HACKED BY CYBER-ATTACK - ALPERENBTN

[Johnny French]

Re today's installments from the Caller-Times, my disappointment in the certain members City Council, particularly with Brent Chesney, you already know. I'm also disappointed the Caller-Times did not pick up on the endangered species implications, and that it dropped the issue of the potential Open Meetings Act violation after mentioning it on its Breaking News on-line edition yesterday. Finally, after today I'm giving up sending ccs to the Express-News and the AP, neither of which responded to the beach closure issue's ramifications at the state and national levels. Anyone else not interested in being on either my main mailing or cc lists for this topic, please respond.

The LTTE equating all who oppose the beach closures with the donut-making dunces is typical of the stereotyping to which the proponents have stooped. God, how I hate driving over those donut ruts in my 4WD, but somehow I don't think giving up everyone's right to drive on the beach is the cure for the disease.
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George Gongora/Caller-Times

The City Council room was filled Tuesday as people on both sides of the beach vehicle-ban issue lined up to have a say. After nearly two hours of testimony from the public, the council voted to rescind its vehicle ban on 4,200 feet of beach.

Beach ban rescinded
Way paved to close longer stretch to vehicles

By Brandi Dean Caller-Times
December 21, 2005


It took a couple of tries, but the City Council voted on Tuesday to undo its previous decision to close 4,200 feet of beach to motor traffic.

Two votes on the issue produced two different results, with Councilman Brent Chesney changing his mind sometime in between. In the end, though, the council cleared the way to make a longer stretch of Padre Island beach vehicle free. Mayor Henry Garrett said he hoped to have a new ordinance put on the agenda next month, though probably not at the next meeting, Jan. 11. What that ordinance will say is not yet decided.

But it only will be on the agenda because of Chesney's change of heart. After almost two hours of public comment - some 35 speaking in favor of taking cars off more beach and about 20 speaking against it - the council initially voted 4-3 to rescind the old ordinance, with Chesney in the latter camp. Garrett and Council Members Mark Scott, Melody Cooper and Jerry Garcia voted to rescind the ordinance; Councilmen John Marez and Jesse Noyola voted to leave it in place. Councilman Rex Kinnison was absent and Councilman Bill Kelly abstained.

But because every ordinance and resolution before the City Council needs at least five votes to pass, the ordinance still failed.

Chesney then asked to take another vote, and changed sides. He said he did it so that the group against the original vehicle ban would have to do as little extra work as possible on a new petition.

The group - the Beach Access Coalition - has been circulating a petition to put the question of vehicles on the 4,200 feet of beach before the voters. Rescinding the ordinance that started the vehicle ban voided the petition.

Chesney had told the group that although he would do as it asked and vote against rescinding the petition this time, he believed the petition would still be voided in the future. When the coalition has collected all the necessary signatures - as of Monday they had 6,642 of the approximately 8,000 needed - it would have to go before the council and ask that the council members either rescind the ordinance or put it on the ballot. At that time, he said before the first vote, he would vote to rescind it.

But before the second vote Chesney decided that wasn't the best way to do things.

"I think it really came down to, if I'm going to vote to rescind the petition later when they bring the signatures in, why make them go through that (collecting all the signatures)," he said. "I got to thinking, 'Why play games?' "

Garrett and Scott both said rescinding the original ordinance gives everyone concerned a chance to start clean and decide what is best for the entire community.

"In the end, we need a plan," Scott said. "I want this community to put together a package on pedestrian beaches. If the community doesn't want them, then so be it. But we need to have that dialogue."

Scott said his vision is to take cars off the 4,200 feet of beach along the seawall and the 1,800 feet from the seawall to the south jetty of Packery Channel, but to make up for that with three parking lots, bathrooms, amenities and possibly lifeguards. And he believes the ordinance passed should also call for an amendment to the city's charter that would require a vote before cars could be banned from any other city beach - the city has about 79,000 feet of beach within its limits.

