Halloween on the Island Photos by Debbie Noble and Dale Rankin
Issue 551
The voice of The Island since 1996
Free
The Island Moon
November 6, 2014 Around The Island By Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com
It’s hard to say which was scarier this week, all the ghosts and goblins making the rounds for Halloween or the My Hair Is On Fire atmosphere of the Election Season. But now the Walking Dead have returned to their subterranean realms, and the Trick or Treaters have gone home too so maybe things can get back to what passes for normal on our little sandbar.
Get Ready to La Posada!
The Island where good things come to those who bait
40th Annual
Artwalk
For many years the parade was hosted by the Island Foundation Schools but, now in its 40th year, it is under the care of the Padre Island Yacht Club which has added events beyond the parade itself and turned the event into an eleven-day celebration of Island life during the holiday season. Last year the lighting of the Christmas tree at Port Royal Resort was added to the La Posada
One of the facts of Island life that becomes more readily apparent each day is the need for better communication between the two ends of The Island. The issue that is bringing things into sharp focus is traffic. As the Texas Department of Transportation moves forward with plans to widen SH 361 on the south end of Port Aransas, the Island Strategic Action Committee in its next meeting on December 2 will hear a presentation on plans to place a traffic light on SPID at its intersection with Aquarius at the base of the JFK Causeway. While these two projects, and other traffic plans at each end of The Island, may not seem related to planners both in Port Aransas and on Padre it is obvious that they are. Anything done on either end of our Island has a direct impact on traffic and business at the other end. When heavy traffic on the beach North of Packery caused a massive traffic snarl during Spring Break two years ago restaurants in Port Aransas ended up with too much food stock on hand because it was too difficult for visitors to get up the 18-mile runway. Then the next year when overcrowding on the same North Packery beaches led to them being closed to more visitors the rush was on to Port Aransas. In neither case were the folks in Port Aransas aware what was coming at them due to actions on the Padre end which they knew nothing about.
Who Will Fix the Seawall? By Dale Rankin
Photo by Miles Merwin
La Posada continued on A13
Full La Posada Schedule on Page A
Sale of Island GLO Land Moves Forward On Election Day, State officials approved the sale of about 3,680 acres of Kleberg County property to Nueces County, according to the Texas General Land Office. The School Land Board authorized the General Land Office to begin negotiations and close the deal, said land office spokesman, Jim Suydam. Because the land is part of the Texas Permanent School Fund, the School Land Board's signoff was required before the deal could move forward. The Ed Rachal Foundation will pay for the land at a price to be negotiated. The Foundation stepped in at the request of Nueces County officials as the Texas Nature Conservancy and the GLO were negotiating a sale of the land to the National Park Service after local opposition arose to the sale after the now former Park
GLO continued on A3
Two things conclusions can be drawn about Island voters based on the 2965 out of 6906 registered who cast ballots in the November 4 General Election: One, eight out of ten are Republicans: Two, 1274 of them don’t know they live in the Flour Bluff Independent School District.
When crews began removing sand from the steps of the Michael J. Ellis Seawall a few weeks ago they made a troubling discovery; the seawall is falling apart. Exposed rebar is rusting and as it falls away it is taking the concrete with it. Large chunks of dislodged concrete are visible along the structure which had to be rebuilt after it was destroyed by Hurricane Allen in 1980.
The structure is the Island’s first line of defense against rising storm water and it was pointed out at the Island Strategic Action Committee (ISAC) meeting Tuesday night, that without it FEMA flood maps on The Island would likely be redrawn in a way that would affect insurance rates across most, if not all, of The Island.
Seawall continued on A4
A Little Island History
The Original Red Dot Bait Stand
Here is a suggestion: a monthly luncheon that alternates between Padre and Port Aransas to facilitate communication and planning. We will help get it organized. It seems like an idea whose time has come.
La Posada We are including coverage of the La Posdada events in this issue and will have more in the coming weeks. The folks over at the Padre Island Yacht Club have a full slate of events on tap beginning with the kickoff party at Scuttlebutt’s. We’ll see you there, in the meantime say hello if you see us Around The Island.
