Jenny O’Neill is named Teacher of the Year at Port O’Connor Elementary and Misty Richter receives Dedication to Education Award. The staff and students congratulate Mrs. O’Neill and Mrs. Richter on their awards and appreciate all their hard work.

Jenny O’Neill teaches Pre-Kindergarten, Physical Education, Art and Music at Port O’Connor Elementary. In addition, she also sponsors the Yearbook. She has worked at Port O’Connor Elementary for 12 years. She has been the director for the popular Christmas play for the past several years. Throughout the year, Mrs. O’Neill teaches our Pre-K students essential skills and helps build the necessary foundation for our Port O’Connor students to be successful as they progress through their education.

Misty Richter is a Library and Instructional Aide at Port O’Connor Elementary. In her job she works with students in all elementary grade levels. She spends her day checking out books, reading to students and helping them read, monitoring computer interventions and working in classrooms. Mrs. Richter has read so many of the books in the library that she is able to talk with the students to help them find books that interest them and excite them to read more. She has been the prop maker and stage manager for the Christmas play as well. Mrs. Richter has worked at the school for three years and has become an essential part of our school community.

Enjoying New Experiences

Greetings from the island everyone. I hope all of you are doing well and had a most wonderful Mothers Day with your mom on Sunday. Corky and I scooted across the bay early in the morning and went to church in Victoria with mom and the siblings, and then we all went out for a nice lunch. It was a great day. I love you, Mom.

I am now starting my 12th year living full time on this barrier island, and nearly 18 years overall. In the beginning of my full time residency, and after nearly 25 years dealing with the public as a police officer, I had no desires to be in the company of or associate with people. I was very much content with occasionally talking to a few fellow islanders, writing my articles and keeping to my private self, with Barnacle, my boxer, being my only needed companionship.

In the past year, however, I have come to realize that there are great people out there to develop wonderful friendships with. It has been a fun time having friends out to the island and then venturing across the bay to spend time with them. Heck, I even went to the POC Crawfish Festival a few weeks ago, something I would never have done before. I had a great time there and then went out and enjoyed a few drinks with friends.

I also want to thank Earl and Carla for inviting me to their BBQ, where Don served up some delicious pork loin steaks. Later that night, it was a first for me to walk out on the front beach pier and then visit Boggy, where the sky was beautiful and filled with amazing stars.

My best friend, Susan, and I have been beach combing lately in an effort to find different “stuff” to add to our collections. We visited with Mike Burnett and his wife, Sam, both of whom are avid and experienced beach find and sea-bean collecting enthusiasts. After seeing Mike’s wonderful and huge displayed collection, we are very much motivated to achieve the same type of beach find collection, even if it’s on a much smaller scale. I set up a large shelf unit on my covered front deck to help display the assorted beach finds that are collected, and Susan has a very nice display area set up in town. It is so enjoyable walking the beach and finding such an assortment of washed up goodies, you just never know what you might find.

While on the beach, we are also keeping watch for sea turtle tracks, indicating that a turtle has crawled onto the beach searching for a spot to lay eggs. That would be such a wonderful joy to find a sea turtle nest. If a sea turtle is ever located laying eggs, please contact Padre Island NS Division of Sea Turtle Science & Recovery, 866-887-8535, immediately. This organization is highly experienced in responding and collecting the eggs so that they can be incubated for a much higher success rate of survival.

My tomato plants are doing fairly well, having survived the strong winds from recent northers blowing across the island. Some of the smaller cherry tomatoes are ripening and have a wonderful taste. I am very late this year on getting my melons started, but the raised beds are cleaned out and ready for seed planting now.
Well that’s it from the island for now, everyone take care and have a wonderful day.

Clint Bennetsen resides full time on Matagorda Peninsula Island and writes a monthly article for the Dolphin Talk newspaper. For comments or questions, Clint can be contacted at ccbennetsen@yahoo.com, or dolphin1@tisd.net.

