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2013 the Year in Pictures A2,A4
Seashore News A11
On the Rocks A5
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361-949-7700 editor@islandmoon.com The Island Newspaper since 1996 Facebook : The Island Moon Newspaper
December 26, 2013
The Only Island in Texas Where we Celebrate Festivus for the Rest of us
Around The Island
Island trespassers The number of visitors to our Island has reached critical mass with regards to land use. For decades trespassing on the 2000-plus acres of privately-owned land on The Island has been a daily fact of life. No Trespassing signs are torn down as fast as they go up and trespassers go around any barriers put in place. But two events have brought the issue to a Rubicon in the past two months. First, the Manti group was raked over the coals by a local muckraking television news organization for not placing trash cans on their property just inside the Packery Channel Bridge which is a popular fishing and littering spot. Not only is that charge unfair, it is borderline irresponsible. In our litigious town where ambulance chasing attorneys out shout each other for attention and juries hand out large fortunes for less than large transgressions there is a tort that goes by the name of “attractive nuisance” which poses the notion that placing trash cans there is tantamount to inviting the public in; which means that if/when a fisherperson falls into the channel and drowns, or when a brush fire takes out a house the property owner is on the hook for damages. The second event was the recent 500-acre brush fire on the privately-owned land south of Sea Pines which was caused by a vehicle which drove around the No Trespassing signs, got stuck, and set the grass on fire. More signs and barriers went up and no sooner were they in place than a person on an ATV carrying a shotgun went around them, even as inspectors were on the site from the previous fire, and found himself afoul of the law. In both cases the landowners have appealed to the city to limit access to private land from public rights of way where the trespassers are entering. This is an issue whose time has come.
Beach use The bigger crowds have also pushed beach use to the limits from PINS in the south to the jetties in Port Aransas in the north and brought us face to face with the fact that we don’t have a long-term beach use/management plan. That issue, like traffic, is one that we no longer have the luxury of avoiding. The issue of limiting beach driving is an incendiary one which no officeholder in his/her right mind wants to tackle, and understandably so. The problem has been that in the past we have addressed it one project at a time and that muddling through approach only serves to divide us. Somehow/somewhere on our twentysix miles of public beaches there needs to be a pedestrian beach; where and how we decide which beach that will be needs to be the result of a transparent and rational process; once again; an idea whose time has come.
Photo by Miles Merwin Next Publication Date: 1/2/2014 Facebook: The Island Moon Newspaper Year 16, Issue 506
2013 The Year That Was
Schlitterbahn Construction Top Story of the Year
By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
It’s been a year to remember on our little sandbar; probably the most benchmark year since 2000 when voters approved the digging of Packery Channel. We have reviewed the year’s events in this issue but some are unresolved as we loosen up the vocal chords for auld lang syne. Here are a few.
By Dale Rankin For the last twenty years the thought has been “one of these years things are going to start happening on our Island;” well, this year was that year. The groundbreaking for the Schlitterbahn Beach Country Resort waterpark was the watermark for 2013 which will go down as a year full of groundbreaking events. Five years after the formation of the Island Strategic Action Committee and three years after the formation of the Island Strategic Action Committee The Island began to see the fruits of organization.
The Shlitterbahn groundbreaking ceremony in February
Dee-Scoveries
The year saw progress in a number of Island projects which had been stuck in the planning stages for years, some for Schlitterbahn continued on A7
2014 Year of the Horse (Men: be sure to read all the way to the end) 2014 is the Year of the Horse. The Year 2014 is the 4711th Chinese year. The Chinese believe that the first king of China was the Yellow King whose reign began in 2697 B.C., therefore China will enter its 4711th year on January 14, 2014. On January 1 Latvia will officially adopt the euro currency and will become the eighteenth Eurozone country. From February 7-23 the 2014 Winter Olympics will be held in Sochi, Russia. On April 29 an annular solar eclipse will occur. From June 12 – July 13 the 2014 FIFA World Cup will be held in Brazil. On August 24 NASA's New Horizons spacecraft will cross the orbit of Neptune after traveling for over eight years. New Horizons is 2014 continued on A6
Padre Island Ukulele Club Guaranteed – learn to play a song in 60 minutes By Brent Rourk
Let’s all review Isaiah 1:18 Come now, let us reason together.
