SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas - “Shenanigan’,” is how a South Padre Island businessman described Tuesday’s meeting of the town’s city council.
The meeting, which started right at noon on Tuesday, Aug. 18, was held to discuss several items on the regular agenda.
One item was about setting rules concerning behavior during the administrative body meeting.
It called for “adopting rules and procedure, conduct and decorum for city council, city staff and members of the public.”
During the discussion, one council member, Aarin Hartwell, mentioned the First Amendment right of free speech while Mayor Patrick McNulty referred to harassment, shouting, social media posts and disrespect behavior during the meetings.
But after an hour and 15 minutes of talking about the item, with City Attorney Ed Cyganiewicz making some clarifications, the council took no action and opted to give time to everyone to dissect the pages of the proposed rules.
But during the public comment segment of the meeting, local businessman Clayton Brashear addressed the council expressing dissatisfaction with the meeting time.
“This is shenanigan,” he said. “This is for me the second (meeting) in the middle of the day and it doesn’t look good. I don’t like it. This is shenanigan.”
Brasher was referring to the previous meeting held at 1 p.m. the week before.
He said people like himself are running a business and attending a noon or 1 p.m. meeting is counterproductive.
In other actions, the council discussed a number of items concerning the expansion of the SPI Convention Center but no actions were taken.
One item was about selecting an option for the renovation of the convention center. Another was about approving a target budget “in an amount no less than $50 million,” for the renovation project as “requested by Broadus & Associates.”
Broadus is the project manager.
