Coppell Chronicle Vol. 3, No. 41
Accused Driver Trying to Clear His Name • Fitness Enthusiasts Flock to The CORE • Council to Consider Raising Our Utility Bills • Look What’s Going Down in Lewisville
As I watched Coppell High School’s marching band and Lariettes participate in Saturday’s holiday parade, I thought, “If just a few plays had gone the Cowboys’ way a week earlier, these kids would be at a football game right now.” Well, the parade might have been more fun than that theoretical matchup with Southlake Carroll. The Byron Nelson Bobcats, the team that eliminated Coppell on Nov. 25, got scorched by the Dragons last night, 56-7. Ouch. Carroll advances to face DeSoto in the state semifinals.
Accused Driver Trying to Clear His Name
When a child accused bus driver Paul Russo of sexual assault last spring, Coppell ISD sent a message to all district parents about his arrest and termination. Russo would like to see a follow-up message go out, but he doesn’t have his hopes up.
In October, the Coppell Chronicle broke the news that the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office had rejected the case against Russo, for reasons that have not been explained. Russo didn’t want to speak on the record at that time, but he and I recently met at a Coppell coffee shop so he could provide his side of the story.
Russo had driven buses for Durham School Services in Coppell ISD since July of 2022, but he worked for Durham in Lewisville ISD from 2005 until 2013. In the interim, he also drove buses for Frisco ISD’s in-house transportation department. Until this year, he said, he had never been accused of inappropriate conduct.
The child who made the accusation was on Russo’s bus only twice, he said, and nobody else was on the bus for either of those 20-minute rides. Although the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees approved installing cameras on all district buses in July, no such recording equipment was in place for those two April rides. Russo said the only time he came close to touching the kid was when he adjusted a twisted backpack strap, and he told the child in advance that he was going to do so.
A Durham supervisor informed Russo of the accusation on Friday, May 19. He turned himself in at the Lew Sterrett Justice Center on Monday, May 22. He spent 16 hours in that Dallas County jail before being released on bail. The only food he was provided were a pair of bologna sandwiches. All he had to drink was water from a trickling fountain.
One of the conditions of his release was that he could not be around weapons, so he paid to put his guns in storage. The harder condition to comply with was avoiding contact with minors. That meant he stopped patronizing restaurants — both dine-in and drive-thru — because they so often have teenage employees. He shopped for groceries after midnight, but during one late-night trip to a WinCo Foods, he had to steer clear of a child he could hear on another aisle. Russo said he also stopped going to church to avoid minors, and he declined to attend a cousin’s funeral for the same reason.
Driving for Durham was not Russo’s sole source of income. When we met, he was wearing a bracelet bearing the name of his Grapevine-based golf business, I Putt Better, as well as a Grapevine Chamber of Commerce polo shirt. But his arrest affected that aspect of his life as well. If you have to avoid minors, golf courses and pro shops are also off limits.
Life continued this way until October, when I sent Russo a letter, asking him to comment on his case’s rejection. My letter broke that news to Russo. He called his lawyer, who then called the district attorney’s office to confirm. The DA’s office issued a brief letter of their own on Oct. 20.
Russo has spent more than $30,000 on bail and attorney fees since May. Meanwhile, he has missed out on at least $16,000 worth of salary from Durham. He and his wife have borrowed money from his parents and hers to make ends meet; other friends and relatives have given them money and gift cards. He said only two people have shunned him since his arrest. The rest of his friends, family members, and acquaintances believe he is innocent.
Russo doesn’t think a lawsuit is in the cards. He can’t sue Durham because Texas is an “employment at-will” state, which means an employer can fire an employee for any lawful reason. He can’t sue Coppell ISD because the school district has sovereign immunity. And he doesn’t see the point of suing his accuser’s family, because he doubts they have as much money as he’s lost.
His focus now is on exoneration. He wants his name cleared, hence his willingness to participate in this article. As mentioned above, he’d also like to see Coppell ISD publish an update on his status.
Russo’s wife is also a Durham bus driver, and she still works in Coppell ISD. She noted that a quote from the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis was projected on the screens during the district’s convocation ceremony in August: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.”
Fitness Enthusiasts Flock to The CORE
The weight machines at The CORE are about to be replaced, and here’s one of the reasons why: A whole lot of sweaty muscles have been pumping that iron.
During the Coppell Parks and Recreation Board’s November meeting, manager Lauren Rodriguez said the municipal recreation center has had 165,745 visitors this year, which is a record. Rodriguez also said The CORE has 5,664 pass holders, 93 percent of whom are Coppell residents. “That is an awesome number for us,” she said.
