Two council members are seeking a revote to delay the $8.7M Northside aquatics center until after drought conditions improve and water concerns are addressed.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Just days after Corpus Christi City Council unanimously approved an $8.7 million construction contract for the new Northside Aquatics Center, two council members are asking the city to take a second look.<\/p>\n
Councilman Eric Cantu, along with Councilwoman Carolyn Vaughn, has filed a motion to reconsider Tuesday\u2019s vote on the project, which is meant to replace the former T.C. Ayers Pool.<\/p>\n
The original pool was demolished as part of the Harbor Bridge construction project. Rebuilding a public swimming facility on the Northside is included in a federally required mitigation agreement tied to that project.<\/p>\n
Still, both council members say ongoing water supply concerns across the Coastal Bend are driving their request to revisit the vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public thinks that we\u2019re building a pool in the middle of a drought and you can\u2019t change their mind and I understand that because they don\u2019t trust city leaders because of what\u2019s going on with our water,\u201d Cantu told 3NEWS. \u201cSo I want to take my vote back and say no to it until a date when we know we have water. When it makes sense to build a pool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vaughn said while she supports building the aquatics center, she believes now may not be the right time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m completely for them building the pool, you always keep your word but it makes no sense to tell our citizens to conserve water and then the City gives a contract out to build a pool,\u201d Vaughn said in a statement to 3NEWS. \u201cI would like the City to try and get with TXDOT and add an amendment to build the pool after we get through this drought.\u201d<\/p>\n
She added, \u201cUse common sense, this drought is something out of our control, an act of God.\u201d<\/p>\n
City officials have previously said the aquatics center must be constructed as part of the final demolition of the old Harbor Bridge, making the project both a legal and federal obligation.<\/p>\n
Cantu added that he believes a different type of project could potentially be completed to fulfill the mitigation requirement while using less water.<\/p>\n
The motion to reconsider has been placed on the agenda for Tuesday\u2019s City Council meeting.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story. Stay with 3NEWS as we continue to follow updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two council members are seeking a revote to delay the $8.7M Northside aquatics center until after drought conditions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-172215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172215","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=172215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}