Jekyll Island: the new talking point

There's a new talking point that those who seek to put a big 'ol development on Jekyll Island State Park are using: there's a "small group of detractors spreading misinformation." Proponents of the LLC proposal tend to wax on about how they enjoy a wide swath of support for developing a town center/beach village on this largely undeveloped state park. But in reading the opinion pages, they seem to be in the minority. When you do a guest survey asking people what type of development should take place on the island and over 50% say it shouldn't go beyond redeveloping in the footprint of existing properties, then you ignore that input, well, it's easy to see that it won't be a popular decision.

So a few pieces were published this week, authored by Jim Langford, developer spokesman; and Eric Garvey, Director of marketing for the Jekyll Island Authority.

I'll address them all but,  as another writer said, there's so much to discuss that I'll have to do analysis in chunks.

Let's talk numbers.

Since Mindy Egan did a great job of countering Jim Langford, we'll move on to "Jekyll Island; Just the Facts," brought to us by the Jekyll Island Authority. Eric Garvey, author of "Just the Fact," also takes some time to "Correct Incorrect Statements."

In correcting incorrect statements, Mr. Garvey says this:

There is nothing to substantiate the claim that the Authority’s traffic figures are incorrect or that the methodology changed. There is a variety of data that reflects a decline in visitation over the past 16 years that is on the order of 50%. None of the data is a specific traffic count, so there have been many attempts at estimating actual visitation. The visitation number posted on the compiled statistics takes the vehicle count, and multiplies by the “average party size” recorded in the prevailing guest survey of that particular year. This is not an actual number, and the JIA has only used this to look at a long-term trend.

Defense of the LLC plan usually starts with the visitation claim. Until now, Langford has been hammering claims that visitation has dropped by 47% but somehow that's become 50% (really, what's 3% between friends?).

Is it me or did Mr. Garvey admit that 50% is kind of just a guess? Mr. Garvey did helpfully provide some DOT numbers and a full page of historical statistics. You don't have to be all "Good Will Hunting" to figure out percentages. The whole reason methodology came up is because of the statistics for 1997.  Hotel nights dropped by about 3%; occupancy by 2%; and golf rounds by about 9%. Historic district tours actually went up, as did 4-H numbers. But amazingly, the traffic count dropped by a whopping 44%, as did visitation numbers (since they're tied to traffic count, according to Mr. Garvey). Interestingly, from then on, traffic counts remain fairly consistent, but they still don't jive with the other stats. It's pretty obvious that something changed in how traffic was counted, therefore affecting visitation.

I went back and broke up the comparison to two groups: FY91-96 as opposed to FY97-06. FY91-96 traffic count averages 981212; FY97-06 averages 514309. That produces a 47% decrease for traffic count. Hey, I can get an artificial 47% too!

When I questioned the '97 numbers, I got this response from Mr. Garvey (actually, Eric and Larissa Harris were both very nice to post and answer my questions):

I do not know about that drop, this is the raw data. I think the longer term trends are more important, and I don’t think the growth in the region can be ignored either. Even if you say our visitation is only down 13% over the last ten years (just using the fy97 numbers), the region’s population has almost increased 50+%! I think it is a fair and accurate statement to say our visitation is “lagging”. We are focused on looking to the future and identifying the optimum visitation while delivering the desired guest experience.

Mr. Garvey also wrote an opinion published by the AJC which started off questioning why the JIA has drawn fire. Well, consider the dispute over visitation numbers. I get that 47% (50%?) sounds much worse than 13%. But 13% is an actual number you can derive from the data the JIA itself provided. I haven't been shown anything that supports the "longer trend" so I have to go off raw data. I don't dispute that visitation has dropped off, just not to the radical extent that the JIA and LLC claims. But while population has increased, so have destination options. And the decline in quality of hotels that's been allowed on the island must also be considered a contributing factor.

Mr. Garvey writes in "Correcting" that:

Public opinion given to the Authority is strongly in support of the Beach Village concept plan, there appears to be only a small group of detractors.

When asked where they got that claim, Mr. Garvey responded:

Thus far, my experience in interacting with the public has been that by far more people express excitement for our revitalization efforts and the concept for a new beach village than anyone opposing it. In fact, very rarely do I come across someone who does not support it. And I have said in other posts, usually they have a negative bias from misinformation. Once they learn of the great restraint, the limitation on height, the amount of green space, the eco-friendly aspects they quickly come around to support. Jim Langford reports the same thing. Organizations that represent large numbers of people have also publicly come out in support, including the Glynn County Commission, the City of Brunswick and the Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce. Georgia has 9.5 million citizens, and Jekyll Island as a state property seeks to serve them all.

I know that when the JIA and LLC held announced town meetings around the state, many who showed up were against the proposal. Most opinions in the papers have been against it. That's the voice of the people, if you will.

But Mr. Garvey's statement does bring up a crucial point; those who view the proposal as an "economic engine," a comment made repeatedly by Mr. Langford and Mr. Garvey in a recent radio interview, support it. It makes sense that those who stand to make money from putting a large privately developed beach village on the waterfront are in favor of the proposal. I like Brunswick. I really do, it's very charming. But Jekyll isn't supposed to be an "economic engine" for anything but Jekyll. Read the founding legislation.