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361-949-7700 editor@islandmoon.com The Island Newspaper since 1996 Facebook : The Island Moon Newspaper
January 24, 2013
Photo by Donald Hatch
The only Island in Texas where kids get sticker bur holes in their bicycle tires from riding through city parks Next Publication Date: 1/31/2013
Year 16, Issue 458
Around The Island Where Did All These Schlitterbahn Announcement “Days Away” Sale of Padre Isles Country Club Pending Gophers Come By Dale Rankin just wrapping up things with the From? lawyers.” The city permits are in place,
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com We are but five short weeks into winter and spring is but a twinkle in the collective Island eye but as winters go this ain’t a bad one. Beach driving is good and the first gut is full of pompano so all is right with the Island World.
Market days
By Dale Rankin
The Gopher Phone here at the Word Factory has been ringing lately.
The second Island Farmers Market is this Saturday, January 26, over at the Presbyterian Church. It kicks off at nine in the a.m. and if the first market is any indicator you should get there early because things sell out in a hurry. The church is providing free space for anyone who wants to sell. If you have questions call Kae over at the church, which by the way is at 14030 Fortuna Bay.
the final touches are being put on the plans, and the announcement of a ground breaking date only “days away,” according to Schlitterbahn developer Jeff Henry.
“There are no issues,” Henry said this week.
This is a something we’ve needed for a long time and we send out a Moon Attaboy to the folks who are making it happen.
Thanks John And speaking of Moon Attaboys, after twenty five years our friend and fellow Islander John Trice has left the Nueces County Coastal Parks Board. The list of projects that John has pushed to completion on The Island is way too lengthy to include here, not the least of which is the raising of the JFK Causeway. John and Molly are spending some time in California these days but we thank them for their work to improve The Island over the years. The parks board gets a lot done with a limited budget and John has been a key player in making that a reality.
Community garden As long as we’re sending out Moon Attaboys let’s send one to the Green Thumb Crowd over there at the Island Community Garden. If there is any doubt about whether we have any gardeners and wanna-be gardeners on The Island that has been put to rest. The Island Community Garden over at Douden Park is growing faster than a mush melon Jonesing on Rapid Grow. When John White and his fellow gardeners started over there a couple of years back there were 20 plots with a long waiting list. Then there were 40, still with a long waiting list. Now there are about to be 60 and the waiting list is still growing. If you are interested contact the POA but do it quickly.
“Hey where did all these gophers come from?” people want to know. “I’ve never seen this many on The Island before. What gives? So we called our friend Bill Schroeder over at Corpest to gopher the whole story. It turns out that the Pocket Gophers on The Island are sort of like the Canary in the Coal Mine. “There aren’t any more Pocket Gophers than there ever were,” Bill says. “It’s just that with
City Hall
Council Approves Management District, Considering Changing Backflow Inspections By Dale Rankin
Backflow preventer inspections
Our final Attaboy goes out to State Rep. Todd Hunter and his staff. For anyone who has ever had trouble in dealings with the Veterans Administration (insert punch line here) help is on the way. Retired Lt. Col. Dick Prewitt will be working in Hunter’s Island office from 10 a.m.2 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays to help Islanders navigate the sometimes frustrating waters of VA paperwork.
If you have a sprinkler system in your yard you’ve read the letter. It comes from the City of Corpus Christi and warns you of potential jail time if you don’t get the Backflow Preventer on your sprinkler inspected once each year.
As new development on The Island gets ready to gin up the demand for condos has started to move. The latest sale is the El Pescador Del Mar complex of eleven units located at the corner of SPID and Cruiser just north of Whitecap. Technically they are the Pescador Del Canal since they are on a canal and not actually the sea, but hey; we hear they were recently bought by an investor for $2.4 million and once the new canals are dug on The Island they will have direct access to the Gulf. Homes are going up at a rapid pace on The Island and look for overnight-stay accommodations to be next. Currently, the Rio Grande Valley has 3500 overnight stay units, Port Aransas has 3200, and North Padre only 1000. That number will likely increase rapidly in the next twenty-four months as the resort around the Schlitterbahn park is completed and on-site accommodations are added there. It’s an exciting time to be on our Island.
Well alrighty then Our old friend Robert Bob called from Oklahoma last week with a story we’re still trying to get our head around. He claims that when he flies out of town he parks his car on the top floor of the parking garage and as his plane approaches the runway he uses his remote control to start his car so that when he gets to it the heater has it nice and warm. We’re probably going to have to try it, for no other reason just to call calfrope on Robert Bob. But then again, what if it works?! In the meantime, say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Planning meetings have been going on in New Braunfels since the middle of last week between the parties involved. The park itself is a $41 million undertaking planned for the current Padre Isles Country Club site which includes the 65-acre waterpark with lodging, golf and restaurants. It is part of a $552 million master plan for the area which includes a marina on Lake Padre, an extension of the residential canal system including a waterexchange bridge under SPID that will connect the system with the open Gulf. The planned area for development includes about 500 acres on what is now mostly undeveloped land. Under a $117 million sales tax incentive agreement with the city, Schlitterbahn developers must begin
Schlitterbahn continued on A3
State of The Island
2004 Island Area Development Plan Goes Largely Unfulfilled
Editor’s note: In the last issue we ran the first of a series on the development of The Island Gophers continued on A7 since the 2004 Island Area Development Plan was formed as a framework for development. The plan, which was drafted with input from Roundup Islanders and approved by the City Council, was/is a comprehensive list of projects and goals for implementation on The Island. It is the comprehensive planning document for Island development.
