Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 17
Bond Projects on Hold Until Closure Decision • Districts Struggle to Fund Pay Raises • Nasty Storms Lead to Ugly Behavior • Path Cleared for 30 Homes on Valley Ranch Lot
Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there, especially the guy I took a picture of this morning as he sorted storm debris with a giant claw. (I just assumed he’s got kids; I didn’t want to interrupt his work to ask.)
Bond Projects on Hold Until Closure Decision
Renovations at three Coppell ISD elementary schools are on hold until the trustees decide whether to close any campuses.
During a budget workshop on Monday, the trustees were shown a list of projects in the second phase of the 2023 bond package:
Lakeside Elementary additions and renovations (June 2025-August 2026)
Pinkerton Elementary refresh and foundation repairs (June 2025-August 2025)
Town Center Elementary refresh (June 2025-August 2025)
Coppell Middle School North fine arts expansion and refresh (June 2025-August 2026)
Coppell High School renovation of former band/choir area (August 2025-May 2026)
The trustees were told that architects from Corgan are ready to design those projects; the dates in parentheses are when construction would happen. But Trustee Manish Sethi didn’t like the idea of starting work on the elementary projects if one or more of those schools’ days are numbered.
“I know it’s two different budgets, but still, money’s money,” Sethi said. “It doesn’t make too much sense to be spending all this time — all these resources, money, and human effort — on something which is completely uncertain.”
In case you’re new around here, Sethi’s mention of “two different budgets” was a reference to the district’s two tax rates:
Interest and sinking rate: This is also known as the debt service rate. In May of 2023, a majority of Coppell ISD voters endorsed borrowing $321.5 million to purchase new technology, acquire new vehicles, and renovate facilities across the district.
Maintenance and operations rate: This is how the district pays for daily expenses such as salaries, but this money is also subject to recapture under the Robin Hood system. So the district depends on funding from the Texas Legislature, which hasn’t increased the per-student allotment since 2019. That’s why Coppell ISD has been covering deficits by dipping into its fund balance.
Those financial woes, combined with declining enrollment, have led to discussions about closing one or more elementary schools. Those discussions aren’t unique to Coppell ISD; trustees in Plano ISD just decided to close four schools in 2025.
Sethi said he’d like to delay any work on Lakeside, Pinkerton, and Town Center until he and his peers make a closure decision. The other trustees who attended Monday’s workshop — Nichole Bentley, Anthony Hill, and Leigh Walker — agreed with him.
“It’s a very different world we are in right now than when all these plans were made,” Sethi said, and Superintendent Brad Hunt reiterated that point a few minutes later.
“When the Bond Steering Committee put all this together, and even when the community voted, it was a different situation than we’re in right now,” Hunt said. “So to temporarily, you know, tap the brakes, I don’t think is inappropriate.”
To be clear, the temporary delay requested by the trustees on Monday does not mean that Lakeside, Pinkerton, or Town Center are more likely to be closed than any other elementary school in Coppell.
“It’s so uncertain, it wouldn’t matter to me what three elementary names were on this slide right now,” Bentley said. “I would feel this way regardless of the names.”
Hunt said even if Lakeside, Pinkerton, and Town Center all remain open, one or more of them could absorb students from a closed campus. And Sethi pointed out that one of them might take on a special program offered by a shuttered school. Those factors could affect the timeline for renovations.
Speaking of timelines, the facilities evaluation tool that will be used to inform the trustees’ closure decision was approved during Monday’s workshop. The trustees are still scheduled to receive the data from that tool on Sept. 9 and make a decision on Sept. 30. Sethi repeated his displeasure with that timeline, which he said isn’t fair to the trustees or the community.
“This decision will change the history of [the] Coppell district for a very long time,” he said.
Districts Struggle to Fund Pay Raises
This article was revised after publication to correct a factual error. See the comments for more details.
Coppell ISD administrators are recommending 3 percent raises for teachers and staff, even though the latest draft of the 2024-2025 budget includes a $9.9 million deficit.
During Monday’s workshop, Executive Director of Human Resources Karen Duke said she surveyed nearby districts and found that most are raising salaries by 3 percent, including the ISDs in Dallas, Irving, McKinney, Plano, Richardson, Royse City, and Wylie. Arlington ISD is an outlier at 4 percent, she said, followed by Prosper ISD at 3.5 percent. Meanwhile, Frisco ISD is going up by just 2.1 percent, which is more than Rockwall ISD’s 2 percent.
