Inside the Moon Duck! A3 Moon on a Spoon A4 Traveling Moon A9 That Sinking Feeling A16 Live Music A18 Issue 665 The Island Free The voiceMoon of The Island since 1996 January 12, 2017 Weekly FREE Around The Granada Island By Dale Rankin Development Apparently when the temperature drops below 32 degrees water Gets New Life freezes! Who knew!? After years of problems twenty- seven new overnight-stay units planned By Dale Rankin Islanders awoke last weekend to find frozen water – apparently known After four changes of ownership as ice – in their birdbaths, random the development on Granada Street buckets, blowing in tiny bits off the now known as The Villas of Padre top of breaking waves, and in some is being rebuilt and expanded into cases flowing fountains. We islanders a 27-unit townhome property to be are on a first name basis with ice, but offered to the market as overnight- the kind that is found in margaritas stay facilities, if permitted by the City and not birdbaths. Tony Amos shows the crowd one of his beloved Green turtles that is about to be released back into the Gulf of Corpus Christi We scoured the Island Moon after it’s’ rehabilitation. See page A11 for more photos by Miles Merwin. archives for the last time a pollywog- killing freeze swept across our little sandbar and came up empty. It’s been a while, and this one didn’t get cold Water Exchange Bridge enough or last long enough to kill all the pollywogs but every little bit helps. The latest a freeze has ever occurred in Corpus Christi – records Going to Bids! are not available for The Island – is February 16. Historically the coldest day of the year in South Texas is A recommendation to allow the January 11 which this year had a high Estimated Cost $8.5 Million zoning change necessary to expand of 82 degrees (inland) and a bone – By Dale Rankin underground water – exchange under construction, a 300-room hotel the project went to the City Planning chilling low of 66. Oh the humanity! culverts required by the U.S. Army currently under design, and a dry Commission after we went to press Twelve years after voters approved on Wednesday. The city staff in A few years ago we had cold fronts Corps of Engineers Permit held by boat storage facility. funds for a Park Road 22/SPID Water documentation to the commission with high winds – some up to 80 developer Paul Schexnailder - would Exchange Bridge linking Lake Padre City officials released a schedule recommended approval of the mph – that lasted for several weeks. provide $2.1 million to construct the to the existing Island canal system on the project this week which calls application by SuperElite, LLC. However in the past two years bridge. However, a cost estimate on bids on the projects are scheduled to for bids to be opened on The zoning change if approved by including this one our cold fronts have be in the hands of potential builders the Planning Commission would be been passing affairs. The last truly on Tuesday, January 16. subject to approval of the Corpus cold winter we had was 1978 when Sources said the cost of the bridge Christi City Council. the mean temperature for January is expected to be about $8.5 million, was 47 degrees making it the coldest The development was originally down considerably from a previous month on record here. The mean built with four large townhomes each high estimate of $11.5 million, temperature for that entire winter with open roof decks accessible by presumably due to modification of the was 53 degrees. That is the Island’s individual elevators from all floors design and lower building costs due version of the Polar Vortex which at with each unit priced in the mid- to a slowdown in local construction that time was centered around Two $500,000 range. But the original build work since the higher bid was made. Seas Bar & Grill where they had the out in 2010 was followed shortly by a coldest beverages on The Island. The bridge, as currently designed, market decline and the building was consists of three spans of forty feet never occupied. It was purchased There were two freezes in 1989— each, the center span covering a by a single out-of-state owner who in February and December - which waterway, the two adjacent spans said he planned to convert it into a killed an estimated 17 million finfish covering pedestrian and cart paths. walled compound for his personal mostly in the upper and lower Laguna The plans call for fourteen feet of use and after changing hands again it Madre. The oldest reference to a water depth with concrete sides sat vacant through 2015 as problems freeze in the Coastal Bend was in the and floor to prevent erosion, and with the roof design allowed water early 1500s when Cabeza de Vaca February 1, City Council fourteen feet of boat clearance from the project was not done until much into the interior. In early 2016 a wrote in his book La Relacion — approval by mid-March, and the waterline to the bottom of the later – 2012 – which eventually led complete renovation and remodeling The Account of Alvar Nunez Cabeza construction to begin by the end of bridge structure. The bridge would to the current $8.5 million price tag. of the original units began and is still de Vaca after he was shipwrecked March with scheduled completion by be located along SPID where canals underway which has eliminated the on the Texas Coast that the native The bridge was/is the lynchpin in April, 2018. to both sides are already in place rooftop patios. people on the coast took advantage connecting the 104-acre site around as well as bulkheading on the Lake However, there are still some of “the season when the fish come Lake Padre where excavation According to documents submitted Padre side. potential hurdles, for instance; how to die.” Think of it as a Karankawa work is nearing completion and to proceed if all of the bids received with their application SuperElite, smorgasbord. The idea for the bridge originated planned development around the are over the $8.5 million estimate. LLC, plans to “develop the Property in 2004 when a $50 million bond Schlitterbahn waterpark on the west in accordance with The Villas The weather is expected to stay City staffers told the Island Strategic package contained no Island projects side of the roadway. Access to the Planned Unit Development (PUD) warm through the weekend. The Action Committee in November and then-District 4 City Council Gulf of Mexico from the existing Guidelines and Master Site Plan. fish are biting, the mosquitos are that there is $6.5 million available member Mark Scoot proposed Island canal system, under the The development of the Property is not, the Winter Texans, well, that’s from bond money left over after adding a $1.2 million item to the bridge, would be through a 3600-foot to consist of 27 townhouse units and denture dependent so who knows. completion of other projects. The bonds which, according to his canal which would include retail, common area amenities. The PUD Beach driving is great along with the remainder of the bridge funding plan, when combined with the commercial, residential, and office weather so get out there and enjoy it estimated $900,000 cost of building space, along with a marina currently Bridge cont. on A2 Granada cont. on A2 everybody. Say hello if you see us Around The Island. A little Island history How a Small Town in Duval Country Spawns a Manifesto That Threatens War Between the United States and Mexico By Dale Rankin raiders crossed the river from Mexico and attacked the Norias headquarters By the end of August of 1915 on the King Ranch. South Texas was in open warfare with the Mexican government of The usual suspects Venustiano Carranza who was trying to consolidate his power and Funston and officials in the State of win the Mexican Revolution. Texas had assumed the raids were simply the usual cattle rustlers and There was a full battalion of U.S. bandits that the border area was used Army troops stationed in Kingsville to. Then a ranch hand on the King and more then 5000 troops deployed Ranch who had been kidnapped throughout South Texas. U.S. Army by the bandits and forced into Major General Frederick Funston duty as their guide for the raid was who was in charge of the U.S. Army questioned by the Army and told in South Texas, had only recently them that at least half of the men in hired a spy to find out what was the raiding party were of Mexican San Diego, Texas train station 1910 See the special Winter behind the sudden surge in cross- decent but born in Texas. Funston of some region in another country ties. In short, as many Mexican border violence which had sprung now realized he had a irredentist by reason of common linguistic, Americans in the Rio Grande Valley Texan news on pages to the nation’s attention in August movement on his hands - defined as cultural, historical, ethnic, or racial 14-15 in this issue! when a group of more than 40 a policy advocating the acquisition History cont. on A2 A2 Island Moon January 12, 2017 History cont. from A1 armed and cannot prove the right to carry Crossing on September 6 Hidalgo County Behold the Taxman Cometh still say today, they didn’t believe they had cross arms, shall be summarily executed regardless Sheriff A.Y.