CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Corpus Christi's City Council hosted a workshop Tuesday for county and city leaders to meet and discuss whether or not a canal being built on North Beach is a good idea.
Nueces County Commissioner Carolyn Vaughn sounded off in reference to some disparaging comments made about Jeff Blackard, one of the developers looking to bring the multi-million dollar project to North Beach.
"You should always tell the truth. That's a flat out lie. That did not happen and I don't want to see a developer come to this city and be discredited like this," Vaughn said. "It's time for us to say yes and quit saying no, no, no, because people are going to quit coming here and try to get us to do anything."
Vaughn went on the attack to defend developer Jeff Blackard. He and Lynn Frazier want to build a multi-million dollar development on North Beach. The centerpiece is a canal that they want the City to build, and their estimated cost is $42 million; but at Tuesday's council workshop some discussion had that number all the way up to $100 million.
City council members were sitting on one side and had invited a number of county commissioners to show up, including Nueces County Judge Barbara Canales. Commissioners said they felt too much of the three-and-a-half-hour meeting was devoted to finding negative issues surrounding the canal proposal.
"What you need to figure out is not all the reasons to say no, which is what we've heard this morning," Canales said. "You need to figure out the reasons to say yes."
"But to come here on invitation, as you put it judge, and kind of talk down to us as if we're not for working together, the word partnership means everything," Councilwoman Paulette Guajardo said.
A number of council members said they feel that the project is being rushed. Developers have a federal deadline to meet and have given the City until its Dec. 10 meeting to approve the building of the canal or they're going to go someplace else with their money.
"They are firmly convinced that the council is standing in the way of a developer to spend his own money to build this picturesque North Beach," Mayor Joe McComb said. "What they're seeing in that video is that everything is being paid for by the taxpayer."
Developer Jeff Blackard maintains that the cost of the canal will be $42 million and that property tax dollars on North Beach should be able to cover the costs.
"In any of the cities I've dealt with around the world, I've never seen this before where's it's like they're just trying to figure out a way how not to do it," Blackard said.
Developers said they feel they may have the votes on Dec. 10 to get the canal idea approved despite the many questions still surrounding the project.
More from 3News on KIIITV.com: