Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 35, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 21, 2005 Page: 1 of 22
twenty two pages : ill. ; page 23 x 14 in. Scanned from physical pages.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
fetus MEMORIAL LIBRARY
tOO WEST AVE. A
KANSAS. TEXAS 78373
Thursday, April 21, 2005
750
Vol. 35 No. 16
Covering Port Aransas on Mustang Island
USPS 946-020
Inside Volunteers to clean beach Saturday morning
THIS EDITION
Island Focus
Welcome home
Port Aransas welcomed
home native son Perry
Graham, a Marine who has
been serving in Iraq.
Page 1B
Opinion
Limit building heights
The building official has
admitted that an error was
made in issuing the permit
for the hotel at the corner of
Avenue G and 11th Street.
The definitions section of
our law was ignored and
the height limitation disre-
garded. .. .Do not raise the
height limit to 41 feet! The
law should remain as it is
and it should be enforced.
Withdraw the proposed leg-
islation.
Willy Dailey
Port Aransas
Need to listen
.. both sides in the Charlie’s
Harbor discussion would do
well to begin actually listen-
ing to one another instead of
promoting and perpetuating
a plethora of unfortunate
rumors and innuendo.. ..
Toni Somers
Port Aransas
No to Charlie’s Harbor
.. .I certainly agree that one
should make decisions on
fact, not rumor. The fact
is that the citizens of Port
Aransas are opposed to
having Charlie’s Harbor
forced upon us....
Duffey Albright
Port Aransas
Letters to the editor
Page 3A
Island Life
Birds of a feather
If it’s spring in Port Aransas,
it’s time for the Great Texas
Birding Classic. Not only has
Port Aransas fielded adult
teams in the competition,
several youth teams have
and will participate.
Page13A
Church .............
.......3B
Classifieds........
....4-8B
Editorial...........
.......3A
Education notes
.......8A
Fishing report...
.....11A
Island agenda....
Island observer
■ ■■■■■a 7/\i
Island plants ....
.......8B
Law ENFORCEMENT ....2B
On the town......
.......3B
Outdoors..........
11-12A
Pastor’s pen.....
.......3B
School menus....
.......8 A
Sports..............
10-11A
Tides.................
Weather...........
.....11A
OUTH JETTY NEWSPAPER PLllftl
jsOUTHJETl
f ill
0 0000
0 00000 09809°
Rain or shine, volunteers will be
cleaning beaches in Port Aransas on
Saturday, April 23. That is the day
the next Texas General Land Office
Adopt-A-Beach Spring Cleanup is
scheduled. Port Aransas is inviting
volunteers to choose this location as
the spot to clean.
In Port Aransas, volunteers will be
cleaning three locations; Port Aran-
sas/Nueces County beaches with the
south jetties, San Jose Island (St. Jo
Island) with the north jetties, and
Charlie’s Pasture. Check-in for the
beach and south jetties is at 9 a.m.,
at Ave. G and the beach. To clean St.
Jo Island, volunteers must pre-reg-
ister with coordinator Pam Greene
to get the free fare on the Jetty Boat
donated by the Coastal Conservation
Association. Check-in at this location
starts at 8 a.m. at Fisherman’s Wharf,
900 Tarpon St. Check-in for Charlie’s
Pasture will be at the Charlie’s Pasture
pier at 9 a.m.
For more information or to regis-
ter large groups, contact Greene at
(361) 749-7423, (361) 443-4683, or
rattraxx@centurytel.net.
Local sponsors of the cleanup are
Keep Port Aransas Beautiful, the City
of Port Aransas, Family Center IGA,
Quality Liquor, Coca Cola Bottling,
BFI and HEB of Aransas Pass.
Already pre-registered for the Port
Aransas area are Bowie High School
in Austin; Boy Scout Troop 38 from
Randolph Air Force Base; Robert E
Lee High School from San Antonio;
Judson I.S.D.; Girl Scout Troop 1045
of Austin; students from Woodsboro
and Port Aransas residents.
The 19th annual cleanup has 11
of the 29 sites located in the Coastal
See ‘CLEANUP,’Page 9A
Texas SandFest '05
Staff photo by Murray Judson
Carl Jara’s ‘Dance for Spring’ was the first place winner in the masters’ division of the Texas Sand
Sculpture Festival (SandFest) held on the beach last weekend. Jara, of Cleveland, Ohio, was among
thousands who came to Port Aransas for the event that benefits the Port Aransas Community Theater.
