Coppell Chronicle Vol. 4, No. 46
Who’s Ready for Another Election Season? • School Districts Craft Legislative Priorities • Cities Also Have Their Eyes on Austin • Coppell Leaders Keep Discussing Old Town
Who’s Ready for Another Election Season?
If you want to run for public office in the May 3 election, then get your paperwork together. The filing period opens on Jan. 15 and runs through Feb. 14.
Here’s a look at which seats will be up for grabs in all of the municipalities that overlap with Coppell and Coppell ISD.
Coppell ISD Board of Trustees
All trustees are elected at-large. Three of the seven seats will be on the ballot:
Leigh Walker was elected to the Place 1 seat in 2016. She was unopposed in her 2019 and 2022 campaigns.
Manish Sethi was elected to the Place 2 seat in 2018. He was unopposed in his 2019 and 2022 campaigns.
Anthony Hill was elected to the Place 3 seat in 2007. He was reelected in … [deep breath] … 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022. Hill was unopposed in 2013 and 2019.
Coppell City Council
Coppell’s council terms are scheduled so that the city sits out every third year, and this is one of those years. In 2026, the at-large seats held by Don Carroll, Mark Hill, Ramesh Premkumar, and Jim Walker will be on the ballot.
Irving City Council
A big chunk of Coppell ISD is in Irving. Its City Council features a mix of geographic and at-large seats, and the at-large seat held by Brad LaMorgese since 2022 will be on the ballot. From 2012 to 2018, LaMorgese occupied the District 6 seat representing most of the Coppell ISD portion of Irving.
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD Board of Trustees
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD, which includes portions of Coppell and Irving, uses a system called cumulative voting. Rather than running for a specific seat, all candidates compete against each other in a game of musical chairs. If there are three seats on the ballot — as there are this year — then each voter gets three votes. You can vote for the same candidate three times or spread your three votes among multiple candidates.
The seats occupied by Kim Brady, Ileana Garza-Rojas, and Tara Hrbacek will be on the ballot. Hrbacek has been on the board since 2017, while Brady and Garza-Rojas were elected in 2022.
Lewisville City Council
A portion of Coppell ISD is within Lewisville’s city limits. City Council members represent geographic districts, but the entire city gets to vote on each race. Three seats will be on the ballot:
Brandon Jones was elected to the District 4 seat in 2016. District 4 includes the Coppell ISD portion of Lewisville.
Kristin Green was elected to the District 5 seat in 2019.
Patrick Kelly was elected to the District 6 seat in 2022.
Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees
Lewisville ISD, which includes a portion of Coppell, is transitioning from a purely at-large system to one that features five geographic seats and two at-large seats. Three seats will be on the ballot — the ones representing Districts 2 and 3, plus one of the at-large seats.
Jenny Proznik, Katherine Sells, and Sheila Taylor are the trustees whose terms are expiring. Proznik lives in District 3, and Sells resides in District 2, which includes the Coppell portion of Lewisville ISD. Taylor’s home is in District 1, but she’s eligible to seek the at-large seat.
Dallas City Council
Cypress Waters is in Dallas’ District 6, which Omar Narvaez has represented since 2017, but he cannot run again due to term limits. This presents an opportunity for someone from Cypress Waters to confuse the heck out of everybody in Dallas by filing candidacy paperwork. Who wants to throw their hat in the ring?
School Districts Craft Legislative Priorities
The results of our most recent election will start to be realized on Jan. 14, when the Texas Legislature convenes its biennial session. (Pro tip: “Biennial” means every two years, while “biannual” means twice a year.)
In advance of that session, the trustees of Coppell’s three school districts have been fine-tuning their legislative priorities. Coppell ISD’s trustees discussed this list during a June workshop:
The trustees talked about their priorities in the summer so they could submit them to the Texas Association of School Boards before that organization finalized its own advocacy agenda.
Trustee Manish Sethi wanted to add a sixth bullet point about transparency to that list. This school year, Coppell ISD will send about $32.4 million — or more than 18 percent of its operating budget — to the state via recapture. Sethi said each property owner’s tax bill should clearly state how much of their money is included in that amount.
“Then it becomes less of our job to tell every citizen, ‘Hey, every tax dollar that we collect from you doesn’t come to the school district,’” Sethi said.
Sethi also wants the state to be transparent about how much of the money recaptured from public school districts is spent on public education versus other items: “They take that money from the community … and put it in some other funds. Why are they not open about it?”
Sethi got no argument from his peers during that June workshop, when Trustee Leigh Walker added this: “The big idea is that taxpayer dollars for public education [should] go to public education. And I think — to your point, Trustee Sethi — if they don’t, then we need to know where they go.”
The trustees of Coppell’s other school districts finalized their legislative priorities last month. The Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD trustees’ priorities are listed on this webpage, and the Lewisville ISD trustees put theirs in this resolution that calls out several of the state’s funding deficiencies.