Harbor Island That admonition was the subject of a story in these pages several weeks ago with regards to the flap over development on Harbor Island. When we broke the story of Martin Mainstream’s plan to put a 300-plus acre liquid gas processing plant there we took them at their word. But a careful review of their permits shows that in fact it includes an oil processing plant. From the looks of things they tried to sneak one by the goalie, and if so shame on them. But on the other side calls to rezone the land for non-industrial use are cost-prohibitive pie-inthe-sky brayings with little purpose other than firing up the torch-carrying crowd and lining the pockets of lawyers on both sides. From the sound of things cooler heads are prevailing and the shouting has died down and the talking has begun. Once again the Prophet Isaiah’s words are transcendent. 2013 has been a great year for our Island and 2014 looks to be an even better one. We’ll see you on the other side, and in the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Seeing the Light
Turkey Bowling marked the close of the season for the Back Porch.
In play mode - all smiles and music He always has his ukulele (uke) with him – always. You can find him at the beach casually strumming some Jimmy Buffett, at a coffee shop effortlessly shifting through chords, or at an airport gate blazing some memorable classic rock. He finds his way around the uke brilliantly and flawlessly after 50 years of guitar and 30 years of banjo, and his weathered but welltuned voice still hits the pitch and melodically complements the soothing sounds of his tenor uke. He has played the uke for only three years, but now he is now a ‘uke’ man. It’s who he is and it’s what he does. Have you thought about learning to play the Uke Club continued on A5
by Devorah Fox http://devorahfox.com On 16 acres of land situated in Aransas Pass between St. Joseph’s Island and Mustang Island sits the Lydia Ann Channel Lighthouse. The property includes not just the lighthouse but also the lighthouse keeper’s residence and guest accommodations. Once owned by the state of Texas, the land was sold to the federal government in the 1850s. Permanent structures were erected to house boat pilots and provide rescue and aid to shipwrecked sailors. The socalled United States Life Saving Station was
administered by the United States Revenue Marine which was later renamed the United States Revenue Cutter Service and was run with a volunteer crew. This service merged with others to form the United States Coast Guard in 1915. The Coast Guard took responsibility for all lighthouses beginning in 1939. .
The Lydia Ann Channel Lighthouse was deactivated in 1952 after a major channel shift left the station a mile from the channel entrance. To better mark Aransas Pass, a new light was established in 1952 at the Port Aransas Coast Guard Station, and the Aransas Pass Lighthouse was deactivated. No government agencies Dee-Scoveries continued on A8
A Little Island History
Changing Times on The Island
By Greg Smith
History is not generally about slow change but comes in spurts, with the Island being no different. As we end 2013 and look towards the next year we see a changing place. The venerable Padre Isles Country Club, like a Phoenix rising from the ashes grows taller, wider and unrecognizable. The back nine has disappeared and the water park is sprouting up under the watchful eye of the energetic and colorful Jeff Henry.
flowing in. Unfortunately for those who thought the riches would never end learned a painful lesson when the price collapsed in
Harbor Island in Port Aransas has suddenly become a hot item for deep water access with its two largest vacant The entrance to Padre Isles Country Club during tracts being in play and causing construction quite a bit of consternation in that old port town. The five 1986. The late eighties and early nineties miles of beach in Kleberg County is now brought the hardest times that South Texas looking to join the list of Island parks, either had seen since the Great Depression. The as a County Park or an extension of the 2008 bust was like a mild norther compared National Seashore. to the hurricane of that eighties bankruptcy
Oil Boom For the third time in South Texas history we are in an oil boom, the first starting in the 1920’s, when Corpus grew a whopping 570% in twenty years. The next boom began in 1979 when oil prices tripled and the old oil fields saw a surge of activity and money
parade.
Changing times An old practice in Port A that is disappearing is the closing of businesses for the month of December. Before the Condos History continued on A3