Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 42
Judge Rules in Favor of ‘Coppell Plaintiffs’ • Burnt Home’s Owner Given Deadlines • Sports Leagues Report Resident Rates • Hearing on ‘Just Pots’ Bazaar Was Just Bizarre
Yesterday’s inclement weather led to the cancellation of Coppell’s holiday parade, but the city’s tree-lighting ceremony and its associated drone show have been rescheduled for 6 p.m. on Wednesday at Andrew Brown Park East. See you there?
Judge Rules in Favor of ‘Coppell Plaintiffs’
Coppell has recorded a victory in its protracted battle with the Texas comptroller.
In July of 2021, Coppell and a few other cities sued Comptroller Glenn Hegar over his proposed changes to the distribution of sales taxes for online transactions. Hegar wants those dollars to shift from the sellers’ cities to the buyers’ cities. If Hegar gets his way, Coppell and its fellow plaintiffs would lose millions. These statistics are from the latest version of their lawsuit.
Like Coppell, its fellow plaintiffs have their fair share of warehouses, distribution centers, and fulfillment centers. Hegar’s proposal would harm these cities because such facilities “all require city-supplied infrastructure and services that are more expensive than the cost of infrastructure and services provided for residential and retail development,” their suit said.
After many delays, a three-day trial finally happened in October, and Judge Karin Crump issued her final judgment on Tuesday. Crump ruled that Hegar’s proposal contradicted the Texas Tax Code’s language about determining where the sale of a taxable item is consummated. She prohibited him from enforcing his oft-amended proposal until it is consistent with the state’s laws.
Hegar has the right to appeal. On Wednesday, I emailed a Hegar spokesman with whom I’ve had previous contact to see if the comptroller had anything to say about Crump’s ruling. I have not yet received a response.
Although Coppell City Manager Mike Land was elated by the ruling, he expects future fights on this issue.
“We will face those trials and tribulations when they come, and they will come,” Land said.
Those fights may happen in the Legislature. Rep. Morgan Meyer, a Republican from University Park, introduced bills in 2021 and 2023 that would have switched Texas’ policy on sales taxes from “origin sourcing” to “destination sourcing.” If either of those bills had become law, Coppell’s lawsuit would have been rendered moot.
Meyer has not yet filed any bills for the 2025 legislative session, but he has plenty of time. In 2023, Meyer waited until the session’s 60th day, which is the deadline for filing bills that aren’t related to local matters or emergency items, to introduce House Bill 5089. That bill would have amended the Tax Code to say that “sales of taxable items are consummated at the location in this state to which the item is shipped or delivered or at which possession is taken by the purchaser.”
Meyer is not the only legislator interested in this issue. Rep. Mike Schofield, a Republican from Katy, has already filed a bill that would support Coppell’s position. If none of the Tax Code’s existing language about businesses’ locations applied to a particular transaction, Schofield’s House Bill 924 would declare that the sale was consummated “at the location in this state where the item was stored immediately before shipment, delivery, or transfer of possession to the customer.” That sounds like a fulfillment center to this reader.
Schofield filed a similar bill in November of 2022. During the 2023 legislative session, his bill was not granted a hearing after being referred to the Ways and Means Committee. That committee is chaired by none other than Morgan Meyer.
Burnt Home’s Owner Given Deadlines
The owner of a house that burned a few years ago has been given 30 days to make progress on its restoration.
On Thursday, the Coppell Building and Standards Commission — an alter ego of the city’s Board of Adjustment — conducted a public hearing about the house at 407 Greenway Court. It has been in disrepair since a fire on May 28, 2022. Some windows are still replaced by boards, the electrical and plumbing systems do not meet minimum requirements, and the pool contains standing black water. According to Coppell’s code compliance officers, the home is “unfit for human occupancy.”
Its owner, Keenan McCarty, has submitted applications for multiple building permits since the fire, but most of them expired before any work was done. His most recent application, for a permit to replace the roof, was filed last August.
“It would have got done a lot quicker, but this insurance company has kind of just been — it’s been a horror story, as far as just trying to get money out of them,” McCarty said.
McCarty apologized for the extended delays and promised to get the house in compliance as quickly as he could.
“Nobody wants, you know, a burnt house on their block,” he said. “I get that, and I respect that.”
McCarty’s next-door neighbors on either side, Rick Roberts and Patrick Bolton, both spoke during Thursday’s hearing. Roberts was pleased that the hearing was finally happening.
“We have been calling everyone that we know to call to ask for help for the last two and a half years, and we haven’t hit the right trigger,” Roberts said.
