Inside the Moon
Driscoll Telethon A6
Yoga & Surf Fest A2
HOT Tax A9
The
Issue 635
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
June 16, 2016
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com In China surgeons are getting ready to do the first human head transplant, or body transplant depending on how you look at it, Russian soccer hooligans slipped into France for a match with England by bypassing airports and taking trains, and in Washington hackers associated with the Russian government hacked into the files of the Democratic National Convention and are now thought to be in possession of the party’s analysis of Republican candidates.
Fishing A11
Free
Weekly
FREE Ridley Rebound
Island Generates $7.7 Number of Kemp's Ridley Nests More Than Triple Last Year's Million in Hotel/Motel Tax $1.6 million spent to clean Gulf Beach in Corpus Christi City Limits
By Dale Rankin
The tax on overnight stay accommodations on The Island generated $7,757,958 million in 2015, according to figures released by the cities of Corpus Christi and Port Aransas.
Meanwhile closer to home, the price of oil is pushing up on $50, actor Tommy Lee Jones is said to have caught both a White and a Blue marlin offshore over the weekend, and a floating forest has washed up on our beaches as a result of inland rains that filled the rivers with stumps and sticks that have now made their way ashore as so much flotsam.
Padre and Mustang Island, inside the Corpus Christi City Limits, charge a 9% Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) and generated $3,520,775 million from about 1200 overnight stay rooms in 2015. Port Aransas, which has a 7% HOT generated $4,237,183 from approximately 3500 overnight stay rooms.
Dr. Donna Shaver looks over the last Kemp's ridley into the water at Saturday's hatchling release.
The humidity has been off the charts of late, which the old salts hereabouts say, can signal an active hurricane season. The Weather Wonks say the humidity and unusually high tides are the product of low pressure systems out in the Gulf, the Specks are biting, and we are quickly heading down into the dog days of summer. Life is pretty good here on our little sandbar.
So far this year, 173 Kemp's ridley turtle nests have been confirmed along Texas beaches, including 92 on North Padre Island (83 of which were on Padre Island National Sea Shore). That is up considerably from this time last year when by June of 2015 only 47 nests had been found state wide – 36 of which were on North Padre Island. Here are the comparable numbers.
Price of real estate A check of Island real estate prices finds that the going rate of residential property in Port Aransas is pushing up well above $300 per square foot, and in some cases on higher-end properties well over $500 per square foot. On Padre that number is around $200. The common wisdom is that over time values on the two ends of The Island will coincide.
Location
2015
2016
Bolivar Peninsula
1
0
Surfside Beach
0
3
Quintana Beach
0
1
Matagorda Peninsula
0
3
Matagorda Island
1
0
San Jose Island
0
1
Mustang Island
0
6
North Padre Island
36
92
South Padre Island
9
59
Boca Chica Beach
0
8
Island the Travel Channel
It seems hard to believe but the Fourth Annual Island Blast 4th of July Fireworks Show is only two weeks away. Island Time flies when you’re having fun. Jerry Watkins says everything is in place for the show which will be at the same location as other years at the end of Whitecap next to the Padre Island Yacht Club. The phones have been ringing hereabout with the question, “What day are the 4th of July Fireworks?” While that sounds goofy the fact is that many of the shows around the area are happening Saturday night; ours isn’t. It will go up at sundown on Monday, July 4 after the 4th of July Watercraft Parade. It’s going to be the Mother of All Deck Parties folks. We’ll see you there. And in the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Total HOT revenue across Corpus Christi in 2015 was $15,381,481 million. For details on where the HOT dollars came from see the chart below.
Islander Goes Commando on Beach Litterers
Littering on area beaches is like the weather, everyone is talking about it but nobody is doing anything about it – until now.
“I saw two guys dumping palm trimmings on the beach and I told them this is not a trash dump,” Beynon said. “They said they were
Send your beach litterer photos to the Island Moon Facebook page
Limo Tony goes OTB
Fourth of July Fireworks
Meaning that in 2015 the HOT generated $7,757,958 million, not including the state’s 6% cut, from Port Aransas/Padre/Mustang islands on gross overnight stay revenue of about $70 million.
Last Sunday afternoon when Islander Jeff Beynon, former Director of Animal Control for the City of Corpus Christi, went commando.
The Island will get some national attention this weekend when the Travel Channel airs “Jeff Henry: The Madness Continues.” Crews from the Travel Channel followed Henry around when he was building the local park and the result will air as part of their series Extreme Water Parks. The shows will air Sunday, June 19, at 8 p.m., and Monday at 11 a.m. Tony (Limo) Adams who operated Paradise Limousines here for the past five years is heading out to Colorado. He has turned the limo business over to a new operator and moving to the Mile High City. He will be missed. It’s harder to breathe the air up there Tony, but hey, you can drink the water.
Live Music A18
Littering Continues on A2
A little Island history
Surviving the 1933 Hurricane
Editor’s note: This is the latest installment of the memoirs of Louis Rawalt who along with his wife Viola lived at various locations on Padre Island after being given six months to live due to injuries from a mustard gas attack in World War I. He lived on The Island for more than 40 years. In the last issue Rawalt had been harvesting gunnysacks of Old Hospitality Bourbon whiskey which had been thrown overboard by the captain of the I’m Alone smuggling ship in the Sigsbee’s Deep where the ship was shot full of holes and sunk by the Coast Guard By Louis Rawalt
So, the days flowed into weeks, and the weeks became months and years. I had grown steadily stronger, and seldom gave a thought to the fact that I wasn’t even supposed
to be alive. I could walk for miles without tiring, and many nights I slept on the sand with only a piece of tarpaulin around me when I was fishing away from the camp. It was one of the times when I had gone alone to a spot thirty-five miles below our shack that the car stalled. No amount of coaxing or tinkering could get a sound out of it. There was nothing to do but start walking. It was seventy miles to Corpus Christi Pass where someone lived who had a car. The tide was exceptionally high, and I had little hope that any fishermen would be venturing down the beach that day.
It was early morning when I started out. A little before sunset I reached our shack. Viola was visiting my people in Kingsville at the time, so the place was still and empty feeling. I ate, drank coffee, and rested for a few moments before starting again.
Rawalt and his wife Viola arrived on The Island across the Don Patrico Causeway built in 1927. It was destroyed by the 1933 hurricane. History continued on A9