You know what’s not an awesome number for The CORE? Eleven. That’s how many years it’s been since the current weight machines were installed, “which is a very long life for commercial gym equipment,” said Ethan Kerr, who oversees the facility’s fitness programs. That age is the primary reason for the replacements.
Last August, the Coppell Recreation Development Corporation (CRDC) Board approved spending $154,089 on new weight machines from the Cable Motion and Insignia Series product lines manufactured by Life Fitness. This equipment will include not only electronic rep counters but also electronic timers, which Rodriguez said will help “combat the kids sitting on the machines for too long.”
As you may know, “get off my lawn” has become a catchall phrase for situations in which an older person complains about younger people’s behavior. During that August meeting, we had a “get off my leg press” moment. Mayor Wes Mays started to ask if everyone knew why the timers were necessary, but CRDC President Aaron Straach had an answer before Mays could finish the question: “’Cause they’re playing on their phone. Yeah, I know. I’ve been in there.”
Kerr said the weight machines should be delivered in January, when the fitness room will be closed for two days during the installation process. That will be the first of two such closures planned for the first half of 2024. The CORE’s indoor pool will be unavailable for two weeks in the spring so a new LED lighting system can be installed in the ceiling.
Like the weight machines, the lights above the indoor pool have been in place since 2012. In a memo to the CRDC board, Rodriguez described those 315-watt metal halide bulbs as inefficient. “The bulbs are prone to frequent failures and are difficult to source,” she wrote. During its November meeting, the CRDC board approved spending $81,869 on the LED system.
Getting back to the Parks and Recreation Board’s latest meeting, aquatics supervisor Trinity Klepzig reported that she had no issues finding lifeguards this year, which was a sharp improvement from 2022. (See “City Desperately Needs More Lifeguards” in Vol. 2, No. 11.) Her goal was to hire 65 lifeguards, and she had 68 on staff at one point.
Klepzig said more than 2,000 people enrolled in swim lessons at The CORE in the past year. She said about half of those were free or low-cost, as swim lessons for preschoolers and beginners are complimentary for Coppell residents.
“A lot of people are taking advantage of that,” Klepzig said. “The classes are always full.”
Given the pools’ popularity, Parks and Recreation Board member Edward Rose asked whether an expansion of The CORE may need to be considered.
“We are definitely hitting our capacity,” Klepzig said in response. “We can’t offer much more in terms of swim lessons because we just don’t have more space.”
Council to Consider Raising Our Utility Bills
In the inaugural edition of this newsletter, I said my journalistic philosophy aligns with this quote from Judd Legum of Popular Information: “My guiding principle is to find something that’s so monotonous and boring that it’s unlikely to be duplicated.”
On that note, let’s talk about water and sewer rates!
The Coppell City Council did just that on Nov. 14, when they were briefed on proposed increases they will formally consider this month. These would be the first hikes to our water and sewer rates since 2018, even though the city has been paying higher fees to Dallas Water Utilities and the Trinity River Authority in the interim.
“Your current rates are insufficient,” consultant Matthew Garrett of NewGen Strategies & Solutions told the council. “We can’t stay here — effectively, kind of the burning platform.”
Under the proposed changes the council will consider on Dec. 12, residents’ sewer rates will increase by 8.5 percent and the base charge for water will go up by 2.5 percent. The volumetric water rates for customers who use fewer than 25,000 gallons per month will increase by 2.6 percent.
But the heaviest soakers will pay the heftiest fees. If you use more than 25,000 gallons per month, your volumetric rate will increase by 64 percent, from $4.78 per 1,000 gallons to $7.84 per 1,000 gallons.
“We’re talking about this additional cost being put on the big users,” City Manager Mike Land said. “If you use it, you will pay for it.”
Garrett said the highest volumetric rate would apply to about 15 percent of the utility bills issued by the city. Those customers could see a spike in their bills ranging from $70 to $100.
“I won’t say that’s not steep,” Garrett said, “but if they’re using that much water in the bills there today, I don’t know what that is relative to their … I don’t know how they would reflect on that, for sure.”
(As you can see, this dude excels at not being quotable.)
Garrett’s firm studied how the average Coppell utility bills compare to the average bills in 17 other suburbs. On each of these charts, the lower dark line represents bills calculated with Coppell’s current rates; the higher dark line represents bills reflecting the proposed rates.