For complete results and more photos, turn to Pages 6-7A.
Ferry legislation
opposition mounts
By Phil Reynolds
South Jetty reporter
Opponents of a proposal to allow
Port Aransas to assume control of the
ferry system here and to begin charg-
ing a ferry toll feel they have at least
gained some breathing space.
State Rep. Gene Seaman, R-Corpus
Christi, said on Tuesday, April 19,
he would amend a pending bill that
would have allowed the Texas De-
partment of Transportation (TxDOT)
to turn ferry operation over to a local
regional mobility authority (RMA).
The amendment will instead call for a
voter referendum on the matter before
any action is taken, Seaman said.
Also voted on would be the question
of whether the RMA could charge a
toll for ferry use.
City to see another Charlie’s Harbor plan
By Phil Reynolds
South Jetty reporter
City Councilmembers will hear one
more proposal for a development at
the end of Port Street when they meet
tonight, Thursday, April 21.
This time, no hotel. No marina. No
road abutting wetlands. No acreage
donated for use as parks and recreation
except the land designated as parks.
Developer Ralph Durden’s latest
proposal calls for only a meeting cen-
ter, condominium, parking and park
land on 32 acres of land at the end
of Port. Of the 32 acres, the condos
and meeting center would occupy
10 acres. Durden estimated that the
development would be 10 stories high
plus parking and a lobby for a total of
about 13 acres.
Durden is asking for an extension of
the city’s memorandum of understand-
ing with his firm, Charlie’s Harbor
Partners, but City Manager Michael
Kovacs said the city’s team hasn't
been able to reach an agreement on
those terms with Durden.
The council will also look for the
second time at a proposed change in
the city’s CZ-2 commercial zoning
overlay. The proposal would put a
3 5-foot total height on any building
except one with a gabled roof. Gabled-
roof buildings would be allowed to go
to 41 feet total height.
Critics of the amendment have
said that the city’s current height or-
dinances are satisfactory. They say a
hotel built at Avenue G and 11th Street
was issued a building permit under a
misinterpretation of the current CZ-2
ordinance.
The Planning and Zoning Commis-
sion has offered to take another look
at the entire ordinance if the council
wants it to.
In other business, the council will
look at a final replat request on prop-
erty at 218 11th Street; a minor plat
request on property at 5495 State Hwy.
361 South; a no dune permit on prop-
erty at 4903 State Hwy. 361 South;
and a final replat request on property
at 120 E. Avenue G.
Councilmembers will consider an
ordinance closing an alley that runs
north and south off Oakes Avenue and
Roberts Avenue between Mercer and
Laurel streets, will consider awarding
a bid for the purchase of the city’s gas
department property at 325 E. Avenue
G, will name an alternate manager of
the city’s Recreational Development
Corporation to act in Kovacs’ absence,
and will tell Nueces County Sheriff
Larry Olivarez how much they appre-
ciate his department’s support during
Spring Break 2005.
The council will accept an Earth
Day flag from Keep Port Aransas
Beautiful and will proclaim the week
of May 15-21 as Hurricane Awareness
Week for 2005.
The meeting is scheduled for 5 p.m.
in the city council chambers, Avenue
A and Cut-off Road.
Port Aransan Patricia Heard, who
testified against the bill at a Transpor-
tation Committee hearing Tuesday,
said she was happy with Seaman’s
statement.
“Many of the workers who come
to Port Aransas can’t afford to live
here,” she said. “If they charge $50
a year to use the ferry, that’s a lot of
money to come up with all at once for
somebody who might be working on
minimum wage.”
Heard said she was also opposed
to the idea of building a ferry landing
farther south than the existing landing.
That move would put the ferries, and
any approach road built for the new
landing, virtually at the edge of wet-
lands marked for a nature preserve.
However, Heard agreed that it
would be “very difficult” to find any
other place to move the ferry opera-
tion.
Seaman’s bill was the twin of one
proposed in the Texas Senate by Sen.
Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen.
Hinojosa’s bill has already passed the
Senate, but does not include provisions
for a voter referendum.
The differences between the bills
will have to be worked out in a confer-
ence committee if Seaman’s bill makes
it out of the Transportation Committee
and passes on the House floor.
