Inside the Moon
Fishing A7
Sports A8
The
Issue 619
Island Moon
The voice of The Island since 1996
February 25, 2016
Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com The talk around our sandbar this week has been of the Spring Break alcohol ban on Port Aransas. When the Port Aransas City Council decided to take action to tamp down the beach crowds during Spring Break 2016 they focused on drinking. In recent years the crowds have become rowdier and have been known to throw bottles at police cars as they enforced a ban on alcohol on Port Aransas beaches after midnight which has been on the books since 2008. For years the Spring Break crowds on our beaches have consisted of fewer and fewer actual college students; college-aged yes, college students not so much. The growth of the South by Southwest festival in Austin over Spring Break weekend has altered the demographics on our beaches during Spring Break some but the fact is that fully 75% of the SXSW attendees are in the 25-44 year-old demographic. Only 7% of those attending the festival are under 24 years old. In January the Port Aransas City Council took the first steps toward what has become a sort-of-but not really 6 p.m. curfew on beach drinking from March 12 through March 20. In effect the council has pushed policy making authority to the police department by giving them the power to enforce the 6 p.m. ban at their sole discretion. As Port Aransas Police Chief Scott Burroughs told the city council last week it will be a “targeted enforcement in problem areas, not across the board.” So, if you are standing on the public beach in Port Aransas at 6:01 p.m. during Spring Break with a beer can in your hand are you in violation of the ban? The answer is maybe, maybe not. If the police officers think you might be trouble you will be asked to pour out your drink and things will progress either peacefully or not from there. The wording in the release put out by the city reads in part: “The Port Aransas City Council adopted Resolution No. 2016-__ which authorizes the Port Aransas Police Chief to enact a prohibition to consume alcoholic beverages on Port Aransas beaches if in his opinion (or his assigns) there exists a life/public safety issue.” Whether that is good public policy will be answered in the next few weeks, but when it comes to good public relations policy it depends on the goal. If the goal is to keep Spring Breakers away from Port Aransas beaches then it is good policy because the word that has gone out through media outlets in the feeder markets of Austin and San Antonio, and we quote a headline from the San Antonio Express-News, “Alcohol Banned on Port Aransas Beaches During Spring Break.” The stated goal has been to attract families and not wild spring breakers; again whether that works will be known in a few weeks. The question is whether in putting that message out they have thrown out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. Maybe it will be much ado about nothing and good weather will attract record crowds. On the other hand, if it suppresses sales and hotel/motel tax revenues it could do damage to a brand that could take a decade to overcome. It’s a bold move by the council and the question is whether it invokes the Law of Unintended Consequences. Ask us in four weeks and in the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Live Music A18
Seashore Sports A15
Winter Texan Roundup A13
Free
Weekly
FREE
Photo by Steve Coons
Election Day is Tuesday
Early Voting turnout on Padre fourth highest in county Turnout in Early Voting in Nueces County is about 1000 votes higher than in the last Presidential Election in 2012.
South Packery Beach Turns into Moonscape But work to widen beach to be complete by Spring Break
As of close of business Tuesday evening a total of 646 voters had cast Early Voting Ballots at the sole North Padre Island polling site located at Schlitterbahn making it the fourth highest precinct in the county. Island voters in the Republican Primary outnumbered Democrats 538-108. Countywide 12,896 voters had cast ballots in Early Voting with Democrats outnumbering Republicans by 7256 to 5640. In Port Aransas 250 votes were cast while in Flour Bluff the turnout totaled 586. During Early Voting, which ends on Friday, February 26, registered voters can cast ballots at any polling place in the county while on Election Day they must vote in their home precinct.
Election continued on A3
Where to Vote on Election Day Tuesday March 1, 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Democrats Precinct 40 Island Presbyterian Church 14030 Fortuna Bay Dr. Corpus Christi, TX 78418 Precinct 81 Island Presbyterian Church 14030 Fortuna Bay Dr. Corpus Christi, TX 78418 Precinct 19
South Packery Beach this week By Dale Rankin For the past few weeks beachgoers south of Packery Channel have been asking what is going on with the mounds of sand that have been accumulated there by city crews. The area looks like a moonscape and the sand is piled up in a way it has never been done by Mother Nature. The answer, according to Russell J. Armstrong, Gulf Beach & Natural Resources Superintendent with Corpus Christi Parks & Recreation, is that sand mounds are part of a work in progress for the beach adjacent to the Michael J. Ellis Seawall. City crews were in the process of moving windblown sand that had accumulated on the beach just south of the channel to the beach further south where it would be used to widen the beach, when they were called to the north side of the channel to prepare the beach for Spring Break.
