From the Editor: A look back at some top stories from 2023
Many stories about events with local impacts on our lives and our diverse communities have appeared in the pages of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times over the past 12 months.
Here are just a few of the stories we brought you during 2023. As we move into 2024 we will continue to bring you news of the Coastal Bend, and we wish you health and happiness in this new year.
Christus Spohn’s plan to end emergency medicine residency
Our region’s health care community, local governments and supporters from the public rallied to save an emergency medicine residency program the Christus Spohn Health System planned to phase out.
After extensive negotiations, the Nueces County Hospital District Board of Managers inked an agreement with Christus Spohn Health System in early December that guarantees the continued operation of the health system's emergency medicine residency program until 2030.
Native American remains await return to Nueces County
Last summer we published two reports on why Nueces County has the highest number among all of the state’s counties of Native American human remains that were removed from where they were discovered and kept by institutions across the country.
Reporters Olivia Garrett and Chase Rogers cited ProPublica, a nonprofit journalism organization, which had published a series of in-depth stories on the repatriation of Native American remains. ProPublica also compiled a national database tracking the status of efforts to return remains, part of the report noted.
“The database showed that only a small fraction of the remains of 270 individuals taken from gravesites in Nueces County have been made available for return,” the report stated.
The Caller-Times will continue to follow this issue and a local effort for a memorial at Hans and Pat Suter Wildlife Refuge in Corpus Christi, where many remains were removed over the decades, some by private collectors.
The new Harbor Bridge
The ongoing saga of the new Harbor Bridge project finally sounded a positive note last year. The path toward completing the new Harbor Bridge cleared at last in 2023 as work resumed on the span.
The new Harbor Bridge may open in spring 2025 with a price tag of about $1.2 billion, transportation officials said in October.
The Texas Department of Transportation and the project developer reached an agreement on how to resolve an outstanding design dispute — the last of five — on the new Harbor Bridge that had halted work.
The announcement came in April during one of the Corpus Christi Metropolitan Planning Organization's Transportation Policy Committee meetings. The nearly $1 billion bridge project hit a roadblock after TxDOT paused construction on parts of the project in 2022.
"We're very pleased to have overcome this and to continue working with TxDOT to restore the community's trust in the project," said Lynn Allison, a spokesperson for Flatiron/Dragados, the project developer.
Crane fire injures spectator at Hooks game
This bridge project-related story got a lot of interest last year. A crane working on the new Harbor Bridge project caught fire, and as part of the crane’s equipment dropped to the ground below a piece of it’s debris injured a woman attending a Hooks game at Whataburger Field in April.
A Houston-area woman, the wife of a player on the opposing team was struck by the flying debris and suffered "serious injuries" that resulted in a three-day hospital stay, her attorney told the Caller-Times.
The Caller-Times article stated that Houston attorney Loren Klitsas said a "chunk of metal" hit his client in the torso early in the evening during a Corpus Christi Hooks game on April 22, causing an abrasion, a puncture, damage to her spleen and internal bleeding.
Hillcrest neighbors stay united
Just before the new year began Hillcrest area neighbors held a march and press conference to tell public officials that the neighborhood is still a close-knit neighborhood, not a future site of industrial uses.
Reporter Kirsten Crow’s Dec. 29 article stated that “Led by the Rev. Henry Williams and Lamont Taylor of the Hillcrest Residents Association, the march spanned a little more than a mile from the intersection of W. Broadway Street and Nueces Bay Boulevard to the Brooks AME Worship Center on Port Avenue. Participants held signs, including ‘our home is not a sacrifice zone,’ ‘take your desal and shove it,’ and ‘Hillcrest will not yield.’”
The article was the latest in a series of articles by Crow and by former Caller-Times reporter Chase Rogers (who moved on last summer to the Austin American-Statesman) on the neighborhood’s ongoing battle for a new pool, upgraded parks and it’s campaign against plans to place a desalination plant in the residential area.
Downtown businesses and revitalization
Reporter John Oliva delivered a three-part look at efforts to breathe more life into Corpus Christi’s downtown, and a look back into the area’s past glories.
The Caller-Times has also continued to cover efforts to revitalize the Ritz Theater, once a prime entertainment venue and now the subject of ongoing projects to restore the old theater.
Oliva also covered the forced move of a group of merchants with small businesses who once rented in a run-down Water Street commercial plaza that was torn down to make way for what is expected to be a parking lot for a nearby church.
Restoring nature
Local efforts can have huge impacts, and there’s no shortage of people and institutions working to help wildlife on land and restore oyster beds to boost the health of the region’s waters.
“Five years in, local conservation efforts have transformed the oyster reefs of St. Charles Bay. Now, the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies team is eyeing other local bays,” reporter Olivia Garrett’s Sept. 1 article stated. “Oysters need reefs made of oyster shells to settle and grow on. Because oysters are removed from the water with their shells, the oyster habitat is harvested along with the oysters themselves.
“The group, working with the Coastal Conservation Association, Derrick Construction and Goose Island State Park, has focused on bays near Corpus Christi that the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has closed to oyster harvest, including St. Charles Bay and the Mesquite Bay complex, north of Aransas Bay.”
In June, former Caller-Times reporter Ashlee Burns explained how the oyster farming industry is slowly growing in South Texas, and took a look at what’s next.
“Unlike wild-harvested oysters, mariculture oysters are harvestable year-round because they don’t depend on seasonal spawning,” her article stated. “Farming oysters results in deep-cupped, single oysters while wild-harvested oysters tend to be longer and clumped, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
“Despite the differences, cultured oysters provide the same ecosystem services as wild oysters, including filtering up to 50 gallons of water a day per 3-inch oyster.”
Regional effort to cover immigration issues
The Caller-Times sent Austin Bureau reporter John Moritz and visual journalist Angela Piazza to Eagle Pass, Texas, this summer to report on Operation Lone Star, along with staffers from the Austin American-Statesman and the El Paso Times. Their reports covered the placement of the floating barrier buoys by Gov. Greg Abbott and led them to interview property owners, Eagle Pass residents and some of the migrants who crossed through − some at a cost of deep wounds from the concertina wire erected in coils on the border.
The issue also raised ire among Texas Democrats frustrated with the Biden administration’s low-key response to Operation Lone Star.
That's enough for now. These stories and more are available on our searchable website.
As the editor of the Caller-Times, I want to thank our readers for supporting community journalism. You are why we do this job.
This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: From the Editor: Impact stories of 2023
