City council meets to share common goals
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

Walking into the conference room at Casa Del Cortes Wednesday morning for their annual goals workshop, city council members were expected to have thoughts on their minds as varying as their backgrounds.

Each, however, thinks his goals are important to Port Aransas.

Here's how a poll of council members shows their ideas stack up:

+ Mayor Claude Brown:

Beach - Brown wants to see the city adopt a policy for keeping the beach clean and in good condition for tourists and residents both.

Drainage - A campaign issue with Brown when he ran for mayor, drainage projects are under way but not as far along as he'd like to see them.

Maintenance - Brown is not happy with the way city workers maintain city buildings and equipment.

+ Councilman Charles Bujan

Roads - Bujan would like to see city streets in better shape.

Marina - While the city has held a workshop on marina improvements, Bujan would like to see the project moved along.

Drainage - Like Brown, Bujan wants to make sure drainage projects keep moving.

+ Councilman Keith Donley

Capital improvements - Donley wants to define the city's capital improvements program and set a schedule for when improvements will be done.

Maintenance - Citizens should be able to go to the city's Web site and see when their street will be repaired, Donley believes.

Beaches - Donley thinks the city needs to settle on a single plan for maintaining the beach.

Comprehensive plan - He wants to finish the comprehensive plan and work to put zoning ordinances into a cohesive form.

+ Councilman Mike Hall

Marina - Hall calls efforts to improve the city marina "a debacle." He wants to settle on a plan that will work.

Budget - "I'm going to try to make sure we get the biggest bang for our buck out of the budget."

+ Councilman Bubba Jensen

Seaweed control - Jensen also wants to see a city policy for dealing with seaweed; he's opposed to a proposal to use 20 feet in front of the existing dune line for dumping seaweed, saying that's taking the public's beach away.

Fuel use - Jensen agrees that city fuel is accounted for, but he wants to see mileage reports on city vehicles and better records kept of where those vehicles go. He's opposed to letting city employees take cityowned vehicles home outside Port Aransas.

City maintenance - He wants to see the city maintenance division better organized and given a direction.

+ Councilman Keith McMullin

11th Street - McMullin is surprised there have been so few pedestrian accidents on South 11th Street. He wants to see the city carry on with a plan to improve the roadway.

Pedestrian access - Dismayed at reports that the city won't be able to put a hike and bike trail along Cut-off Road, McMullin wants to keep a pedestrian-friendly city on everyone's mind.

Ferry cams - Proponent of a plan to mount Internet cameras at the ferry landing to show people how long the lines are, McMullin wants to continue that project by making the camera shots available on public access cable TV.

Brazilian peppers - McMullin was an early backer of the plan to control Brazilian pepper trees, designated an invasive and unwanted plant, and will continue to push for that.

+ Councilman Rick Pratt

Design guidelines - Pratt wants to see a trend toward setting reasonable design guidelines for the city.

Public Works Dept. - "We need to see our public works department turned into a real operation."

Maintenance - Pratt wants to improve maintenance of existing city buildings and equipment.

Ordinances - He wants to take a look at city ordinances with a view toward preserving Old Town. "When somebody wants to restore an old structure, we shouldn't be telling them, 'You can't do that'."

While they're discussing goals, the council also will evaluate the city's progress on goals that were set at last year's workshop and will discuss the city's financial outlook and tax policy and fees.

In a special council meeting set for before the workshop, the council will discuss a proposal to let the Corpus Christi Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) provide a shuttle service from the ferry landing to various workplaces throughout the city.

That proposal was made last month to the Planning and Zoning Commission and drew commissioners ' approval. However, RTA officials say they want the city council's blessing also, before they begin a pilot project.

As proposed to Planning and Zoning, the shuttles would run primarily during the morning and afternoon and would be aimed at getting workers to and from hotels and other places that use large numbers of employees.