The Truth about Coppell and Taxes
The citizens of Coppell have been put in a hard dilemma. Some present and past city leaders had to be tough and show Lucy Billingsley and the Billingsley Corporation who was “boss” over the controversial Cypress Waters development at Northlake. In the end, the citizens of Coppell get to pay $26 million in land debt, only the first of more debt for the Northlake development. This is after the city and school district spent well over $2 million in legal fees. And in the end, Lucy Billingsley gets to build her dream, Cypress Waters, with even less dollars than originally projected. The citizens of Coppell are just now realizing the total story.
I had the privilege to meet privately with Lucy Billingsley two times during the negotiations of Northlake between Billingsley Corporation and Coppell. Both times were lengthy and pleasant meetings. The first meeting was at the beginning of the controversy of Northlake and Ms. Billingsley repeated several times in her willingness to work with Coppell, her desire to be a good neighbor, grant land for Coppell schools, etc. The second meeting was months later. By that point she had long realized that Coppell did not want to work together and while the City of Coppell and the Coppell ISD had spent over $2 million in legal fees attempting to block her development, she knew in the end that she would prevail. She had the favor of the City of Dallas, the Texas courts and Texas law on her side. Coppell’s actions between these two meetings had been disappointing at best. A former city leader told two African-American Dallas City Councilmen that the city did not need to negotiate with Dallas since these two councilmen would soon be in jail anyway over alleged crimes. Rarely did the minority members of the Dallas City Council vote with the then Mayor Laura Miller. But Coppell’s attitude prompted a Dallas City Council unanimous vote in favor of Billingsley and against Coppell. The local Coppell newspapers rarely, if at all, reported such incidents. Stories such as this could be found in The Dallas Observer and the Dallas Morning News.
So Lucy Billingsley decided to wait it out, knowing that in the end she would prevail. But the final outcome could not have been sweeter for Billingsley. Coppell paid millions for land and a lake that they do not need and will eventually remove a power plant – all on land that is in the City of Dallas, and all at the expense of the Coppell taxpayers. Lucy, well, she gets to build her 10,000 unit development complete with all Dallas city services and Coppell schools at Coppell taxpayer cost.
The saddest part of this commentary is that the vast majority of citizens never had the opportunity to view the original or current proposal of Cypress Waters. Lucy Billingsley came two times to my company and met with my agents and shared her vision and dream. Most of the agents were impressed. I think most of Coppell could have been as well before the need to spend over $26 million for a land purchase that we may never use.
Now, the City Council wants to raise taxes five cents to pay for the first of several bonds for Northlake. And they are seeking this increase with no fiscal cuts, no staff decrease (even if through attrition) and a huge overage in the city’s fund balance. Today, Coppell has a bloated city government with 2.5 times more employees at 40,000 population than we had at 25,000 population in the mid 1990s.
Something is terribly wrong with this picture. That is why the citizens of Coppell are finally saying, “No New Taxes".
Mark Wolfe
Next Coppell Public Hearing
Tuesday, September 1st, 6:00 pm
Coppell City Hall
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