Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Good News from Bocas!

Here is a letter the RFB Owner's group received from owner, Cherri Briggs about the family's recent trip to Bocas and Red Frog Beach. We have gotten permission to reprint it here:

Dear Robin,Rob, and RF owners,

We are fractional owners of two villas in RF and own a 50’ boat slip.We were just down in Bocas. The progress being made is incredible. You would all do handsprings to see the place being reborn! RF has involved the Smithsonian as an advisor on the project to ensure that the new down-scaled plans are of the highest eco standard.

Construction is up and running, employing only mostly local labor and with greatly improved community relations, and all the houses are starting to look great again as they clean up the project.

The marina is almost finished and is top quality…will be beautiful. So what Mr. Barker is barking about I am uncertain? Yes there has been a lot of negative PR but to continue to pass it along can't be helpful. What we need to pass along are the facts on how the project has changed!

We live in Africa and the delays and gov't. hurdles are no different in Panama than in any underdeveloped country. It seems clear to me, having worked in eco-tourism for 20 years and won many awards in that field, that RF is well on the way to rectifying the mistakes of the past and hopefully will address the assaults of ill informed media or media that is out of date in the near future.

The negative repercussions of emails like this only hurt all of us and make it harder for the RF guys to move forward. So I would like to encourage Mr. Barker to play a more positive role in the RF community and put out some positive info on the ‘new and improved Red Frog’ rather than circulating the old story.

Why RF was targeted from the beginning is unclear, but the malicious PR attacks on Pilar and co have not been answered publicly and that is not a good thing! Negative press like below (below meaning a letter which has not been posted because we do not have permission. - Ed) must be addressed and I understand that Dan Cranney is putting together a bullet point presentation on what RF is doing to conserve environment and adhere to eco guidelines which will be reviewed by the Smithsonian and put on the web. Then all this drivel will stop.

- Cherri Briggs