Mayor Wes Mays asked why Coppell’s bills are on the lower end of those scales. Garrett chalked that up to our healthy commercial base and the fact that the city has not raised rates while instituting other changes such as increasing block rates and winter averaging.
As you may recall from articles published during the last two summers, Coppell’s maximum daily allotment from Dallas Water Utilities is 18.5 million gallons. If we exceed that just once, the city’s contract calls for an automatic increase of one million gallons that will cost Coppell an additional $320,000 annually for at least five years. Land said the proposed new rates are a contingency plan of sorts.
“What we’re anticipating is next summer, when our residents — and I say this respectfully — don’t adhere to the conservation standards and we bump up to 19 million gallons, then we’re not all stressing over the impact,” Land said.
That daily cap of 18.5 million gallons has been in place since 2015.
“Ten years ago, we rarely had this conversation,” Mays said. “And our population has grown, and we haven’t increased that 18 and a half. So we’re basically, as a city, we are using more water.”
Look What’s Going Down in Lewisville
I don’t typically report on our neighbors to the north, but there are some developments in Lewisville that may be of interest to Coppell residents.
• On Monday, the Lewisville City Council will consider a permit that would allow Costco to add six more pumps to the gas station on its parking lot along the State Highway 121 frontage road. The goal, of course, is to reduce the amount of time drivers spend waiting to fuel up there.
• In October, I reported that the former home of Barnes & Noble in Vista Ridge Village was being renovated and divided, with one half reserved for a Skechers store. City employees noticed the construction last month and could find no record of it being officially approved. Consequently, the project will be discussed by Lewisville’s Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday.
• Across the parking lot, plans are afoot for a sporty store called Hibbett to set up shop in Vista Ridge Village, according to a form filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation.
• The anchor space in The Shops at Vista Ridge — aka the southeast corner of MacArthur Boulevard and Round Grove Road — used to be a Texas Family Fitness. Before that, it was a health club called YouFit. Despite both of those gyms going belly up, Planet Fitness is about to give it a go in the same spot.
• Did you know that the Interskate roller rink has adults-only sessions between 8:30 and 11:30 p.m. on Sundays and Thursdays? If you go there tonight, you may see a community journalist celebrating his birthday by taking a lap around the rink for each lap he’s taken around the sun.
Chronicle Crumbs
• The Coppell Chamber of Commerce has announced that Coppell ISD Superintendent Brad Hunt will receive the Cliff Long Leadership Award at the organization’s Annual Awards & Community Gala. Because the theme for the Feb. 3 event is “A Night in Paris,” I told my wife I may forgo renting a tuxedo and instead show up dressed as Napoleon.
• Confirming a report in the June 18 edition of this newsletter, a sign for a veterinary clinic called CityVet has been erected at 106 N. Denton Tap Road, Suite 240, aka the former home of Anamia’s.
• We don’t often get this much advance notice of a permanent closure: Bank of America has announced that its branch at 780 S. MacArthur Blvd. will lock its doors for good on March 26. The monolithic bank has one other Coppell branch at 740 N. Denton Tap Road, next to Whataburger.
• Tomorrow’s the big day, Irving. Your sanitation workers will resume twice weekly trash collection after picking it up once a week for more than a year.
Community Calendar
Santa Storytime: Santa Claus will take a break from his preparations for Christmas between 10:15 and 10:45 a.m. on Wednesday at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: Theatre Coppell will stage six more performances of this Christmas comedy at the Coppell Arts Center. The next show is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Friday.
Holiday Hustle: The Coppell Cheerleading Association’s third annual fun run will begin at 8 a.m. on Saturday at Andrew Brown Park East.
The Four C Notes: The Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons tribute group will present two Christmas shows at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday at the Coppell Arts Center.
Ho-Ho Holiday Showcase: The Coppell Community Orchestra will present an enchanting afternoon of music and merriment at 3 p.m. on Dec. 10 at the Coppell Arts Center.
Wreaths Across America: Coppell’s Rolling Oaks Memorial Center is among more than 4,100 cemeteries nationwide where volunteers will place remembrance wreaths on veterans’ graves. This year’s ceremony is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Dec. 16.
Thank you so much for sharing the bus driver's side of the story. Always two sides and I am hopeful for him that his name will be cleared and that Capel ISD will do the right thing by documenting that on one of their public sites
I am heartbroken for the bus driver! Thank you for letting us know his side of the story. While I agree suing the family of the child who accused him is probably not going to help financially, I do think there needs to be serious consequences for the child. Ruining someone's reputation and costing him thousands of dollars is unacceptable.