Inside the Moon
Souper Bowl A2
Spring Break A2
The
Issue 674
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
March 16, 2017
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin The weather threw a cool, windy, and overcast blanket on the first weekend of Spring Break 2017 as scattered showers caused many potential breakers to party in place rather than head for The Coast. Things began picking up during the week and by Tuesday afternoon our beaches were fairly full from Newport Pass south to PINS with most of the Spring Break beach action taking place in the usual spot just south of the bollards in Port Aransas. Ronnie has been reporting busy beach traffic all along the Port Aransas beaches but lines in the restaurants have been bearable. Look for things to pick up considerably this week if the weather holds. Police this year are allowing twoway traffic from Zahn Road north. There have been the expected smattering of violations which attach to a Spring Break crowd but so far no serious problems. One of the annual Rites of Spring here at the Word Factory is listening to the police scanner from Port Aransas and it has been active so far this Spring Break. On Tuesday police answered a call for a golf cart broken down in the middle of the street. “Eight people on a six-person cart,” came the call. “A wheel fell off.” We suggest the police call for that should be a “four-minus-one.” There have been several calls for kids doing donuts on the beach, people passed out, one naked man, two lost kids (or lost parents) and one case of charges filed after visitors trashed a condo. But for the most part things have gone smoothly.
Island troublemakers A check of police reports in this issue will show that the roving band of troublemakers that have been vandalizing Padre Island for the past several weeks moved their operations to the south end of The Island where there were seven reported incidents of vandalism and/or theft in a twentyfour hour period last weekend. So far none of the crimes are serIous, unless of course it is your car which is burglarized, but keep your garage door down and if you leave valuables in your car at night they may or may not be there the next morning.
Bravo District The CCPD’s Bravo District which includes The Island covers 403 square miles and stretches from The Island to Staples Streets, and out west all the way to the OSO wind farms, Bravo commander Captain Chris White told an Island neighborhood group last week. It is staffed with a total of 45 officers, divided into five shifts with nine officers on duty at any given time. White said that he tries to keep at least one active officer on The Island at all times and officers are distributed around the Bravo district according to the number of crimes reported in a given area. The Island, not surprisingly, is not at the high end of that list. In January there were a total of 30 property crimes reported on The Island, 115 districtwide. White said that most of the violent offenses reported around the district are for family violence. White said the best thing residents can do is to make sure and report any crimes they are aware of, no matter how minor, because those numbers will be reviewed each week to help assign officers where they are needed; squeaky wheel gets the grease. For non-emergency reports call the police at 886-2600. Hunker down everybody, we’re only one week away from getting through Spring Break 2017 and breaking through to the other side, SandFest will be here before we know it! In the meantime, say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Fishing A11
Container Gardening A4
Live Music A18
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Big Spring Break Weekend
Island Grocery Store Looking Like a Reality By Mary Craft After decades of waiting the possibility of a grocery store on Padre Island looks like it is finally going to become a reality. Island Developer Moshim Rasheed said this week he is well into discussion with two grocery chains who have both expressed an interest in opening branches on The Island.
Spring Break 2017 may have started out rainy, but some people just can't be stopped. More Spring Break 2017 photos, page A2
Water Exchange Bridge Bids Come in High By Dale Rankin
“There has been a lot of activity lately on this project and right now it looks like the shopping center may open June 2018,” Rasheed said Wednesday. He said renderings have been sent to the store chain 365 by Whole Foods Market and Sprouts Farmers Market and we are waiting for them to send back proposals and demands. They will dictate the shape and location inside the shopping center so work will be started once the anchor store is determined.”
Negotiations for design modification to begin
When bids for the proposed Park Road 22/SPID Water Exchange Bridge on The Island were opened at City Hall on Wednesday there were two bidders and both came in at about $1 million more than is currently available for the project. Local company Hass-Anderson Construction. Ltd, was the low bidder at $11,696,319 with North Texas based, Structural Assurance, LLC., bringing a bid of $12,101,062. Both are above the $10.7 million available for the job with $6.7 million of that coming from city bond money and the remaining $4 million from funds committed to the project from the Island Tax Re-Investment Zone. “This is not a deal killer,” said bridge
designer Chip Urban. “We will start to look at some design engineering and see if we can get to the number that we need to be.”