At the May 2nd meeting, City Council was presented options of renewing or terminating its 5-year contract with Waste Management. The 5-year contract, ends on October 31st and will automatically renew for 1-year if neither the City or Waste Management terminates by July 31, 2017. Another option presented was for the City to terminate the contract during the time specified in the contract and start up its own solid waste program for residential and small businesses using Totes while still contracting out the commercial solid waste to those commercial users that are required to use Bins, Dumpsters, Roll-offs and etc.

Mayor DeForest presented a detailed budget showing the costs of creating and implementing a Solid Waste Department for the City, and the expected income. It is projected that the City could make the switch to a self operated Tote system for residential and small businesses with a 50 cent decrease in current monthly rates with no projected increase in solid waste fees for about the next 5 years. The concept is that the City would start with the usual once per week residence/small business Tote service as is currently in place, while hopefully being able to increase to twice weekly pick-ups, but this twice weekly service idea would have to be based on experience gained during the first year of once per week service. This City Operated service would only be for residential and small businesses using “totes”. Bins, Dumpsters, Roll-offs and etc. would still be handled by an outside company, just like it is in the current contract.

There were other details on possible enhancements that the City could plan to provide, such as a once every other month or possibly monthly Bulky item pickup. Also possibly performing a twice a year “Brush” pickup service and a once or twice a year “Specialty Item” pickup. All of these items would have the same restrictions as to what they were as is currently provided – these item restrictions are stipulated by the Victoria Landfill. A copy of this proposal and projected budget is available at City Hall.

After much discussion, it was decided to authorize the termination of service with Waste Management within the timeline specified in the current contract and seek quotes from solid waste companies, reviewing the quotes and then compare to see whether any quote or City Solid Waste Service would be most advantageous to the City.
In April, the City issued 14 building permits and one demolition/move-out permit. This results in a $40,090.00 increase in property valuation for the City.
Municipal Court Clerk Marilyn Dufner reported that 11 cases were closed during April, resulting in $1,509.50 in fines collected. With 19 new cases, there are currently 129 cases on the docket.

Janie Waghorne and local artist Cathy Yarborough spoke to the Council regarding the deteriorating mural on City Hall. Painted in 2012 to celebrate Seadrift’s Centennial, the mural is beginning to deteriorate. Ms. Yarborough and Mayor DeForest agreed that the peeling paint was no fault of the painter, Robert Avery, but due to moisture coming through the porous exterior of the building. Further investigation is required to determine the most durable process to be used in repainting. When the process and cost are agreed upon, Ms. Yarborough will paint the reproduction and it will be paid for from the hotel/motel fund.

Police Chief Leonard Bermea reported that with the warmer weather, more golf carts are being seen with open containers and also glass containers on the bay front. Both are violations. Chief Bermea reminds everyone that golf carts must abide by the same automobile rules of the road and must be driven by licensed drivers – no children! He reported that the perpetrators of a series of car burglaries on April 14 have been apprehended and most of the stolen merchandise has been recovered.
The Chief commended Officer Montero on his acceptance in the County Swat Team. This is a position the officer studied and trained for on his own, and in which he will be participating in addition to his regular duties.

Wow!! This month marks our 5-year Anniversary in this great little town of Port O’Connor. Our time here has really flown by. I would like to say a Huge Thank You to the citizens of POC and all the visitors that come and shop with us. It is a pleasure to do business with each and every one of you.

Doing business with our regular customers is like having family around. You really get to know them. You can have a good laugh or shed a tear and we get to hear all the fish tales!

So, if you haven’t shopped with us, come in and check out our wide selection of spirits. Check out our Liquor Gift Sets for those special birthday and anniversary or any other occasion. And if we don’t have what you need, just ask and we will check into getting it for you.

Be sure to check out our 5-Year Anniversary Sales all the month of May.

Have a safe and happy summer and thank you from the staff at Island Liquor.

Gail Parker, owner
Jo Ann, Judy & Diana