Coppell Chronicle Vol. 2, No. 24
Baseball Numbers Hit Above Average • Metrocrest Serving More Coppellians • Coppell ISD Facing $9.7M Deficit • Hotel Plans to Add Offbeat Bar
COOPERSTOWN, N.Y. — Greetings from upstate New York, where the Koller family is trying to escape the brutal Texas heat. Because I’m already a day late with this edition, I’m going to be briefer than normal, which is hardly a bad thing. As I used to tell young reporters when I was a newspaper editor, no reader in the history of journalism has ever reached the final sentence of an article and said, “Man, I wish that had been longer.”
Baseball Numbers Hit Above Average
Given that I’m sending this from the hometown of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, I’m happy to report that our town’s interest in the national pastime is on the upswing after several years of decline.
Josh Floren, who is the president of the Coppell Baseball Association, told the Coppell Parks and Recreation Board last Monday that almost 500 players had registered for his organization’s fall leagues. About a quarter of those kids play on more-competitive select teams, while the rest play in recreational leagues. Floren said those 500 or so players exceed the association’s participation level in the pre-pandemic fall of 2019. He had two possible reasons for the renewed interest; one of them applies to select teams, while the other applies to rec teams.
Select: A few years ago, the city began allowing baseball teams to conduct some practices on fields that had previously been reserved for games only. Floren said one select team came back under the Coppell Baseball Association umbrella due to this policy change, and he said it prevented another one from leaving in the first place.
Practicing on the pristine game fields — as opposed to the rougher practice fields — is important to players who are trying to hone their skills with hopes of earning a spot on Coppell High School’s highly competitive rosters. Floren said many boys assume that their status on a select baseball team means they will be guaranteed a roster spot when they get to high school; a few have found out the hard way that even select players don’t always make the cut.
Recreational: Historically, all rec players have been deemed eligible for the drafts that take place before the start of each spring and fall season. This was done to ensure that no stacked team established a competitive advantage. However, the Coppell Baseball Association recently began allowing rec players to stick with a particular coach and team after a season is concluded.
“They want to build their skills,” Floren said of rec players, “but most importantly, they want to play with their friends.” As for select players, “They don’t have friends; they’re all competitors,” he said sarcastically.
Metrocrest Serving More Coppellians
People tend to think of Coppell as a wealthy city, but Metrocrest Services has statistics that show not everyone in our community is free from financial worries.
When he went before the Coppell City Council in June to request funding, Metrocrest Services CEO Tracy Eubanks said his organization helped 665 Coppell residents in the previous 12 months. That included:
65 families who received $159,986 worth of emergency rent and utility assistance
482 residents who visited Metrocrest Services’ food pantry a combined 1,521 times
84 residents who accessed 485 services via its Workforce Development Program
77 families who received coaching on proper budgeting
Speaking of budgeting, Eubanks said Metrocrest’s staff thought they’d spend $300,000 on Coppell residents in fiscal 2022 (Oct. 1, 2021-Sept. 30, 2022), but it’s looking like the actual amount will be $477,000, which is about 60 percent more than expected.
“The lines in our pantry are as long today as they were at the height of the pandemic, which is shocking to me,” he told the council.
Consequently, Eubanks upped his ask for fiscal 2023. For the past few years, he has requested (and received) $90,000 from the City of Coppell, or about 30 percent of what Metrocrest expected to spend on Coppell residents. This year, he requested $135,000, which would be a 50 percent increase.
“You’ve been very generous compared to your peers over the years, so we appreciate that,” Eubanks told the council.
Our peers are the other suburbs that Metrocrest serves: Addison, Carrollton, and Farmers Branch. Eubanks said Addison’s contribution — in terms of a percentage of the money that Metrocrest spends on Addison residents — is typically in the same range as Coppell’s 30 percent. He said Farmers Branch usually contributes about 20 percent of what Metrocrest spends on its residents, while Carrollton is closer to 15 percent, but Carrollton provides the most dollars overall.
Eubanks said Metrocrest Services tries not to be dependent on any single funding source. If contributions from city governments dip, then donations from individuals make up the difference.
“I can’t allow that decision [by the City Council] to affect how I’m going to support Coppell residents,” he said during a follow-up interview last week. “I’m still going to find a way to support Coppell residents.”
If you want to help support Metrocrest Services as it supports Coppell residents, consider setting up a monthly donation via automatic bank drafts. The Kollers kick in a meager amount that’s less than what we spend during a single fast-food run. Nonetheless, Eubanks told me our collective contributions are greatly appreciated.
Alternatively, you could drop off a few rolls of toilet paper at the Coppell Police Department before Aug. 26. Metrocrest is trying to accumulate a year’s worth of T.P. for the food bank by that date. Eubanks said the 100,000 rolls that came in during the 2021 edition of this drive lasted only five months.
Coppell ISD Facing $9.7M Deficit
The 2022-23 budget that the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees will consider later this month includes a $9.7 million deficit.
“Knowing that we budget conservatively, we do expect some savings,” Chief Financial Officer Diana Sircar told the trustees last Monday. “But we know that we have a legislative session coming up, and we need to look at communicating to our legislators about the increased cost of labor, the inflation. Because inflation is not only impacting our payroll number; it’s impacting our supply numbers. It’s impacting our contractors as well.”