“I've been on the beach and looked at the signs and spoken with our operators. We are not finished with the maintenance of the beach at this time. Spring Break is coming upon us very soon so the crews have shifted to the north side of Packery Channel to get the roadways adjusted for that. We have been tasked with completing the roads for the State and County Beaches as well as our own. We will get them completed and be back on the south side of the jetty before the Spring Break period to complete the work there,” Armstrong said. “To give a little history, several years ago there was a plan to have a 30' walkway that runs along the length of the seawall for beach goers. My team's thoughts are to maintain that walkway, the trash corrals are set at the edge of the 30' mark. The north and south bound lanes of the road way would be next,
Spring Break preperations on the beach north of Packery Channel. then parking will be available for several rows of vehicles. We are not done with the pushing of the sand at this time, we are currently waiting on measurements to be taken by our representatives from Texas A&M and the Conrad Blucher Institute. Once that is complete we plan on continuing to expand the beach sand seaward allowing for more parking and giving us a larger beach front to utilize. “
Ellis Memorial Library 700 W. Ave. A Port Aransas, TX 78373
Republicans
A little Island history
Box 13 and the Election That Will Live in Infamy
14353 Commodores Dr.
Editor’s note: With the approach of the March 1 primary elections we thought it would be a good time to re-visit what is arguably the most cussed and discussed election in our state’s history, the 1948 U.S. Senate race between then Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson and former Governor Coke Stevenson. The race was decided by 87 votes out of 988,295 cast with 200 of them coming in a full six days after the election from Jim Wells County earning Johnson the name of Landslide Lyndon (which he hated).
Precinct 19
By Dale Rankin
Ellis Memorial Library
To understand what happened in the 1948 race between Lyndon Johnson and Coke Stevenson you have to go back to 1941 when Johnson lost his race for the senate after leading by 5000 votes when “late” votes came in from East Texas which lost LBJ the race by 1311 votes. In his autobiography “In History’s Shadow” John Connelly, who was Johnson’s campaign manager in both the 1941 and 1948 races said he learned a valuable lesson from the 1941 loss. When longtime Senator Morris Shepard died in office a cattle call of twenty-nine candidates signed up to run which included sitting Governor Pappy Lee O’Daniel, a reactionary congressman, Lyndon Johnson, twenty-five Democrats, two Republicans, and one communist.
Precinct 40 (Includes everything south of Whitecap and residences on the beach at Windward Drive. Island Presbyterian Church 14030 Fortuna Bay Dr. Precinct 81 (Everything north of Whitecap and residences along Leeward Drive) Schlitterbahn
700 W. Ave. A Port Aransas
New Rules for Beach Fires The Corpus Christi City Council on Tuesday approved new rules for beach fires which forbid the burning of any material that leaves any residue other than ashes or coal residue. The new rules require a second reading before taking effect but no change is expected in the second reading at the next council meeting. The new rules were recommended by the Watershore and Beach Advisory Committee and are in addition to the current ordinance which forbids fires of more than three feet on each side, nine square feet in all, which prohibits the use of most wooden pallets which exceed that size. The new rules are:
Fires continued on A6
Johnson locked up the “controlled” votes that belonged to the Archer Parr machine in the South Texas counties from The Island to the Rio
George Parr during the Box 13 investigation
Lyndon Johnson and Connally with the Vice President of the Republic of China in 1961 Grande Valley and when the precinct chairmen there called Connelly with results he told them to call them in to the Texas Election Bureau which was owned by the Dallas Morning News and served as the unofficial reporting agency for election results, the agency had no legal status but
once the votes totals were called in they could not be changed when they were later called in to party officials. As Johnson’s team called in their numbers they were ahead by 5000 votes.
History continued on A4