Mayor’s Race In the race for Corpus Christi Mayor which incumbent Nelda Martinez won by an unexpectedly thin margin of just under 52% - a total of 9872 votes over challenger Bob Jones – Islanders favored Martinez 1179 to 756 for Jones. In the race for Corpus Christi City Council District 4 which includes The Island, voters went heavily for incumbent Colleen McIntyre – 79% 1859 votes to challenger Joe Vollmer’s 544 votes. McIntyre won
By Bobbie Kimbrell Before 1950, just after the causeway to Padre Island had been completed, my Dad, Acie “Ace” Kimbrell and Sam Hull and Sherman Hawley, ( who was the JP in Flour Bluff), put in the Red Dot Bait Stand on the intracoastal canal, on the south side of the causeway, near where Doc’s Restaurant is today. It was the first bait stand ever on the new causeway. The bait stand was a 30x20 foot house boat barge and was pushed up on the canal land anchored. A short while later a tug boat driven by friends of my Dad came by and blew out a hole in the bank where the barge could be put in a more sheltered location. The tug boat men were rewarded for doing the job by some fresh trout that my Dad had caught early that morning. My Dad and Sam Hull were previously commercial fishing buddies and they took turns at working the night shift at the bait stand and Mr. Hawley would push net for shrimp when they got scarce in the hot summer months
According to unofficial reports from the Nueces County Clerk’s Office, 83% of Island voters pulled the Republican Party lever, 16% did the same for the Democrats. But about 5% of Islanders in each party crossed party lines in select races as Republican candidates averaged about 75% of the Island vote in each race on the ballot to the Democrats 25%. Citywide 53% of the voters pulled the Republican lever and 45% of Democrats.
District 4
Election continued on A3
Inside the Moon
plus his political help, help with the management of the causeway who were in charge of the bait stands, with a small fee paid for the rent. A $2 fee was also charged to cross the causeway back then. And believe it or not, it kept most of the free loaders out. A small pier was added to the bait stand with live shrimp bait boxes alongside. After a light was hung over the end of the pier you could see shrimp migrating with the current, so after that was discovered, they would just stick a push net down in the water and after one minute you could pick it up with a quart to a half
Flounder Fishing with Farah A7
History continued on A3
Volunteers Take on Cleanup of GLO Property
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Lines at the ferry landings in Port Aransas impact the number of cars going over the JFK; the timing of the traffic light at Commodores and SPID effects traffic all the way up SH 361 to Port Aransas; a traffic accident on the highway inside the Corpus Christi City Limits impacts the traffic operations of Port Aransas Police. If we think of the road, and other infrastructure, from the ferry landings to the base of the JFK Causeway as one continuous creature, which it is, then the need for good communication between the two ends of The Island is obvious. Then there is the housing market, the tourist industry, the needs for handling of more airport traffic, the list goes on. The point is that there is currently no forum for direct communication between businesses and governments in Padre Island and Port Aransas.
How The Island Voted By Dale Rankin
In the Christmas season of 1974 a group of Islanders decided to begin decorating their boats and making the rounds of homes on The Island, a sort of informal Island kind of thing on what was then a sparsely-inhabited Island with not a lot going on.
The Fourth Annual Padre Island Art Walk sponsored by the POA drew a great crowd at Billish Park on Saturday. A big thank you to the Smiths for taking on the project and making it a great addition to the annual Island calendar. JoAnn reports that the surprise this year was the number of folks who attended from OTB. Sooner or later we’re going to need a bigger bridge.
Island communication
Weekly
By Dale Rankin
Now, 40 years later the La Posada Lighted Boat Parade has grown into a series of eight events which run over the course of eleven days and raise 20% of the toys statewide (4500 last year) and more than $15,000 per year for the Toys for Tots Program.
The rough offshore waters have kept the boating crowd within eyeshot of land lately and some of our more dedicated fisherpersons are showing signs of cabin fever.
FREE
Sports A8
Editor’s note: For the past year or so a group calling itself Burners Without Borders has quietly been cleaning up the 3680 acres of land newly acquired by Nueces County adjacent to the north end of Padre Island National Seashore. An ad hoc shooting gallery on the property left thousands of spent shotgun shells and other debris which the group has cleaned up. Last weekend they began work on the area around The Bowl in Kleberg County which was also in need of help. All we can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. Here is their mission statement and their plan for cleaning up the area.
Burners Without Borders Corpus Christi Presents: The Burner Beach Project By Patrick Brown We are participants in the Burning Man Project (http://www. burningmanproject.org/) who take the values we share out into the community. We specialize in providing services where there are none or where the service distribution network has been crippled by natural disaster. We are also a grassroots network of local improvement and education projects. We are selffunded but also accept community
sponsorships and achieve our goals.
donations
to
Halloween on the Islands A9
Here is a link to the Burners Without Borders main website. http://www. burnerswithoutborders.org/ Burners Without Borders Corpus Christi has a Facebook page, as well. https://www.facebook.com/ groups/662157823810955/ BWB Corpus Christi has adopted the GLO property in the Kleberg county area in between Nueces and the National Seashore about a year and a half ago and we have held several cleanup events both on the
Burners continued on A5
Dog-Gone Days A11