Inside the Moon
Issue 653
Food Fight A16
Golf Tournament A2
Surfin' Dogs A2
The
Island Moon The voice of The Island since 1996
October 20, 2016
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com By Dale Rankin
The Weather Wonks say to expect a Cool Front to blow across The Island Thursday evening that will bring a north wind up to 25 mph and drop temperatures to 66 degrees. It’s not exactly Bring in the Brass Monkeys Weather but to we Islanders that’s Long Pants Weather and it may be time to turn in the flip-flops for a few days and look for a pair of shoes. Such is life.
Beach Bundle
Free
Weekly
FREE Water Exchange Bridge Going to Bids By Dale Rankin
City officials said this week they plan to put the project to build the proposed $10.5 million Park Road 22 Water Exchange Bridge out to bids and expect to award a contract “within 90-120 days.” The move comes after months of negotiating toward a Memorandum of Understanding with developer Paul Schexnailder, whose companies control the land on both sides of the bridge’s location, failed to produce an agreement for him to be the general contractor on the project. What is unclear is whether potential bidders will be able to come in under the $10.5 million price tag on the bridge as currently designed with three arches spanning a distance of 120 feet. The design, while aesthetically more pleasing than the standard bridge design commonly used by
the Texas Department of Transportation which would not include the arches but rather straight lines along the underside of the bridge, is one which local contractors are less familiar with and which could make it difficult for them to estimate the cost of the project, or reluctant to come in with bids under the $10.5 million number, sources said. Schexnailder said he brought in the H.B. Zachery Group, which has experience with the arched design to modify the existing design of the bridge to keep the arches as a feature but still bring it in under the $10.5 million price tag by
Jack was taking his beach run Saturday morning when he came across this mystery bundle which had washed up near the south end of the Michael J. Ellis Seawall. He called the PD and they took it away. We can’t say for certain what was in it but the PD report was recorded as “Found Narcotics.” The tides have been running high and apparently so have some of the offshore boat captains.
A real Pearl We had a chance to visit the Pearl development just north of downtown San Antonio last weekend. The developers there have turned lemons – an abandoned brewery – into lemonade, a very pedestrian friendly mixed use area with residential, retail, and entertainment. Maybe there are some ideas there for us and our moribund downtown. While in S.A. we paid a visit to the lab that is doing the testing of Island water and hope to have the test results by next issue.
Moons over Uranus And finally, Researchers from the University of Idaho in Moscow after reviewing data collected by Voyager said this week two small dark moons might be hiding in the rings of Uranus. Oh man! First the rings and then the moons! Where will it all end?! Watch out for the high tides everybody and get out there and enjoy the weather, the cold snap won’t last long and we’ll be back to the Chamber of Commerce Weather in no time. In the meantime, say hellos if you see us Around The Island.
reworking the design for landscaping around the bridge. However, city officials indicated this week they plan to issue the request for bids using the original, unmodified, arched design, leading to questions about whether bidders can meet that figure or whether the project might have to be redesigned and re-bid which could delay the project for an indeterminate amount of time. Also at question is whether a redesign might result in the project having to go back through the Environmental Assessment process which took more than two years leading up to the final approval of the current design. In a memo last week a city official said they needed to put the project to bids in order to establish what the market cost will be.
Island connection 2 Broke Girls Islanders Kathy and Bill Brendel will be glued to their television M o n d a y , October 24, when their son Roe Ellisor, will be guest starring on the CBS hit sitcom "2 Broke Girls." Roe grew up in South Texas and graduated from Texas A&M University. He heard Hollywood calling his name so he packed his car and drove to California and enrolled in an intense two-year acting program with Baron Brown Studio which spawned Halle Berry, Julia Stiles, and Sean Penn. At his graduation, Tom Hanks walked in and sat down beside Bill and Kathy. Roe has since starred in several theatrical productions, commercials and various films.
Live Music A18
Bulkheads leading the east side of the bridge site are already in place.
Work will do away with tiny turn lane and Lighting Project. The project provides the following:
Under the plan, which requires a second vote by the council at its next meeting to become official, will remove the gavel-filled median in the center of Commodores will be eliminated to make room for the extended lanes.
