Battle Of Corpus Christi Continues Unabated

For years there has been conflict over the scope and pace of development in Corpus Christi. The successive councils and mayors have largely been supportive of giving developers a free hand with large, extravagant plans on Padre Island and the city bay front. Those who opposed these plans have long been labeled as “aginners” and have been covered with scorn and ridicule from the pro-development faction. In ’05 the aginners scored a major win when a referendum against closing a large section of the beach on Padre Island as a gift to a developer who wanted to build a large resort, complete with its own effectively “private” beach. But the battle continues on today and the next fight is looming over an open stretch of bay front property mightily coveted by the developers and their allies. Throughout these battles opponents of the excessive development have cried “fix streets and infrastructure first.” Of course, they were ignored. Now the streets have deteriorated to the point of embarrassment, doing physical damage to vehicles and to being a real detriment to growth within the city. Millions of dollars’ worth of tax abatements and outright giveaways have gone to some of these developments and most of the public is sick of it. There is now a budget crunch in the city government and in order to fix the streets the mayor and certain members of the council have proposed a “street users” fee which is to be attached each month to the public utilities bill of all residencies and businesses of the city. This is an outrageous abrogation of the duties and responsibilities the city council is supposed to fulfill. Public reaction to this is so strong that a recently proposed extravagant development is now possibly in jeopardy. The council doesn’t dare raise taxes to pay for this so a $69 million dollar bond election has been proposed to fund a plan called “Destination Bay Front” which would be built on the now open land once occupied by the Corpus Christi Memorial Coliseum. The pro-development faction is nervous that such an election may go against them. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out. Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone they paved paradise put up a parking lot …Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi

Former Texas GOP Head Tom Pauken Announces For Guv Run In 2014

 

Texas Lieutenant Governor Doesn't Know Shit From Shinola

Apparently stung by the state capitol protests in response to the restrictive anti-abortion bill Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst ordered the search of ladies handbags and the confiscation of items such as tampons and maxi-pads. He also claimed protestors had brought containers of feces and urine, supposedly in order to hurl at the intransigent legislators. No proof of this was offered. Below is an excerpt from the Texas Observer about this.
Dewhurst's account was challenged by many who were there.

David Dewhurst Claims He Saw ‘Bags of Feces’ at Capitol

by Forrest Wilder Published on Friday, July 19, 2013, at 3:34 CST

For the last week, activists, lawmakers and media have demanded that DPS produce evidence that protestors tried to bring jars of urine and feces into the Senate gallery last Friday. No DPS trooper has stepped forward to say he or she personally saw jars of urine or feces, although the law enforcement agency’s head Steve McCraw has defended the allegations. McCraw has said all of the items, including glitter, bricks and tampons, were discarded and no names were taken. But today, none other than the state’s second-highest elected official, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, claimed to have seen bottles of urine and bags of feces.

Dewhurst told Toby Marie Walker of the Waco Tea Party in a web-streamed interview that he “walked over to where [DPS] was screening” and saw DPS personnel “smelling” water bottles. “They had urine in it,” he said. Dewhurst, a former CIA operative, also said he saw DPS setting aside bags of feces to throw away. (A transcript is provided below.)
DPS’ original press release, from 4:49pm last Friday, stated that officers had discovered “one jar suspected to contain urine” and “18 jars suspected to contain feces.” Dewhurst said he saw an unspecified number of “water bottles” containing urine and an unspecified number of “bags” containing feces.
Dewhurst’s office didn’t respond to questions today about when and where he saw the bottles of urine and bags of feces. The lieutenant governor is six feet, five inches and the focus of intense media attention: It seems odd that in this era of ubiquitous social media, cameras and video his presence at the crowded Capitols security checkpoints would have gone unnoticed.
“Just like everything else with this, the more that is being told to us the more questions it raises,” said Scott Daigle, a spokesman in Rep. Donna Howard’s office.
In the interview, Dewhurst also said he personally met with DPS a “dozen times” after the Wendy Davis filibuster to go over security. “We had enough firepower that we could have defended the Capitol against a brigade of a thousand al-Qaida.”
**
[Begins ~27:20]
Toby Marie Walker: “There were—
David Dewhurst: “Bottles of urine, bags of feces. Awful.”
TMW: “I know there’s people who say, ‘Oh that didn’t happen because DPS didn’t save it’.”
DD: “It did. It did. It did. I saw some of it.”
TMW:”…I’ve heard from members and other people who saw some of it.”
DD: “Absolutely and it’s the same as myself I walked over to where they were screening and they were getting bottles out and smelling them, they were getting water bottles out and smelling and they had urine in it. And there were bags they had set aside and were going to put in the trash and throw it out, of feces. Just despicable. Despicable.”‘

Rick Perry Practices Kissing Babies For Future Campaign

The Nut Doesn't Fall Far From The Tree