Urban and District 4 City Councilman Greg Smith who attended the bid opening said the designers and city staff will now work with the low bidder to bring the project in with the funds available. It is not clear if the issue will have to go back before the city council. One option, which surfaced within hours of the bid openings was to award the bid to Hass-Anderson and do a redesign of the bridge by lowering the retaining walls along the sides of the bridge. The current design of the bridge calls for three concrete spans of about
40 feet each, the middle span would be slightly wider at 48 feet which would cover the waterway allowing for fourteen feet of boat clearance from the water line to the bottom of the bridge. The two adjacent arches would each be 40 feet in width and cover cart and pedestrian paths connecting the east and west side of the roadway. City staff told the Island Strategic Action Committee last week that construction on the bridge could begin as early as October. Still to be completed is an agreement to finish dredging the last piece of the canal to connect the water from the bridge to the existing canal system on the west side of SPID. Less than 500 feet of a new canal remains to be dug.
POA to Hold Second Vote for Board
No candidates reached a majority in first round
By Dale Rankin
Island property owners will face a second round of balloting to fill two seats on the Padre Isles Property Owners Association Board of Directors after none of the eight candidates in the race garnered a majority of the votes at last Saturday’s annual members meeting. A total of 1549 ballots were cast, members could vote for two candidates, with 774 votes required to reach a majority and a seat on the board. The vote total marked a high water mark in terms of participation constituting about 20 percent of a quorum of all member
A little Island history By Dale Rankin We have a lot of visitors to our Island this week and when people come to The Island they like to hear a pirate story. So here’s one. In the early part of the 19th Century Spain was sending millions of dollars of gold each year from the rich mines in Mexico back to Spain. The ships used to transport the gold were slow, bulky vessels – cargo ships – and it was not unusual for one of them to carry in excess of $100,000 in its hold. It didn’t take long for Gulf pirate Jean Lafitte to figure out that if he used small, light, fast, shallow draft vessels he could hide along our Island until he saw a mast on the horizon and pounce for his plunder. One of his favorite places to hide was behind Padre Island in the mouth of Baffin Bay. A cut at or near the spot where the Mansfield
of the organization, both voting and non-voting, when the usual number, according to Board President Brent Moore, is about 12 percent.
A crowd gathered at the P.O.A. AnnuaL Homeowner's Meeting last Saturday
The requirement for a majority vote caught many of the members assembled by surprise as POA officials initially said only a plurality would be needed with the top two vote getters taking seats on the board. POA attorney John Bell said that changed last week. “The POA has adopted Robert’s Rules of Order,” Bell said Monday, “and those rules require a majority vote for board seats unless the organization’s bylaws have been amended to only require a plurality and the POA has not done that. I informed the POA of that last week.”
POA cont. A4
The store would be located at a new development on land owned by Rasheed along SPID, between Whitecap and Seashore Middle Academy. Rasheed said the planned Sprouts store would be about 12,000 square feet and a 365 Whole Foods store would be 12,000 – 14,000 square feet. Rasheed has also recently been communicating with the Aldi store group. The 365 by Whole Foods Market is a chain that was launched about a year ago with the concept of smaller more affordable natural and organic food stores than the larger Whole Foods stores. The second largest unit planned for the new center is a 5,000 squre foot space where there has recently been an interested party considering placing a bank branch at the site, but it looks like that will not develop. “There was a bank interested but their walk in business has slowed due to the popularity of online banking so they are hesitant to open another branch,” Rasheed said. “Instead I may put in a 24 hour restaurant like an IHOP. There will be 8 – 9 other shops each 12-1500 square feet and there have been many people showing an interest. The rent is $1.50 per square foot plus triple net which is very reasonable for this neighborhood.” Rasheed is also working on a Microtel hotel at a site along SPID on the south end of The Island which is set to open in spring 2018.
A Pirate Story for our Visitors
Channel now cuts through The Island gave him a way to quickly get out to open water and pursue his prey. He also used a small reef island in Corpus Christi Bay that over time became known as Lafitte Island. He would return to his hideout behind The Island after his attack and if he took on too much gold or silver to carry into the shallows he would bury it on The Island to be retrieved on his return to his base in New Orleans, Galveston, Campeche, or finally the town of Bagdad, Mexico which he is reported to have founded just below the Rio Grande River and which still exists today. Some of the caches of Spanish silver and gold were said to have been left behind for various reasons and were later found buried in the sand near the mouth of the pass to Baffin Bay by a treasure hunter. While it is known that Lafitte buried and left some treasure on Padre Island the exact location
is the stuff of lore. One persistent story is that he buried one treasure under a huge millstone on which is described “Dig Deeper.” So if you find a millstone on The Island with the words “Dig Deeper” inscribed on it please call the Island Moon
office and let us do the dirty work. So as you travel around our island this week keep your eye out for buried Spanish treasure and if you don’t find any treasure at least now you have a pirate story to take home.