b'E d i t o rTask Force Set Up to Address Land Use, Post-1959 Harbor BridgeReady for the Update? An issue we harped on six years ago, and again last fall, was identified by the Mayor a few months ago, and a task force was assembled. It should be time for a progress report.right?Six years ago, the citizens of Corpus Christi along with our very limited news mediathe City and the County over the proposed tax increment redevelopment zone (TIRZ) were immersed in the single, biggest issue debated in the recent history of the city and one more, in December 2019, at the City on funding for the 60-foot wide, naviga-and it wasnt a water desalination plant. It was the redevelopment of North Beach thatble canal project. Not a single vote was lost. Our elected officials voted unanimously to was once, about a century ago, the golden gem of the Texas Gulf Coast. Today, home tofix and improve North Beach three times.the two most popular waterfront attractions on the states entire coastline and visitedAfter the hotly-contested 2020 mayoral election, however, as though a giant Men In by more than a million people per year, North Beach is otherwise a mostly dilapidatedBlack-style memory eraser flashed the brains of all City leadership, even those who neighborhood with a few upper-end residential complexes intertwined. fought vigorously in favor of the project, the North Beach canal ordinance just went Over a period of months, a detailed redevelopment plan for the peninsula was debat- away. Its still the law: $42.5 million for a canal specifically designed by Urban Engineer-ed at City Hall and at Nueces County Courthouse with hundreds, maybe over a thou- ing, but following the law is always optional at the City of Corpus Christi, where lead-sand, citizens turning out to express their public support for the proposal to createership is motivated by todays shiny objectand North Beach was no longer shiny.a San Antonio Riverwalk-style canal development that would attract millions of visi- With our new, $1.2 billion, biggest bridge in North America now open, and the old tors and thousands of new residents, while cleaning up the blight and mitigating thebridge on its way out, at least a slice of North Beach has regained its shinewell, at 60-year-old chronic flooding problem. Three separate votes were taken, one each atleast for a one-day news cycle last April when the Mayor announced that the Right 18THECOASTALBENDMAGAZINE TheCoastalBend.com'