Changes Coming to the Convention and Visitors Bureau

Inside the Moon Music From the Moon A7 Unstung Heroes A9 Fishing A11 Moon on a Spoon A15 Live Music A18 Issue 808 The 27° 37' 0.5952'' N | 97° 13' 21.4068'' W Photo by Doug and Debbie Seefeldt Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 October 10, 2019 Weekly www.islandmoon.com FREE Around The Island By Dale Rankin Cold front blew through, temperature dropped into the eighties. Got so cold Island dogs wouldn't jump in the pools. Oh the humanity. Even the hummingbirds are headed south following the first of the Winter Texans who have been trickling in with reports of dreary weather up north. It won't be long before The Gaff is filled with Winter Texans cheering power tools as they buzz High tides have been filling the flats Around the Island this week. Photo by Laurie Lyng down the track in Port A. We have officially hit the sweet spot of the Island Year as the temperature drops 2019 Training Bids on Water with the humidity and marks the Changes Coming to unofficial end of our Island hurricane to Help Save Exchange season. Bridge Expected Change in plans the Convention and Cold Stunned Due to circumstances beyond our this Week control the release of the video for Visitors Bureau Sea Turtles at After five postponements the bids on Stevie Start’s song Thank God It’s the long planned Park Road 22 Water Padre at Waves Resort has been Audit of accounts leads to Exchange Bridge are scheduled to be postponed until Thursday, October PINS opened at Corpus Christy City Hall at 17 at 6 p.m. The debut will be on By: Martha Villalba and Donna 2 p.m. on Wednesday, October 16. the big screen and features a bevy push for transparency J. Shaver, Ph.D. of local residents and businesses. By Dale Rankin members prior to last week’s meeting. City officials report that several It contains a list of changes under the National Park Service, Padre Independent Thieves will play for An audit of the operations at the potential bidders have picked up heading of “Substantive Changes” Island National Seashore the Music from the Moon Concert Corpus Christi Convention and packets to submit bids with several which include: Series. It’s free and it’s going to be a Visitors Bureau ordered by the City E-mail: [email protected] coming from out of town. good night to be on our little sandbar. of Corpus Christi last year, completed 1. Limiting expenditure of HOT Juvenile green sea turtles are Estimated cost of the project is Lake Snoopy but not yet released to the public, is tax revenue to Corpus Christi only, our most common year-round $12.5 million. In the first round driving sweeping changes in the way unless otherwise approved in the resident sea turtles in South of bidding in 2016 the low bid Customers heading to Snoopy’s Pier the operation is managed and Hotel Business Plan for area attractions Texas waters. They are regularly was $11.5 million. Plans call for a and Marker 37 had to drive through Occupancy Tax funds in the city are that drive business to Corpus seen swimming near jetties and structure with three forty-foot wide saltwater to get there this week. handled. Christi (ie. King Ranch Breakfast feeding on algae growing on arches spanning a waterway and two Hopefully when the $1.5 million in in Kingsville, TX; Sand Fest in Port An item presented to the City rocks at the Packery, Aransas pedestrian and carts paths of equal improvements planned for that area Aransas, TX, etc.) Council last week but tabled due to Pass, and Mansfield Channels. width on each side. The waterway are in place that will be remedied. time constraints lays out the changes 2. Addition of a requirement to We respond to reports of stranded would connect Lake Padre with the that will go back to the council establish procurement policies that sea turtles all year long; however, existing canal system through a new for a possible vote in its October resemble City policies every few years a severe cold privately funded canal on the west 15 meeting. The changes come as front passes through South Texas side of SPID which has already been 3. Addition of Mayor and City causing local bay temperatures permitted by the city. The project was Alyssa Barrera Mason has taken over Manager as voting members (of the as Interim CEO after the departure to drop rapidly. Influenced by first approved by voters in a 2004 CVB Board) instead of Ex-Officio, the drop in water temperature, bond election. of longtime CEO Paulette Kluge non-voting and as the council has appointed many sea turtles become “cold Dale Rankin stunned.” Cold stunning is Beach changes an ad hoc committee to fill the job 4. Addition of City Contract on a permanent