The version of the 2022-23 budget that Sircar showed the trustees on Monday included $168.8 million worth of revenues, which represents a 3.51 percent increase over the revenues in the amended budget for 2021-22. Unfortunately, the budget also shows a 8.19 percent increase in expenditures (excluding recapture) to $131.9 million. To make matters worse, the district’s recapture payment is going up by 7.43 percent to $46.6 million.
Because A) the trustees asked hardly any questions about the budget and B) I’m on vacation, I’m going to leave it at that.
Coppell ISD has scheduled a public hearing (and votes) regarding its budget and new tax rate for Aug. 22. We don’t yet know exactly what the total tax rate will be, but Sircar estimated it will continue to drop, as demonstrated on this slide from her presentation to the board.
The Coppell City Council will vote on its new budget and tax rate on Aug. 23.
Hotel Plans to Add Offbeat Bar
There are a handful of hotels on Esters Boulevard, due north of State Highway 114, and all of them are within the boundaries of Coppell ISD. Last week, one of those hotels got preliminary permission to turn a pair of shipping containers into a restaurant that sells alcohol.
It sounds like the general public will be welcome to patronize “The Hangar,” as the addition to the Wingate by Wyndham hotel will be known, but the general public will not be the target audience. Ketan Masters, who owns the property, said his hotel has many flight attendants among its clientele, and he wanted to provide them with an on-site venue to relax with a drink while getting a bite to eat.
“It seems that we can be competitive with the other hotels that are there just across the street, especially the Westin and the DoubleTree,” Masters told the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission on Monday.
One reason Masters needs the city’s permission to sell alcohol is that his property abuts that of a charter school, Manara Academy. The city staff recommended approval of the permit in a memo to the commission because “the rear of each buildings [sic] is approximately 220 feet apart, and the properties are separated by a wood fence and heavy landscaping. Additionally, the school faces Tristar Drive, and the hotel faces Esters Boulevard.”
One person showed up to Monday’s hearing to speak against the proposal, and that person had nothing to do with Manara Academy. Aaron Davis works at Berkshire Hathaway Automotive, which owns a storage lot on the opposite side of Esters for its Grapevine Ford dealership. He expressed concerns that a new restaurant/bar would attract people who might be tempted to help themselves to a new Ford. However, Masters reiterated that The Hangar will be marketed only to guests of his hotel.
The Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously recommended approval of the proposal, which still needs a thumbs-up from the Irving City Council. That hearing is scheduled for Sept. 1.
One more thing: Another hotel within the boundaries of Coppell ISD, the Comfort Inn on 114, was recently destroyed by a four-alarm fire.
Chronicle Crumbs
• Your correspondent turned in the first completed Buy on Belt Line Bingo card. When I dropped it off at the Town Center Annex on Wednesday morning, I found out this promotion is even better than advertised. Turning in a completed bingo card doesn’t earn you a chance to win a $200 gift card from your Coppell business of choice; turning in a completed bingo card earns you a $200 gift card from your Coppell business of choice, period … while allocated funds last.
• A man who stole five guns from a Coppell storage unit in October 2020 was sentenced Tuesday to 27 months in federal prison, U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham announced. Eden Navarrete-Ochoa, 22, of Carrollton pleaded guilty last March. A related case against Daniel Tavira-Alocer, 23, is pending. Meacham described the stolen guns as a Maadi AK-47-style rifle, a Colt .45-caliber pistol, a NA Arms .22 magnum revolver, a Winchester shotgun, and a Norinco sporting rifle.
• Remember when City Council Member Kevin Nevels was worried about seeing an inflatable gorilla in Coppell? I thought about that story when I recently spotted this boozy balloon on MacArthur Boulevard. The gorilla is just outside the city limits, but he’s definitely looking our way from the other side of State Highway 121.
Community Calendar
Cub Scout Bike/Scooter Rodeo: Pack 841 invites families to bring their decorated bikes and scooters to Austin Elementary between 9 and 11 a.m. on Saturday. There will be prizes based on speed as well as creativity.
Diabetes Awareness and Wellness Now: The Coppell Lions Club will join forces with its brethren from Grand Prairie and Red Oak to offer free diabetes screenings and other health information between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Saturday at the Georgia Farrow Recreation Center in southwest Irving.
Meet the Teacher Night: All elementary campuses in Coppell ISD will host this event from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 15.
First days of school: Coppell ISD students don’t return to school until Aug. 17, but two other districts serving our city have earlier starts. Lewisville ISD will begin instruction this Wednesday, Aug. 10, and Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD students are due back the next day. Meanwhile, Universal Academy will begin its fall semester on Aug. 15.
Lacrosse Round Up: The Coppell Lacrosse Association has scheduled a series of clinics for boys and girls of all ages, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for Aug. 27 at Lesley Field.
Dan, thanks for highlighting Metrocrest and how it continues to serve us and our neighboring communities. They do important work and I hope your article encourages others to help them out if they are able.
Thank you for keeping us informed even on your vacation!