Number 32

Corpus Christians don't know the difference between Christmas and Halloween. 

Number 31

Koch Industries, one of the largest private firms in the world, conducts refining operations in Corpus Christi.  In 2000, at their Koch West refinery here in town they were indicted in 97 felony counts of violating air-pollution standards.  The following year they plead guilty to the charge of covering up environmental violations.  They went out of their way to both pollute and cover up that pollution.  The reason Corpus Christi sucks is not only that they invite these companies to our town offering major tax incentives for the promise of jobs, but that once they're here, exploiting our land and our people, they send all their revenue back home, to Kansas as in the case of Koch Industries. For moderate, short-term financial gain, Corpus Christi sacrifices the wellfare of its citizens and its environmental viability.

Number 30

Number 29

The SPID, which I've blogged about before, is getting bigger. The CC Metropolitan Planning Office has plans to make the SPID wider, buying property on the southside of the road and adding up to two more lanes for ramp transitions. Making the SPID less dangerous is a worthwhile pursuit, but accomplishing this by making it bigger and faster is foolish. The SPID already is killing this town by subsidizing businesses located away from our neighborhoods, by encouraging denser business and home-buidling growth further and further away from the city center, and environmentally by acting as a heat island and major source of runoff, and socially, by physically dividing the city and acting as a dramatic barrier to people moving around city (pedestrians and the elderly have to cross what amounts to an interstate to get groceries). To improve traffic safety in CC, the city should develop the roads equally. Congestion on the SPID would be diverted to the SPID's tributaries and parallels making the arterial safer by virtue of traffic density.

Number 28

The buses don't run on time. Service is already patchy due to a coverage area larger than both Dallas and Houston's despite only 1/5 the population. When buses do serve an area, the schedules are inconvenient or just ridiculous (running at only 2:00 and 4:00 pm, for example). And much of their services are contracted out to non-city employees that harass the elderly. So, the buses that drive bad routes on bad schedules by bad drivers don't even make their stops on time. The buses are frequently late to their scheduled stops causing riders to miss their connections. A non-viable bus option may be what the city government is looking for, however, as it would allow them to continue with their car-centric, SPID-centric plans.

Number 27

Corpus Christi is sacrificing more funds, this time it's much needed transportation dollars. When the city was eligible to receive additional federal funding for a road widening project at FM624 and US77, they couldn't agree on which municipality should pay the measly remaining project costs, the city or the county. The project was tabled until a decision was reached and by the time the city and county had settled their differences, our local road widening project had fallen to the bottom of the list.

If you think this is a petty reason to lose much needed transportation dollars (especially since the city is projecting major infrastructure deficits over the next four years), then you're right. But, the pettiness goes deeper. The reason for the squabble is the County, who had allocated the funding for the project, pulled their funding at a crucial juncture. The County pulled the funding because County Commissioners voted to remodel Judge Banales office to the tune of $118,000. Of course, one of those County Commissioners was the Judge's own wife, Peggy Banales who lost her Commissioner's seat to Mike Pusley in large part because of the re-direction of these road dollars to the Judge's office.

If that name sounds familiar it's because he's the same judge that hit a highway worker this summer with no repercussions, and the same judge that suspended the District Attorney who'd indicted VP Cheney. So, the same corrupt judge who gets away with reckless endangerment and the same judge who derailed a case to stop federal prison abuse and is in the Veep's pocket, is now the same corrupt judge who's sabotaging our infrastructure projects to renovate his office.

Corrupt District Judge Manuel Banales, reason number 27 why Corpus Christi Sucks.

Number 26

The city council is delaying $500k in funding for eight city youth programs because they caved to fanatic pressure to prevent a measly $30,000 from going to planned parenthood.  Throwing out the baby with the bathwater, cutting off their nose to spite their face...however you'd describe it, one thing's for certain: Corpus youth will suffer, even more, for the ignorance and shortsightedness of their city's poor leadership.

Number 25

"the play area...it's a smorgasboard for rats."  Kid's place at Cole Park, the city's downtown park, is a notorious rat haven.  The park has again been shut down for public health and safety to address the rat problem after 13 rats were caught.  On one of the previous occasions when the park was closed for rats, 65 rats were caught.  This past March, the park was closed for rats but families continued to take their children to the play area because signs were only posted in English.  This is a classic example of the city not following through to provide real services.  They build a park, but don't keep it safe.  They build roads, but don't repair them.  They buy ships and leave them to rot on land.  A parent writes of Cole Park: Cole Park is not a place where I would ever take my children.  The children's play area has been recently vandalized, not to mention people actually relieving themselves on the children's play area (ie, swings/slides).  The ants are unbearable so there is no sitting in what little grass they have.  Living in Corpus Christi is like being babysat by your stepbrother.

Number 24

Chip sealed roads.  Corpus is a giant parking lot and that parking lot is covered in chip seal.  Chip seal is a cheap alternative to good asphalt which is a cheap alternative to concrete.  Chip seal is a process of covering a road in rocks and then gluing them down with an oily binder in order to prolong the life of the road.  The surface is loud, damages tires, is unstable for motor and bicyclists, washes off to clog drains and damage windshields and is harmful to the environment.  It's lousy, cheap and temporary--the ethos of Corpus' City Council.  Of course, cheap is relative.  This fall the city spent over $66,000 on emulsion oil, $36,000 on pavement markings and $454,000 on the actual asphalt and aggregate.  And their recent road projects include covering the good Island road to the National Seashore with chip seal to use up end of fiscal year money and also to resurface ocean drive, simply transforming it from one kind of lousy to another.

Number 23

Corpus Christi loves Wal-Mart.  This is the Chamber of Commerce celebrating the remodel of their flagship in an armada of the Arkansas box chain.

Number 22

Corpus Christi has its own cartoon cast of local celebrities championing the uber-conservative, anti civil liberties, anti-oversight, pro-Corpus ethos.  One of the more noxious is Eric von Wade, host of the Eric von Wade show on AM 1440.  On his linked-in bio he describes himself as "a compelling and dynamic catalyst in the social and political landscape of South Texas." Interesting.  Almost as interesting as today's featured topic on his website: "White Guilt is Dead." After managing to remain in Corpus for high school, community college and university, V-dub joined the shriners and the masons and made the news recently after contracting staff infection.  Eric von Wade, reason number 22 Why Corpus Christi Sucks.