10/25 - JEKYLL ISLAND Area should be preserved

The Florida Times-Union
October 25, 2007
Letters from readers
Special to the Times-Union

Methinks he doth protest too much. In an Oct. 22 letter, Ken Bleakly, president of an advisory group, asserted that the selection process to award Linger Longer the contract to "revitalize" (read develop a mini-Hilton Head on) Jekyll Island, a Georgia state park, was "not biased."

He cited the six criteria used to rate the proposals. Unfortunately, none of the criteria addressed the issue of preserving the ambience of the last virtually unspoiled barrier island on the Atlantic coast.

He blows away the issue of acreage, where Linger Longer's proposal was based on more area than the request for proposal required. In my experience, that would be considered an unresponsive proposal because it ignored the RFP requirements. It should have been thrown out summarily.

He says the Jekyll Island Revitalization losing proposal planned "nearly twice the number of condominiums as the other two proposals."

Linger Longer's proposal for adding hundreds of condominiums to a fragile island is obscene. The JIR proposal happens to be even more obscene, especially considering that Jekyll Island is a state park.

Bleakly's attempt to justify the contract selection in the media is somewhat surprising, since it will almost certainly be tried in court.

HOWARD SCULTHORPE, Jekyll Island