Things to think about

The Brunswick News did a nice piece today on the back and forth going on. Voices on both sides are fairly presented, which surprised me since most of what I've seen written by the paper tends to lean pro LLC.  

The Minneapolis Star Tribune posted this story today about St. Simons, with some good mentions of Jekyll. I guess it'll be published in the travel section tomorrow. They have a highly annoying habit of requiring registration at certain points to read their articles so if you can't pull it up, sorry.

Anyway, it started me thinking more about what it all comes down to. An oversimplification would be to say that, in their quest to compete with St. Simons, the JIA and LLC want Jekyll to be more like St. Simons. On the other side, detractors of the plan don't want it to be anything like St. Simons. 

Let's put aside the environmental part of the equation for a moment and just talk about intent. The beach village concept isn't anything new; just drive up and down the coast. Georgians have seen what's happened to Tybee, St. Simons and Sea Island and, understandably, fear that the small part of Jekyll that can be developed will turn into a mini version. 

I've been a very vocal opponent of the LLC proposal, for a lot of reasons. But despite that, I truly do appreciate and sympathize with the problem the JIA is trying to solve. Jekyll is exquisitely unique and I personally think it should be easy to build a marketing strategy around that uniqueness, its relative lack of development. However, with the state of accommodations on the island that exist now, it has to be pretty damn difficult. But isn't that kind of the JIA's responsibility, to make sure that properties don't get to that point?

There are some great places to stay on the island. The Jekyll Island Club is my favorite. A lot of people like the Day's Inn. Honestly, I almost always rent a house because I like to cook. But there have been three properties that were razed in the last few years. And a few of the others are really showing their age.

The good news is that the island has 5 oceanfront properties that are being redeveloped or will be soon. As long as it's responsibly done, great, I'm all for it. It's very much needed.

I even get why the JIA likes the beach village concept; having such a splashy thing to dangle in front of prospective conventioneers makes their job a lot easier. I don't agree with it, but I get it.

I won't change my mind about the LLC proposal. It's not right for the island. But as David Egan said:

"We all agree that something needs to be done. Hopefully, we can find a middle ground."