Coastal Bend leaders take windstorm message to Brownsville
Corpus Christi Caller Times
By Rick Spruill
Posted June 29, 2012 at 3 a.m.
CORPUS CHRISTI — Coastal Bend lawmakers and leaders are taking the windstorm show on the road.
A group including state Reps. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi; J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville; Connie Scott, R-Robstown; and Raul Torres, R-Corpus Christi, will meet Friday with leaders from other coastal counties at the Cameron County Courthouse.
The meeting ends a week filled with politically charged rhetoric related to the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, known as TWIA, and statements made by state Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman about the association’s viability in the face of catastrophic storm damages.
Corpus Christi Caller Times
Hunter said the meeting is intended to build solidarity between coastal county leaders from Nueces County south to Cameron.
“We will meet with mayors and county commissioners to explain how serious the issue is with windstorm and to inform them of upcoming deadlines,” he said Thursday. “We want the lower Texas coastal counties as an organized partner on these issues.”
Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Foster Edwards also will attend the meeting and make a presentation similar to one he made earlier this week to Nueces County commissioners, Edwards said. Commissioners voted Wednesday to give $15,000 to the chamber for consultants to fight windstorm rate increases. Rockport and San Patricio County also have contributed.
Hunter said recent solutions for raising revenue proposed by the association’s board and the insurance department are regressive solutions that tend to isolate the rural, poor counties along the coast.
One of the proposals currently on the table is a surcharge on non-windstorm policies within the 14 coastal counties.
“This is not the wealthy income class,” Hunter said. “These counties are not Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach. They are lower-to-middle income counties whose tax base is largely dependent on tourism.”
He said such fees also send a message from Austin that gives economic development leaders in South Texas heartburn.
“It sends a terrible message from an economic development standpoint: ‘You get taxed more for moving here,'” Hunter said. “It is simply the wrong tack to take.” Corpus Christi Caller Times
