The South Padre Island Parks & Recreation Committee on Feb. 7 elected its 2025 chair and vice chair and reviewed priorities for the year, including a public survey on park use, maintenance needs, directional signage with the Texas Department of Transportation, and volunteer-driven improvements to Butterfly Park.

The committee’s leadership vote came during the regular meeting’s opening agenda. After nominations and a voice vote, the motion to appoint the chair and vice chair passed. Committee members then reviewed reappointments the City Council made on Jan. 18 that keep most members in place through 2025 and 2026.

The leadership vote matters because the committee identified several near-term projects that will shape budgets and volunteer work this year. “One of the things that I would like for us to kind of do this year is maybe conduct a survey,” Parks and Recreation Manager Debbie Huttman told the committee, saying a survey would help the city when applying for grants and provide updated usage data. Huttman recommended sending the survey to the city’s newsletter mailing list, posting it on the city website and asking whether respondents are visitors or full‑time residents.

Committee members spent much of the meeting on maintenance and project updates from Huttman and parks staff. Huttman said the parks team recently added a parks foreman, Adrian Cortez, and a full‑time maintenance technician, Jose Gonzales. She said the maintenance crew has been repainting equipment and repairing temporary fencing at the busy pickleball courts and has installed drip irrigation at Turtle Park.

Butterfly Park drew sustained discussion. Staff and several committee members described persistent wind and salt exposure at the garden plot, and proposed a combination of short windbreak fencing and carefully chosen, wind‑tolerant plants to improve survival rates. A committee member said windbreak fencing used previously at other sites “completely solved the problem,” and committee members asked staff to bring photos and placement plans to a future meeting so members can review aesthetics and permanence before committing funds.

Huttman said the parks department has a $15,000 annual maintenance line item for routine repairs and upkeep but that unspent funds revert to the city’s general fund; larger projects require separate budget requests to City Council. She provided an example range for event spending — “sometimes we might spend $700 on the 4th July parade and more on the Christmas parade, or vice versa” — but said exact amounts vary year to year.

The committee also heard an update on a long‑running effort to add directional signage for parks along Padre Boulevard. Huttman said the city previously paid for a signage study and design but that the full package had been rejected by City Council in an earlier year. The council has since approved city staff to move forward with six directional signs from the original packet; Huttman said that TxDOT approval remains a required step and that the process is moving slowly.

Other business included awarding the monthly yard landscape recognition (winner: 113 East Lantana), an update on the SPI Community Garden Plots at Butterfly Park (the growing season runs February–July 2025; applications due by the 12th of the month), and a recap of the 2024 Christmas Street Parade, which organizers said drew strong participation despite rain.

The meeting closed with staff saying items such as lighting adjustments for migratory birds and further education events could return to next month’s agenda for fuller discussion.

Votes at a glance

- Appointment of 2025 chair and vice chair: motion passed by voice vote; mover/second not specified; outcome recorded as approved.
- Approval of Nov. 20, 2024 meeting minutes: motion passed by voice vote; mover/second not specified; outcome recorded as approved.
- Award yard landscape of the month (113 East Lantana): motion passed by voice vote; mover/second not specified; outcome recorded as approved.

(For recorded motions and verbatim roll calls, see meeting minutes.)