Mark your calendars: On the same day that the Legislature convenes, Coppell ISD will host an event billed as “State of the District & Legislative Call to Action.” It’s scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 14 in the Coppell High School Commons. During the trustees’ December meeting, Superintendent Brad Hunt promoted the event as a way to better understand how the Legislature influences school districts’ financial woes.
“Some of the things that are happening in the school district are related to issues not happening in Austin,” Hunt said, “and we want to make sure everybody is informed and engaged.”
Cities Also Have Their Eyes on Austin
For the convenience of legislators and their staffers — plus you and me — the City of Coppell’s list of legislative priorities has already been formatted as a two-sided postcard.
The City Council approved that list of priorities on Dec. 10, after Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Nevels put forth an amendment. While looking at a related document that was not attached to the agenda, he read this portion: “While not a municipal issue on its face, the continued underfunding of public education is unacceptable and impacts residents directly.” Nevels’ peers agreed with his motion to add this definitive statement: “The City of Coppell supports fully funding public education.”
Earlier in the discussion, Council Member Mark Hill tried to remove the third priority listed on the “green checkmarks” side of the postcard. Hill was opposed to it “particularly as an architect” and as “someone who appreciates design that has a modern flair to it.”
House Bill 2439, which the Legislature approved in 2019, restricts cities from regulating building materials. One of Coppell’s priorities is to repeal or amend that law, which allowed local developers to branch out from bricks and use other materials. However, Hill said the law was a good idea.
“If you look at the newer buildings that are being constructed around Coppell, they’re much more modern,” Hill said. “We’ve actually joined the new millennium, and I don’t believe that this is something that the city should put on our legislative priorities, to go back to the dark ages.”
Hill’s motion died because nobody seconded it, but Council Member Jim Walker then said Hill had a valid point. Walker said he would like to see House Bill 2439 overturned for a different reason: “a standpoint of emphasizing the primacy for local governance over central command from Austin.”
Local control was also mentioned in the legislative agendas approved by the Irving City Council last month and by the Lewisville City Council in October. If you reside in either of those cities, you may want to review one of these documents.
That Lewisville document is not exactly final. During the Oct. 21 council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Patrick Kelly suggested two edits that were approved by his peers.
They changed “SUPPORT legislation that will protect the right to read, intellectual freedom, academic freedom, and First Amendment rights of Texans in school, public, and academic libraries” to “SUPPORT legislation that positively impacts libraries and strengthens Texans’ access to information and resources.”
They also changed “OPPOSE legislation that would make it more difficult for legally eligible Texans to register to vote, or that would make it more difficult for legally registered Texans to participate in the Constitutionally protected voting process” to “SUPPORT legislation that would protect current public access to early and mail-in voting, and maintain or expand voting hours and locations.”
Coppell Leaders Keep Discussing Old Town
This month, Coppell’s City Council will probably consider some recommendations regarding the future of Old Town.
I know this because I attended a work session the council held in late October, when the only item on their agenda was a discussion of Old Town. What I heard that night reminded me of things I heard in the conversations documented in these articles:
April 2, 2023: “Old Town Coppell May Get Wetter”
June 4, 2023: “Will You Sign for More Drinks?”
July 9, 2023: “Old Town May Need New Name”
The October discussion was primarily facilitated by Deputy City Manager Kent Collins, who at one point said this: “The hope is that this starts to gel around ‘what,’ so that we can come back with the ‘how’ — develop some ideas about how that vision or how those desires could be met over time.”
Several Old Town business owners were in the room, including Christian Hemberger of George Coffee + Provisions, who had a question about something other than “what” or “how.”
“I’m curious [about] the why,” Hemberger said. “Is it our pride? Do we want to think that we can, like, outshine Southlake, because their football team’s better than ours?”
Hemberger wasn’t alone in questioning the reasons for the discussion, which involved an app that allowed the council members to anonymously answer questions posed by Collins. Their responses were displayed on screens without their names attached. The final question was “What else would you like to share about the future of Old Town?” These were some of the answers:
Is Old Town less successful than our other major intersections that don’t get the same attention?
What is the identified problem with Old Town now?
What is prompting the idea that Old Town is not successful?
I think we have to recognize that much of Old Town is privately developed. There are limits to what we can do at this point in its history.
Old Town is our best opportunity to invest. However, we cannot leave a huge burden to the next generation.
Council Member Don Carroll wondered whether Old Town is the best opportunity for investment in Coppell: “Do we just walk into thinking that there’s a problem with Old Town, and maybe there’s not as big a problem as we think there is?” Carroll said there are other areas of the city that could also use investment, such as these intersections that are gateways to Coppell: Sandy Lake Road at MacArthur Boulevard, East Belt Line Road at MacArthur, and East Belt Line at Denton Tap Road.
Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Nevels said the difference between Old Town and those intersections is the Coppell Arts Center.
“Is that a wasted opportunity if we get people down there to the Arts Center, and then they’re coming out, they’re hungry and they want to have a beverage and stuff, and we don’t have that opportunity for them?” Nevels asked. “Is that a missed opportunity?”