Although McCarty’s house may not be fit for human occupancy, it is occupied by rodents. Code Compliance Officer Dezirae Veulema showed photographic evidence of their droppings during the hearing, and Roberts said the infestation has caused pest problems on his property.
Veulema proposed a timeline that calls for McCarty to replace the roof within 30 days, bring the home’s exterior and premises into compliance within 30 days, and begin remodeling the interior within 60 days. Roberts suggested the timeline should also specify that all windows, doors, and other holes must be completely sealed within 30 days.
The commissioners agreed with that suggestion, and they added a few other conditions: Within 30 days, McCarty must drain the pool and secure the gate to his backyard. He must also provide the city with a key to that gate’s lock.
If McCarty doesn’t comply with the commission’s orders, the city could have his home demolished and send him a bill for that work.
“We’re not unsympathetic,” Vice Chair Michelle Anderson told him, “but I think enough time has passed, and the neighbors have been as patient as anyone can be.”
Sports Leagues Report Resident Rates
Regardless of whether they aim for nets, end zones, or home plates, Coppell’s youth sports associations all have the same goal: Because they play and practice in the city’s parks, they’re supposed to ensure that at least 75 percent of their participants are Coppell residents.
During last Monday’s meeting of the Coppell Parks and Recreation Board, Coppell Youth Football Association President Jordy Bernhard said his organization is held to an even higher standard. The Coppell Youth Football Association belongs to a consortium called the North Texas Football League, which oversees youth games in several other cities such as Grapevine, Southlake, and Trophy Club. Each of its associations is restricted to kids who could eventually play football for a particular high school.
“That’s a big deal to us,” said Bernhard, who reported that 100 percent of the Coppell Youth Football Association’s players this fall lived in Coppell High School’s attendance zone.
Maureen Corcoran, who serves as the Parks and Recreation Board’s vice chair, remembered that Bernhard reported a 90 percent rate one year earlier, and she asked if the increase to 100 percent represented a change in philosophy. Actually, Bernhard said, it represented a change in statistics. He told the board that 90 percent of last year’s players were Coppell residents, as opposed to 100 percent of this year’s players being Coppell ISD students.
There’s the rub — not all Coppell ISD students are Coppell residents.
When Angela Lancaster gave a similar report last June on behalf of the Coppell Youth Soccer Association, she said her organization counted Coppell ISD students as residents for 30 years. But about 10 years ago, when the Parks and Recreation Board lowered the target from 80 percent to 75 percent, the associations were told to stop including Coppell ISD students from other cities in their calculations. Lancaster said that immediately dropped the soccer association’s resident rate from 87 percent to 65 percent, “and it’s stayed there ever since.”
Lancaster, who is the CYSA’s executive director, reported during the June meeting that 62 percent of its players live in Coppell. But she estimated that fewer than 10 percent are neither Coppell residents nor Coppell ISD students.
Monday’s Parks and Recreation Board meeting was their fifth meeting in a row to feature a report from a youth sports organization. Here are the residential statistics from the others:
In November, Coppell Girls Softball Association President Dan Dunkelberger told the board that 66 percent of his organization’s players live in Coppell, but 77 percent of them are Coppell ISD students.
In September, Coppell Baseball Association President Kirk Baldridge said his organization’s proportion of Coppell residents always falls between 75 percent and 80 percent. He said most of the players who aren’t Coppell residents live in Valley Ranch.
In August, McKee Smith said 89 percent of Coppell Lacrosse Association players were Coppell residents. Smith, who is the association’s treasurer, said the outliers all live in Irving or Lewisville.
As most of my subscribers are well aware, there are parts of Coppell that are in Lewisville ISD and Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, while Coppell ISD includes portions of Lewisville and Irving — including a big chunk of Valley Ranch.
“Valley Ranch is in no man’s land,” Lancaster told the Parks and Recreation Board in June. “They’re too far north to go to Irving to play, and they don’t necessarily belong to Coppell, but they want to play here. They want to be with the kids they go to school with.”
During Monday’s meeting, Bernhard clarified that his association had 144 football players this fall, and only six or seven of them lived in the Irving portion of Coppell ISD.
Bernhard said it would be hard for the city to find something with a better return on investment than youth sports. He said they strengthen a community by helping children and their parents build relationships.
“They get invested in something bigger than themselves,” he said. “That starts when we’re little.”
Case in point: Bernhard moved to Coppell when he was 5 years old and “played all sports, at every level, all the way up through high school.” He said that’s a major reason why he’s raising his children in the same city. “I can’t imagine having not done that and still be living here — paying an inordinate amount of property taxes to do it, right?”
