CORPUS CHRISTI — Nueces County Commissioners voted Wednesday to "reject and repudiate the Padre Balli deed restriction signed by the previous county judge on October 15, 2020."
That deed restriction has been a point of contention over the last 20 months.
As 6 Investigates first reported last year, Nueces County received a cease-and-desist letter in February 2022 from the Jones family claiming the county has failed to keep portions of Padre Balli Park public.
That letter threatening to act on the deed's reverter clause, which would have returned to the family nearly 400 acres of beachfront land gifted to the county in 1949.
Problems between the family and the county arose after then- County Judge Barbara Canales signed a deed-restriction document in October 2020 that would provide 15 acres of wetlands mitigation for a private developer. Because the developer's project would displace wetlands, they are required to mitigate, or replace, a certain amount of wetlands.
County documents indicate Baker Wotring, LLP was hired in January 2020 to provide mitigation work for the county, and that firm developed the deed-restriction document. Canales said she signed the document on the firm's advice.
That document was not voted on by the Nueces County Commissioners Court.
In July, the commissioners court announced it had reached an agreement with the developer to move the mitigation site from Padre Balli Park to Packery Channel Nature Preserve.
Wednesday's vote by commissioners nullifying the 2020 deed restriction and is the latest in an attempt to resolve this dispute.
