Inside the Moon
Issue 644
Huimming Birds A7
Upcoming Art Show A7
Girl Scouts A2
The
Island Moon The voice of The Island since 1996
August 18, 2016
Around The Island
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
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Port Aransas Art Center to Break Ground on new Facility
That’s been the message from the Weather Wonks around here lately as we have been under a Flash Flood Watch all week as we have watched vainly for water to come pouring from the sky only see get sprinkles in the early daylight hours. The rainfall amounts have been just about right to offset evaporation from Island swimming pools but that’s about it. Between the Sky is Falling warnings and the admonitions from the overhead signs on SPID warning us to Be Prepared for Hurricane Season it’s been gloom and doom, but so far about the only sign of Hurricane Season 2016 has been on those SPID signs.
They do not represent the total amount of taxable property in each area; instead they represent the taxable value after exemptions – such as homesteads.
Architectural rendering of new Port A. Art Center
$379,325,105
If you follow these pages regularly you know we have been reporting on squatters taking up residence in old recreational vehicles and campers around the JFK Causeway of late. That problem has been solved thanks to CCPD and the Texas General Land Office. But now it seems we have a new breed of squatters who like the finer things in life and they have moved into vacant houses. It’s been a problem OTB for a while but now it has made its way to The Island with a squatter discovered in a house on Cane Harbor this week. They watch the foreclosure sales and figure that the banks won’t care if they move on in; but the agents sure do when they are showing a vacant house only to discover someone squatting in the Master Bedroom.
Padre Island
$1,582,782,864 Mustang Island (Not including Port Aransas) $1,962,107,969 Total appraised taxable value on The Island(s)
Water temperature at Bob Hall Pier has dropped some in the past week and is holding just above 80 degrees.
House Squatters
Last week we published numbers with total value showing the Island residents make up about 4% of the population of the City of Corpus Christi and pay about 10% of the property tax. Note the low total appraised value of land in downtown districts compared to the much higher appraised values on Padre and Mustang Islands combined. These numbers were provided by the Nueces County Appraisal District.
If we have flooding on our Island folks that’s going to be the least of our problem because it’s going to mean that sea level has risen by nine feet! To get nine feet of water on The Island would mean Corpus Christi is underwater all the way to Ayers Street.
Police say sneak thieves have been raiding mail boxes up and down Whitecap lately looking for goodness knows what. They can have all our mail they want; it’s nothing but bills. But if you live on Whitecap keep an eye out for Mailbox Desperados.
Island By The Numbers Editor’s note: The Nueces County Appraisal District this month provided the tax rolls for each of the taxing entities in the county. This is the number that will be used to calculate the Tax Rate and Effective Tax Rate for each of the taxing entities for the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
Grab your poncho and run for the highest sand dune you can find everybody. Run for your very lives!
Mail thieves
Live Music A18
Current Port A. Art Center facility By Dale Rankin In 2007 Islander Dan Winship began a push to get a new facility for the Port Aransas Art Center. On Thursday, August 25 his wife Karen Winship will be part of a group of Island artists that will break ground on a new $1.1 million facility at the site of the current Sportsmans Lodge at 104 N. Alister Street. “We have been working on this since Dan was still with us,” Karen, who is President of the center, said this week, “It wouldn’t have happened without him.” The
process
wasn’t
without
problems. The first step was buying the land which was done over a year ago with money raised through donations. Then as the Ed Rachal Foundation got involved and helped with funding for the remainder of the $1.1 million price tag there was another snag; the buildings in Sportsmans Lodge were old and contained asbestos which delayed progress and a final closing on the project and cost $50,000 to remove. Finally, in July everything came together and at 10 a.m., Thursday, August 25, the last step in planning will take place and the first step in construction will begin.