Hearing on ‘Just Pots’ Bazaar Was Just Bizarre
A unique retailer has big plans for a vacant tract just outside Coppell’s city limits.
Just Pots opened in San Antonio five years ago, and the company wants to plant its second store on the southwest corner of Sandy Lake Road and the President George Bush Turnpike. That land is already zoned for retail uses, but it was the subject of a public hearing before the Carrollton Planning and Zoning Commission last week because of a couple of significant variance requests:
Just Pots wants to have 60 parking spaces, but Carrollton’s ordinances say the minimum number for this development should be 112.
Carrollton’s ordinances also say that a retailer’s outdoor display area can equate to only 5 percent of its interior space. That would limit Just Pots to 500 square feet of outdoor displays, but the plans call for much more: 123,225 square feet.
Those rules about outdoor displays were written with service stations or home improvement warehouses in mind. They don’t really conform to a concept like Just Pots, which is designed to be an outdoor showroom. These renderings were attached to the commission’s agenda.
“This is gonna look cool. It’s gonna look nice,” said attorney Tommy Mann, who spoke for Just Pots at the hearing. “It’s gonna look like a curated garden setting, not a big storage lot.”
This was my first time watching a Carrollton Planning and Zoning Commission hearing, and a few of the commissioners’ questions made me wonder whether it was their first time participating in one.
For example, Commissioner Al Overholt asked how Just Pots could be granted exceptions to Carrollton’s zoning rules. Planning Manager Loren Shapiro patiently explained that the property in question is a planned development district, and Just Pots wants to amend the district’s regulations. The point of Thursday’s hearing was to consider those amendments.
Commissioner Kathleen Foster asked Shapiro whether Just Pots could have fewer parking spaces and more outdoor display space than the rules allow if the land was zoned as light industrial. But seeing as how the land is not zoned as light industrial, and nobody asked for it to be rezoned in that category, her question was irrelevant.
Just Pots’ biggest fan among the commissioners was Jim Doyle, who pointed out that 60 parking spaces would be twice as many as the retailer has in San Antonio, even though its Carrollton location would be only 25 percent larger than its operation in the Alamo City.
“For us to guess that we know how to run their business better than they do is pretty presumptuous,” Doyle said. “They’ve shown us what they’ve done for the last five years. They want to replicate it here, and for us to change it, I just think is foolhardy.”
After many more questions and suggestions about parking, Mann said Just Pots could easily add 25 spaces, bringing the total to 85. Commissioner Greg Kramer made a motion to close the public hearing and recommend approval of the plans with those extra spaces, and Doyle “reluctantly” seconded the motion to move things along.
But Shapiro then said he would need time to review an altered site plan, so Commission Chair Scott Windrow unilaterally amended Kramer’s motion. Instead of being closed, the public hearing would remain open until a date to be determined. Nobody argued with Windrow, so the amended motion passed unanimously.
Presumably, Just Pots will be back before the commission in January — unless Thursday’s hot mess of a hearing gave them cold feet about Carrollton.
Congratulations Are in Order
• Congratulations to Coppell residents Todd and Tara Storch, whose Taylor’s Gift Foundation — which provides no-cost grief support to organ-donor families — raised more than $300,000 via its “Singo Bingo” event last month. Olympic gymnast Carly Patterson Caldwell was the emcee of the evening. (Cue Jane McGarry: “You got a Carly box?!?”)
• Congratulations to everybody in Coppell who hosted or attended a National Night Out party in October. The National Association of Town Watch honors communities for their participation in National Night Out, and Coppell was ranked No. 1 among Texas cities in our population category and No. 3 nationally. The only cities with populations between 15,000 and 50,000 that fared better were New Brighton, Minn., and Munster, Ind.
• Congratulations to Coppell High School sophomore Sahasra Kalakonda, who earned a prestigious High Merit award from Celebrating Art for her acrylic painting Harvesting Hope. Her artistic talent has placed her among the top 5 percent of thousands of participants nationwide.
Chronicle Crumbs
• TRAFFIC ALERT, PART 1: The Texas Department of Transportation will close all westbound lanes of Interstate 635 at Belt Line Road between 10 p.m. on Monday and 4 a.m. on Tuesday. This is a continuation of the work on a new U-turn lane that I wrote about in last week’s edition.
• TRAFFIC ALERT, PART 2: The Texas Department of Transportation will also close all lanes of Sandy Lake Road at Interstate 35E between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. on Friday, Saturday, and next Sunday.
