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[The Trash Heap]

Yesterday's City Council session went pretty much as expected. Perhaps bowing to some of their constituents' complaints, several councilmembers asked the City Manager to look into moving the latest ordinance's proposal for a parking lot beside the north end of the seawall closer to the south jetty of Packery Channel, or at least finding some way to transport people from their cars the current 1500 feet to the jetty. Just before the meeting started, I received a partial hard copy response to my March 6 PIA request for the two digital maps of the TIF channel and beach improvements once described as available on the City website. I later received an email with one of those maps in Word format. I'm unfortunately too computer-illiterate to rotate the map 90 degrees to make it more legible, but you can see in the undated map that South Side parking lot and bath house were once much closer to the jetty. The hard copy of the other map, unlabeled as well as undated, showed that parking lot much farther south, but was not included in the email, so I can't share it with you. (Actually, I gave the whole package to John Kelley right after the meeting, so maybe it can be distributed electronically later.) The objective, of course, is to show the extent of the bait-and-switch maneuver regarding what was promised would be financed by the TIF and what is now being proposed for substitution.

Like previous maps provided in the Caller-Times, the City Manager's power-point presentation before the ordinance's public comment and discussion periods continued to show access channels cutting through the Packery Channel Project's southern shoreline revetment to a marina with private structures located within the GLO property. Unlike the Caller-Times maps, his presentation showed no private development in the two blocks of GLO beachfront property parallel to the beach at either end of the seawall. Consequently, the closures to beach driving continue to be proposed in areas not contiguous to the new resort.

A novel point of view and proposal was presented by Joe Lynch during the public comment period. He opined that instead of restricting access to the beach in an effort to attract a "World Class Resort," the City should concentrate on accentuating the attractiveness of the public beach and beachfront with a "World Class Park." My take on his theory is that we should provide not only the vehicular access to, and other amenities at, the south jetty promised the TIF voters, but also include in that 1800-foot space of public land between the jetty and the seawall every manner of concession and amusement feature. Among these should at least be a replacement for the J.P. Luby Surf Pier, to be situated far enough from the jetty to prevent interactions with the jetty fishermen. And it seems at last we might have found a home for that poor little boll weevil, the Ferris wheel. The developer would pay for these extra features, of course. My reasons for liking the idea is that it would take the crowds off the piping plover's critical habitat on the beach north of the channel, as well as keep the promise of vehicular access to the jetty.
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URL: http://www.caller.com/ccct/local_news/article/0,1641,CCCT_811_4561285,00.html

Rachel Denny Clow/Caller-Times

Austin developer Paul Schexnailder (standing) listens to the discussion at the council meeting Tuesday. The council rescinded its original ban on vehicle traffic after Schexnailder said a ban was needed on more of the beach.

Vote: 7-1 to ban cars
Council to consider ordinance one more time

By Brandi Dean Caller-Times
March 22, 2006


The vehicle ban on 7,200 feet of Padre Island beach is one week and a few tweaks away from being a done deal.

Those for the ban outweighed its opponents both on the council and in the 200-member audience. The City Council voted 7-1 Tuesday to close the beach to vehicles after hearing some 30 people speak in favor of it and about 20 people against it.

The group in favor of the ban focused on the need for a pedestrian friendly beach and the economic growth a planned $500 million resort community could bring to the area. Austin developer Paul Schexnailder, who owns the land the resort would be built on, has said the beach can't have cars if the development is going to take place.

"We need all of it," said Kathy Vandermolen, a Padre Island real estate agent. "We need the money, we need the development and we need the safety."

Those against it cited their distrust of the council's promises and their concern that, regardless of parking lots and public restrooms, the beach would in effect become private.

"This ordinance is going to restrict beach access. Period," said Ellis Pickett, chairman of the Texas chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. He made a trip from Liberty to speak at the meeting. "The people who use the beach are being shunted away."

Councilman John Marez was the only council member who agreed with him.

"We're being manipulated by those guys," Marez said of the developers.

The vote passed the issue onto its second hearing, which is scheduled for next week. Councilman Bill Kelly has abstained from all votes on the issue because he owns property in the area.

The council has asked city staff to make a few changes to the ordinance. The plan calls for the beach between the south jetty of Packery Channel and Padre Balli Park to be closed to cars, but not before passing several benchmarks. Two sets of parking lots, restrooms and outdoor showers must be completed, a wheelchair-accessible ramp over the seawall must be built and a sidewalk connecting one of the parking lots to the jetty all must be built.

The developer also must show that the development actually is going to happen. Before the first 1,800 feet can be car-free, the developer must begin work on $75 million worth of construction. Before the vehicle ban can be put into effect on the final 1,200 feet, the developer must begin building the hotel and homes planned for the area.

And although there was some discussion about taking it out of the plan, an election asking voters whether the city's charter should be amended to require voter approval on any future vehicle bans made it through the meeting intact.

The changes the council asked for came, in part, from issues raised during the public comment section of the meeting.

One thing several people were worried about was access to the Packery Channel south jetty. The plan shows a 12-feet wide sidewalk stretching from the north parking lot to the jetty. It's a distance of 1,500 to 1,800 feet, depending on where in the parking lot you start, and several people believed that was too far a distance for surfers and fishermen to tote their gear. Councilman Brent Chesney asked the staff to see whether there was some way to move the parking lot closer or provide some sort of transportation between the lot and the jetty.

Councilman Rex Kinnison wanted the wording changed so that construction had to begin on both ends of the beach before cars could be taken off. And Councilman Mark Scott suggested that the charter amendment question, which had been scheduled for November's election, be put on the April 2007 ballot to save the city money. It would have been the only item the city had on the November ballot, so without it, the city doesn't have to help pay for the election.

Those changes are not enough to satisfy the Beach Access Coalition, who petitioned to have the issue put before voters last time the city voted for a vehicle ban. That petition was made null and void when the council rescinded its vote, but the coalition will be ready to start over after next week's second reading.

"We'll meet Saturday and decide what we're going to do next," John Kelley, a member, said. "Probably draft our new petition."

Contact Brandi Dean at 886-3778 or HYPERLINK mailto:deanb@caller.com deanb@caller.com.
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[rabbit]

I think we need to run some council members out of town
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Fishing and Kayaking its a rough life but somebody has to do it.