Inside the Moon Yard of the Month A2 Farewell, Duchess A5 Senior Moments A7 Beauteous Birds A11 Live Music A18 Issue 681 The Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 May 4, 2017 Weekly FREE Photo by Miles Merwin Around The On the Rocks Island Snapper Season By Dale Rankin A fellow from way up north was Shortened standing next to his RV on the beach By Jay Gardner when he flagged us down. “Why is Three days. That’s all we get. everyone camping up in the dunes?” Three lousy days for the federal was his query. snapper season. It starts June 1st on a “You see that line of seaweed way up Thursday and ends Saturday night at there by the dunes, that’s the high tide midnight. Not even a full weekend. line. The tide is two feet over normal Basically one weekend day, and I’m right now.” betting five bucks that it will be windy and sloppy and very few boats will go “Well, I’ll be gone by the time the tide out. This will be the third year in a comes in,” he says, and he wasn’t the row that neither myself, nor any of only one. We resisted the urge to tell the rest of the crew will make it out. him that salt water is great for washing I’m supposed to be out of town that his car, by the end of the day he was weekend anyway. Blink and you’ll going to have enough problems. miss the entire season. The high tides and changing winds have been a boon for Island surfers in recent days. Schlitterbahn Owners Attempt to Mayoral The high tides were claiming victims all up and down our beaches this Push Island Park into Bankruptcy Election on week as unsuspecting tent campers, chair sitters, and fire builders Saturday found themselves unexpectedly A total of 15,029 voters cast under water as the tide rolled in. early ballots in the race for Corpus Christi Mayor. Early Voting There was a hearing on Capitol ended Tuesday and Election Hill Tuesday that was quite lengthy. Day is this Saturday, May 6. Congressman Blake Farenthold There is no way to determine how is actually the chair of the many Islanders voted since it is not subcommittee on the Interior, Energy, required that they cast ballots in the and Environment, and did a good job More than one beach event had precinct where they live; in both Early of receiving testimony from a panel to be moved since our flat beaches Voting and on Election Day voters can of “experts.” There were four people can’t stand up to a two foot higher do to any polling location in the city. on the panel, one was obviously a than normal tide. Beach driving has At the only voting location on The shill for NMFS control (as opposed to been a messy business at high tide so Island 1044 ballots were cast, there state control) a commercial fisherman if you are planning trip down PINS are just over 7200 registered voters in from the northeast (?), the head of check the tide charts in this issue first. the two largest Island precincts. We are starting to see some sargassum Alabama’s Parks and Wildlife, and By Dale Rankin also owns a two-third interest in A problem arose Wednesday, after local Mark Ray, who is the Chairman weed wash up. The city is about to Upper Padre Partners, the company A company owned by the Henry Early Voting ended, involving a of CCA-Texas. The questions by put up signs explaining to visitors which is the defendant in the case and family, owners of Schlitterbahn small group of residents of Mustang the Congresspersons on the panel that while the stuff may not smell which the filing is attempting to push waterparks across the state, filed a Island who are in Precinct 19 which obviously had pre-meditated answers, too good it provides habitat for sea into involuntary bankruptcy. life and is part of the natural process. petition in bankruptcy court Monday includes Port Aransas, but who live however some of the inadequacies of Then again, so are hurricanes, that asking a judge to declare Upper The original agreement between the in the Corpus Christi City Limits. the federal government regulations doesn’t mean we have to like them. Padre Partners, which owns the Henry’s separate interests and UPP They pay school taxes to Port were exposed. People are outraged, Schlitterbahn park on The Island, in called for the park to be completed Aransas Independent School District and some Congress representatives let Seawall ownership change default of payment of $4,655,046 and turned over to UPP for operation which has a $6 million bond election everyone know that their constituents underway which is not on the ballots are not having it. About a quarter of the land behind from the park to ancillary companies in 2014. Due to cost overruns and in the Corpus Christi mayor’s race the Michael J. Ellis Seawall changed owned by the Henry family and to an expansion and changes of the meaning that those voters must hands this week with the purchase push the company into Chapter 11 original plans for the park a dispute choose between voting in the mayor’s of the Austin-based Forestar group (reorganization) bankruptcy. arose between the UPP partners, the Henry family and IslandWalk race or the bond election. Nueces which owns about 1100 feet of the The complicated legal entanglement Development which owns the other County Clerk Kara Sands said land along the seawall and until began at 8 p.m. Monday, just hours third and is managed by developer Wednesday said that since PAISD is last year owned the Tortuga Dunes before 270 acres of land adjacent Paul Schexnailder. That dispute is running the bond election themselves development on Zahn Road. The new to the park and owned by Upper currently part of a binding arbitration it was inadvertently left off the owners are the Connecticut- based Padre Partners was scheduled to process required in the UPP contract Corpus Christi ballot. Starwood Capital group who paid be auctioned off on the steps of the and ownership of the park never $605 million for the company. The Nueces County Courthouse. The Election Day voting is at the passed from the Henry’s companies deal won’t be finished until the third auction did not take place. Veranda at Schlitterbahn waterpark quarter of 2017 so it’s too early to tell to UPP and is currently operated by from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. There are eight what the effect on the seawall land The plaintiffs in the petition, which affiliates of the Henry family. candidates in the mayor’s race, in was filed in the bankruptcy court in may be. Monday’s filing does not mean the ballot order they are Jonathan the Western District of Texas in San that the Schlitterbahn park on Garison, Ray Madrigal, Nelda Good news for Seashore Antonio, are Schlitterbahn North The Island is in bankruptcy. It is Martinez, Joe McComb, Margareta The question is; will anything come Padre Water Resort Management and Charter schools a request by Schlitterbahn North Fratila, James M. Hernandez, Mark of the testimony? Mark seems to think Waterpark Management, Inc. and Padre Management, a Henry family A. Di Carlo, and Larry White. that the “tide is changing,” although The Texas Senate passed a bill this signed by Gary Henry, one of the company, to force UPP, and therefore it always takes a lot of time for new week that could be good news for principals in the Schlitterbahn parent Island voters, through the Island the park, into bankruptcy over the ideas to actually be implemented in Island charter schools if it makes it company. The ironic twist is that the United Political Action Committee, through the House. Senate Bill 457 claimed $4.6 million debt. The claim endorsed At-Large Councilman Joe government. You know how that Henry family, aside from owning the goes. So we’re stuck with being would increase the facility funding companies which filed the petition, McComb in the race. program for both public schools and Bankruptcy cont. on A4 Snapper cont. on A4 charter schools. Currently charter schools get no state funding for A little Island history buildings. US News & World Report recently ranked the 25 best high The Last of the Island Pirates schools in Texas and 12 of them In May, 1817 the last group of known as Culebra Island composed responded with a fort of his own on are charter schools and which have Mexican troops left Galveston Island of Matagorda and St. Joseph’s the southwest part of St. Joseph’s approximately 250,000 students in to fight Royalist Mexican forces islands. The two Islands were Island. The village of Aransas was Texas and over 141,000 students on elsewhere in Texas and on April 15 separated by Cedar Bayou which later laid out near the site of the pirate wait lists, according to state figures. of that year the pirate Jean Lafitte could be navigated by a good sized fort. We will keep an eye on the bill in the moved in and set up a government bark coming from the Gulf of Mexico House as the session winds down in of his own nominally subject to the and could enter an inlet from which The days of piracy are over Austin this month.