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Sunday, June 13, 1999

Combining proposals falls flat
Voters wanted choice on bonds, some say
By Dan Parker and James A. Suydam
Caller-Times

The defeat of Saturday's all-or-nothing bond election that would have funded several multimillion-dollar projects may have taught city and county officials a lesson: Give voters the option to support or oppose individual proposals.
   "People want a choice," said Pat Suter, an environmentalist and community activist who campaigned against the bonds. "They don't want to be forced to take something they don't want (in order) to get something they want."
   Suter and other opponents said that if voters had been allowed to choose which projects to approve, all would not have failed.
   Corpus Christi City Manager David Garcia said voters will have a choice on next year's city bond election to fix streets, repair the seawall, improve street lighting and other projects still being identified. Even prior to Saturday's election, Garcia already had intended to recommend that the city bond issue include individual projects, primarily because of the overwhelming voter rejection by voters of a city bond election proposal two years ago that lumped together 35 projects.
   "I will recommend that we have as many options as possible,'' he said. "Hopefully, we will be able to put a package together that people like."
   Disappointment for some
   Proponents of the $38.5 million county bond election to raise the JFK Causeway, dredge Packery Channel and build a fairgrounds in Robstown were frustrated by the results.
   Many, like such as Corpus Christi Mayor Loyd Neal, were left wondering what they can do win the voters' approval for large-scale investment in a community that hasn't passed a city or county bond election since 1986.
   "I haven't got a clue, to be honest," Neal said. "The whole county was positioned to benefit from this. This was something that I thought was well done, well planned and certainly positioned in a professional way.
   "It's just disappointing. We'll have to go back to the drawing board now and see what we can do to put together some other programs that can do something to stimulate the economy and try and create some jobs here."
   Winners and losers
   But Joe O'Brien, a member of the Corpus Christi Taxpayers Association, said the county made the same mistake the city made two years ago with the last bond issue that voters rejected.
   "They made the same mistake they made with the (Community Progress Partnership)," he said, comparing the county bond issue to the failed 1997 proposal to fund $105 million in community projects with a three-eighths-cent sales tax.
   Voters rejected that package by nearly 70 percent, but approved a [-cent sales tax to fund a community crime control and prevention initiative.
   Padre Island resident John Adams said he was glad the issue did not pass and that county officials blackmailed voters by grouping the projects in an all-or-nothing vote. Adams said he also was glad the bonds failed because it they might have prompted a lot much more development on the island.
   "I'm just against any more wholesale development on this island," said Adams, a 50-year-old technician who works at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi and has lived on Padre Island for nine years. "This island started off as pretty quaint, pretty easy-going. ... It's way too big now."
   No apologies
   Precinct 4 County Commissioner Joe McComb said he didn't think it was a mistake to have an all-or-nothing election.
   "When you look at the projects, they had county-wide implications," McComb said. "The community historically divides itself ethnically, geographically and economically. All these projects could benefit the entire county, and I thought it was the right thing to do. And so, I don't make any apologies at all."
   The campaign for the bond issue brought together people from opposite ends of the county - people who hadn't been united before, McComb said.
   "I think we made great strides," McComb said. "People from the island and the northwest side of town have come together to make things happen for this community, and I think those kinds of relationships will do well for this community in the future."
   Residents react
   But Barbara Wisnewski was hoping to see the bond issue pass partly in part because it would have freed up money to widen Farm-to-Market Road 624.
   "Oh my, I'm disappointed," said Wisnewski, a Calallen area resident who owns a small strip shopping center on FM 624. "I was looking forward to getting some of that traffic problem straightened out. It's such a hardship going down 624. ... It's kind of dangerous. Sometimes, you take your life in your hands when you exit Wal-Mart onto 624."
   Jimmy Dodson said he was disappointed in the election outcome because he supported all of the proposed projects - especially the show barn that would have been built in Robstown.
   "The showbarn would have allowed horse shows, rodeos and a lot more youth events and an expanded livestock show," said Dodson, a 46-year-old farmer who lives three miles west of Petronila. "The (current) facility is maxed out, overcrowded. Parking is terrible.
   "I hope we'll have another shot at it," Dodson said. "This area's going to have to realize it's got to add quality-of-life issues if it's going to be a progressive city."
   Causeway concerns
   Monte Bowers, a 28-year-old Padre Island resident, said he was saddened that the bond issue did not pass, because passage would have funded elevation of the JFK Causeway. He said a storm surge that flooded the low-lying causeway last year made him realize how vulnerable he and his family could be to an approaching hurricane.
   "With that storm surge, we were fairly isolated. With a child, in particular, that's a concern," said Bowers, a stay-at-home father with a 22-month-old son and another child on the way. "The causeway is a big issue for me."
   Corpus Christi resident Charles Boeckman, a 78-year-old writer, said he was delighted with the election's outcome.
   "The voting public has shown better judgment than the politicians that tried to ram this thing down our throats,'' he said. "I'm real proud."



Staff writer Dan Parker can be reached at 886-3758 or by e-mail at parkerd@caller.com. Staff writer James A. Suydam can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at suydamj@caller.com

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