Posted on July 16 at 2:10 a.m.

Seems sorta obvious that Mr. Meltzer's disputatious discrediting of the credentials of the civil engineering associate who pointed out a "fatal flaw" is a little beside the point.

Either there's a flaw or there isn't. When you look at the emails regarding the issue, there's a whistling sound as Mr. Frye, who had earlier been forthright, walks rapidly backwards out of the line of fire, saying his boss didn't ask him to look into it. Why not, boss?

Georgy raises a good question. The Caruso folks say that a TOTAL of 102 employees will be on site at any one time, including shift changes, reservations, front desk, concierges, maid service, restaurant hosts, cooks, wait staff (for the 600-person weddings), retail clerks (there's FOUR THOUSAND square feet of retail in the plan), gardeners, maintenance, etc etc. You believe that? A five star joint like the Biltmore typically has a one-to-one ratio of staff to guest. With 202 rooms, many with couples or families, how many staff will really be there? And where will they park?

And the one thing I don't hear anyone talking about is the whopping TWENTY FEET of so-called horizontal beach access they're promising along the entire frontage of the hotel. That's a pathway only twenty feet from the waves. Don't bring a beach chair.

You're probably thinking what about the Mean High Tide line? Rick's Matt wrote me saying this was a good deal for us beach-goers. Sometimes the tide's higher than the mean, he said, so where would we be?

Well, if they weren't claiming sixty feet from the seawall as theirs, we'd be fine. That's sixty feet that have never been claimed in the history of Miramar Beach. Why should they get it?

On Miramar Hotel Emails Raise Questions

Posted on August 19 at 3:27 p.m.

J'Amy Brown wrote it somewhere on the Independent's site today, but I can't find it in order to agree with her...

So I'll say it here again:

Ray Ford deserves a Pulitzer for the work he's done on this story. Timely, informative, exhaustive, personal, and compelling writing. Thank you, Ray.

And so does the Independent, devoting a lot of time and resources to a matter of over-riding public interest. If you were a public radio station, I'd double my pledge today.

On Zaca Fire One Dogleg Short of Containment