Community leader Laura Flores Commons announces bid for District 2 City Council seat<\/a><\/p>\nAlong Park Road 22, two locally owned businesses say the proposal hits mom-and-pop shops the hardest.<\/p>\n
At Kilates Coffee, owner Kathya Reppart is still settling into her new location. She says opening a small business already comes with a long list of expenses and higher city fees would only add to it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many fees that we have to pay on a daily basis just to operate,\u201d Reppart said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important that they partner better with us as businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reppart says she doesn\u2019t have a corporate office to fall back on,\u00a0 just herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cLocal businesses don\u2019t rely on big corporations,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the scale to absorb every single fee they want to increase on us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just down the road, the concerns sound familiar.<\/p>\n
Tony Tagliaferro owns Island Italian .5, a family-run restaurant that\u2019s been serving Padre Island for nearly four decades. He says he\u2019s already received notice of the city\u2019s proposed increases and doesn\u2019t like how it\u2019s calculated.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s on a scale of how much you sell,\u201d Tagliaferro said. \u201cEverybody should pay the same because we\u2019re getting the same service. I understand inflation, but these numbers are crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n
City documents show several permits and inspection fees would increase significantly if council approves the proposal.<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Kaylynn Paxson says she plans to vote against it when it comes up for a vote in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cIncreasing those costs was not a stipulation that we were required to do,\u201d Paxson said. \u201cWe need to support our local businesses not make it more difficult for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
City staff say the changes are meant to align local fees with state guidelines, but business owners say just because the city can charge more doesn\u2019t mean it should.<\/p>\n
City Council is expected to take up the issue next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Padre Island business owners say Corpus Christi is squeezing mom-and-pop shops as Corpus Christi City Council weighs changes.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-125195","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}