• Danny Vrla asked me to let everyone know that Santa Claus will be back at 603 Havencrest Lane for nightly visits between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m., starting on Dec. 15 and continuing through Dec. 23. I’ve also heard that lighted and singing Christmas trees are performing nightly at 345 Charleston Drive. Meanwhile, Lori Ring told me she’s found a new owner to take responsibility for “Michael’s trains,” which were displayed at 737 Cardinal Lane from 2019 until 2022, but I have not been able to connect with that new owner.
• When I wrote about the City of Coppell’s Make a Child Smile program a couple of weeks ago, I said the deadline to deliver wrapped gifts was Dec. 2. The deadline is actually 5 p.m. tomorrow. I regret the error.
• Who’s ready to have their holiday spirits dampened? Tomorrow’s meeting of the Coppell ISD Board of Trustees will include a report from the school district’s longtime demographer, Zonda Education. This report will presumably expand upon the dire numbers included in a September article called “School Closure Conversation May Continue.”
• Last Monday, the Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees discussed a proposal to close five elementary schools next summer: Creekside Elementary in Lewisville, Garden Ridge Elementary in Flower Mound, Highland Village Elementary in Highland Village, B.B. Owen Elementary in The Colony, and Polser Elementary in Carrollton. This proposal spreads out the pain, as those campuses represent each of LISD’s five high schools’ feeder patterns. The trustees are expected to vote on the closures tomorrow evening.
• This item should interest Coppell residents who are bothered by their lack of access to Coppell ISD’s tracks. In 2019, the City of Lewisville entered into an agreement with Lewisville ISD to designate eight school yards as public parks during non-school hours. Last Monday, the Lewisville City Council approved extending that agreement to 2041, adding two school yards to the list, and designating one public park as a school yard for the elementary across the street from it.
• Back in the spring, the owners of the Fun Movie Grill on Walton Boulevard in Irving submitted a request to divide the property into three lots. City planners identified multiple problems with the associated paperwork and asked for revisions; those revisions have never arrived. Consequently, the Irving Planning and Zoning Commission rejected the request last Monday.
• Tuesday’s meeting of the Coppell City Council will include a report on the city’s response to its recent cybersecurity event. That report will happen after the council conducts public hearings on the cases I recently wrote about in “Condos Proposed Near DART Bridge” and “Community Supports Noncompliant Carport.”
• Coppell is certainly not the only governmental organization to be hit by a cyberattack. Last week, Highland Park ISD officials revealed that they have been affected by ransomware. My former colleagues at Park Cities People have more details.
Community Calendar
Holiday Concert with HarpEssence: Take a break from the hustle and bustle by listening to some grand harps at 2 p.m. today at the Cozby Library and Community Commons.
A Christmas Carol: Theatre Coppell will stage seven more performances of Charles Dickens’ classic tale about Ebenezer Scrooge. The next one is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today at the Coppell Arts Center.
Sounds Like Holiday Spirit: The Coppell Community Orchestra will perform festive favorites and timeless classics at 3 p.m. today at the Coppell Arts Center.
Knit Wits gift wrapping: In exchange for a small donation, the Coppell Senior and Community Center’s group of knitting/crocheting/sewing enthusiasts will wrap your gifts between 1 and 3 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday, Dec. 17, and Dec. 19.
It’s a Wonderful Life: Coppell High School’s Cowboy Theatre Company will perform a “live radio play” at 7 p.m. on Thursday and Friday.
Our Favorite Time of Year: The Coppell Community Chorale invites families to sing along while celebrating the holidays at 7 p.m. on Friday at the Coppell Arts Center.
30th Annual Madrigal Feast: The Coppell High School choir will offer dinner and a show at 7 p.m. on Friday and Saturday in the CHS Commons.
A Very Electric Christmas: Lightwire Theater will light up the stage at the Coppell Arts Center with dancing toy soldiers, caroling worms, and performing poinsettias at 2 and 7 p.m. on Saturday.
My information about when Sandy Lake Road will be closed at I-35E next weekend was based on what I saw on temporary roadside signs. The official “I-35E Phase 2 Project” page on Facebook has since posted this:
All lanes along Sandy Lake Road under I-35E will be closed overnight from 8 p.m. until 11:59 p.m. on Friday, December 13.
All lanes along Sandy Lake Road under I-35E will be closed overnight from 8 p.m. Saturday, December 14 until 10 a.m. Sunday, December 15.
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Good stuff! Thanks, Dan!