02/06 - Commission is at fault for jail, Jekyll positions

The Brunswick News
Letters

I found your editorials of Feb. 1 and Feb. 2 most reasonable and enlightening.

Both were about the arrogance and selfishness of builders (the commissioners' grasping of downtown real estate for jail expansion, and murdering of trees on St. Simons Island).

What a contrast there was between these editorials with your editorial of Jan. 18, lauding Commissioner Hogan for his encouragement of Linger Longer Communities' (LLC) construction of luxury condominiums blocking the central beachfront of Jekyll Island State Park.

Don Hogan is the same commissioner who is now pushing a downtown-jail resolution defying the commission's own paid consultant and many of Brunswick's citizens.

The most glaring fault with your Jan. 18 editorial was its contention that opponents of the LLC condominium village don't want anyone to visit the park, and "would just as soon leave the island as it is."

This is fallacious, unfair, and insulting. LLC's major opponent organization now has adherents numbering in the thousands from all across Georgia, and has always and openly been in favor of the rebuilding of the hotels in the park that were allowed to deteriorate.

There is no need to turn over the park's main beach to a private developer's self-enrichment efforts.

The park's budget has allowed capital projects even during the last few years of lost (demolished and not yet rebuilt) hotels.

When the new hotels (including condominiums of their own) begin operating on the footprint of those demolished, the Park Authority should have the funds that it needs.

Steven Y. Newell
Jekyll Island