Although Texas has laws that are supposed to prevent our beaches from being made private and preserve them for public use, the City of Corpus Christi is trying to sneak around the spirit of those laws by amending the City's Charter to create a 7200 ft. "pedestrian" beach that would be closed to vehicular traffic, in the convenient locale of a "world-class resort" that is being planned for that stretch of beach by a private company in negotiations with the City. They argue that the beach would still be public - it would just be safer since no cars could come. In fact, though, it would be all but inaccessible to anyone not staying at the resort, as it would be mighty hard to get there on foot. They also argue that it is "just 7200 ft.", but, really, once they are allowed to do it for one stretch of beach in the name of economic development, it can obviously be done to other beaches when developers show an interest.
Fortunately, large numbers of Corpus Christi citizens who were concerned about keeping our beaches open to the public managed to get the issue onto the ballot as a Charter Amendment item instead of it just being done as a back-door deal. The issue will be decided in the November elections. If you are a citizen of Corpus Christi and you want our beaches to keep being for everyone, please vote AGAINST #1 which would create the "pedestrian" beach and FOR # 2 which would amend the charter to require public elections before the City can close the beach to cars. Thank you!
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