basis. The council Manager as Ex-Officio, non-voting the most significant source of A big thank you to city crews who has also taken a more active role in member (of the CVB Board) mortality in the green turtle Packery have been working this week to population in Texas today. These oversight as they have recently filled 5. Addition of Suspension and remove sand from the Michael J. three vacant seats on the CVB Board reptiles become immobilized Termination Clause (giving the city and float to the surface of the Channel Jetties of Directors which they appoint. It the right to terminate its operating was also announced this week that water or wash ashore. If cold agreement with the CVB) stunned turtles are not found and Repair Bid Out the Fiesta de la Flor, the annual Bids are now out for repair to the 6. Change to allow City Council to protected, they will succumb to celebration held here for the past five Packery Channel Jetties caused by approve bylaw changes (used to be exposure, predation, drowning, years to honor the legacy of Tejano Hurricane Harvey. superstar Selena Quintanilla-Perez, on the right to object) or boat strikes. The work includes demolition and will no longer be taking place in 7. Clarity on Performance Measures Every year for the past few removal of damaged matting along Corpus Christi. (to help monitor funds, services, years, hundreds to more than the channel, primarily on the South The shakeup emanating from city and practices) 3,000 green turtles were found cold stunned in Texas. Most Packery Jetty which was the most Ellis Seawall and use it to widen hall was spelled out in a series of The moves, taken as a whole, will heavily damaged by the storm’s the beach. They have been doing the documents presented to council rushing water, and replacing rip rap same on the beach south of Whitecap CVB cont. on A4 Turtles cont. on A5 which had narrowed to less than one Bid cont. on A4 hundred feet in the summer. A little Island history Island Entryway 1950 – The Bridge to “Treasure Island” Getting a The causeway and Swing Bridge make the Island accessible Facelift The entryway to Editor’s note: With effort Padre Island is getting underway to spruce up the area at a facelift on both the base of the JFK Bridge on the sides of SPID as They have also moved the sand Island side we take the opportunity work is underway for berm blocking traffic south from the to remember a time when the improvements at the parking lot where it was located most first “real” bridge connected our Marlin Statue on the west side of the of the summer. Island to the rest of the vast world roadway and the accompanying sign OTB. The new bridge became on the east side. A sign warning necessary with the dredging of the against leaving Intracoastal Waterway which made City Councilman Greg Smith said canopies on the driving across the Laguna Madre this week that $21,000 in private beach overnight on impossible. funds have been raised to restore the the seawall beach lighting to the Marlin Statue done also went up. If By Mary Craft by world renowned Island artist you want a spot Before 1927 getting from Kent Ulberg. The original light on now you have to Flour Bluff to The Island was the monument has been dark for Bus cont. on A4 get there early. an adventure in itself. The Don Genesis in ‘49 The following year the North Padre several years and will be replaced, Island Causeway and Swing Bridge Patricio wooden bridge causeway There were cars then that would he said. That work is expected to be were completed. There was a toll Here we go again… was built that year then and blown drive across on a sandbar but often completed by year’s end. booth at the Flour Bluff entrance Our good friends at the Texas away by a hurricane in 1933. they got stuck and had to be pulled that collected $1 per vehicle. For Across the road the accompanying Windstorm Insurance Association out by burros. Some car owners took The shallow Laguna could still be those times that was a hefty price to sign and iconic Australian pine trees apparently are slow learners. Even their vehicles across with hand drawn transversed by horseback or burro pay to go to the beach. The bridge are also getting attention as the after a direct rebuke from the Texas ferries. That all changed in 1949 and cattle could still be driven consisted of two floating barges private owners said this week they Legislature in the last session and when the Intracoastal Waterway was across it, especially in the winter with an asphalt top that were cheap will make improvements and do another failed attempt since to raise dredged from Florida to Brownsville.

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