Standing under the warm Texas sun on a Saturday afternoon, Coppell City Council Place 5 candidates Freddie Guerra and Ramesh Premkumar and Coppell ISD Place 6 candidates Eneida Padró and Nichole Bentley eagerly greet voters in attempts to make a final push for their campaigns.
On May 4, Coppell held its local election at Coppell Town Center with Premkumar and Bentley both winning their races.
“I want to make sure that we preserve the small town feel that we have in Coppell,” Premkumar said. “We are used to a certain quality of life, I want to make sure that we preserve that. I want to make sure that our police and fire department have all the funding that they need and that our roads and parks are maintained. I want to make sure that our local businesses are successful.”
Candidates were initially worried due to voter turnout having been half of what it was the previous year more than halfway into the day. However, they remained optimistic that more would show up in the final hours of the election.
“Voter turnout has been better but we’ve had a very low turnout this election,” Bentley said. “Before today we were at around 2,900 county-wide which is about half of what we had last year. Today has been a nice, steady stream so I’m hoping we’ll have somewhere around 700 to 1,000 people today.”
One of the biggest issues on voters’ minds is the current CISD budget crisis. Bentley made fixing the budget one of the pillars of her campaign.
“We’re having some really difficult budget challenges right now and I feel like I can help be part of the solution so I’d love the opportunity to continue solving our problems in the district,” Bentley said.
For Coppell voters, voting in this election was especially important to them since many have children or grandchildren who would be impacted by the outcomes.
“The only say you have in your own governance is your ability to vote,” Coppell resident Barry said. “If you don’t use your vote, you’re saying that you’re willing to accept whatever happens to you.”
Place 5 candidates Guerra and Premkumar centered their campaigns around protecting local businesses.
“We’re at about 60% [for] vacant storefronts,” Guerra said. “If you drive up and down Denton Tap or Sandy Lake you’ll see vacant storefronts, that’s a city losing sales revenue on that.”
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