Ahh...Summer in New Braunfels is just around the corner. You can tell because, shortly before Groundhog Day, the New Braunfels City Council started fighting about the Comal River. A San Antonio defense lawyer, who I met in court a couple of days ago, asked me about the latest round in New Braunfels' Great Comal River War, which involves a proposed parking permit scheme for the area surrounding the river. The plan eliminates nearly 500 parking spaces near the Comal River, which would force tubers to park in nearby neighborhoods. And, oh, by the way, the city also plans to make parking in those neighborhoods by city-issued permit only, which means tubers couldn't park there, either. "What's wrong with you people?", the San Antonio lawyer asked. What's wrong, indeed?
This is just the latest chapter in a fight over the Comal River that has been raging in New Braunfels for over a decade. For decades, New Braunfels has poured millions of dollars into promoting river tourism on its two rivers, the Guadalupe and the Comal. And the tourists have come in huge numbers. And although most of the tourists simply come, have a good time, and cause no trouble at all, there have been the problems that are normally associated with large crowds on a river in the summer -- people having a little too much to drink, using illegal drugs, getting in fights, noise, etc. New Braunfels has been willing to live with these annoyances because tourism has brought a great deal of revenue to city businesses and city tax coffers and has supplied jobs to many residents, be they the people who work for an outfitter, staff a hotel or restaurant, or stand behind the counter at a convenience store where a tourist fills his gas tank. But over the last ten years, the population of New Braunfels has exploded, and the composition of the city has changed. Many of the people moving into New Braunfels are not directly plugged into the local economy -- either they work somewhere else, such as San Antonio or Austin, or they are retirees. In other words, the city is becoming a bedroom community in the I-35 Corridor.
These folks view the problems with tourism not as a necessary annoyance to be tolerated, but as a threat to their quality of life that has to eliminated. So, for several years, you have had a civil war over tourism. City council recall campaigns have been waged and referendums have been held over what to do with the Comal River. Over the past ten years, the anti-tourism faction in New Braunfels has tried (without success) to ban alcohol on the river, has passed some pretty ridiculous ordinances (such as regulating cooler size) that are aimed as hassling tourists, and, now, plans to deny tubers a place to park. What has also taken place over the last few years is the creation of a zero tolerance policy on the Comal River by the New Braunfels Police Department in response to pressure from the anti-tourism faction on New Braunfels City Council. I now routinely have people from Houston and Dallas come into my office after having been arrested for relatively minor offenses that, if they had occurred somewhere else, might have, at worst, resulted in someone being issued a ticket. When they ask "What's wrong with those people?" I have to explain that they now have to face the possibility of having an arrest on their criminal records for the rest of their lives because they are being used to "send a message" in a local political fight.
I have to explain to them that "What's wrong with those people" is that they have an unresolved love-hate relationship with tourists and that the person who contacted me happens to be a tourist who is caught in the middle. The latest parking permit plan is just another symptom of the toxic political atmosphere that surrounds the issue of tourism in New Braunfels. "What is wrong with those people" is that they are willing to pass inane ordinances that adversely affect the lives of thousands, in order to protect the interests of a few privileged and affluent newcomers. One has to wonder, when the tourists finally leave, will those who drove them away volunteer to make up the lost tax revenue and replace the lost jobs. How many more seventeen and eighteen year olds will need to be carted off to jail before they feel like the living is good in New Braunfels. What's wrong with those people?