$19.565,729,131 Christi $2,094,696,251 Aransas
City of Corpus City of Port
We had several question about our tax numbers in the last issue which showed that homeowners in Port Aransas now pay less than half the city taxes than those in the Corpus Christi City Limits. The Tax Rate for each $100 of property value in Port Aransas is .272191 per $100 of property value while the City of Corpus Christi is about to raise the Tax Rate for Padre Island to $.606264 per $100 of property value. Three years ago Port Aransas taxpayers were paying 64 cents for every $1 property owners on Padre Island (and Mustang Island inside the Corpus Christi City Limits) paid. But after three years of tax hikes under the guidance of Mayor Nelda Martinez and three years of the Port Aransas City Council holding the line and adopting the Effective Tax Rate that ratio has dropped to less than 50 cents. The Corpus Christi City Council has adopted the previous year’s Tax Rate in each of the past three even as property values have risen by just
Around continued on A4
$3,203,119,656 Emergency Service Dist. #2 (Includes The Island and Flour Bluff) $2,481,800,181 Port Aransas ISD (Because of its high wealth per student ration PAISD pays .70 cents of each tax dollar raised to other school districts across the state) $2,982,088,806 Flour Bluff ISD (Flour Bluff ISD does not pay any of its property tax revenue to other districts) $435,126,626 Padre Island Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (The zone captures property tax revenue on new construction within the zone since 2003) $25,192,835,462 Del Mar College District (Includes The Island) $27,327,999,929 Hospital District (Includes The Island) $400,925,053 Downtown Increment Refinance Zone (Captures certain property tax downtown which is earmarked for spending inside the zone) $121,564,007 Downtown Management District (Improvements) $40,011,301 (Land) Downtown Management District (The DMD has the ability to levy tax inside the zone) $562,500,361 Total appraised taxable value in downtown districts
Time For Legends
Art Center cont. on A4
The Texas Legends Billfish Tournament takes to the water this weekend in Port Aransas.
Lake Padre Progress
It is an overnight offshore tournament and boats can leave from any port in Texas after 5 p.m. on Thursday and must be into the Port Aransas Municiple Breakwater by 6 p.m. Saturday. Billfish are released and the public can view videos of the catch at the spectator area at the weigh-in at Virginia’s. The tournament was created from a previous tournament called the Bob Byrd Memorial Marlin Tournament, which was originally
Here on The Island we don’t have Skid Row-we have Skid Drive.
City Taxes
$27,170,929,323 Nueces County
The heavy machines have gone and the excavation work around Lake Padre is finished for now. Next is the bulkheading and a canal and bridge to connect the area to the existing Island canal system.
Legends cont. on A4
A little Island history
A Texas Life Up and Down the Cattle Trails
From the Texas Reader
Every life has a story, but not every story gets told. It's a shame more of our forebears didn't put pen to paper and tell us how things were. One who did was Levi B. Anderson (1849-1931), here's his story:
"Came overland from Mississippi with my parents to Texas in the spring of 1853” Our outfit consisted of two wagons and a buggy, and we also brought several of our negro slaves. My mother and the youngest children rode in the buggy, which was drawn by an old mule. We crossed the Mississippi River on a ferryboat. I do not know how long it took us to make the trip, but we must have
made very slow progress, for the older children walked almost all of the way and drove an old favorite milch cow that we called "Old Cherry." I remember one amusing incident about that old cow. She had a growing hatred for a dog, and never failed to lunge at one that came near her. One evening about dusk as we were driving her along the way we came to a large black stump by the roadside, and "Old Cherry," evidently thinking it was a dog, made a lunge at it and knocked herself senseless. The one thing that stands out most vividly in my recollection of that trip is the fact that I was made to wear a sunbonnet all the way. I hated a bonnet as much as "Old Cherry" hated a dog, and kept throwing my bonnet away and going bareheaded,
so finally my mother cut two holes in the top of the bonnet, pulled my hair through them and tied it hard and fast. That was before the days of clipped hair, and as mine was long enough to tie easily, that settled the bonnet question, and I had to make my entrance into grand old Texas looking like a girl, but feeling every inch like a man. We stopped in Williamson County, near Georgetown, then in the fall of the same year we came to Seguin, Guadalupe County, where I have lived ever since, except when I was following the trail. There was but little
farming carried on in those days, the settlers depending on grass for feed for their work teams and other stock. The crops of corn and cane were made with oxen. Many times I have
History continued on A4