Inside the Moon
La Posada A2
Port. A Parade A2 Issue 661
The
Island Moon The voice of The Island since 1996
December 15, 2016
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin We had the best weather ever for the La Posada last weekend as the wind went away and the temperatures settled right in the pocket of the comfort zone as we Islanders took to the decks and boats to celebrate Christmas Island style. Now the water temperature is sticking around 72 degrees as the Polar Vortex is headed for the North County pushing the first of the early Winter Texans south of the JFK. We got stuck behind an RV big as a house on the Island Landing Strip that is now a seventeen mile-long no passing zone on the way to Port A and we had time to slow down and smell the sea grass – you can smell a lot of sea grass at 40 miles per hour but you can also hear yourself using some words not found in the Bible. A sure sign that the Winter Texans have arrived is a parking lot full of cars at Island Italian on Sunday night as music fans jam in to hear the South Texas Grassroots pump out the bluegrass. That usually kicks off about this time but this year won’t happen until Sunday, January 8. Tony Tag reports that one of the Grassroots players had a mishap on his motorcycle. Wow! Bluegrass players ride motorcycles?! Who knew?!
And then there’s this
Animal rescue guy Guy Davis reports that he was called out to the beach this week after reports of whale parts washing up on North Packery. It seems that parts of the sperm whale that washed up on St. Joe Island a few weeks ago are finding their way south with the changing currents. By the time Guy arrived a whale part collector had loaded a giant whale vertebrae into his truck - it would make a whale of an ashtray. Another enterprising fellow apparently camped out overnight on St. Joe and harvested the teeth of the behemoth in the dark of night. What’s really surprising about that is that sperm whales have teeth - 18 to 26 on each side of its lower jaw according to Whaleologists...who knew?!
Commodores work
Work on the Commodores/SPID intersection is progressing as the left turn lane onto SPID is lengthened and the intersection gets a rejiggering. The crews say another week or so should do it. The over/under on how long it would take for the first driver to smash into the water-filled barriers around the site was four days. We took the under and now have to wash Norm’s car.
Sounded okay at the planning meeting Sometime back in the balmy days of October the Moon Travel Brain Trust decided it would be a good idea to go to Chicago in December… with a Polar Vortex bearing down on the Windy City where the current temperature is 20 degrees with a 20 mph wind whipping in off the lake. The good news is that’s up from 9 below on Tuesday so we got that going for us. We’re taking our furlined flip flops and headed OTB. Our next trip is to Death Valley for the 4th of July. But if we can just teach Island mosquitos to eat the sand burs everything will be alright. Say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Kid's Art Contest A13
Stuff I Heard A5
Live Music A18
Free
Weekly
FREE
La Posada 2016
La Posada cont. on A2
Lake Padre Site Work Nearing Completion
More than 9000 linear feet of bulkheads have been installed in the 104-acre development site surrounding Lake Padre as the months-long project to prepare the site for full development heads toward the finish line. Less than 1000 feet of bulkheads remain to be installed and this week crews continued digging at the
marina site adjacent to the planned SPID Water Exchange Bridge. Sand from the excavation work has been used to raise the elevation on most of the property to eight feet above sea level. Developer Paul Schexnailder said this week he expects the site work to be complete in early 2017. When fully developed the project will include hotels, apartments,
several marinas, and retail space surrounding a 3200-foot long canal feature which will connect the Lake Padre development with the area around the Schlitterbahn waterpark and allow water flow from the Gulf of Mexico directly into the existing Island canal system through a 40-foot wide canal under the water exchange bridge.
By the numbers
Convention & Vistors Bureau
Editor’s note: The Director of the Corpus Christi Convention and Visitors Bureau Paulette Kluge spoke to the month luncheon of the Padre Island Business Association last week. Here are some of the numbers she provided about the organization. •
The Hotel/Motel Tax in Corpus Christi is 15% HOT revenue can only be used to tourism related items
•
6% of that goes to the State of Texas
•
2% Is set aside by law for special projects
By the numbers cont. A4
Island Foundation Hearing December 23
(Left) Crews are digging the marina site to a depth of ten feet. (Right) Crews use heavy machinery to drive the bulkheads made of PVC materail into the ground. More Lake Padre pictures on A2
Beach Access Road 3A to Get a Facelift
The kidney busting stretch of potholes and sand drifts that passes for Beach Access Road 3A at the end of Windward Drive looks like it will finally get a facelift. We suggest the city might want to have an archeologist on speed dial as it has been so long since any work was done on that road there might be a Karankawa burial ground under there. A layer of caliche that was put down over a year ago has disappeared somewhere under the sand. Since the pedestrian-only area at the south end of the seawall was bollarded off 3A has been the only way to access the South Packery beach by vehicle and has become
A little Island History
mostly a path through the sand.
The Corpus Christi City Council is expected to approve a contract next week that will free up $340,389.04 in 2014 bond money for the project and construction is scheduled to begin in January and be done by the end of February, before Spring Break 2017. The bend in the access road as it leaves St. Bartholomew Avenue will be straightened out so that drivers approaching down Windward won’t have to jog left as they head to the beach. City staff said since 3A is the only vehicular access to the South Packery the road will remain open throughout the construction process.
On December 23, 2016 at noon there will be a Public Hearing for the purpose of giving an overview of the financial accountability rating system, known as the School Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST). The purpose of FIRST is to ensure that open-enrollment charter schools are held accountable for the quality of their financial management practices and that they improve those practices. The system is designed to encourage Texas public schools to better manage their financial resources in order to provide the maximum allocation possible for direct instructional purposes. Seashore Charter Schools received a rating of A-Superior.
The Island in Wartime
Regular patrols kept watch for enemy submarines Pilots dropped bombs on Island range
Pilot training began at the new Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi in March, 1941 and the beginning of World War II accelerated it. By the end of 1942 Corpus Christi NAS and its auxiliary bases were processing 2,500 pilots per month and became the largest naval pilot training facility in the world. Among the notables trained there were future President George Bush, Senator/Astronaut John Glenn, actor Tyrone Power, and TV emcee Bob Barker. Among other training disciplines that were
increasing was the need to practice bombing.
Early in the war the island was declared off-limits to civilians, all information concerning activity on the island was declared classified and seven bombing targets (large white bull's-eyes encircled by concentric white rings 100 yards in diameter) and eight strafing targets (vertical cloth or paper targets)
Coast Guard Patrol hut on Padre Island in World War II
were built spaced about five miles apart. Bombs dropped on the targets were usually very small and contained only enough explosive for pilots to check their accuracy. The principal practice bomb, the Mark IV, was only nine inches long and contained a 40-gauge shotgun shell in the nose as an explosive. Some larger bombs were dropped on occasion, however (for
Wartime cont. on A4