Free Republic

The Texas Department of Transportation is asking Nueces County residents to attend a public meeting in Driscoll to comment and provide input on proposed upgrades of US 77 to a controlled access facility that meets interstate standards. The purpose of the meetings is to review proposed options for upgrading US 77 and to present recommendations, TxDOT officials said. The first round public meetings were held in early March. This second round of public meetings is being held as part of TxDOT's continued effort to gain public input on issues related to proposed improvements and to provide an opportunity for public...

Corpus Christi has an odd inferiority complex. We think we're the little guy, but we're not. Many people who live and do business in Corpus Christi talk about the city as if it's a small town. We wax poetic about the city's intimate feel, how it's easy to get to know people here and how much we love our laid-back coastal lifestyle. And maybe it's because we live in Texas, where everything is bigger, that we came up with this idea. After all, we're in a state that includes three of the top 10 largest cities in the country: Houston,...

Legal loopholes mean more drunken driving defendants get back on the road in the Coastal Bend, where more than 100 died in alcohol-related car accidents from 1998 to 2001. In the state with the most alcohol-related traffic deaths and a reputation for letting drunken drivers off the hook, the Coastal Bend lags far behind the rest of Texas in drunk-driving convictions. Texas led the nation last year in alcohol-related traffic deaths with more than 1,740. Critics blame lax prosecution efforts, high dismissal rates and weak laws. In Nueces County, the likelihood that a case will be dismissed is more than...