The controversy over Jekyll Island State Park continues, developers and their enablers versus the public and their elected Senator.
I can't decide what's worse: the developer who defends putting a massive private development on a publicly owned beach by repeatedly citing how "green" hundreds of condos and three hotels on that small beachfront will be; the politicians who derailed bills meant to protect that beach despite large and vocal public support of those bills; or the Governor-appointed Authority, charged with managing Jekyll Island State Park, who at the very least publicly "misrepresented" statistics and numbers to justify a "partnership" with a developer who happens to give a lot of money to politicians.
It's a damn tough call.
A few weeks ago, Senator Jeff Chapman was called a liar by the folks of the Jekyll Island Authority for saying that the Jekyll Island Authority misrepresented their numbers.
This Thursday the AJC printed an article titled "Jekyll Island figures don't add up."
Authority officials and Linger Longer repeatedly cite a 47 percent drop in visitors to Jekyll as justification for large-scale development of the state park.
Jekyll officials say that car traffic, hotel occupancy and convention-center business have dropped significantly the last decade. And, for the first time in years, the state park registered a deficit in fiscal 2006, according to the Jekyll Island Authority's annual report.
It's a bleak picture. Problem is, it's not quite accurate.
In its 2006 annual report, the Authority stated it was $210,575 in the red. But the Authority actually turned a profit of $1,950,081 that year, according to the state auditor's office.
In all, the Authority's annual statements under-reported revenues by $11.3 million since fiscal 1997, according to a state auditor, John Thornton.
I've long been arguing that Linger Longer and the JIA have grossly misstated visitation numbers. 47% was thrown around by both Jim Langford, LLC spokesman, and various officials from the JIA including Eric Garvey. When the JIA's own raw statistics were questioned, they pointed to DOT numbers. But it doesn't take a genius to look at both and realize neither support a 47% drop- or each other, for that matter.
The drop-off in visitation claimed by the Authority and Linger Longer is another dispute. Between 1996 and 1997, the number of estimated visits to Jekyll plummeted from 3.5 million to 1.9 million — a 44 percent drop, according to data compiled by the Authority.
But that year, the counting method was flawed, according to Ken Cordell, a U.S. Forest Service expert on park visitation. Cordell compared the count gathered by Jekyll with one compiled by the Georgia Department of Transportation. The DOT figures showed only a slight drop-off in traffic that year.
State auditors also reported that parking fee revenues in 1996 and 1997 barely changed. Authority records show that hotel occupancy rates dipped only 1.9 percent during that time period. And the number of visitors taking historic district tours actually rose 10 percent.
"It is a relatively safe assumption that something about the JIA method of counting and estimating visitation changed between 1996 and 1997," Cordell concluded.
Here's something funny:
Garvey said he didn't want to haggle over statistics.
Wanna know how Garvey answers?
Even if you want to acknowledge Mr. Egan’s assertion that visitation is down only 15%, it is still accurate to say that the trend is downward, that it is “lagging” as it is counter to the tremendous growth in the region both in terms of population and tourism.
No one has disputed that the trend was downward, only that it wasn't as much as the JIA and LLC claimed and that it was greatly affected by the closing of 3 properties on the island. Three hotels were completely razed. A 15% drop off would seem downright normal, dontcha think? But LLC and the JIA agreed at some point to use 47%. Didn't they think people who look into that statistic?
So let's haggle over money. My guess is- and it's only a guess- that when the "interesting" visitation numbers came up, the easiest way to figure visitation differences was to look up parking fees. That information wasn't included in the raw data nor DOT numbers the JIA put forth. So Senator Chapman must have requested a look at those numbers. I'm guessing- again, only a guess- that's when he found even more numbers that raised a few eyebrows.
As has become the norm these days, it all comes down to accounting tricks.
Nobody accuses the Authority of misappropriating the money. The Authority didn't include federal grants for historic preservation, or local sales tax revenues used for sewer projects, as overall earnings, according to Eric Garvey, the Authority's marketing and business development director. Instead, the money went into capital reserve accounts not listed in annual reports.
Chapman said the reserve account kept the information from being easily available to the public.
"The JIA Annual Reports are not prepared in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles," Thornton wrote to Chapman on Feb. 14. "As such, we do not believe the JIA Annual Reports from 1997 through 2007 provide an accurate picture of JIA's annual revenues or expenditures."
Garvey denied that facts and figures are misused to portray a negative impression of Jekyll. He likened the annual reports to "marketing" documents and "snapshots of our annual performance....
Said Garvey, "We want our annual earnings statement to be reflective of what we're able to generate through normal business activity. Our full financial accounting is audited each year and, as far back as we know, we've received clean management reports from state auditors."
Thornton concurred.
What drives me crazy is all the double talk. The Authority can't deny that they had more money than they said publicly. So they try and spin their way out of it. They want "our annual earnings statement to be reflective of what we're able to generate through normal business activity" - but that's not the entire picture. They demand that the public allow a huge private development on the public's beach but don't publicly reveal all of their money or sources. They knew that part of the money they had would be shielded from public view. And they still have the nerve to question why people don't trust them.
And the one number no one will disclose? How much Linger Longer intends to profit from this development of poor little ol' Jekyll.
At a time when people are distracted by an election, a war, and whether or not they're going to have a job tomorrow, the JIA and Linger Longer tried to sneak this one past; a developer that raises a ton of cash for republican politicians get handed one of the last open beaches on a state park by an Authority appointed by a republican governor with VP aspirations.
What's worse? Right now I'm leaning JIA. Because I kind of expect this conduct from developers. And, frankly, from politicians. But the Authority is supposed to manage the park for the ordinary citizen, not for developers or politicians.
Then again, give it a day or two.