Cavalry is on the way
The Colonel volunteered for the Marines at 15 and fought in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam winning enough fruit salad to cover his whole chest and then some. He knows a thing or two about how the military works, so if you need help, have questions, or just want to chat stop by Todd’s office in the Padre Professional Plaza and say hello. And so it begins…
The sale of Padre Isles Country Club, built in the early 1970s, is expected to be completed soon as construction gets underway on the development of Schlitterbahn Resort and Beachwalk.
“The city has been very helpful and we are
Fabrication of some features of the park has already begun in at the Schlitterbahn headquarters in New Braunfels and the contract to purchase the Padre Isles Country Club is in the hands of attorneys on both sides with all the elements in place awaiting signing.
Citizens and council members alike have been expressing dissatisfaction over the program for years and the city staff is currently, at the direction of the council, preparing an ordinance that would reduce the inspections from every year to once every two to three years; the exact time frame has not yet been determined. The inspection comes with a fee of $75 and is a moneymaker for the city. The city established its program for inspections in 1996 “to protect the public potable water system” and today their program tracks over 9,500 backflow prevention assemblies citywide. Typically the city issues an average of sixty notices per day reminding homeowners their inspection is due. According to city policy if the due date passes the homeowner gets the letter “which informs the owner of the violation and the legal consequences involved with non-compliance.” City Hall continued on A5
Messages In A Bottle Hopes and Dreams Wash Ashore in Blueberry Grape Bottle By Kathy Sanders, Seasonal Ranger
Astounding find at Padre Island National Seashore A seemingly tranquil, chilly, overcast, Sunday afternoon at Padre Island National Seashore, quickly turned into intrigue. A crowd gathered into the visitor’s center to witness the contents of a bottle found by two visitors. The excitement began to build as the two came Messages continued on A 2
As we saw in the last article very few of the listed projects have been done in the nine years since the plan was adopted. This is a continued look at projects in the plan and their status. By Dale Rankin POLICY STATEMENT B.24 The areas referred to as the Village (east side of the Intracoastal Waterway at the JFK Bridge) and the Jones Tract (south of Padre Isles) in Kleberg County, must be developed under special mixed-use standards consistent with previously adopted master plans for each area. A) The Village Master Plan, approved by both the City and the General Land Office, requires greater public landscaping to identify this area
Thirteen years after the approval for digging Packery Channel, ten years after the establishment of the Island Tax Increment Financing Zone, and nine years after the passage of the Island Area Development Plan the permanent restrooms and showers planned for each side of Packery Channel have yet to be built. Instead, these three portable restrooms on Zahn Road, and one portable restroom on the south side of the channel are all that are available.
State of the Island continued on A13
A little Island history
St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway was to be the Catalyst for Growth in South Texas By Dale Rankin When developers looked at South Texas in the summer of 1903 they saw potential. The same type of potential as South Florida that only needed the same thing for it to boom; a way to get there.
Francisco Yturria, and Thomas Carson, all of Cameron County. Uriah Lott was named first president of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico and the headquarters was eventually moved to Kingsville In those days the builders of new rail lines
The answer was the St. Louis Brownsville, and Mexico Railway. Its northern terminus was in of all places Sinton and its Southern U.S. terminus was where it crossed the Rio Grande in Brownsville. Another branch extended west to Starr County and eventually extensions were built from Sinton to connect it with Victoria, Houston, and Port O”Connor with the idea of eventually providing continuous Casa Ricardo Hotel along the rail line in Kingsville connections to Chicago, St. Louis and Memphis in the north, and Tampico and Mexico City in the south. were rewarded with bonuses of land, lots of It was an ambitious plan hatched at the first it, and this one was no exception. They got headquarters in Corpus Christi with initial $190,000 in cash bonuses and 90,000 acres. capital of $1 million. The board of directors Citizens of Brownsville and Bay City gave reads like a Who’s Who of South Texas; $40,000, while the Calhoun County Cattle Robert J. Kleberg and Arthur E. Spohn, Company donated $150,000. Henrietta King both of Corpus Christi; Robert Driscoll, Jr., gave 75,000 acres of land in Cameron and Uriah Lott, and Richard King, all of Nueces Kleberg counties, 640 acres for the townsite acres for shops. County; John G. Kenedy, James B. Wells, of Kingsville, and forty History continued on A4