Coppell ISD has been debating raises of 2 percent or 3 percent, but the trustees won’t approve a compensation plan until June 24. Each percentage increase in salaries adds $1.05 million to the budget.
“If we have to increase the pay by an additional million-plus, that’s about 50 percent of the savings we get from our so-called ‘silver bullet’ of closing down an elementary school,” Trustee Manish Sethi said. “That’s a very big thing. It makes those decisions that much harder.”
During Monday’s workshop, the trustees were informed that monthly health insurance premiums for teachers are increasing by 11 percent.
“Even a 3 percent [raise] does not fully cover the increase of health insurance for an employee and their family, let alone all of the other costs and inflationary pressures that we are all feeling, regardless of what industry that you are in,” Assistant Superintendent Kristen Eichel said.
If the district increased its contribution to each employee’s health care from $350 per month to $400, and also offered a one-time payment of $650 to each employee to help offset the premium hike, those two moves would add $1.735 million to the budget.
Trustee Leigh Walker pointed out that a bill introduced during the 2023 legislative session would have funded $3,000 raises for all Texas teachers. But the Legislature couldn’t get that bill to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, due to his insistence on the creation of “education savings accounts” (i.e., vouchers) that would provide tax breaks to families who pay for private schools.
“The state has not crossed the finish line, in terms of funding. We, as Coppell ISD, are going to take care of our people,” Walker said. “If the state doesn’t, we will try and do that.”
Coppell ISD is one of three public school districts that overlap with Coppell’s city limits. The others are Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD and Lewisville ISD.
On June 6, the CFBISD trustees approved 3 percent raises. Before that vote, Trustee Tara Hrbacek said the state’s failure to increase the basic allotment is infuriating and disappointing.
“Public education in Texas as a whole is currently under serious and dire constraints, due to the state not taking action on aligning the financial allotment with the rate of inflation, or even some kind of adjustment,” Hrbacek said.
Meanwhile, Lewisville ISD administrators decided they cannot afford raises. That district is facing a deficit of $8.5 million for the upcoming school year, and its fund balance has decreased by $37 million since 2021.
During the LISD trustees’ meeting last Monday, Superintendent Lori Rapp said she knows teachers are hearing about pay increases in other districts.
“The way that people are having to fund raises, due to no action from the Legislature, is by finding some amount of cuts, school closures, or fund balance in order to make that happen, in the majority of cases,” Rapp said.
To make up for the lack of raises, Rapp listed some “non-compensation enhancements” that LISD will offer employees, including the right to wear jeans, yoga pants, or leggings every day. A slide displayed during the meeting said jeans cannot be frayed or have holes, and yoga pants or leggings “may be worn if a longer shirt or tunic top completely covers the buttocks area.”
Later in the meeting, the LISD trustees approved a resolution that calls for a potential 1 percent raise and/or a one-time payment of $500 in the fall. Either of those actions would be dependent on how the district’s final budget for 2023-2024 shakes out.
“In all my time on the board, this is the first time we’ve ever done this,” Board President Jenny Proznik said before the vote on that resolution. “But in all my time on the board, the Legislature has come through.”
Proznik said LISD administrators and trustees have done their part, by trimming their budgets and dipping into their fund balance.
“I won’t lie — I was counting on the Legislature, and perhaps that was a foolish errand on my part,” said Proznik, who later added this: “The money is there. It sits in Austin. It does not sit in the classrooms, where it belongs.”
Nasty Storms Lead to Ugly Behavior
“You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” That old saying means you can win people to your side more easily by gentle persuasion and flattery than by hostile confrontation.
I thought about that saying on Tuesday evening, after I listened to City Manager Mike Land’s report to the Coppell City Council about the collection of debris created by the intense storms in late May. This is part of what he said:
“Our staff is doing the absolute best that they can do. And our residents, generally, have been extremely patient and gracious with us. There are some, though, that are calling that are downright ugly and rude and nasty. And so we have said to the staff, ‘You don’t have to call those folks back.’”
That edict elicited no pushback from the council. In fact, Mayor Wes Mays thanked Land for expediting the cleanup process.
“I don’t think you’re going to have any complaints from anybody about that,” Mays said.
A few minutes later, Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Nevels gave a shoutout to the entire Community Development Department, and Assistant Director Luay Rahil in particular, for helping dozens of residents with specific concerns.
“I’ve received a ton of positive feedback because of his direct actions,” Nevels said. “They are the unsung heroes that make a lot of good things happen.”