•Adds capacity to immediately reduce traffic congestion for traffic Removal of existing concrete median with relocation of existing street lights
The project is part of the Bond 2014 Proposition 2 Traffic Signal
•Extends both left-hand turn lanes approximately 250LF on Commodores at the approach to the Park Road 22 intersection
•New pavement, markings, signage and flexible post lane delineators. The second reading will be included
the Consent Agenda for the next council meeting and is expected to be approved. Construction is scheduled to begin in December 2017 and take about 90 days to complete.
A little Island history
The idea for the bridge began in 2004 when city bond money totaling $1.2 million was approved by voters. That plan, backed by then District 4 City Councilman Mark Scott, was to
Bridge continued on A4
Island by the Numbers
Flour Bluff Independent School District
1892 the year FBISD was established
156 square miles in the district 5,772 total enrollment for current year 1936 enrollment for Flour Bluff High School 90 9th Grade students 77 10th Grade students 70 11th Grade students 70 12th Grade students 865 enrollment for Junior High
Proposed Turn Lane Extensions
873 enrollment for Intermediate School 788 enrollment for Primary School
It's Time To Vote!
Early Voting in the November 8 General Election gets underway Monday, October 24 with one voting location on Padre Island at the Schlitterbahn waterpark. For full voting information see the Election Guide in this issue.
The canal on the west, Schlitterbahn, side of the bridge site connecting the existing canal system to Lake Padre and through to Packery Channel and the Gulf of Mexico remains unfinished.
Meanwhile, even as the future of the Water Exchange Bridge is still in
Intersection at Commodores and SPID to Get a Facelift The Corpus Christi City Council on Tuesday approved $360,084 to redesign the west side of the Commodores/SPID intersection to extend the left turn lanes from Commodores onto SPID by 220 feet.
limbo, Schexnailder’s crews continue work on bulkheads around Lake Padre on the east side of the roadway. They have currently installed the bulkheads along the canal leading to the east side of the proposed bridge site and more than 3000 feet of bulkheads around the lake.
502 enrollment for Early Childhood Center $51,183,224 total annual budget $20,339,894 current fund balance
Existing Turn Lanes
*Source: FBISD
Graves Along Oso Date to 800 A.D.
B.C., immediately after the clay dune she was buried in had begun to form. This makes her one of the first people to have been buried in the cemetery. It is significant that the beginning of this major cemetery appears to coincide with establishment of modern sea level as well as the related starting time of the huge, Late Archaic shell midden deposits such as Kent-Crane and Mustang By A.T. Jackson and Steve A. Lake. Also, it is probably not Tomka, Richard B. Mahoney, and coincidental that a burial excavated Barbara A. Meissner by Herman Smith at the other very The human remains uncovered by large cemetery in the Oso drainage, TxDOT at the burial site were that of yielded an almost identical age. a 40-year-old female. Radiocarbon assays taken on charcoal from a fire Two skeletons recovered from near burned within the grave pit revealed the top of the dune during the A. T. that she had been buried around 800 Jackson excavation were radiocarbon Editor’s Note: This is part two a series based on a study done by the Environmental Affairs Division Texas Department of Transportation Studies Program about an ancient burial ground begun along the shores of Oso Bay, near present day Ennis Joslin Road, in 800 B.C. and excavated over the years by archeologists.
dated to about A.D. 800. There were later graves as well, dating to the time of European contact. Several burials at the site contained Historic Period artifacts, including an 18thcentury sword hilt.
Shell pendants recovered by A. T. Jackson during his 1933 excavation. Overall, few grave offerings were encountered in the cemetery, but shell pendants like these were one of the most common finds.
In 2002 TxDOT contracted with the Center for Archaeological Research (CAR) of the University of Texas at San Antonio to provide further testing and monitoring of the road construction work through Cayo del Oso. In 2003 CAR archeologists uncovered the grave of a male buried in a tightly flexed (bent knees and arms) position. The burial and the excavation have yet to be analyzed and reported.
History continued on A4