South Padre Island business owners urge clarity on convention-center financing, warn of economic risk

At a City Council meeting, local business owners pressed elected officials for clearer public information about hotel- and venue-related tax revenues and questioned whether a large expansion of the South Padre Island convention center is financially justified.

Andy Hancock, identified in the meeting as a local business owner, said he had spoken with multiple business owners and was confused by numbers presented at a prior special meeting about the convention-center expansion. "There are a lot of different numbers at that meeting, a staggering number that we have 22,022,000 in reserves," Hancock said, asking the council for "a simple table to tell the public how the money is collected and what is allowed to be spent on." He warned that, if the city borrows at the scale discussed, debt service could be large: he cited a hypothetical…