Terminal groins: by the people, for the rich

Fleecing the taxpayers coming and going:

Further, Miller said, the law allows landowners who lose property due to the groins to seek damages. The proposed location for the groin bisects a group of properties owned by one company, LW Legacy Assets LLC, raising the prospect that without some kind of legal agreement with the town, the company could profit on one side of groin by seeing properties become buildable again while seeking damages for properties damaged by the loss of sand flow on the other side. The company is owned by Williamson family members.

And I'm sure you won't be surprised to find the Williamson name on the Town's Board of Commissioners, since such a powerful family simply must have some control over the locals, lest they revolt and break away from the monarchy...oh wait, we already did that. Didn't we?

Mayor Debbie Smith said the groin represents the most promising change in the town’s long battle with erosion. “Those houses you see on the oceanfront were not built as oceanfront homes,” she said. “They were three or four rows back. There’s been a tremendous loss off the end of the beach.”

She said the town is aware of the land ownership concentration, but says the effects of beach loss extend far up and down the eastern portion of the island.

“It’s pretty important,” she said of the groin project. “Not just to the number of private structures, but to the public structures.”

Says another real estate agent...