Mayor to deliver State of the City speech

Corpus Christi Mayor Nelda Martinez will deliver the State of the City address Feb. 5 at the American Bank Center. The biggest fundraiser of the year for the local chamber of commerce, the lunch-time speech is 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tickets for the event, which usually sell out, are $65 for chamber members and $75 for non-members. Tables of eight are also available at $500 for members and $600 for non-members.
In 2014, Martinez highlighted water demands and a proposed ban on plastic bags among other hot topics.  
"We were projected to run out of water by 2020,” Martinez said. “Folks, that's in six years — if we would not have had the Mary Rhodes Phase 2.”
Construction on phase 2 of the Mary Rhodes pipeline began in April, just two months after the mayor’s 2014 speech. Water demands now can be met until about 2040, she said last February.
Banning single-use plastic shopping bags was a hot topic last February, as the city was due to take up the issue at a spring meeting. Mayor Martinez supported a ban in her State of the City speech.
“Although you can recycle plastic bags, only 1 percent are being recycled,” she said. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer money is spent each year to clean them up, and hundreds of thousands of animals are impacted by these bags every single year.”
She cited the city’s reputation for its beautiful beaches, wildlife and outdoor sports such as hunting, fishing and birding as reasons enough for a ban.
“When you see a wrong, you make it right,” she said. “It is the right thing to protect our most beautiful assets in our most beautiful city.”
The measure failed in a 4-4 vote just a few months after the speech. Port Aransas has since banned single-use plastic bags beginning in 2016. The Corpus Christi city council is expected to take up the issue again soon. Newly elected council members could change the outcome, according to some city hall watchers. 
In her 2014 speech, Martinez also pointed out that Corpus Christi is one of the fastest-growing metro economies in the United States. In 2014, it ranked 10th in the nation with a 3.8 percent increase in its economic base and a 4.3 percent rise in jobs.  The housing market rose 19 percent with a sizable increase in new construction creating about 3,800 new jobs in 2013. 
A drop in oil prices might slow things down, however. Eagle Ford Shale oil and gas production have been big drivers in the local economy, drawing large industries and increasing traffic at the port. The drop in oil prices could adversely affect shale operations, which are expensive ways to get fossil fuels out of the ground. Job losses in West Texas, another large shale operation, are already on the rise.
Martinez will be expected to address those concerns and how they will affect the future of the city’s economy and projected growth in her 2015 address.  For tickets to the event, call the chamber at 361-881-1800.