Facebook

Coppell ISD on Friday announced that Antonio Wiley will be the next head football coach and boys’ athletic coordinator at Coppell High School. I really ought to set up a Google News alert for “Coppell,” because this story was broken eight days earlier by the Wichita Falls Times Record News.

That overly named newspaper was all over it because Wiley has been the head coach at Wichita Falls’ Hirschi High School for the past three seasons, all of which ended with playoff berths. In 2021, he led the Huskies to their first appearance in the state semifinals since 1964. Before becoming a head coach in Wichita Falls, Wiley was the defensive coordinator at Lewisville High.

Like Coppell ISD Superintendent Brad Hunt and yours truly, Wiley is a product of Dallas ISD. He graduated from Samuel High School in 2001 before playing football at Eastern New Mexico University. His 14-year coaching career includes stops at Nevada Community, Mesquite Poteet, and Lake Travis.

“Coppell High School has always been a premier program in the state and to have an opportunity to become the Head Football Coach and boys’ athletic coordinator is a tremendous achievement,” Wiley said in the district’s announcement. “Coppell ISD has a great reputation for being a family-oriented school district, and my family and I are elated to be joining the Cowboy Family and be part of the ‘Cowboy Fight Never Dies’ tradition.”

That announcement also trumpeted two other hires. Robyn Ross, a 1995 graduate of Coppell High School, is returning to her alma mater to be the head volleyball coach. She is coming from Nansemond Suffolk Academy in Virginia, where her teams won three state championships. Ross is one of two replacements for Libby Pacheco, who resigned after a single season as volleyball coach and girls’ athletic coordinator. The second of those titles is going to Roxanne Long, a statistics teacher at CHS who has experience as a college and high school basketball coach.

In other sports news …

• The Coppell Cowgirls were eliminated from the basketball playoffs on Monday, when they lost to South Grand Prairie, 56-49, in the third round. It was only the second loss of the girls’ season.

• One day later, the boys’ basketball team lost their playoff opener to McKinney, 55-43. Nonetheless, I enjoyed Channel 8’s recent story on the Cowboys, aka the most diverse team in Texas.

• Do you know anything about pucks and skates? The Coppell hockey team is looking for a new coach.

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Council Dissolves Conduct Review Board

The Coppell City Council on Tuesday voted to repeal the city’s Code of Conduct, thereby eliminating the associated panel that rarely has a reason to meet, the Conduct Review Board. Here’s an abridged history of how we got to this point:

Nov. 9: The council appointed a slate of 11 volunteers to the Conduct Review Board. For the fifth consecutive two-year cycle, the list of appointees included Venky Venkatraman.

Dec. 26: Several people became aware of Venkatraman’s status as a municipal volunteer by reading the list of appointees in the Dec. 26 edition of this newsletter. These people were previously familiar with him via his private Facebook group called Coppell Global Public Square.

Jan. 1: Venkatraman published a blog post that said Amelia Anderson, the wife of former mayoral candidate Rob Anderson, was trying to “cancel” him by filing a complaint alleging that the content of his posts in Coppell Global Public Square violated the city’s Code of Conduct.

Jan. 25: Special Counsel David Crawford wrote that Venkatraman’s Facebook content did not merit review by the Conduct Review Board.

Feb. 8: The City Council’s agenda included this item at the request of Kevin Nevels and Mark Hill: “Discuss and consider removal of Venky Venkatraman as a member of the Conduct Review Board.” After a 101-minute executive session, Mayor Wes Mays announced that item was being pulled.

That brings us to Tuesday’s meeting, when the only person who signed up to speak during the “Citizens’ Appearance” portion of the proceedings was Venkatraman. He recounted most of the content above and said Crawford’s written opinion “should have been the end of that.” (By the way, Crawford’s volunteer position was also eliminated as a result of Tuesday’s vote.) Venkatraman suggested that the council should not repeal the existing Code of Conduct until a new one had been crafted to replace it.

When explaining the proposal to repeal the Code of Conduct, City Attorney Bob Hager said, “This is not directed at Mr. Venkatraman, despite his feeling different.” Hager told the council the Code of Conduct was written decades before the existence of social media, had inspired myriad questions and concerns from council members over the years, and was long overdue for an upgrade. “Instead of trying to fix this boat, I think you need to build a better boat and a new boat,” he said.

As soon as Hager finished his presentation, Nevels made a motion to repeal the Code of Conduct, and Hill seconded that motion. After a few minutes of discussion, the motion passed unanimously.

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Curfew Renewed for 3 More Years

Also on Tuesday, the City Council voted to renew Coppell’s curfew ordinance, which state law says must be revisited every three years. In case you weren’t aware, the curfew that has been in place since 2000 begins at 11 p.m. on weeknights and at midnight on Friday and Saturday nights. It lasts until 6 a.m. every day.

The curfew applies to kids ages 10 to 16. Police Chief Danny Barton told the council that age 10 is when criminal responsibility begins under Texas law, while any person charged with a crime who is at least 17 would be tried as an adult.

“I can tell you as an officer that was working the streets prior to 2000, we really wanted a curfew ordinance,” Barton said. “This is a very effective ordinance, because we don’t come across that many minors after midnight.”

When police do encounter a minor violating the curfew, Barton said, they consider whether that kid is traveling to or from a job, a school function, or a church event.

