New boat ramp for north side of Canyon Lake Ramp to be located in Mystic Shores, open to public
By Richard Zowie Times Guardian Staff Writer
The Comal County Commissioners' Court paved the way for a new boat ramp on Canyon Reservoir in the Mystic Shores subdivision at its July 22 meeting. At the court meeting, the commissioners unanimously approved a measure to direct County Engineer Tom Hornseth to submit a lease application to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the proposed boat ramp. The next step, once the application is submitted, it's up to the COE to send a lease agreement to the county. Currently, the lake has eight public boat ramps, six of which are on the south side. The new boat ramp will be the third ramp on the north side. According to County Engineer Tom Hornseth, the Mystic Shores developer offered to build the boat ramp along with the roads and parks accompanying the subdivision. This way, the large subdivision would have a readily-available boat ramp instead of having to travel to another part of the lake. Since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers allows for only public boat ramps on Canyon Lake, the subdivision will pay for the ramp and the county will maintain it. Like the boat ramps at Canyon Lake Village and Village West, the Mystic Shores ramp will be a floating dock. "Floating docks are much safer and are more convenient than other docks," said Hornseth. The new ramp's total number of parking places hasn't finalized, but so far about 30 total spaces have been discussed. Hornseth pointed out that, contrary to speculation, no nearby boat ramps would be downsized or eliminated to accommodate this one. "Initially, when we first started working on this project a year ago, the Corps of Engineers said we'd have to offset the number of spaces with existing spaces by deleting a boat ramp or deleting boat ramp spaces for this new ramp," Hornseth said. "We received sharp opposition from the public on this proposal. This was dropped and we told COE we couldn't proceed with this type of arrangement and that we couldn't delete any existing county facilities."
County Judge says new tax rate increase unlikely
· County Judge Danny Scheel announced there was $778,000 extra in Comal's fiscal year 2005 budget from new construction and increased appraisal values. With the cuts made in the budget and with various requested items granted, the county is currently at a $370,524 budget surplus in its $26 million budget. "Unless we see something unexpected pop up that would negate that excess, I will not recommend an increase in the county tax rate," Judge Scheel said, adding that it is ultimately something he and the county commissioners will have to decide upon.
In other court business: * Approval of an order setting Nov. 2, 2004 as the date of a special election for the county to vote on an ad valorem tax limitation on residential homesteads for disabled persons and for persons 65 and over. * The setting of August 5 as the time for a public hearing to consider placing certain regulatory signs on county roads. * Approval of an interlocal cooperation contract between the county and the Texas Department of Public Safety to hire a narcotics officer and have him serve in the county with the Multi Jurisdictional Task Force. DPS would reimburse the county all of the salaries, benefits and expenses. * Changing Precinct 205's polling place from Garden Ridge Municipal Complex to the Jay F. Feibelman Garden Ridge Community Center, which is at 21340 FM 3009. | ||||||||||||||||
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