Next Publication Date: 07/1/2011 Year 15, Issue 390The only island in Texas with a German Bakery, a BBQ Joint and no Grocery Store

Phone (361) 949­7700 ! Email editor@islandmoon.com

FreeFreeTheThe

The Island MoonPublished by Island Moon Publishing, LLC

15201 S. Padre Island Drive Ste. 250Corpus Christi, TX. 78418

Island MoonIsland Moon

FREEFREE

The Island NewspaperThe Island Newspaper

Island Area News ! Events ! Entertainment

June 17, 2011

Around The IslandBy Dale Rankin editor@islandmoon.com

Kemps Ridley Turtle Release

Page B 1

Inside the Moon

It’s been a Big Week for News and Rumors around our Island so let’s get right to it.

Ellis Beach DedicationMark your calendar for Saturday,

June 18th at 11 a.m. for the dedica-tion of the newly named Michael J. Ellis Beach and Seawall. The new sign is already up but we’re going to pretend it isn’t there until this dedication/unveiling. The dedica-tion will be at the seawall parking lot and the Mayor and other of!cials are schedule to attend. After the cer-emony we’ll repair to the Sandbar next door at the Holiday Inn for a session of backslapping and general tall story telling.

We want to thank our City Council and parks staff for getting the beach renamed and the sign up without delay. It is a !tting tribute to Moon founder and seawall junky Mike who passed away earlier this year. He will be with us in spirit on Satur-day. We’ll see you there.

Rumor millThe Coconut Telegraph was wild

with the rumor on Saturday that the Corpus Christi Police were going to set up a roadblock on The Island. We looked everywhere and couldn’t !nd one but based on what hap-pened Saturday it’s safe to say that if one does go up it won’t be a secret for long. The text messengers had thumps a-"ying getting the word out of the phantom roadblock.

There was an announcement by the PD that there would be roadblocks over the weekend but no locations were given. Our new police chief has instituted the roadblocks to check for “drivers licenses” and “proof of !nancial responsibility,” (insur-ance) but that doesn’t mean tickets will be limited to that offense alone. In fact, so far nearly $400,000 has been raised for city coffers by con-!scating the cars of people driving without insurance. Offenders’ cars are impounded on the spot and tow-ing and storage fees tack on a cou-ple hundred dollars to the !ne and as it turns out most of the people who don’t have insurance can’t afford the bail money for their car so they lose it at auction. Like the comic Gal-lagher says about overdraft fees at banks, “We’re going to charge them more of what we already know they ain’t got any of. “

We haven’t had our roadblock yet, but like oncoming hurricanes, it’s just a matter of time.

Beach maintenance bingoThe plan for the city and county to

swap the areas of the beach each is responsible for cleaning has hit a snag - horseapples. No really, horse-apples!

Currently the city and county have a Keystone Cops type setup where-by they have biforcated, overlap-ping jurisdictions for beach clean-ing that mean the cleaning crews literally pass each other on the road getting from one beach to the next. In an effort to address the problem the Nueces County Park Board pro-posed to the city a new plan where-by they would exchange some zones of responsibility to save some mon-ey and make some sense. The only condition was that the city enforce codes that prohibit horses from the Mustang Riding Stables leaving their droppings on the beach adja-cent to the stables. Horseapples.

That condition has becoming a stumbling block and for now at least, the deal is stuck - on horseap-ples. So as of this writing it looks like the county’s attempt to intro-duce some sanity into the system has met with an ignominious lull due to horseapples. You can’t make this stuff up folks, no one would be-lieve it.

Coyuacan IslandIn the Aztec dialect he word Coyu-

Padre Isles Country ClubAnniversary Memories

By Charlie Eskridge

It seems the readers I talk to com-ment mostly on the Schlitterbahn updates rather than the theme of the articles, so I guess when I have any new news I will continue to pass it on. Remember, I was told any plan presented “would change sixty times” before the !nal was arrived at. So far I would say I have only seen the original but have been oral-ly briefed on about four others, three of them pretty minor and one fairly major. So if I were counting I would say I am at !ve changes with !fty-!ve to go.

The minor ones had to do with posi-tioning of some new greens and redi-recting a couple of hole of golf. The major one in my view had to do with moving some of the amenities in the resort around, but still verbal. The biggest move would be a new golf pro shop and parking area near Das Marinas Street to get the golfers sep-arated from the park goers. Makes sense as I mentioned they needed !fteen hundred parking spaces just for the park, which probably won’t change, just the positioning of those spaces. But a golfer showing up af-ter work in the morning could have to park a hundred yards or more from the pro shop if the present one was used and the park entrance was near the present building. Again, it is too early to endorse or oppose this idea until we get the whole plan. They are also considering how to structure the club membership as they want to include other clubs such as a Mari-na Club, possibly a dinner club, and even some kind of park access bene-!t for members. Let’s just say it will be interesting from my point of view how all this plays out.

Back to forty years ago. Opening a new facility is something not every-one gets to do in their golf career. I was hired April 1st,1971 (was it an April fools joke?) and it was hoped

Something is Afoul on the Island A 10

Get Ready for the Tenth Annual 4th of July boat parade!

Theme for this year ­  !"#$%&"'($%!$()*!$+

By Dale Rankin

Back in the Olden Days - 2000 - Moon Mike, Ann Weber, and Harald Meyer were shivering their way through yet another frigid La Posada Christmas Boat Parade when an idea and an Island tradition were born.