Seaman has said he carried the bill
in the House at the request of the City
of Port Aransas. Port Aransas Mayor
Georgia Neblett said the city is inter-
ested in the bill as an alternative to
continuing ferry operations as they
are now.
An RMA would be a separate au-
thority created only to operate the ferry
Please see ‘FERRY,’ Page 4A
Pared down plan unveiled
-Durden shows chamber plan that will go to City Council tonight-
By Phil Reynolds
South Jetty reporter
Developer Ralph Durden unveiled
yet another proposal for Charlie’s
Harbor on Tuesday, April 19, before
the Port Aransas Chamber of Com-
merce.
This time, no marina, no hotel,
no retail shops, no ferry landing, no
road abutting wetlands. Just condos,
a meeting center, parking and park
land.
“We lost the city harbor annex and
the marina,” Durden told the Chamber
crowd. “It’s just not in the cards. It’s
not going to happen.”
However, he pointed out that the
hotel-motel tax is the city’s chief
source of revenue and noted that the
proposed condos and meeting center
would boost that considerably.
“If (Port Aransas) had to live on the
ad valorem (property) tax, you’d all
move out of here,” Durden said.
The number one producers of hotel-
motel tax revenues in the area are high-
rises with a view, he pointed out.
Durden decried the controversy
that has swirled around the original
proposal, which would have put a ma-
rina and hotel abutting the projected
Charlie’s Pasture nature preserve.
He told the city council at a work-
shop meeting recently that no bound-
ary line has even been established
for the preserve, and that part of the
property earmarked for the preserve
is currently zoned commercial or
industrial.
“Until you establish the (boundary)
line for the preserve, you’re not go-
ing to get rid of this controversy,” he
predicted Tuesday.
Explaining the absence of a ferry Cotter Avenue is “just enormous,” he
landing, which had drawn fire from said, but he predicted that his genera-
critics, Durden said, “I didn’t need the tion wouldn’t be the one to solve the
ferry for the project to go; the com- problem.
munity needed a ferry.” “It’ll be (today’s) fourth- and fifth-
Congestion associated with the graders who do that,” he said.
ferry landing bottleneck at the end of Nevertheless, Durden chided those
who object to charging a toll for the
ferry.
“The cigarette tax and gasoline
tax and liquor tax aren’t going to do
it any more,” he forecast. “You’re
going to have to start depending on
user fees - and that’s what a toll is, a
Try this on for size...
Staff photo by Murray Judson
Developer Ralph Durden, who has been working on a proposed development called Charlie’s Harbor
for the past eight months, showed a considerably scaled down plan to members of the Port Aransas
Chamber of Commerce-Tourist Bureau on Tuesday, April 19. The plan will be presented to the City
Council tonight.
user fee.”
Charlie’s Harbor Partners, Inc. - the
firm of which Durden is manager
- proposed a 22,500-square-foot con-
ference center with a full kitchen and
break-out rooms. Combined into one
large room, the break-out rooms would
form a 9,000-square-foot exhibit hall,
he said.
He compared the site to the Con-
gressman Solomon P. Ortiz Center at
the Port of Corpus Christi. The view
there is such that, when dining, “Your
English peas will fall off your fork
when a ship goes past,” he said.
Besides the conference area, the
center includes a 23,000-square-foot
events area.
As redrawn, the proposal’s park
land ties in to the existing Community
Park and has a walkway to the Scott
and Joan Holt Paradise Pond Birding
Center.
Durden estimated it would cost $5.5
million to build the conference center
and said it would require $57 million
in increased tax valuations on the land
for a Tax Increment Reimbursement
Zone to generate enough money to
service the bond debt.
“Do the math,” he urged the Cham-
ber of Commerce members. “At
$250,000 per condo it would take 216
units to support that debt service.”
“There’s no magic to this,” he con-
tinued. “It’s got to work economically
or it’s not going to happen. To structure
this deal... if you could build a (con-
vention) facility that increased your
(hotel-motel) business by 10 percent,
that’s $130,000 (in increased hotel-
motel taxes).”
See ‘CHARLIE’S,’ Page 9A
www.portasouthjetty.com
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Judson, Mary Henkel. Port Aransas South Jetty (Port Aransas, Tex.), Vol. 35, No. 16, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 21, 2005, newspaper, April 21, 2005; Port Aransas, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth556319/m1/1/: accessed July 10, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Ellis Memorial Library.