8 November 2 - 8, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents overwhelmingly approved by voters. Simply put: the numbers aren’t adding up to Co- chrane, even if, she admits, they are doing so for many of her neighbors. “When you compare our stadium to other stadiums in the state, such as Cy- press-Fairbanks (Cy-Fair Federal Credit Union Stadium) or Katy ISD (Legacy Sta- dium), we are getting far less for the money,” Cochrane said. “With other dis- tricts in North Texas talking about closing schools and financial exigency, it is as- tounding to see so many people here apa- thetic about this huge number.” Cochrane has been vocal in her opposi- tion online, employing posts and memes on her personal Facebook page against Prop C. She aims to convey what she sees as the nuts and bolts, dollars and cents of the deal in an effort to counter the district’s talking points. Cochrane admits that she took her oldest child out of Prosper ISD after their kinder- garten year. “The entire bond campaign has been ex- tremely misleading and stacked in favor of the bond,” Cochrane said. “I have received no less than eight marketing mailers about the bond with misleading facts on it — things like using growth from 2002. I should hope we have grown in 20 years, but that certainly presents a bigger number, and say- ing that it [the bond] doesn’t affect the tax rate. So, people are out here literally think- ing this is ‘free money.’” “Growth.” There’s that word again. That Prosper ISD has experienced a re- markable increase in its student population in recent years is arguably the lone objective, inarguable fact in this debate. It’s not all just district families making more babies. A sig- nificant driver of the student surge is the high number of families that have moved in from outside the district, the state and even the country. “We had 3,400 kids move in [to the dis- trict] last year,” Trotter noted. “Over half of those kids were from someplace other than Texas. Many of those families came from California. And then another group came from India. So, there’s something about this place that is bringing those families in, and I think if you talk to those folks, it’s the school district they’re coming in for. It’s not the view. This is not Malibu. We have some beautiful sunsets up here, but what else have you got to look at? Not a lot, right? They’re here for the quality of education.” Cochrane called the eye-popping num- bers of new students Trotter laid out as a “statistical anomaly from the pandemic,” which, she believes, is not sustainable. I conic former Dallas Cowboys head coach Tom Landry once said that “football to Texas is like what religion is to a priest.” In Texas, football is king. It’s cliche, but it’s true. You don’t have to rely on generic examples such as the Friday Night Lights book, movie or TV series to understand the power that football has over Texans, Lone Star culture or our tax dollars. Hundreds of millions of publicly funded dollars were used to build both pro football stadiums in Arlington and Hous- ton, for example. Over the past decade or so, school dis- tricts in North Texas — specifically in Collin County — have set and broken records for the amount spent to build their stadiums. Even with the attention-grabbing examples nearby, Prosper ISD has managed to bring a bit of scrutiny upon itself for how compara- tively lavish its new buildings are. According to the 2021 census, the median household income in Prosper is $159,164, about double the national median, and the median value of owner-occupied homes was $524,700, which was well over double the national number. Prosper may be a lesser-known North Texas exurb compared with Frisco, Allen or McKinney, but the town pulled plenty of eyeballs from around the world earlier this year that made the name “Prosper” seem rather on-the-nose. Upon its August open- ing, the $200 million Walnut Grove High School inspired incredulous headlines and breathless viral social media posts from all corners. To be sure, it’s a gorgeous campus. With a Sonic in the sprawling food court and gym facilities that rival many colleges, it’s the kind of school that the Beverly Hills 90210 crew would envy. That sort of new-money glamor doesn’t exactly help when it comes to the optics, at least to eyes outside of the district. “Generally, we live in a very ostentatious town where people live in $2–$3 million homes, so they seem to think that [$94 mil- lion] is an acceptable going rate for a sta- dium,” Cochrane said. “They don’t understand that we can and should be push- ing for more bids (not the highest guaran- teed cost to Pogue [Construction]) and that the cost proposed is ridiculous, even with inflation.” Gretchen Darby, a parent with three kids in the Prosper ISD, moved from Dallas a lit- tle more than four years ago for the school district, a more rural feel and what she be- lieved would be a stronger sense of commu- nity. Darby volunteered for the district’s long-range planning committee, a group of more than 80 parents and community mem- bers who vetted bond opportunities. She’s voting for all four props and thinks that people with opinions similar to Co- chrane’s are off-base. “No one that I know in Prosper ISD cares about whether Prosper ‘sets a new record’ for the most expensive stadium in Texas,” she wrote in an email. “That’s not important, and it’s not what this facility is all about. It’s just a buzz phrase that gained steam for the sake of argument. It stands to reason that ev- ery year — in the current economy and with the current price of construction, materials and labor — new stadiums built would cost more than the ones that came before Mike Brooks Top left: New housing construction is underway; Above: Prosper Town Hall Mike Brooks Walnut Grove High School is opulent. Unfair Park from p6 >> p10 Mike Brooks
