Nelda Martinez (born July 22, 1961) is an American real estate agent and politician who served as mayor of the Texas city of Corpus Christi from 2012 to 2016. Martinez is affiliated with the Democratic Party. [1]
Nelda Martinez (born July 22, 1961) is an American real estate agent and politician who served as mayor of the Texas city of Corpus Christi from 2012 to 2016. Martinez is affiliated with the Democratic Party. [1]
Nelda Martinez is a former mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas, and was the third woman to hold the position since the election of Betty Turner, the first female mayor, in 1987. [2] She was elected in 2012. [3] Before becoming mayor, she was an at-large member of the Corpus Christi City Council from 2007 to 2012. Martinez was reelected to a second term in 2014. Martinez announced that she would run in 2016 but lost re-election for a third and final term to Dan McQueen on November 8, 2016. [4] After McQueen resigned from office after five weeks, Martinez announced her intent to run in the special mayoral election, formally filing on February 28, 2017. Joe McComb won the special election. [5]
Martinez was born in Corpus Christi, the fifth of nine children of Maria Consuelo Martinez and Roosevelt Martinez. She graduated from Corpus Christi’s Mary Carroll High School and attended Del Mar College. She has a bachelor of arts degree in government with a minor in Latin American studies from the University of Texas at Austin.
Martinez has a daughter, Amanda Rose, who she gave up for adoption shortly after birth. They were reunited 29 years later. Amanda Rose and her husband, Michael, have two daughters. [6]
Martinez is the founder, president, and owner of Adlen Enterprises, Inc., an asset management company. She has also founded, owned and sold three other businesses, including 5102 Joint Venture, a real estate holding company; Nueces Title, and First American Closing Office, Inc. Martinez is a licensed real estate agent in the State of Texas. [7]
Martinez served three terms as an at-large member of the Corpus Christi City Council from 2007-2012. She was the top vote-getter in each of her at-large elections. [8] Martinez was elected mayor in 2012 with over 52 percent of the vote becoming the first Hispanic woman and the third woman to hold the position since the election of Betty Turner in 1987 and Mary Rhodes in 1991. Martinez was re-elected in 2014 with over 51 percent of the vote. [8]
During her first term as mayor, she supported an ordinance for the first ever street maintenance fee on residents’ utility bills to help pay for city street improvements. [9] She supported the council’s vote in 2014 to build the Mary Rhodes Pipeline Phase 2, a 42-mile, 54-inch pipeline from the Colorado River to help meet long-term regional water needs. [10] Martinez was part of a regional team that secured funding in 2013 for replacement of the city’s aging Harbor Bridge that, in addition to being a safer design, would boost economic development by allowing larger ships to enter the Port of Corpus Christi harbor. [11] In 2013, she supported a move to protect area military bases with the adoption of the NAS Corpus Christi Joint Land Use Study. The study identified strategies needed for greater land use compatibility surrounding three Navy training fields in Corpus Christi. [12] In 2014, Martinez and the city council publicly opposed development of a wind energy farm in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction zone citing concerns that the project would stymie growth on the city’s Southside and would impact flight training operations at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi and NAS Kingsville. Martinez supported the city’s move to annex portions of the project that fell within the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction zone as a way to stop project development. [13] During Martinez’ second mayoral term, the city council proposed the Downtown Development Plan to revitalize Corpus Christi’s central business and entertainment district. The plan, adopted in 2018, included a re-design of the city’s major thoroughfare and downtown bayfront areas. In 2015, she supported the renewal and expansion of the Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #3, that had been created in 2008, as a funding source for downtown development. [14] [15]
As mayor, Martinez sought stricter guidelines for payday and auto title loan businesses through the credit access business registration and regulation ordinance enacted in 2015. [16] Ride share company Uber announced in March 2016 that it was leaving Corpus Christi in response to the city’s newly-enacted ordinance requiring driver fingerprint background checks. Martinez urged passage of the ordinance as a public safety concern. [17] In July 2016, Martinez appointed Margie C. Rose as the first African-American person and first woman to hold the position of city manager. Rose, who had been serving as deputy city manager, replaced Ron Olson who had resigned in May. [18]
After her service to the city had ended, Martinez joined Pete Buttigieg’s 2020 presidential campaign serving as a surrogate for the candidate. [19]
Martinez serves on the advisory board of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Women’s Campaign School, is a lifetime member of the NAACP, and volunteers as “Madame Flutterby”, one of the Clowns Who Care at Driscoll Children's Hospital. She is a past president of the Texas Municipal League and served on the National League of Cities Transportation and Infrastructure Services Policy and Advocacy Committee, and the Gulf Coast Strategic Highway and I-69 Alliance. [20] [7]
A former board chair for South Texas Public Broadcasting, Inc., she led the fundraising effort for “Justice for My People,” a documentary about the life and legacy of civil rights leader Dr. Hector P. Garcia. Previous board service also includes Christus Spohn Health System Foundation, Foster Angels of South Texas, Girl Scouts of Greater South Texas, Palmer Drug Abuse Program, Coastal Bend Council of Governments, Workforce Solutions of the Coastal Bend Chief Elected Officials Council, South Texas Catholic Diocese Bishop’s Guild, Building America’s Future Education Fund, and Executive Women International Corpus Christi. [7]
Martinez has received numerous awards and honors, including: [7]
Corpus Christi is a coastal city in the South Texas region of the U.S. state of Texas and the county seat and largest city of Nueces County with portions extending into Aransas, Kleberg, and San Patricio counties. It is 130 miles (210 km) southeast of San Antonio and 208 miles (335 km) southwest of Houston. Its political boundaries encompass Nueces Bay and Corpus Christi Bay. Its zoned boundaries include small land parcels or water inlets of three neighboring counties.
