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[The Trash Heap]

Aside from the usual local concerns about traffic, paving, and such, most of the questions and comments were about the beach closure ordinance on the March 21 Corpus Christi City Council meeting agenda. It was confirmed that discussion of that ordinance would commence at 1:30 pm, that it would be voted upon during that and the subsequent reading at the next council meeting (i.e., there would be no attempt to declare an emergency and so try to pass it in a single reading), and that consequently the closure opponents would have to wait until the meeting after the second reading to request reconsideration of the ordinance and/or permission to circulate a petition for a referendum to overturn the ordinance. My supposition therefore is that the second reading will be on March 28 and the request for reconsideration will come on April 11.

I told the councilmembers (Chesney, Cooper, Garcia and Noyola) that after asking in a Public Information Act request for TIF improvement documents cited but not shown on the City website, the citations disappeared from the website. There are a few more days before the promised response is due, and City Manager Noe said he would look into it.

I expressed disgust that after pointing out in writing and at previous town hall and council meetings that a lot of existing documents like the lease with the GLO and the beach development plan were inconsistent with beach closures outside the seawall area, the apparent response had been Section 15 of the proposed ordinance, which directs the City Manager to make everything else consistent with the new ordinance, rather than vice-versa. Chesney argued that the items I'd previously brought up were dismissed or explained as being interpreted differently by the City, and that the language of Section 15 was routine.

Another thing I noted was that during the spring break the City had intentionally directed public beach users to the southern tip of Mustang Island and had labored hard to mechanically maintain the area. However, this intensified human use and impacts in the piping plover critical habitat. If the proposed ordinance is passed and these impacts become permanent in a way not discussed in the Corps' NEPA and ESA documentation, I said it was my intention to ask for Congressional support to make the Corps reinitiate consultation.

Other speakers were very concerned that after voting for and shelling out TIF money to build the Packery Channel Project, they were not going to be allowed to park closer to the south jetty than 1400 feet. Chesney went into his semantic thing about the beach really not being "closed," then restated his old stance of a pedestrian-only beach being necessary even w/o a resort to make it more lucrative.

One odd thing that occurred during the discussions was the impression left by the City Manager that what was shown in the newspaper and what the resort actually proposed for the GLO land adjacent to the channel and adjacent to the beach in the proposed closure areas north and south of the seawall were different. It seemed as though he thought these properties would not be turned into sites for a marina, a hotel, etc., but would remain undeveloped and publicly accessible. I expressed the hope that the developer would actually make a direct presentation of his proposal at the council meeting, instead of continuing to make the City the middleman in the endless Q and A surrounding it, but no one seemed to know if this would occur.

As the meeting broke up, I pointed out to Mr. Noe that it would be next to impossible to make the south jetty and its paved surface ADA-accessible from a parking lot 1400 feet away. He replied that the adjacent landowner would be required by the ordinance to provide such access. I responded by noting that the adjacent landowner was the GLO, not the developer, and that if the developer was expected to provide appropriate parking, access, and facilities for persons with disabilities, it could only do so as a sublessor under the City's existing lease with the GLO. I suggested he look into changing the language of the proposed ordinance to substitute "sublessor" for "owner."
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[rabbit]

Way to go johnny. Sounds like the council does not care about what we think, their minds are made up and all they are doing is trying their best to make it difficult to stop them. Bring back the tar and feathers run them out of town on their horses backwards.
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Fishing and Kayaking its a rough life but somebody has to do it.