Dirty Tricks By Those Opposed To Keeping Beaches Open

Open Beach Opponents Resort To Dirty Tricks

Some of those who oppose keeping our beaches open to all as they have been here for decades have been carrying out a campaign of intimidation and of defacing and stealing copies of the petition being circulated by the grass roots organization Beach Access Coalition. The following is from a recent article in the Corpus Christi/Caller Times.

Beach petition forms are vandalized
But city attorney says island defacing incident doesn't violate any law
By Brandi Dean Caller-Times
April 25, 2006
Vandalism of petitions at one signing location has members of a group fighting a plan to restrict beach access worried about intimidation.
Three copies of the Beach Access Coalition's petition to have traffic restrictions on 7,200 feet of Padre Island beach put before voters were defaced at Dana's On the Island, a
restaurant on Padre Island. Across the top of two unattended petitions, someone wrote "DO NOT SIGN THIS!!" On a third, the person wrote "please do not disrespect others choice - do not scrible (sic)," and scribbled over the lines for signatures.
"Obviously (someone wanting to sign the petition) would be a little bit intimidated by that," Johnny French, a member of the coalition said. "They're going to think, 'OK, what if the guy who just defaced this is still here?'"
French said he sees the incident as interfering with the group's First Amendment right to petition. However, City Attorney Mary Kay Fischer said she does not believe the action
violates any law.
Representatives of both the Beach Access Coalition and "It’s About Time, Corpus Christi" are at the Nueces County Courthouse on weekdays between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
For other petition locations, visit www.openbeaches.com.
None of the other petition locations have reported problems. Dana Artzer, the restaurant's owner, said she believes it's an isolated incident.
"Everybody's been signing (the petitions)," she said. "It was just one yahoo who decided to write 'do not sign' on it. We have it on our front table, and everyone who comes in looks at it, and a lot of them sign."
Colleen McIntyre, spokeswoman for "It's About Time, Corpus Christi," said the group is not responsible for the vandalism. The group believes Corpus Christi needs a pedestrian beach and are working to convince citizens not to sign the petitions, but McIntyre said the members would never encourage people to deface them.
"We would discourage people from touching the petitions in any way, shape or form," she said.
Contact Brandi Dean at 886-3778
deanb@caller.com

A couple of comments about this, first, the group "It's About Time, Corpus Christi," keeps trotting out the tired and phony old canard about “We just want a pedestrian beach.” That’s a bunch of baloney! If you believe that, let me talk to you about this bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn!
There are already a number of beaches where motor vehicles are either prohibited or restricted in where they can go. From Port Aransas to the National Seas Shore these beaches exist right now!
Another comment you hear a lot is “We are not trying to close the beach!” That’s also a bunch of baloney. The developer and the beach goers know that most of that beach will be basically inaccessible to most, especially the disabled and those with families, dogs, BBQ pits, fishing, surfing gear and all the other stuff people take to the beach.
Parking lots are not the answer for environmental, convenience and public safety reasons. Trams won’t do it either. That is an inefficient and a very expensive way to accomplish something that is being achieved now at no cost to the public.
But the main problem is this, give this developer what he wants and you will start an avalanche of others lining up to get their very own private beaches.
This comes down to a fight between those who want to preserve long practiced tradition of going to the beach in their vehicles and having lots of room to go where you want and those who look at a beach and see nothing but dollar signs.
The fact is beach area development, for better or worse, will continue no matter how this battle plays out. For goodness sake, why not keep the beaches as pristine and as accessible as possible?