Woman brings dead cockroaches to City Council meeting to protest Ocean Drive palm trees

Julie Garcia | Corpus Christi

Show Caption Hide Caption #CCstormtrooper entertains Corpus Christi drivers 18-year-old Adam Osborne dances as #CCStormtrooper on Ocean Drive between Palmetto and Airline.

Ongoing frustrations about landscaping on Corpus Christi's Ocean Drive led a woman to bring a bag of dead cockroaches to a City Council meeting.

Patricia Polastri, assistant professor for management and technology at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, lives on Ocean Drive. For months, she and her neighbors have made presentations and spoke during public comment at council meetings.

But on Tuesday, she brought something to illustrate their complaints of the growing number of rodents and insects that she claims have been brought by newly planted palm trees between Ayers Street and Louisiana Avenue on Ocean Drive.

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"What does that look like to you, Mr. (Keith) Selman," Polastri asked after handing a small plastic bag to the interim city manager. "Roaches."

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Selman placed the bag on the table that he shares with city attorney Miles Risley. He did not respond to Polastri, and Mayor Joe McComb told her to direct her comments to council.

Polastri said there's no reason that 156 palm trees should be planted on five blocks of the bayside road. She said it not only ruins the view of the Corpus Christi Bay, but also brings more brush, trash and rodents to the area.

"Why not spread them out across the city?" she said during her three minutes of public comment. "People come down to Ocean Drive for a reason; they don't go to Ayers, they come to Ocean Drive."'

Polastri has organized a petition drive aimed at getting the City Council to revise the landscaping policy. She has made numerous Power Point presentations for council in the past few months.

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The landscaping changes were funded by the 2012 bond.

During the same meeting McComb brought up his frustrations with not being able to respond to residents using public comment to make "broad, brusque misstatements of facts."

He said the council is not legally required to have a public comment section at meetings and brought up its possible elimination.

Many residents spoke out at the meeting about a range of topics including budget cuts, industrial district contracts and tax abatements. McComb joked that a bell should be installed or a water gun could be used when residents are making untrue statements.

Twitter: @ReporterJulie