U.S. Highway 181 is a south–north U.S. Highway located entirely in the state of Texas. Both termini are at Interstate 37, the road that it mainly parallels to the east. US 181 begins in Corpus Christi, Texas at mile marker 0 to the south, through south-central Texas to just south of San Antonio to the north, for a total length of 137 miles (220 km).
Solomon Porfirio Ortiz is an American former politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 27th congressional district, based in Corpus Christi, serving from 1983 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. In 2010, Ortiz was narrowly defeated by Republican challenger Blake Farenthold. Ortiz's son, Solomon Ortiz, Jr., is a former state representative.
The Nueces Hotel in Corpus Christi, Texas, was a luxury hotel that also served the city as a center of social and political life during the early 20th century and was for years the largest building in Texas south of San Antonio.
Christus Spohn Hospital Corpus Christi - Memorial was a 465-bed hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas that was part of the Christus Spohn Health System, operated by Christus Health. It ceased all operations in September 2022, and was demolished in April 2023.
KIII is a television station in Corpus Christi, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on South Padre Island Drive in Corpus Christi, and its transmitter is located near Robstown, Texas.
Old Bayview Cemetery is a cemetery located on a small hill in downtown Corpus Christi, Texas, on Ramirez St. at Padre St., bordered by the I-37 access road. It is the oldest federal military cemetery in Texas. Owned by the City of Corpus Christi, it presently comprises three and a half acres as a Historic Texas Cemetery and a State Archaeological Landmark of the Texas Historical Commission. The cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2020.
Calallen is a former town that existed until the 1960s. Today, Calallen is an outlying portion of the larger city of Corpus Christi. It is located in Nueces County, in the Coastal Bend region of Texas. It is bound to the north by the Nueces River, which also marks the boundary between Nueces County and San Patricio County.
Joseph Anthony Adame is an American politician and real estate broker who was the first elected Hispanic mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas, serving from May 2009 to November 2012.
The Port of Corpus Christi is the third-largest port in the United States in total waterborne tonnage, largest crude oil export gateway in the nation, second in the United States in LNG exports and the third-largest gateway in the world for crude oil exports. The Port of Corpus Christi is located on Corpus Christi Bay in the western Gulf of Mexico, with a 36-mile channel that is being widened and deepened to 54 feet MLLW from its current depth of 45 feet.
Rose Meza Harrison is a Democratic politician and Democratic nominee for U.S. Representative in the 27th Congressional District of Texas.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Corpus Christi, Texas, USA.
Clotilde Pérez García was a Mexican-American physician, activist, author, and educator. Her archival and activist efforts centered around Hispanics, co-founding the Spanish American Genealogical Association and American GI Forum; performing the latter with her brother Héctor P. García.
The 2018 Corpus Christi mayoral election was held on November 6, 2018, and December 18, 2018, to elect the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas. The general election, held on November 6, 2018, did not produce a winner ; therefore, a runoff was required and held on December 18, 2018. The runoff election resulted in the re-election of Joe McComb, this time for a full two-year term.
The 2016 Corpus Christi mayoral election was held on November 8, 2016 to elect the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas. It saw the election of Dan McQueen, who unseated incumbent mayor Nelda Martinez.
The 2014 Corpus Christi mayoral election was held on November 4, 2014, to elect the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas. It saw the reelection of Nelda Martinez.
The 2012 Corpus Christi mayoral election was held on November 6, 2012, to elect the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas. It saw the election of Nelda Martinez.
The effects of the 1919 Florida Keys hurricane in Texas were the deadliest of any tropical cyclone in the Texas Coastal Bend, killing at least 284 people. The hurricane produced a widespread swath of devastation across the region, exacerbated by the large extent of its winds. The city of Corpus Christi bore the brunt of the hurricane's impacts, contributing to the largest portion of the damage toll in Texas; nearly all of the confirmed fatalities were residents of the city. The storm originated from the Leeward Islands early in September 1919 and took a generally west-northwestward course, devastating the Florida Keys en route to the Gulf of Mexico. On the afternoon of September 14, the center of the hurricane made landfall upon the Texas coast at Baffin Bay. The storm's winds were estimated at 115 mph (185 km/h) at landfall, making it a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. After slowly moving ashore, it weakened and straddled the Rio Grande before dissipating on September 16 over West Texas.
Mary Eloise O'Donnell de Garmo was an American educator and clubwoman, active in Shreveport, St. Louis, and Corpus Christi, on subjects from eugenics and parenting to road improvement and war memorials. She was usually known as Mrs. Frank de Garmo.
The 2020 Corpus Christi mayoral election was held on November 3, 2020 to elect the mayor of Corpus Christi, Texas. Because the general election did not produce a winner, a runoff was held on December 15, 2020.