Before discussing some residents’ bad manners, Land told the council that each of the two Crowder Gulf claw trucks serving Coppell can pick up about 7 tons of debris per day. He said they start at 7 in the morning and finish up at 6:30 in the evening. There is more debris than initially thought, Land said, so collection will likely continue past the end of June.
To reduce the amount of time that the trucks spend outside of Coppell, hauling the debris to a Living Earth facility or a landfill, the city has established a staging area in Wagon Wheel Park. It’s between the Tennis and Pickleball Center and the Biodiversity Education Center. I recommend stopping by to get a sense of the scope of the project. This photo I took this morning doesn’t do it justice.
Land said the daily fee for each claw truck is $3,600, and the city plans to bring in a third truck to move things along. To that end, a special council meeting has been called for 6 p.m. on Tuesday. The only item on the agenda is approving the diversion of $400,000 worth of American Rescue Plan Act funds to this effort. Those dollars had been earmarked for the veterans memorial that will be built behind Town Center. Assuming the council approves this expense, the memorial will be paid for with other city funds.
Path Cleared for 30 Homes on Valley Ranch Lot
The Irving City Council has approved the fourth proposal for developing a vacant parcel in Valley Ranch — or should I say the fifth?
I’m not entirely certain what the council approved on Thursday, because the plans were being revised on the fly. Developer Sateesh Allada and his architect, Jim Dewey, used an overhead projector to show renderings and schematics that the council had not seen before. I appreciated the nostalgic feelings evoked by that classroom technology of my youth.
Last year, the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission took three votes on this parcel next to MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church. In April, six of the nine commissioners recommended approval of the original plan for 77 townhomes. In July, six of them recommended approval of a revised plan for 40 zero-lot-line homes. But in October, only four commissioners were in favor of a plan to build about 37 houses on the property. That third version was the only one Allada brought to the council. It was rejected on a 5-4 vote.
(See “Valley Ranch Development Narrowly Defeated” in Vol. 3, No. 36.)
Last month, the Planning and Zoning Commission considered Allada’s fourth proposal, which was to build 31 homes in a subdivision with a single point of access. Irving’s fire code mandates ceiling sprinklers if a neighborhood with one access point has more than 30 homes.
As with his previous proposals, Allada sought variances to the zoning rules, which say each lot must be at least 50 feet wide; Allada wants to trim that by 5 feet. The rules cap lot coverage at 40 percent; Allada wants to go up to 60 percent. The rules also limit building height to 25 feet; Allada wants to build them as tall as 35 feet.
Allada told the council he needs those variances to fill a gap in Irving’s housing market. He wants to build higher-end custom homes, the kind that he said lures Irving residents to other cities.
Manish Gupta, who lives near Allada in Las Colinas, was among the people who spoke in support of Allada’s latest proposal.
“Approving this proposal will help counter the exodus of residents to neighboring cities like Southlake and Frisco,” Gupta said. “By providing high-quality housing options within Irving, we can retain our residents and attract new ones who are looking for upscale living.”
As with Allada’s previous proposals, several people signed up to speak against this one. Among them was Mario Barnes, who lives in the neighborhood due north of the vacant lot. Barnes has been to City Hall many times to oppose Allada’s requests; during those public hearings, he’s heard a lot of people threaten to move to other cities.
“With all due respect, if you don’t like Irving, move,” Barnes said. “Customized homes does not fit our neighborhood. They will be an eyesore.”
In the end, I believe Allada was granted all of his requested variances in exchange for reducing the number of homes by one. Although his 31-home plan was favored by only one Planning and Zoning commissioner, the 30-home version was approved by all but one of the council members. (The exception was Kyle Taylor, who was absent on Thursday.)
Council Member Brad LaMorgese summed up the council’s sentiments when he said Allada’s latest proposal was a better option for the land than townhomes or an apartment building.
“I’m concerned about what future councils might do with this property,” he said.
Restaurant Roundup
• Last November, I reported that Dumont Creamery & Cafe would be coming to the Point West shopping center along South Belt Line Road. That report was based on an update to the center’s leasing flyer, which says Dumont will occupy a space in the same building as First Watch. Last week, Dumont was granted a certificate of occupancy from the City of Coppell. “Coming soon” and “now hiring” signs have been posted on the windows.
• An Arlington restaurant called New York Eats has opened a second location in the Coppell ISD portion of Irving. It’s on the eastbound service road of Interstate 635, in the same building as Chicken Salad Chick.
• Last Sunday, I reported that the City of Coppell had taped a “Stop Work Order” to the front door of the former home of Ms. Mary’s Southern Kitchen on Denton Tap Road. A few days later, I noticed that a banner heralding the impending arrival of the Double Yoke Cafe has been hung above that door.
