Council starts comprehensive plan wrap
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

City council members are expected to clip the final major page into the city's comprehensive plan when they meet tonight, Thursday, June 21.

That page is the thoroughfare plan, which is intended to be a guide to how the city wants to develop transportation for the future.

Among the areas identified for work in the thoroughfare plan are the ferry, which was also identified as a longrange goal earlier this month during a city council workshop. Those goals, by the way, will be officially adopted during the council meeting.

Minor items remaining to complete the city's comprehensive plan include city transit, the city's gas department and the airport.

Among other goals of the council are improvements to the harbor and marina, and the council will be asked to approve submission of a grant application to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department for that. The grant can be for up to $100,000; the city's part would be $7,000, and that money is expected to come either from the hotel-motel tax or the harbor fund.

The city also will apply for a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice to upgrade radio communications equipment. The equipment, if allowed, would permit Port Aransas police to communicate directly with officers from surrounding cities and counties.

The council also must name a member to the seven-person Airport Board tonight. The election of Keith Donley to the city council made him ineligible to serve on the board at the same time. Donley was president of that board until his election.

Also to be named: A council member to sit on the city's Recreational and Development Corporation board of directors (the corporation oversees the spending of a sales tax that's used for recreational purposes), a person to represent the city on the Coastal Bend Council of Governments and someone to serve on the Texas Municipal League region to which the city belongs.

The council will take action on plat requests for property at 120 E. Avenue G and the 4000 block of State Hwy. 361; will act on dune permit requests at 1419 S. 11th Street and 283 Keewaydin Lane; and will hold the third reading of an ordinance to change zoning of properties in the 600 block of Sea Breeze Lane from R-1 to R-2, which would allow shortterm rental.

A request for a special use permit to allow developers of property that fronts on West Avenue A to use the property for multi-family short-term rentals will be heard on second reading.