Council will examine beach cleaning policies at meeting tonight
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

City council members have plenty of sand to wade through when they meet tonight, Thursday, March 20 - five separate beachfront construction permit applications, augmented by five other zoning-related requests.

However, they'll also face decisions about beach maintenance, police computers and impact fees.

The city was told by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 2005 that the process the city had been using for 20 years to clean the beach was illegal. City crews stopped grading the beach and filed permit applications with the Army, but those aren't expected to be approved until this fall or even next year.

The strategy until then, according to City Manager Michael Kovac's memo to the council:

• A survey was made of the mean tide line (MTL) to identify areas above MTL that are available to the maintenance crews to place road maintenance sand

• Staff is modifying the "sargassum disposal" dune permit that would allow crews to place road maintenance sand at "mid-dune" and "rear-dune" locations

• Staff has implemented the "leave small seaweed events" on the beach concept

• Staff has implemented the "don't over-groom" the beach concept, drastically reducing the number of hours of motor graders doing beach and road scraping and worked well in keeping a tighter packed travel surface (Kovacs added that Spring Break, with its heavy traffic, severely broke up the packed sand giving staff an indication of what it might face this summer)

• For upcoming sargassum events, staff will be allowed to use front end loaders to thinly scrape the seaweed (with minute amounts of sand) and transport the material to sites identified from the city's dune permit.

RV CAMPING

The council might also take another look at its policy of allowing RV owners to camp on the beach between beach markers 27 and 34. That policy came under fire from property owners behind that stretch of beach, which Kovacs said prompted him to put it on the council's agenda.

He said advantages to eliminating RV beach parking and camping include:

• The policy sends business to RV parks in the city that pay taxes and have adequate support facilities

• It eliminates the potential for RV waste dumping to get into the beach and the Gulf

• It reduces RV clutter and unsightliness and provides more space on the beach for people and cars

• Property owner complaints will be remedied

IMPACT FEES

A proposed impact fee ordinance will get its second reading. The hearing on the impact fees has been continued from a special meeting on Thursday, March 6; impact fees have drawn fire from developer Erol Hanmore, who complained that the city has $9.2 million in its budget, half of which goes for salaries. Hanmore believes the city staff should be able to handle construction work on the three roadways the impact fee is aimed at - South 11th Street, State Hwy. 361 between Avenue G and Beach Access Road 1A and a proposed new beach access road south of Beach Access Road 1.

He adds that impact fees in other cities have gotten out of hand, to the point where they have added thousands of dollars in costs to residences.

Giving the city council the option of changing impact fees, which affect any citizen who wants to build a new building or, in some cases, just expand a building, amounts to levying a tax that hasn't been approved by voters, Hanmore said.

"(The council) has 10 years to escrow the (impact fee) money and try to get it done," he said. "That's unacceptable and unrealistic."

'DEAD STREETS'

The council will get its first look at a city-wide "streets inventory" data sheet designed to aid the council and administration in developing a long term budget plan for rebuilding roads and drainage. Kovacs has handed the council a preliminary inventory that shows 22 city streets in "poor" condition. He said City Engineer Jim Urban will complete the data sheet when he comes up with an engineer's estimate of costs.

POLICE COMPUTERS

Kovacs will also ask the council to approve a contract for an improved police computer system. He said the existing system, called CODE 3, is a DOS-based system that has been in use since 1999, and is in major need of replacement. A Windows-based system would allow the police department to work more closely with other departments as well as saving valuable officer down time, he said, adding that options can be added to this system to cover courts, EMS and fire department. The police computer system project is included in this year's budget and will have budget inclusions over the next two years, he said. The total cost of the project is $235,964; the cost this fiscal year is $126,000, Kovacs said.

11TH STREET ZONING

Council members will vote on the second reading of a move to rezone a block of land along 11th street, bringing the property into line with the newly adopted future land use plan. The ordinance needs three readings to become law.

BEACHFRONT PERMITS Beachfront construction certificates before the council include:

• A multi-family development with 25 units, private streets, utilities, driveways, landscaping, a dune walkover, and recreational areas in the 700 block of Beach Access Road 1

• A hotel, multi-family condo units, town homes, private streets, utilities, driveways, landscaping, a dune walkover, a swimming pool, and other recreational amenities in the

700 block of Beach Access Road 1-A

• Improvement and expansion of the wooden deck, a retaining wall, and concrete porch behind the existing residence at 605 Ocean View Drive

• Removal of sand will be done on an "as needed basis" for the duration of this permit and until an amendment to the Nueces County Beach Management Plan can be implemented, requested by Nueces County

• A request by Nueces County for an experimental test area for storing and shaping of seaweed as a basis for larger scale behind-the-dune disposal.

PLATTING Also, preliminary and final plat applications will be heard for property in the 2200 block of State Hwy. 361, final plat applications for property at 3035 S. 11th St. and at 215 Sixth St., and a final replat application for property at 5525 State Hwy. 361.

ASSISTANT MANAGER

Kovacs, who is required by the city charter to name someone as assistant city manager to act in his place when he's absent, told the council he has named Projects and Planning Director David Parsons to that position.