Mayor Wes Mays said the October discussion was supposed to be about the council’s vision for Old Town in 15 or 20 years, but Council Member Jim Walker had a more short-term focus. The city owns the empty parcel east of Twisted Root. Citing a 2023 survey that showed more than 75 percent of respondents supported having a brewery or winery in Old Town that would serve drinks past 9 p.m., Walker advocated for hiring a headhunter who could offer enticements to bring such a business to the vacant lot.
“I’d be willing to be very aggressive to get that,” Walker said, “because, to me, that’s in the realm of possibility.”
Will such a headhunter be included in the recommendations brought to the council this month? We’ll have to wait and see. They are scheduled to meet on Jan. 14 and 28.
Meanwhile, in Valley Ranch …
• The Valley Ranch Library will be closed Jan. 15-17 while new circulation and reference desks are installed and public restroom stalls are upgraded. Drive-up services will remain available during this time.
• Just across the parking lot, the i Fratelli pizza shop will be closed indefinitely due to a fire on Dec. 28. The i Fratelli locations in Coppell and Las Colinas are picking up the slack until the Valley Ranch store can reopen.
• A couple of years ago, I published an article called “Hogs Go Wild on Ritzy Cul-de-Sac.” Feral hogs have been wreaking havoc in Valley Ranch lately, so much so that they merited coverage from both Channel 4 and Channel 8.
Chronicle Crumbs
• You know that Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen that’s about to open near the intersection of State Highway 121 and Freeport Parkway? If you’re a real estate investor who likes fried chicken, then you have an opportunity to become the eatery’s landlord. The asking price is more than $2.9 million.
• Have you ever seen an arcade comprised exclusively of claw machines? On Thursday, the Carrollton Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval of a special use permit for a business called Nova Claw, which aims to operate 45 claw machines on the northwest corner of Old Denton and Jackson roads. The City Council will consider the permit in February.
• I wrote the first article in this edition before I saw the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting of the Northwest Dallas County Flood Control District’s board of directors. One of the items on that agenda is considering a resolution to put all three board seats on the ballot in May. The meeting is scheduled for 11 a.m. in the clubhouse of the Oaks Riverchase apartment complex, a venue that always makes me chuckle.
Community Calendar
Coppell Youth Soccer Association: Registration for the spring season, which begins on March 1, is open through Monday.
Longhorn Band Open Rehearsal: A day before performing at the Cotton Bowl Classic, the University of Texas marching band will rehearse in Coppell High School’s fieldhouse between 3 and 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.
Singing Cadets: The choir comprised of Texas A&M students will perform at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Coppell Arts Center.
(So musical groups from UT and A&M will both be in Coppell on Thursday? Can somebody also bring an OU jazz combo or a Tech-affiliated country singer to Coppell that day?)
Coffee With a Cop: Coppell police officers will hang out at the Double Yolk Cafe between 8:30 and 10:30 a.m. on Saturday.
Caregiving Heroes: The support group for people assisting loved ones with aging or other concerns will meet at 10 a.m. on Saturday at Coppell’s First United Methodist Church. (This group normally meets on the first Saturday of each month.)
Micro Habits, Major Results - Sustainable Weight Loss Without the Fads: Dietitian and nutritionist Sinead Adedipe will be at the Cozby Library and Community Commons at 3 p.m. on Jan. 12 to discuss how small, manageable changes can create lasting results.
State of the District & Legislative Call to Action: Coppell ISD Superintendent Brad Hunt and members of the Board of Trustees will discuss their legislative priorities at 6:30 p.m. on Jan. 14 in the Coppell High School Commons.
Assistance League of Coppell: The next meeting is set for 11 a.m. on Jan. 16 at the Cozby Library and Community Commons. The featured speaker will be Laci McKinney, the Organizational Effectiveness and Innovation Specialist for the City of Coppell’s Employee Experience Department.
Matilda: The Coppell Cowboy Theatre Company will stage six performances of the musical based on Roald Dahl’s novel. The first one is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Jan. 16 in the Coppell High School auditorium.
CYFA Community Game: Players from the Coppell Youth Football Association and the Coppell High School varsity team will share the turf at Lesley Field between 3 and 5 p.m. on Feb. 9. Admission is free for spectators.
Whew! That is a lot of news that truly matters! I’m upset that even our school board doesn’t know where our recapture money is being spent! Years ago the Lottery money for schools got diverted to the general fund, now the recapture money is a mystery! We citizens need to write letters to our Texas state legislators to be transparent who is getting our tax money. Maybe you could include emails of our new reps. When Robin Hood first started, there were reports about what school districts got what upgrades. I remember reading about schools getting X number of computers. Now the state wants to take away more public school money for vouchers. Why do our citizens vote for representatives who agree to this theft of our public money?
Well, it seems as though something needs to be changed. When we had Dodie's or Simmer there it seemed like a much more popular spot. Now there's no place to sit and have a dinner and drinks with friends and family other than burgers.