Chronicle Crumbs
• Hannah Bilka of Coppell was the fourth pick in the Professional Women’s Hockey League’s draft on Monday. She’ll play for the team in Boston, which does not yet have a nickname. Although the PWHL just completed its first season, its six teams’ nicknames and logos won’t be unveiled until August.
Playing in Boston will be a homecoming for Bilka, who was a Boston College Eagle for four years before suiting up for Ohio State last season as a graduate student. She tallied 22 goals and 26 assists while starting all 39 of the Buckeyes’ games.
• Hollywood icon Kevin Costner was in Las Colinas on Tuesday, when Irving Mayor Rick Stopfer presented him with a key to the city. This odd event made me think the famous line from Field of Dreams (“If you build it, he will come”) was a long-delayed prophesy about the Mustangs of Las Colinas sculpture (“it”) and Costner (“he”), who has a couple of Westerns hitting theaters soon. I was not there on Tuesday, but the Irving Community Television Network was.
• Last week’s edition included an article called “New Parking Rules Ignored on Ruby Road.” I drove on that road twice on Saturday, and I am happy to report that no vehicles were parked on the south side of the street. Way to get with the program, folks!
• A form filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation says AstraZeneca plans to spend $1,935,000 on a restroom renovation at its facility on Wrangler Drive. If that amount is not a typo, then this might be the finest restroom in all of Coppell. I’m envisioning a wood-burning sauna, several bidets, and a tuxedoed attendant offering chewing gum and breath mints.
• Diehard voters in two of Coppell’s neighboring cities settled a couple of runoff elections on Saturday. Luis Canosa beat Susan Motley for an open City Council seat representing Irving’s south side, while incumbent Council Member William J. Meridith fended off a challenge from Penny Mallet in Lewisville.
If you think runoffs are a waste of time, money, and energy, then you may want to lend your support to a nonpartisan organization called Ranked Choice Voting for Texas. The group got on my radar by asking me to sign a petition at the Coppell Farmers Market.
• The agenda for Monday’s meeting of the Grapevine City Council includes a permit for a fireworks display sought by Fellowship Church. The house of worship that sits just outside Coppell’s city limits wants to light up the sky on June 29, which happens to be the same night that the City of Coppell will shoot off fireworks during its Party in the Park. (That party at Andrew Brown Park East is being sponsored, in part, by the Coppell Chronicle.)
• Claire St. Amant is still a young woman, but when she was a younger woman, she was a reporter at People Newspapers, where her editor was some bald guy just dipping his toe into hyperlocal journalism. That was the beginning of her award-winning career, which eventually included a gig producing crime stories for 48 Hours and other CBS programs.
These days, St. Amant is a podcaster and a Coppell Chronicle subscriber, not only because she supports her former boss but also because she resides in the Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD portion of Irving, aka suburban Coppell. She’s also an author, and her memoir — Killer Story: The Truth Behind True Crime Television — will be published by BenBella Books in February. You can preorder a copy here.
Community Calendar
Border Reality: Former federal prosecutor Kate Rumsey and former Customs and Border Protection Officer James Bagby will discuss the situation along the Rio Grande at 6:30 p.m. on Monday at the Cozby Library and Community Commons. This event is sponsored by the DFW chapter of Mothers For Democracy.
Big Fish: Theatre Coppell will stage three more performances of the musical about a traveling salesman who lives life to the fullest. The next show is scheduled for 8 p.m. on Friday at the Coppell Arts Center.
Dallas Black Dance Theatre: The oldest, continuously operating professional dance company in Dallas will perform at 8 p.m. on Saturday at the Coppell Arts Center.
Avatar: Battle of the Elements: Elementary school students who are fans of Avatar: The Last Airbender are invited to the Cozby Library and Community Commons between 3 and 4 p.m. on June 25, when they’ll explore the elements of earth, wind, fire, and air through games, activities, and crafts.
Teen Bridge Building Contest: Teenagers can test their STEM skills by competing in a bridge building competition between 5 and 7 p.m. on June 26 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons. There will be snacks for all and prizes for the top teams.
Let’s Draw With Gale Galligan: The Friends of the Coppell Public Library are bringing the best-selling cartoonist to the Cozby Library and Community Commons for three workshops on June 29. Tickets are free, but each workshop will be limited to 50 participants.
I've never heard of custom, higher-end homes referred to as an eyesore! I literally laughed out loud.
Great job as always Dan! I really enjoy the Chronicle.