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Coppell, Texas: It's your home, your neighborhood, your community, and you should have a voice in decisions that affect you and everyone in your community.
Your ability to continue to have a voice in vital decisions affecting your neighborhood and your community is being challenged by your state legislators in Austin. They want to force every town and city in Texas to conform to their ideology, and they have the power to do it.
The Coppell City Council, however, believes that local issues should be decided by locally elected community leaders.
The dramatic growth in jobs and population in Texas cities in recent decades is indisputable proof that the decisions Texans have made at the local level have produced the kind of communities where people want to live, work, and do business. Year after year, Texas towns and cities lead the nation in the number of companies and people moving here. Even so, some state politicians want you to believe people in communities across the state are adopting job-killing policies that are unfriendly to business. The reality we see around us every day proves this not to be the case.
Each year, Coppell wins the coveted title of "Best Place to Live in Texas," "Best Place to Raise a Family," and "Best Suburb to Live in Texas." The unemployment rate in Coppell is 3.6%, and we continue to attract well-known businesses and corporations.
The success that Coppell and other Texas cities have had in attracting people and businesses is the envy of the nation. However, that success comes with challenges, such as maddening traffic congestion and the need for more police officers, firefighters, water and sewer lines, trash collection, and all the other local services we all depend on. In Texas, state government provides no funding for city services aside from some small grant programs. Coppell, for example, received only $6,000 from the state for Law Enforcement Officers Standards and Education in FY 2016-2017. This compares to the nearly $1.5 million in local revenues sent to the State of Texas from the City of Coppell community. As a result, it is up to cities to find ways to pay for the state's growing needs.
The most important decisions we must make as a community involve the level of services we want and how much we are willing to pay for them. Those decisions should be made by you and the people you and your neighbors elect locally to lead your community, not state legislators who do not live in Coppell.
In Texas, one size does not fit all.
As Texans, we're proud that our state is unlike any of the others, and the same holds true for our pride in our home towns. The unique character of Coppell is shaped by the priorities and values of the people who live here.
Coppellians, and all Texans, don't want to be told they have to conform to one way of thinking or one way of living – whether it comes from Washington or from Austin. Texans don't care whether people in other communities make decisions that differ from the ones in their home town. Whether it's burnt orange or maroon, sweetened or unsweetened, red salsa or green – there's not just one way of being Texan.
But there's one thing all Coppellians can agree on: we want to continue making our own decisions about our home town.
Our Home, Our Decisions from Texas Municipal League on Vimeo.