Austin developer Paul Schexnailder has said a major resort developer intends to build a resort just north of the newly restricted beach. He said the project is feasible only if a stretch of beach from the south jetty to Park Road 1 is vehicle-free.

Garrett thought there might be a possibility of compromise - perhaps on the exact amount of beach closed to traffic, or on the number and placement of parking lots and the types of amenities.

"It's imperative that we all come together and find common ground for a plan for our island," he said.

Members of the Beach Access Coalition did not view it so favorably, however. John Kelley, speaking for the coalition, said Tuesday's second vote "stifled democracy."

"They well know that a reversal in a public election would have prevented them from putting this issue back on the agenda for four years," he said.

The coalition, Kelley said, will start a new petition as soon as the council votes to close any more beach to vehicles.

Contact Brandi Dean at 886-3778 or HYPERLINK mailto:deanb@caller.com deanb@caller.com.

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Letters to the Editor: 12.21.05

December 21, 2005

Beach doughnuts

Too bad so many of our concerned citizens are more concerned with cutting doughnuts with their four-wheel drives than with the big picture of an inviting vacation spot.

I'm originally from Brownsville, and watched South Padre develop from the beginning. There is no vehicle traffic behind their big hotels, from the jetty, down to the Bahia Mar.

Maybe some input from the City of South Padre Island City Council would help here, even though they have an interest in seeing Corpus Christi remain a rundown-looking stop-over.

Ed Hensley

[david w]

Well instead of fighting them on this like we have been doing in the past and appartently losing at. Lets come up with a different stratergy...petetion for a recall or a vote of no-confident on a mayor and councilmembers. Obviously the SOB's are going to do what they want to and our voices doesn't matter, so lets get them the heck out of there. All they are thinking about is all the money that would be coming in and how big of a raise they can give themselves on a monthly basis. I would be the first to sign it.


David W.

[rabbit]

Ditto. And if they need more volunteers I will volunteer.
_________________
Fishing and Kayaking its a rough life but somebody has to do it.

[tyler]

Mark and Chesney are about termed out meaning this go round is it for them on the City Council and I think Melody Cooper is too.

[Lost Cajun]

Maybe its time to start a legal fund, hire lawyers and investigate whether their actions were legal. You could use this board, other boards and editorial pages of papers around the state to raise money and pull together fishermen who want to stop this everywhere it happens in the state. Some of them with deep pockets might sympathize with this cause.

One possibility is The Texas Open Beaches Act. It has a backbone and some teeth somewhere. We need to find out where that is and see if we can challenge their interpretation that permits them to do what they have done.

I'm not a lawyer, but it sounds to me like we need some if we want to continue the fight.
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John 14:1-3

[paulj4400]

My question is if the city council is willing to change the area of closed beach for a developer and take the heat. What else will they do? Change the zoning, agree to a tax package for the developer?
Has anone looked at the traffic patterns this GREAT development is going to produce? Will we be like South Padre where it takes hours to get over the bridge.

paulj4400

[rabbit]

Nope thats where this other jerk comes in. Hes trying to get his land out of the coastal barriers thing so he can build a big golf course and have another bridge come in down by the national seashore.
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Fishing and Kayaking its a rough life but somebody has to do it.

[Bluffer]

_________________
Fish hard, fish the Bluff. Surrounded by water!
-A quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem-

[Bluffer]

[Johnny French]

The proposed second bridge or causeway - NOT a channel - has been proposed for years between the mainland south of Flour Bluff and the island just south of Padre Isles. Because the island end of it would be in the Coastal Barrier Resources System, the feds would not provide a penny to build or maintain it, even if it wasn't just about the dumbest thing a politician might dream up. Through a sequence of events, if the area were removed from the CBRS, massive development would occur between Bob Hall Pier and PINS, leading ultimately to, you guessed it, no more driving on the beaches.

[Bluffer]

Thanks for the real story & clarifacation, Didnt understand what Rabbit was refering to.
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Fish hard, fish the Bluff. Surrounded by water!
-A quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem-