Jekyll Island Legislation: Will it be heard? UPDATED AGAIN

From what I've hear, the "small group of detractors"  (whatever) in opposition to the JIA/LLC proposal made enough calls the last couple of days to get Senator Chapman's Jekyll Island bills a full committee hearing tomorrow. Now we need support of the bills and a vote by the committee. 

Please call these committee members, express your support for the bills, ask for their support and to take a vote on the Jekyll bills.

Vice-Chairman  --- Chip Rogers: 404-463-1378
Joseph I Carter: 404-651-7738
*Robert Brown   (*co-signed Sen. Chapman’s bills): 404-656-5035
Ronnie Chance: 404-651-7738
George Hooks: 404-656-0065
Bill Jackson: 404-656-5114
Jeff E. Mullis: 404-656-0057
Jack Murphy: 404-656-7127
Nancy Schaefer: 404-463-1367
Ed Tarver: 404-656-0340
Curt Thompson: 404-463-1318

And if you get a chance, please call Senator Chapman and thank him.
   

jekyll Island Legislation: Will it be heard? UPDATED

UPDATED: The latest is that the Jekyll Island bills will be scheduled a hearing but without a full committee vote in both the House and Senate. Lt. Gov Cagle (404-656-5030) and Rep. Barnard (404-656-5138) are the main ones to call. Please ask that the bills receive a full committee vote.

Jekyll Island Legislation: Will it be heard?

Senator Jeff Chapman has introduced 3 bills (SB 426, 427, and 428) with the purpose of protecting the main beach from development.

His bills are stuck in committee. Chip Pearson, chairman of the Senate Economic Development Committee wants to ask the JIA "whether the proposals would harm attempts to revitalize the park." My guess is they'll say yes since that's been their talking point so far. Call Sen. Pearson (404-656-5030) and ask him to give the Chapman bills a hearing. Another good person to call is Lt. Gov Casey Cagle.

Another bill has been introduced by Rep. Buckner in the General assembly. It's actually  been granted a public hearing but curiously, no vote has been scheduled. Rep. Terry Barnard, chairman of the State Institutions and Property Committee, can change that. Give him a call at (404-656-5138).

LLC and the JIA falsely argue that the bills would kill "any serious attempt at revitalization." But it doesn't stop any redevelopment on existing beach front properties. It also doesn't restrict new development from taking place west of Beach View Road, as long as it doesn't encroach on previously protected areas- like marshland. The current LLC plan wouldn't fly since it hinges on the development being on restricted area and includes hundreds of new condos, which wouldn't be allowed.

BTW, when you look at before and after maps, you'll see Beach View Road. LLC spokesman Jim Langford says that "pushing new development west of Beach View Drive could put pressure on wetlands, the Historic District and similar key assets... There are a number of things west of Beach View that I think should be avoided," but seems to have no problem moving the road back so they can cram more condos and hotels between it and the beach. And cutting into the maritime forest to do it.

LLC, owned by Mercer and Jamie Reynolds has been trying, along with the JIA, to get the bills killed. One reason might be that despite saying they are open to public input on the proposal and are revising it, they've been shopping it around already. 

Please call the people listed above; the legislation deserves to at least be heard.

-4

I was told that it was 77 on the island this weekend. It says right now that it's 53. Minneapolis? -4. something is so wrong with that.

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.

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."

Here's a question

If people are so against any development on Jekyll Island, why is no one complaining about the new Hampton Inn property, Jekyll Ocean Oaks?  And why didn't they get the $10 million rent abatement that was promised to Trammell Crow?

Ok, two questions.