“It’s a common-sense ordinance; it keeps our minors safe,” Barton said. “I feel like the Coppell Police Department employs a lot of common sense as well. We’re not out there trying to write as many tickets as we possibly can.”

In fact, Barton said Coppell police have issued only four curfew citations in the last three years: one in 2019, two in 2020, and one in 2021. Generally, he said, citations are issued only if an officer believes that a warning or a call to the kid’s parents won’t correct the behavior.

“Speaking from personal experience,” Mayor Wes Mays said, “the policies of the Police Department worked very well on a 14-year-old that I happen to know.”

Barton also shared how many kids younger than 17 have been arrested after midnight in the last three years: four in 2019, two in 2020, and none in 2021. Two of those six arrests were related to drugs, and another was related to liquor. The other three were classified as “assault family violence,” a “city ordinance violation,” and fraud.

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DART’s Silver Line Taking Shape

DART hosted a community meeting at George Coffee + Provisions on Wednesday morning to discuss the Silver Line construction, and I could count the Coppell residents in the room without running out of mittened fingers. I knew about this in-person meeting only because I had checked the Silver Line website a day prior to confirm the details of a virtual meeting that had been scheduled for Wednesday evening. That virtual meeting has been delayed until this coming Thursday due to last week’s icy conditions.

I’m still trying to figure out why a virtual meeting would be affected by inclement weather. However, here are some things I learned during — and as a result of — the in-person meeting.

I learned that DART Project Manager John Hoppie is a Coppell resident. That’s got to make everybody feel a little better about this deal, right? When someone mentioned freight trains blowing their horns late at night, Hoppie said, “You won’t hear them. Everything’s going to be quiet zoned, so all the train horns are going to go away.” We’re going to hold you to that, neighbor!

I learned that the Paramount Global Solutions building, which had stood between Integrity Wellness Center and Armando’s Tacos on South Belt Line Road, has been torn down to make way for the Silver Line tracks. I hadn’t noticed this on my own, because I’ve been heeding the city’s warnings to AVOID SOUTH BELT LINE AT ALL COSTS.

I learned that the Soto’s Automotive building on Southwestern Boulevard will also be bulldozed. That’s according to Marvin Jackson, the employee of Silver Line contractor Archer Western Herzog who ran the in-person meeting. I mean, that building’s fate was obvious to anybody who read my Aug. 15 article about DART’s property acquisitions, but Jackson was the first person I’ve heard say it out loud.

I learned that some Pinkerton Elementary students get to school by walking across the train tracks behind their campus. A resident of a subdivision known as The Springs asked whether those kids’ commutes would be impeded by the Silver Line project. After pointing out that such crossings are illegal, Hoppie said, “We’ll be fencing at least the back of Pinkerton; we may fence the entire corridor.”

I learned that Coppell ISD has a junkyard behind the Brock Center, an office building due west of Pinkerton. Prompted by the comments about how some students get to that school, I walked behind the campus for the first time on Saturday morning and noted that at least two houses have backyard gates, with pavers placed between those gates and the train tracks. On my way back to my car, I couldn’t help but notice the mess next door. The first thing that caught my eye was the orange “Welcome to Cowgirls Stadium” sign on an old press box. I put my phone up against the chain-link fence to snap this:

The whole scene looked very dystopian. Given the recent geopolitical developments in Eastern Europe, it was rather chilling.

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Chronicle Crumbs

• I published candidates’ answers to my questionnaire in the Feb. 13 edition, but state Rep. Tan Parker, who wants to be our new state senator, did not respond until Tuesday. If you’re a Republican who didn’t vote early, check out Parker’s answers here alongside those of his competitor, Chris Russell. Meanwhile, here are the answers provided by the Democrats seeking the same seat, Francine Ly and Ferdi Mongo. Finally, here are the answers provided by the three Democrats vying to take on U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne. The polls will be open to primary voters from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

• In the Feb. 6 edition, I published an uneducated guesstimate that the house at 528 S. Coppell Road, which was built in 1949, is the city’s oldest home in which a family could still live. I’ve since been informed that the house next door is nearly 40 years older. You can find proof of that on Page 26 of the Coppell Historical Society’s Historic Resource Survey.

• OK, one more time for the folks who haven’t been listening: AVOID SOUTH BELT LINE AT ALL COSTS. Starting tomorrow, traffic will be reduced to one lane in each direction.

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Community Calendar

Pieces of Love: Valentine’s Day may be in our rear-view mirrors, but the Coppell Community Chorale will present a program of love songs at 3 p.m. today in the Main Hall at the Coppell Arts Center.

Coppell Community Chorale Recycling Fundraiser: If you have unwanted items in your home — electronics, sporting goods, musical instruments, etc. — the chorale will take them off your hands between 9 a.m. and noon on Saturday in the Coppell Arts Center parking lot.

Encanto: The City of Coppell will host a free outdoor screening of the Disney movie at 7 p.m. on March 11 in Old Town.

Teen Readathon: The Diverse Book Club, which is led by a New Tech senior, invites middle- and high-school students to this event scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. on March 12 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.

Run to Fund: The Coppell ISD Education Foundation’s 5K race isn’t until May 7, but you can register now. The foundation fulfills teachers’ grant requests with money that can’t be recaptured by the state.