“Why don’t we have one of these in the summer when it won’t be so cold?” From that discussion the an-nual 4th of July Watercraft parade was born and this year marks the tenth year for the event. You will no-tice it’s not called a Boat parade but a Watercraft parade. La Posada is held at night when anything small-er than a boat can be a hazard. But the 4th of July event is held in broad daylight so any kind of watercraft is welcome.

“If it "oats we want it in the pa-rade,” Harald says. “If it’s a subma-rine that’s okay too but they proba-bly should stay on the surface so we can see them.”

The emphasis this year is to try and get more windboarders and standup paddle boarders to join in the fun.

“We’ve had a few windboarders in the past,” Harald says, “but this year

Bridge under S.P.I.D.

Country Club Continued A 4

La Bahia Development on Granada Drive

Once Proud Condos Have Turned into Home for Scavengers and Squatters

By Dale RankinShe was once a proud lady but now she could only be

described as a soiled dove.

Formally named the Bahia Vista at Lake Padre & Lake Padre Spa when !nished in 1997 they consisted of twelve 2250 square-foot units with vaulted ceilings and Jacuzzis along with a pool, a deck on Lake Padre with boat slips and even an on-site spa and massage business. By the end of 2009 they were fully occupied and the fu-ture looked bright.

The development at the end of Granada Drive was built by Islander Jeff Frahm amid the real estate boom. Frahm, a popular Islander who as President of the Padre Island Business Association was a driver in helping to bring the construction of Packery Channel and in the raising of the JFK Causeway. But then in October, 2009 disaster stuck. Frahm passed away suddenly of a brain hemor-rhage while driving to Houston. Bahia Vista passed into the hands of his estate and the development fell on hard times.

A current inspection of the deserted property shows it stripped of all copper wire, air condition units, light !x-tures, refrigerators, aluminum, and anything else that can be sold. What once was home to several families is now home to looters, partiers, and the occasional squatter. A portion of the wooden deck has collapsed into the water and the entire structure is near collapse.

About the only thing left are the memories. We took a recent tour.

Boat Parade Continued A 4

Where’s the money?

Nearly $1 Million in Island Hotel/Motel Tax Goes OTB Each Year and Doesn’t Come Back

By Dale Rankin

One of the most common questions asked on The Island is “with all the money collected in from beach park-ing permits and from the Hotel Oc-cupancy Tax from Island hotels why aren’t our beaches in better shape?

Here’s the short answer: According to !gures compiled by Islander JJ Hart at the request of the Island Stra-tegic Action Committee, for !scal year 2010 the City of Corpus Chris-ti raised a total of $2,274,167 from hotel occupancy tax and beach park-ing permit sales on The Island and paid out $1,333,572 in beach main-tenance. That means of the $2.2 mil-lion raised by taxes on beach activi-ties on The Island the City of Corpus Christi puts just under $1 million ($940,595) into its General Fund for uses other than beach maintenance.

All of the !gures in this story are based on revenue numbers from !s-cal year 2010. In that year the ho-tel/motel occupancy tax (HOT) from Island businesses raised $1,660,148, out of that only $657,658 went to beach maintenance. That means Is-land hotels paid out just over $1 mil-lion dollars that was not used for maintaining the beaches. So where did the HOT money go? The expen-diture numbers cannot be broken out by only Island business so citywide numbers must be used.

Citywide a total of $9.9 million was raised by the 7% HOT. Of that $3.2

Beach Continued A 12

You saw it here !rst!

Plans for Island Schlitterbahn Resort and Riverwalk “Substantially Complete”

By Dale Rankin

Plans to build a Schlitterbahn waterpark and a 3000-foot riverwalk on part of the current Padre Isles County Club on The Island are almost !nished several weeks ahead of schedule and the project is moving into the !nal fea-sibility stage, according to Developer Paul Schexnailder.

“The design work for an Harbor Walk makes it more than a waterpark,” he said. “It will be a unique Island experience unlike anywhere else in Texas. The design phase is substantially complete and concept design is also substantially complete, the business model is now being constructed.”

The project, including a Schilitterbahn Beach Country Resort, and Harbor Walk Village contains new retail, en-tertainment and dining with a full compliment of lodging and residential development.

“More information on the entertainment concept is be-

ing developed as guided by the work done by the i.d.e.a.s. Group out Orlando Florida,” Schexnailder said.

“The process of design on the waterpark is substantial-ly complete and work has now turned to the pedestrian village and the riverwalk that attaches to it that makes it a unique Schlittterban resort,” he said. “ The plan envi-sions an expanded entertainment venue containing retail, entertainment and dining areas as part of a harborwalk running from the marina in Padre Harbor to the Schiltter-bahn Beach Country Village with 3000 feet of waterfront development at full buildout.”

An intricate part of the plan is the long-planned wa-ter exchange bridge under SPID which would link the portions of the riverwalk on each side of the roadway. $1.4 million was allocated for the project in a 2004 bond package but the price of the project has now increased to around $6 million.

The project is the last of the 2004 package to be addressed and city planners have told develop-ers there is no money left from that bond pack-age to fund the bridge. It is possible that money left from the 2008 bond package due to lower than expected construction costs could be used but that is still under investigation by city staff.

“The next six weeks will tell us whether this project is going to happen,” Schexnailder said.

Around Island Continued A 4

S.P.I

.D.

Padr

e So

und

Harbo

r Walk

RetailRetail

SchlitterbahnBeach Country Resort