I think what bothered me most about the article was the catty tone. It just seemed so pompous and tacky and just not my idea of 30-A. I always thought people came here to escape the exclusive resort atmosphere, to embrace a community. The whole "let's keep the Seacrest riff raff off our property" stand of the RB HOA is just totally repugnant to me and I think the idea of paying a security guard to check ID for people access the beach would make me feel like an elitist snob.
With that said, the other thing that really bothers me about this article is the short-sighted and selfish approach that RB owners, along with many beach front property owners throughout the county are taking to dealing with overcrowded beaches. That's really the crux of the problem, isn't it? The beaches that were nearly empty and always white and pristine five years ago are now crowded littered with drink box straws and cigarette butts. The problem is over-development, the fluid nature of the units per acre rule, the protection of the property rights of a few developers over the coastal environment -- and it's leading to too many people on the beach. Granted, the developer of Seacrest was allowed to develop way too many units for the amount of beach available. Unfortunately, that trend is allowed to continue. It has happened with the Naturewalk development, with the property near Beachrunner, the property at Redfish. Every time some developer wants to dump too many people on too little beach so that some interior acreage can be developed and sold with 'deeded beach access', a few neighbors of the beach human dump site will beg for support at the commissioners meeting. Each time, a few people who will be impacted directly show up and get involved. The developer wins. The process repeats itself over and over. The beach gets more and more crowded. People seek out less crowded accesses.
The beach access for Seacrest is so over-utilized, while the beaches around the county have begun to recover from the 2004-2005 hurricanes, the Seacrest beach is still narrow and the bluff red and barren. If people can't spread out a little, the beach will never recover. If people have no choice but to use the beach deeded beach access for their development, people will stop coming to Seacrest. That will hurt Rosemary Beach merchants. I would think RB owners would also hate to see Seacrest turn into a ghetto, as that would take away from the charm of their own 'town'.
I used to love Rosemary so much that a friend bought one of the original RB promotional booklets from 1995 on Ebay for me. That book says, "Come build a town with us." What a lovely idea...build a town. Be part of a community. Unfortunately, the RBHOA seems to have no sense of citizenship, of duty to make its community a better place. Instead, they seem to feel it's better to throw money at the problem, secure their own little narrow bit of property, and leave everyone else to fend for themselves as beach overcrowding becomes more and more of a problem. It's way easier to look out for your own interests than to get involved and make your community a better place. It's a lazy approach to fix the problem, and it ultimately won't work.
My question to RB homeowners is this -- do you want to build a town, or are you happy with a security patrolled enclave? Why did you choose SoWal over Destin or Marco Island in the first place?
Does anyone else feel the county should have at least one public access on every Walton County Beach? Is Mexico Beach and Port St. Joe area like this as far as privatizing? Is the beach more laid back there? Is the beach just as beautifiul? Do the citzens have more of a "Share the Beach" Spirit?
Take all you can while you can.
dude! Isn't it also way 
the nature coast area too but it's seems very remote. I don't know if Hubba could take it though. He grew up in NYC. 
No wonder I've become so vocal after 28 years. ;-)