Posted: Tue May 26, 2009 12:19 pm
Rick G - I applaud your computer research abilities -- Thank You.
It would be lovely if a "select few" included some native St. Johnians, but I doubt it will. It would also be nice if the select few were good caretakers of the land, beach, and sea life. (Who am I kidding?)
I have to remind myself that the land I live on and consider "mine" once belonged to Native Americans, who took much better care of it than my peers and I do. But since I now consider it mine, I don't want strangers picnicking on my front lawn.
Land use and access is a complicated issue and our feelings about a particular place will be swayed by our particular ownership or non-ownership of it. We all would love a little piece of paradise (whether lake, ocean, forest, etc), and I have to admit that I for one would be protective of it. If I somehow inherited or purchased this property, I'd be concerned about public access. Someone else's use of a place I might consider abuse, so that would prompt me to want to limit access to it. (If I owned a lake, I'd restrict water craft to only boats without motors... the water would be alot cleaner but I'd probably make some enemies.)
Too bad we can't have a 'no idiots' rule, to keep out people who would step on or toss their anchor onto coral, leave trash behind, etc.