CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — One of the items on the Nov. 5 ballot for those in Corpus Christi is Proposition F, which has to do with how the City uses part of the sales tax collected on every dollar spent on certain goods and services.
Currently, 1/8 of 1 cent of our sales tax money is used for upkeep and improvements to the Downtown seawall. Recent storms Beryl and Alberto, and before that, Hanna, showed us just how vital the seawall is for places like the Art Museum of South Texas.
It is something that AMST Director Sara Sells Morgan included in a broader presentation this week, both as a reminder to the City Council, and as a plea for help in solving the problem.
She pointed out that in each case, water battered the doors of the museum.
City Manager Peter Zanoni said reauthorizing this sales tax would bring in around $200 million over the next 20 years, and address issues like this.
“The seawall parameters go all the way down to the Art Museum and around to the ship channel, so it would be an eligible use of those tax dollars, if the community reauthorized it under Proposition F,” he said.
But there is another component to Prop F.
As Assistant City Manager Heather Hurlbert explains, some of that money would also be used for stormwater, flood control and drainage projects across the city, in places that include Northwest Boulevard, North Beach and Oso Creek.
“Being a coastal city, we have a lot of areas that are low and that either are flood-prone or, because of flooding, we have not been able to develop in those areas,” she said. “And so, the use of this sales tax to help provide for flood control in those areas and to help activate those areas is a wonderful use of the sales tax.”
Hurlbert points out that even if the seawall sales tax is not reauthorized, there still has to be a way to pay for upkeep and repairs.
Right now, about 30 percent of that money comes from those who pay the sales tax when they visit and spend here.
Without that, the city would have to rely on general funds, which could come from property taxes or other fees.