Corpusfishing.com

[The Trash Heap]

Had left the house to go fishing when this was published yesterday.
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Caller.com

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URL: http://www.caller.com/ccct/letters_to_the_editor/article/0,1641,CCCT_841_5024356,00.html
Letters to the Editor: 09.27.06
September 27, 2006

Big-paying jobs

It is so unfortunate when former residents, such as Angel Lopez, write letters to the editor (Aug. 21) constructively criticizing our leaders for their failed economic vision. He is one of many college-educated individuals who was unable to stay due to lack of employment opportunities.

Some city leaders would argue that quality of life enhancement are the key to real job development. However, such a notion is a fallacy when those enhancements fail to produce a growing population enticed by professional middle class jobs.

The economic engine that must be embraced for our community revolves around the health care industry. It is the one of the biggest middle-income job-producing industries in the region.

With this in mind, our city leaders should be embracing this concept tightly and enacting policies that promote its expansion. Unfortunately, they are too distracted with taking vehicles off the beach in an effort to cater to their self-serving interests rather than focusing on ways to strengthen and expand our middle-class base through industries that employ creative class people.

Rene Saenz
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The Trash Heap Has Spoken!
NNYYAAAHH!!!

[fishmicki]

It's showing up in San Antonio now....check out Carlos Guerra's column....



Carlos Guerra: Padre Island's development caught up in delusions of grandeur

Web Posted: 09/27/2006 09:32 PM CDT

San Antonio Express-News

NORTH PADRE ISLAND — This is a story you aren't likely to run into outside of Texas. It's a sad tale about how big money in a poor area can spin delusions of grandeur that will lull locals into thinking that they will finally get theirs.
Though it may once have been, Padre Island isn't one of the world's great seashores. When the Spaniards stumbled upon this barrier island, they wrote about waters so clear that they could see every pebble fifteen feet under the surface, foot-long oyster shells and shrimp, and lobsters six feet in length.

Once covered with lush vegetation, Padre's ground cover was stripped away by grazing cattle in the 1800s, the blazing sun dried the thin soil and the unrelenting winds blew it away, turning the island into a desert next to the ocean.

The lobsters vanished long ago, and while there are still enough shrimp and fish — replenished by state restocking programs — to support commercial and recreational fishing, the tarpon and snook that once made this place legendary are all but gone.

As for crystal waters, they haven't been clear for more than a day or two in anyone's memory.

Usually, the near-shore waters are green and murky, and after heavy rains wash tons of agricultural fertilizers into the bays, they can turn brown and red from the algal growths, creating brown tides or, worse, red ones that leach oxygen from the water, kill shellfish, put local oysterman out of work and turn local asthmatics into very sick people.

Still, locals and the many visitors who come here year round — most from San Antonio and Austin — cherish Texas' middle Gulf Coast and its many remaining charms. And they have developed a lifestyle around its enjoyment.

Perhaps since the island became accessible to automobiles in 1927, coming here has been, in part, about getting away to see and be seen, and about what we now call tailgating.

Many visitors drive two to four hours and stay a day or two here, lugging food and drink, lawn furniture, camping gear and fishing tackle; perhaps a shelter that usually proves inadequate, and the acceptance that sand will get into everything — food included.

The younger visitors, especially, also spend time cruising the beach in search of age-mates.

Now, think of it, how many other places in the country — or the world, for that matter — allow people to drive on the beach?

Seemingly, ever since cars — and the tow trucks that tug them out of the sand — have had access here, driving down the beach has been the thing to do.

Now, that may change.

In 1999, a proposal to dredge the silted Packery Channel that divides Padre and Mustang Islands — and turn one developer's land into pricy waterfront property — was submitted to local governments. Eventually, a tax-increment district was approved for the local end of the project's funding.

Now, the dredging is almost complete, but the developer wants 7,200 feet of beach next to his custom-built channel to be closed to all vehicular traffic so that he can create — get this — a $1.5 billion "world-renowned tourist, resort and residential community" on the shores of Padre's murky mire.

Stay tuned. There is much more to this tale.
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No matter where you go, there you are....